Welcome to the NEPG
External / Events Entry Uploader
On Screen Acceptance – Email Confirmation
Click the button below to upload your images
Is the Uploader Secure?
The uploader is more secure than the previous email method of sending entries in. Specific choices were made to make it this way.
When the uploader was conceived the aim was to provide a service that reduced the hours spent by volunteers sorting and validating images (8-10 hours each month), make it easy for members to upload images and maintain or improve the security of the current method (email).
When looking at Cyber Security you need to do a risk analysis to find the right balance of security, functionality and risk.
Analysis
- Information in transit
- Previously: Email is not encrypted, when sending your entries in they were stored by your internet provider and every server they pass through between there and the NEPG email servers. Anyone with access to those servers (plus whoever is providing your internet service) could read your email.
- Now: The link to the NEPG server is not encrypted, it could be intercepted by servers between you and the NEPG servers (but is not normally stored in transit).
- Analysis: Risk unchanged
- More information: https://www.
securedocs.com/blog/how- secure-is-email - Information types
- This is one of the most important areas for you to consider when sending any information on the web – what information are you actually sharing and who are you giving it to. If you have read this far, you should try to educate yourself a bit on this. Think about things you would not normally share with people – this includes financial information, credit card details, health information , your date of birth or mothers maiden name (both still used to confirm identity), etc.
- Previously: The information that was sent was your name, email, image title, image (including any metadata) and competition category. .
- Now: The information sent is your name, email, image title, image (including any metadata) and competition category.
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- Analysis: Risk is slightly reduced
- Advice: While some image Metadata is needed to validate your images my recommendation would be to ensure you remove any GPS/Location data (if present in the image) especially for any image you take at home.
- More Information:
- Access
- Previously: Anyone who knew the email address could submit an image (or send junk to the competition email address)
- Now: Anyone finding the NEPG Uploader site could submit images (as long as they met the competition criteria)
- Analysis: More secure as information submitted is validated before transmission
- Storage
- Previously: Stored on Gmail servers (used by NEPG)
- Now: Uploader uses AWS Servers (secured by Multi factor Authentication) and Gmail.
- Analysis: No change
For the future: It is intended that we will continue to develop the Uploader, which includes looking at improving the security of information in transit but the swap to the Uploader has not changed the risk to members. If you are still concerned the best thing you can do is enter the print competition and avoid using the internet at all.
Need HelpNeed Help for External Competitions please contact the External Competition Director ([email protected])
Need Help for Events please contact the Events Director ([email protected])