Here's the REAL matrix - read it and shudder

i read a fair amount of stuff that i find somewhat chilling... this one, however, is right up there at the top of the list...

Congress has ordered the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, to put together a National Cyber Range, as part of a massive (and massively secret) $30 billion, government-wide effort better prep for battle online. The project is now considered a top priority for the Agency. And to make sure the facility is as true-to-life as possible, Darpa wants the contractors running the Range to be able to "replicate realistic human behavior on nodes," a request for proposals, released today, reveals.

Specifically, the Agency wants to have its contractors:

• Provide robust technologies to emulate human behavior on all nodes of the range for testing all aspects of range behavior.
• Replicants will produce realistic chain of events between many users without explicit scripting behavior.
• Replicants must be capable of implementing multiple user roles similar to roles found on operational networks.
• Replicant behavior will change as the network environment changes, as the replicated “outside environment” (i.e. DoD DefCon, InfoCon, execution of war plans, etc) changes, and as network activity changes (detected attacks, degradation of services, etc).
• Replicants will simulate physical interaction with device peripherals, such as keyboard and mice.
• Replicants will drive all common applications on a desktop environments.
• Replicants will interact with authenticate systems, including but not limited to DoD authentication systems (common access cards – CAC), identity tokens.

These mock people have to be able to "demonstrate human-level behavior on 80 percent of all events," the Agency adds. And mimicking us flesh-and-blood types is only one of a wide array of tasks Darpa wants to see operators of the National Cyber Range, or NCR, pull off.

The facility should also feature a "realistic, sophisticated, nation-state quality offensive and defensive opposition forces" that can fight military info-warriors in mock combat. Contractors have to be ready to create 10,000-node tests from government-provided "network diagrams and configuration files" in less than two hours. And those nodes can't just be computers tied into a faux Internet. The NCR's operators should be able to "integrate, replicate, or simulate" military satellite and digital radio communications, mobile ad-hoc networks, physical access control systems, U.S. and foreign "unmanned aerial vehicles, weapons, [and] radar systems" -- even "cyber cafes" and "personal digital assistances [sic]."

dontcha love that bureaucratese...? it makes it somehow all the more sinister...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Bugs - real ones - are what's hot at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency

the only problem is, if i start using more raid, it'll probably kill me before i get rid of the bugs... what's a body to do...?

So what's hot at DARPA right now? Bugs. The creepy, crawly flying kind. The Agency's Microsystems Technology Office is hard at work on HI-MEMS (Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical System), raising real insects filled with electronic circuitry, which could be guided using GPS technology to specific targets via electrical impulses sent to their muscles. These half-bug, half-chip creations - DARPA calls them "insect cyborgs" - would be ideal for surveillance missions, the agency says in a brief description on its website.

Scientist Amit Lal and his team insert mechanical components into baby bugs during "the caterpillar and the pupae stages," which would then allow the adult bugs to be deployed to do the Pentagon's bidding. "The HI-MEMS program is aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis," DARPA says. "Since a majority of the tissue development in insects occurs in the later stages of metamorphosis, the renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface." Such bugs "could carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone or a gas sensor, to relay back information gathered from the target destination."

kiss what's left of your constitutional liberties good-bye...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Darpa Bot Race "Boss"

How much of it is car and how much is driver?

from Car and Driver:

The GM/CMU Darpa entry is based on a 2007 Tahoe, dubbed 'Boss' for Charles 'Boss' Kettering, who touched off the electrification of the vehicle with his invention of the electric starter (Cadillac, 1911)."

from Wired's blog:

First to finish the 60-mile race full of intersections, traffic, turns, parking challenges, and straightaways, was Stanford University's VW Passat, named Junior. Carnegie Mellon's Chevy Tahoe, Boss, came next, at 1:45 p.m., followed two or three minutes later by Virginia Tech's Ford Escape hybrid, Odin."

and

Three autonomous vehicles crossed the finish line within the 6-hour time limit here at the DARPA Urban Challenge in Victorville, CA. DARPA director Tony Tether [himself] flagged the winning vehicles in as they completed the course two or three minutes apart."

Forbes calls it for Carnegie Mellon's "Boss":

Finishing in under six hours, Carnegie Mellon's robotic SUV edged out 'Junior,' Stanford's autonomous Volkswagen (other-otc: VLKAF.PK - news - people ) Passat, by around 20 minutes to win the race's $2 million top prize. Trailing them to the finish were four other driverless cars, whittled down from the 35 teams of ambitious roboticists that were invited to Victorville for the event sponsored by DARPA."

As the Bot drivers all had different starting times and as the bot driven vehicles each had different assigned tasks, the initial winner was not immediately clear.

When the dust finally settled and the tabulations were in, DARPA officially declared GM/Carnegie Mellon's "Boss" the $2m first prize winner.

As proof of concept, DARPA introduced robotic races in 2004.

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Meanwhile, the government continues to violate our right to privacy

well, gee whiz... it looks like the total information awareness program that was killed by congress back in 2003 wasn't dead after all...

The Department of Homeland Security is testing a data-mining program that would attempt to spot terrorists by combing vast amounts of information about average Americans, such as flight and hotel reservations. Similar to a Pentagon program killed by Congress in 2003 over concerns about civil liberties, the new program could take effect as soon as next year.

ah, but we don't have to wait until next year...

But researchers testing the system are likely to already have violated privacy laws by reviewing real information, instead of fake data, according to a source familiar with a congressional investigation into the $42.5 million program.

and, in point of fact, the tia program never completely shut down...

ADVISE [Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement] has progressed further than the program killed by Congress in 2003, Total Information Awareness, which was being developed at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Yet it was partly ADVISE's resemblance to Total Information Awareness that led lawmakers last year to request that the GAO review the program. Though Total Information Awareness never got beyond an early research phase, unspecified subcomponents of the program were allowed to be funded under the Pentagon's classified budget, which deal largely with foreigners' data.

oh, but wait... there isn't just ONE program, there's TWO...

The Disruptive Technology Office, a research arm of the intelligence community, is working on another program that would sift through massive amounts of data, such as intelligence reports and communications records, to detect hidden patterns. The program focuses on foreigners. Officials declined to elaborate because it is classified.

omg... the "disruptive technology office..." whoever dreamed THAT one up created an instant classic...

The Disruptive Technology Office, or DTO, is a funding agency within the United States Intelligence Community. It was until recently known as Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA).

ARDA was created in 1998 after the model of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by the Director of Central Intelligence and the Department of Defense, and took responsibility for funding some of DARPA's projects. ARDA evaluates proposals and funds speculative research, particularly in the fields of data mining, video processing, and quantum computing.

There has been speculation that the DTO is continuing research efforts started under the Total Information Awareness program (TIA) in DARPA's Information Awareness Office (IAO). [1] Data-mining activities within the U.S. Department of Defense are controversial and have met with public and congressional disapproval.

Although ARDA's budget is presumably classified as part of the intelligence budget, the New York Times quoted an unnamed former government official saying the agency spent about $100 million a year in 2003. The Associated Press reports that ARDA had a staff of only eight in 2004. Neither report can be verified and are only speculation.

i learn something every day...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments