Carnegie Mellon has long been one of the USA’s best universities for computer science, and was well known in those circles long before Prof. Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture made it more broadly famous around the world. Platforms like Alice are gaining wide traction for teaching computer science, and their Capability Maturity Model for software development has become a certification goal for many defense industry systems integrators. On the security side, their Software Engineering Institute’s Computer Emergency Response (CERT) group remains one of top public resources in the world for computer security, and their CyLab is a multi-disciplinary cybersecurity education and research center, involving 6 colleges from Carnegie Mellon, over 50 faculty, and over 130 graduate students.

The SEI was established in 1984 at Carnegie Mellon University as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) dedicated to advancing the practice of software engineering and improving the quality of systems that depend on software. Their CMMI defines 5 levels of proficiency under a Total Quality Management approach; most commercial organizations are at Level 1 or Level 2. Through its sponsor, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, the SEI carries out its mission by focusing on software engineering management and technical practices…

US ORNL laser test

Readers who follow the tech press may be familiar with the concept of quantum computing. Computers use binary bits: on/off, yes/no, represented by 0 or 1. A quantum bit, or qubit, can be 1, or 0… or both. Whereas 111 = 7 in binary, and each number is a single choice among all the possibilities in the number of binary digits, 3 qubits can hold all 8 possibilities (0-7), which means you can do calculations on all of them at once. The more qubits used, the more computation, so 32 qubits theoretically gets you 2 to the 32nd power computations (about 4.3 billion) at once – much more power than conventional computing, and it keeps on rising exponentially.

It’s worth noting that quantum computing has limits, and areas where it will not be suitable for computing tasks. They are not fully understood yet, but have been shown to exist at the theoretical level. So far, all we can say is that certain kinds of problems will be solved much, much more quickly. The uses of such a system for searching large domains of information, cracking codes, creating codes, or running simulations that include the quantum level as a number of modern physical and medical science applications do, are clear. As an additional benefit, quantum cryptography methods benefit from quantum principles whereby eavesdropping is not only incredibly difficult, it will create noticeable interference.

The USA’s DARPA is interested, of course, and they’re handing out contracts…

AGM-129A loaded on a B-52
at Minot Air Force Base, ND

In 2007, a B-52 carried 6 unsecured nuclear-tipped AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The nuclear warheads were supposed to have been removed before the aircraft took off, but they remained on the aircraft unsecured at both Minot and Barksdale for 36 hours.

As a result of the incident, 4 USAF commanders were relieved of their commands; it also contributed to the resignation of top USAF officials. A Blue Ribbon Panel chaired by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger recommended that the USAF and the US Department of Defense (DoD) overhaul its handling of nuclear weapons security. In response, the USAF set up an Air Force Global Strike Command to oversee all bomber- and missile-based nuclear weapons.

The incident also prompted the US Navy to beef up its nuclear weapons security, which is overseen by the Strategic Systems Program...

Small business qualifier Basic Contracting Services in Artesia, NM won a maximum $15.3 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract for armed security guard services, including harbor patrols, for Naval Magazine Indian Island.

Naval Magazine Indian Island’s mission is to provide ordnance logistics support to the Pacific Fleet and the joint services. The facility comprises the entirety of the 2,716-acre Indian Island located on the northeast corner of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

Basic Contracting Services will provide armed entry control point security, fixed post security, roving land patrols, and harbor patrols. The contract, which expires in September 2014, was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 10 proposals received by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Northwest in Silverdale, WA (N44255-09-D-5000).

USAF Base Protection
(click to view larger)

Science Application International Corp in San Diego, CA (FA8728-09-D-0004); L-3 Services in Chantilly, VA (FA8728-09-D-0007); and Northrop Grumman in Herndon, VA (FA8728-09-D-0009) were awarded a combined $495 million force protection security system (FPS2) contract to support integrated base defense at U.S. Air Force and other U.S. Defense Department sites worldwide. At this time, $5,000 has been awarded to each contractor. The 642nd Electronic Systems Squadron at Hanscom Air Force Base manages the contract.

The FPS2 contract is an indefinite delivery/ indefinite quantity re-compete to replace the integrated base defense security system (IBDSS) contract vehicle. The 5-year, $498 millon IBDSS contract was awarded in September 2003 to 4 contractors: Northrop Grumman, Abacus Technology, ECSI and L-3 GSI.

DID has more on the FPS2 contract as well as integrated base defense…

James never had
this little problem…

In March 2008, “Sharpen Yourself: LinkedIn & Social Networking Sites” discussed both the career benefits and security risks associated with social networking sites. Sir John Sawers, the prospective head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency is probably wishing he had read it. His wife recently leaked dangerously specific information about him on Facebook, and created a controversy about his fitness for the job. Sir John now faces a possible parliamentary probe.

Social networking is becoming a larger part of the military, and the industry. In July 2009, Lockheed Martin released its internal company social networking application’s underlying code as open source software. Social networking efforts are being explicitly built into PR contracts, and it’s becoming one of the information shifts that are changing the battlespace. The Pentagon recently launched an official blogging platform at DODLive.mil, and US Forces Afghanistan launched a social networking strategy that extends to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Followed by orders to bases to stop blocking key social networking sites. These efforts can make a big difference toward ensuring that the Pentagon is no longer, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates puts it, “being out-communicated by a guy in a cave.” On the other hand, they are not risk-free.

The Canadian Communication Security Establishment (CSE) plays the same role in Canada that the ultra-secretive NSA does in the USA, and cooperates closely with its American counterpart. Unlike counterparts like the Canadian CSIS, or American CIA, both agencies stay firmly out of the public spotlight. They specialize in the tripartite domains of electronic eavesdropping, robust encoding, and cyber-security. The ECHELON interception system, which also features cooperation from the UK and Australia, is the allied agencies’ best-known cooperative venture.

The problem is that the agency’s workforce is rising rapidly, and its buildings can’t hold them all. Since one can’t just rent random office space for an agency of this type, that means new buildings. One emergency contract is already underway. A second, much larger contract, is readying itself for a public-private partnership deal as the government seeks interested firms.

Raytheon: C4ISR Future?
(click to expand)

As video communications is integrated into robots, soldiers, and UAVs, and network-centric warfare becomes the organizing principle of American warfighting, front-line demands for bandwidth are rising faster than the US military can add it. The Transformation Communications Satellite (TSAT) System is part of a larger effort by the US military to address that need, and close the gap.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record – and TSAT is certainly significant. The final price tag on the entire program has been quoted at anywhere from $14-25 billion through 2016, including the satellites, the ground operations system, the satellite operations center and the cost of operations and maintenance. Lockheed Martin and Boeing each won over $600 million in risk reduction contracts to develop key TSAT SS satellite system technologies, and TSAT’s $2 billion TMOS ground-based network operations contract was already underway.

The TSAT constellation’s central role in next-generation US military infrastructure makes it worthy of in-depth treatment – but its survival was never assured. There was always a risk that outside events and incremental competitors could spell its end, just as they spelled the end of Motorola’s infamous Iridium project. This FOCUS article examines that possibility, even as it offers an overview of the US military’s vision for its communications infrastructure, how TSAT fits, the program’s challenges, and complete coverage of contracts and significant events.

The latest developments revolve around the end of the program. Despite a positive recent report from the GAO, TMOS/TSAT are being canceled outright as part of the program’s planned termination:

• Key Background – Why TSAT Is Thought to be Necessary
• Key Background – The Big Picture: TSAT and the Transformational Communications Architecture
• Briefing – What Is TSAT?
• Briefing – TMOS: TSAT’s Ground Component
• Briefing – TSAT: Issues & Decisions
• Briefing – The AEHF Alternative, and Lessons Learned for TSAT
• Briefing – TSAT: Program
• Analysis – TSAT’s Competitors – and Its Fate
• News – TSAT: Timeline and Ongoing Developments [updated]
• Appendix A – Additional Readings & Sources
  Continue Reading… »

F-35 semi-commonality

The F-35 stealth fighter family is the largest defense program in the world, with estimated total costs of about $300 billion for development and for all planned aircraft. That program size, the number of countries participating, and the level of length of their commitment to a single aircraft type also makes it one of the world’s most important future weapons. The F-35 designs’ future success or failure on the battlefield are consequential enough that failure could alter regional, and even global, balances of power.

In May 2008, POGO obtained a Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General (IG) report suggesting that “advanced aviation and weapons technology for the JSF program may have been compromised by unauthorized access at facilities and in computers at BAE Systems…”, and documenting lack of cooperation with the Defense Security Service from BAE. Now a Wall Street Journal report, filed in the wake of its revelations that crackers have infiltrated the USA’s power grid and left behind malicious software, reveals thefts from the F-35 program as well.

VH-3D (top), VH-60N

P2P Intelligence firm Tiversa claims that in Oct/Nov 2008, it traced a file that contains details regarding the VH-60N Presidential Helicopter’s CAAS avionics architecture, and some program financial data, on public-access peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks. On Feb 25/09, the file was found on the IP address of an Iranian computer.

Subsequent reports indicate that the employee in question was a high-level executive, but the breach took place outside the company’s offices. This means the data may have been on a home computer when it was leaked. The information was shared over a P2P network called Gnutella, which is actually an open source standard used by a number of file sharing programs. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an adviser to Tiversa, offered this quote to several media outlets: