Internet security experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., are asking industry to develop ways to guarantee the military safe and anonymous access to the Internet amid hostile attempts to disrupt government cyber communications. . DARPA released a broad agency announcement Thursday (DARPA-BAA-10-69) for the Safer Warfighter Communications (SAFER) program to develop technology that gives the military services safe, resilient Internet communications -- particularly to frustrate third-party attempts to identify and locate end users or block Internet communications. DARPA wants industry to develop technology that also provides the quality of service to enable the government to use Internet services like instant messaging, e-mail, social networking, streaming video, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), and video conferencing. The four-year SAFER program concerns any technologies that enable anonymous Internet communications to bypass techniques that suppress, localize, and/or corrupt information such as: Internet protocol (IP)-address filtering or "blocking," typically by blacklisting the IP addresses of Websites or other services -- possibly by the network operator -- to deny the user access; domain naming service (DNS) hijacking, redirecting a user to a different website or service from what the user intended, by supplying a false reply to the user's domain name resolution request; and content filtering that captures and analyzes the content of the user's network traffic through deep packet inspection to check whether the traffic contains predefined signatures or sensitive keywords. The DARPA SAFER program involves three technical areas of interest: ways to measure and evaluate the system; tools to overcome the suppression, localization, and corruption of Internet communications; and support to host the developed technology, provide configuration management, and use an existing server-side network test bed. Companies interested should respond to DARPA by 6 July 2010, and the solicitation's final closing is 24 Nov. 2010. DARPA's program manager for the SAFER initiative is Drew Dean, who can be reached by e-mail at
The Defense Department is continuing, and perhaps has stepped up, its electronic psychological operations campaign directed at the upper echelons of the Iraqi military now that hostilities have begun. . .. The Defense Department is continuing, and perhaps has stepped up, its electronic psychological operations campaign directed at the upper echelons of the Iraqi military now that hostilities have begun . In a press conference March 20, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that DOD officials are "in communication with still more people who are officials of the [Iraqi] military at various levels," warning them of the outcome of their actions should they take up arms against U.S. or allied forces. Defense officials confirmed in January that they had been sending e-mail messages to Iraqi military officials as part of a psychological operations campaign. For decades, military forces have dropped leaflets on enemy soldiers in an attempt to persuade them to surrender before engaging in combat. The new e-mail campaign, according to experts, is a technological extension of that. The link for this article located at FCW is no longer available. . The Defense Department is continuing, and perhaps has stepped up, its electronic psychological opera. defense, department, continuing, perhaps, stepped, electronic, psychological, opera. . Anthony Pell
Military leaders agree that wireless communication is the wave of the future, but they also agree that it needs far greater security features to become deployable and reliable on the battlefield. . .. Military leaders agree that wireless communication is the wave of the future, but they also agree that it needs far greater security features to become deployable and reliable on the battlefield . Air Force Maj. Gen. John Bradley, deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command's joint task force for computer network operations, said the Defense Department not only needs more secure wireless tools, it also needs them to be smaller with solid encryption and authentication features. The joint task force, created about 18 months ago, is responsible for defending DOD networks from attack, according to Bradley, who was speaking during a Nov. 19 panel at the AFCEA International's TechNet Asia-Pacific International 2002 Conference and Exposition in Honolulu. The link for this article located at FCW is no longer available. . Military leaders agree that wireless communication is the wave of the future, but they also agree th. agree, military, leaders, wireless, communication, future. . Anthony Pell
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