Earlier this month, the National Coordination Office (NCO) for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program — the Federal program that provides a framework and mechanisms for coordination among 15 Federal agencies that support networking and information technology research and development — issued a Call for Papers for the National Symposium on Moving Target Research. This daylong symposium, which comes on the heels of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program report published in December, “intends to bring together and publish the work of the Moving Target cybersecurity research community to provide a basis for building on […]

Back in January, we described a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program focused on innovative research proposals “in support of the development of new software-based biometric modalities” that go beyond passwords for identity validation. Now The New York Times is out with a story that sheds more light on the initiative: IMAGINE sitting down at your work keyboard, typing in your user name and starting work right away — no password needed.   That’s a vision that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the Defense Department, wants to turn into a reality. It will distribute research funds to develop software that determines, just by the way you type, […]

The Washington Post is out with an article today about the Pentagon’s “accelerating efforts to develop a new generation of cyberweapons capable of disrupting enemy military networks even when those networks are not connected to the Internet”: Last year, to speed up the development of cyberweapons, as well as defensive technology, then-Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III and Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, placed $500 million over five years into the budget of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), one of the Defense ­Department’s premier research organizations.   The agency also has launched new ­cyber-development initiatives, including a “fast-track” program.   […]

The following is a special contribution to the CCC Blog by Stephanie Forrest, professor of computer science at the University of New Mexico — and until recently, a member of the CCC Council. Stephanie attended the World Economic Forum’s 2012 Annual Meeting earlier this year, and she writes about her experiences here.  U.S. computer science and engineering was well represented at January’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Several academic computer scientists were invited to participate in sessions known as Idea Labs, each of which was organized around a single theme and institution. Tomaso Poggio and Alex Pentland participated in a session titled “Worms, Machines and Brains with MIT”; Justine Cassell, Pradeep Khosla, Tom Mitchell and Manuela […]

Earlier today at a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director John Holdren and Chief of Naval Research Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) opened the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) on its campus in Washington, DC. LASR aims “to support cutting-edge research in robotics and autonomous systems of interest to the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Department of Defense, [including] unmanned underwater vehicles, autonomous firefighting robots, and sensor networks.” According to a post on the OSTP Blog announcing the opening: LASR will … advance the goals of the President’s National Robotics Initiative, a multi-agency effort to strengthen U.S. leadership in robotics and to […]

Earlier this month, the Advanced Projects Research Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) released a $150 million funding opportunity open to all breakthrough energy technologies. Individual awards under the Open FOA will range between $250,000 and $10 million. According to the announcement: To address the challenges imposed by the rapidly evolving global energy market, ARPA-E seeks to support transformational research in all areas of energy R&D, including resource identification, extraction, transportation and use, and energy generation, storage, transmission and use in both the transportation and stationary power sectors. Areas of research responsive to this FOA include (but are not limited to) electricity generation by both renewable and non-renewable means, electricity transmission, storage, and distribution; […]