Pentagon's advanced research arm tackles cyberspace

(Reuters) - The Pentagon's advanced research arm, the same group credited with developing the forerunner of the Internet in the 1960s, is working on many fronts to boost U.S. defenses against computer-generated attacks.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is building a virtual firing range in cyberspace -- a replica of the Internet on which scientists can test how successfully they can thwart feared foreign- or domestic-launched attempts to disrupt U.S. information networks

Called the National Cyber Range, it will also help the U.S. government train cyberwarriors and hone advanced technologies to guard information systems.

Reuters has learned that the National Cyber Range is expected to be fully up and running by mid-2012, four years after the Pentagon approached contractors to build it. It cost an estimated $130 million.

One of these companies is Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales and itself the target of what it called "a significant and tenacious" cyber attack last month.

Lockheed, the U.S. government's top information technology provider, was awarded a $30.8 million contract in January 2010 to continue to develop a prototype. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory won a similar deal at that time.

This summer DARPA is to select one of them to operate a prototype test range during a yearlong test.

It will also apparently help train cyberwarriors such as those in the U.S. military's Cyber Command, ordered up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June 2009 after he concluded the threat of digital warfare had outgrown existing U.S. defenses.

The cyber range actually will be a collection of "testbeds" that can carry out independent drills or be woven into one or more larger pieces, depending on the challenge.

The range is to test such things as new network protocols plus satellite and radio frequency communications...[Full Article]

Airmen To Live Out Their Careers In Cyberspace

ORLANDO, Fla. — Air Force officials anticipate a world in which every recruit receives an avatar upon joining the service.

These avatars would follow airmen through their entire careers, earning promotions and educational credits and even moving with them to new offices and bases.

This would take place in simulated worlds that mirror the service’s actual facilities.
“Everyone who comes into the Air Force will be given an avatar, and that avatar travels with them, grows with them, changes appearance with them,” said Larry Clemons, of the Air Education and Training Command. “It will provide them a history of where they’ve been and a notion of where they’re going.”

It’s part of the Air Force’s MyBase program, a plan to modernize the service’s education and marketing initiatives. The effort dates back to early 2008, when Air Education and Training Command released a paper outlining next-generation learning environments complete with virtual worlds, online classes and aggressive outreach strategies involving webcam chats with potential recruits and online contract forms.

The initiative is still in its test stages, and officials later will decide whether to carry it out in full.

The Air Force has already launched the marketing campaign component of MyBase. At this year’s Defense GameTech Users’ Conference, Clemons took audience members on a tour of the service’s publicly available cyberhub, a mock base where it hopes to attract new recruits.

The base exists in Second Life, a virtual world that is inhabited by millions of avatars controlled by the program’s users. It was created in 2003 by a company called Linden Lab. The Air Force now owns 12 regions of Second Life land — which is sold on a real estate market for real-life dollars...