DOD Works to Boost Smartphone Security

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29, 2011 – As the Defense Department seeks innovation made possible by smartphones and other mobile computing platforms, it’s also working to ensure DOD users of those devices employ them securely, a defense official said.

“Because of the pervasiveness of the [mobile computing] market, everyone has one, everyone wants one, but we often don’t look at how the device works -- we take it home and start loading pictures on it,” Robert E. Young, division chief of outreach and communications for the Defense-wide Information Assurance Program, said during a recent interview with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service.

“We do want this innovation in the Department of Defense so we don’t want to say no,” he added, “but we want to do it safely and securely.”

Issues that concern the department, Young said, include the huge memory capacities of some of the new smart devices and users’ general lack of knowledge about how smartphones and tablets work and how they could be compromised.

“With all the different operating systems out there,” Young said, “every patch, every update changes each device and the vulnerabilities within [and users] are going to have to weigh that risk.”

Young said the department is evaluating how people are really using the devices -- whether they’re using smartphones to check email or tablets to read memorandums or policies.

“What are you doing with the device? Is the camera disabled, are you taking pictures of people? I take a picture of you, I upload it and now you’re tagged and all of a sudden everyone knows where you are. So it leads to a digital footprint that connects to the device -- anywhere, anytime, any device,” he said.

“In a split-second it’s up and online,” he added. “And once on the net -- always on the net.”

Part of the answer is to educate, and raise mobile technology awareness for military members, DOD’s civilian workforce and their families, Young said.

As part of this effort, he added, the department is taking a cohesive approach to adopting mobile technology.

“We have a Commercial Mobile Device Working Group and we take best practices from [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], the [Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity] and from our intelligence community partners” and share information, Young said.

“In the working group we have Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, FBI, CIA,” he added, “ … so that as a federal government, with a federated response, we can go to the vendors and say, this is what we need.”

The department also is working with DARPA and the Army on pilot programs for using mobile computing devices innovatively while also protecting information.

“Is the data at risk; is it encrypted while it’s being worked on?” he said. “If you lose a device physically what are you going to do?”

DARPA and the Army are also looking at new applications for such devices, Young said.

“The issue is that we have to make sure the apps are safe and secure. We can’t just throw them on and then try to figure out what they do after the fact,” he added.

It’s important for a mobile device manager to have insight into all the devices on the enterprise, Young said.

Such a manager must be “device agnostic,” he added, to be able to keep track of any sort of device made by any commercial producer that’s touching DOD’s information network.

“That’s the challenge,” he said.

Service members and DOD personnel can get security information or have their devices checked by device manufacturers, Young said.

On military installations, he added, information assurance program officers or chief information officers can help.

Information also is available from the federal government, including the National Institute for Standards and Technology, with National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education information available online at http://csrc.nist.gov/nice/.

Working Together for Interoperability

Dr. Patrick Gallagher

Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology

MS: Thank you all for sticking with us here to the finish line of Grid Interop. With a snow storm impending, I'm sure everyone is anxious to get out this afternoon. But we have a real treat here, and it's my pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker, closing keynote speaker, Pat Gallagher, who I think many of you know because Pat was the opening keynote speaker a year ago in Denver when we launched the SGIP at Grid Interop. And so I'd like to welcome Pat back to reflect on what's happened over the last year and what's ahead. For those of you who don't know Pat, he is the 14th Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He was confirmed in November of 2009. Pat oversees a budget of roughly a billion dollars a year and 2,900 employees who are scientists, engineers, administrative, and support staff. Pat previously served as Deputy Director of the agency and before that Director of the NIST Center for Neutron Research. Pat has been very much involved in his career in science and technology policy issues, worked for a time in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, and currently serves as co-chair of the Standards Subcommittee of the White House National Science and Technology Council.

And I can tell you that Pat has really brought a tremendous amount of change in terms of bringing the strategic importance of standards to the top of the radar screen in political circles. And as a result, I can tell you that NIST is not just a sleepy scientific back water of arcane subjects, but really at the center of a lot of very hot topics, not only the Smart Grid, but cloud computing, health care information technology, and it's really remarkable to see how the U.S. has turned around in terms of standards being sort of not on anyone's radar screen.

When I was in the private sector we used to bemoan the fact that CEOs in industry didn't know how to spell standards and really didn't care and now it's front and center. So, Pat, welcome back, and we're looking forward to your remarks. (Applause)

PG: Good afternoon everybody. This is a real pleasure to be back. So I feel like I opened the first Grid Interop last year and am closing this one. We'll have to figure out what I do next year. Something in the middle. We'll have to see. It's a real pleasure to be back. I thought what I'd do today is share some thoughts about the journey we're on, on Smart Grid, talk a little bit about where we are and where we're going. I think it's particularly timely coming at the very end of a very busy workshop like you've had here. I can see the fatigue in everyone's eyes. I can tell you've been working hard all week.

And it sounds from all reports that it's been extremely successful. I was getting a progress report from George. We have really remarkable progress. The Priority Action Plan Working Group 11 is recommending adding standards to the SGIP catalogue that cover electric vehicle charging. These standards, when finalized, are going to pave the way for the U.S. adoption, widespread adoption of electric vehicles in this country.

The PAP Working Group 1 is looking at the ATF internet standard protocol suite. This is going to lay out basically all of the protocols that cover two-way communication between devices and the grid. This is a foundational achievement that's needed to allow this infrastructure to be developed. PAP 15 is looking at harmonizing two sets of standards dealing with coexistence; on broadband power line communications. This was an essential breakthrough. I understand that it was a tough, hard-earned breakthrough, and yet it was a very strong recommendation, including, this is the first time that a PAP has recommended making compliance with such a standard mandatory. Working Group 10 is evaluating the NAESB energy information usage standard. I can tell you this is an area of intense activity at the White House, because enabling customer interaction with energy usage data is seen as foundational to the acceptance of this technology. And here we have one of the core seed standards that basically sets the stage for this to take place.

So, my hat's off to everybody here. You've earned all of the coffee and treats that you've had here, and hopefully you can get out of town before the snowstorm locks you in even longer.

So what I thought I'd do is, we all know why Smart Grid is critically important. This is one of those rare confluences that doesn't happen very often where basically a technology infrastructure has two major achievements. One is, it can set the stage for us to address the nation's energy problems. It fundamentally enables a whole set of things, including more efficient and effective electrical distribution--making the grid more reliable, more secure, more effective. It enables widespread use of renewable power generation. It gives consumers power--it enables consumers to manage their energy use and it makes them smarter consumers in this space.

But the President was really clear when he was running for office and has really focused on this: that this is also a case where that tackling and addressing that infrastructure need also creates enormous economic opportunity. This is a chance to create jobs, to set up industries. And we know how powerful this is. If you think back a century and a half when this country set out to deploy and build its railroad infrastructure, I'm sure it was motivated at that time by the need to open up this great American West and move goods and people, but we know it fundamentally rewrote what our country looks like.

And I think the understanding is that these infrastructures are enormously powerful and Smart Grid really does have the same potential. We were talking earlier, this really is a disruptive technology, and it's going to be fascinating to see how this disruption takes hold.

So I thought it would be very interesting for us to step back and look at the history, where we've been. And this is sort of a government-centric history, so you all, I will apologize from the beginning.

But three years ago Congress passed a piece of legislation called the Energy Independence and Security Act, which among other things, set up the roles and responsibilities of several agencies, including NIST. I have to tell you when that piece of legislation was passed, we didn't all drop what we were doing and start working on this. It was a much more gradual process. In fact, in many respects in hindsight it was moving too slowly. But there was a lot of ground setting that was going on in terms of starting to identify the moving parts and starting to pull together groups of experts and beginning to address this.

And then about two years ago, two things happened that were critically important, and, in fact changed the whole picture. One of them was a Presidential election, and the other one that was occurring at the exact same time was the onset of this great recession that we've experienced. And the response to the recession included a major piece of legislation called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Stimulus Bill that we talk about. But actually it was not just stimulus, it will also reinvestment. It was also addressing long-term growth. And that bill made substantial investments in the infrastructure of this country. And one of the key pieces of infrastructure was the modernization of the electrical grid.

And so at that time, DOE was about to invest well over $4 billion into this area, and I think I shared the story with you last year, Secretary Chu, recently confirmed, was calling me at NIST saying "where are the standards"? This has got to move faster, we can't make these investments and be in front of these technical standards.

And we all remember Secretary Chu, Secretary Locke convened a group of 70 leaders and executives from industry and from utility companies and said "I need your commitment to engage in this effort and move this as fast as we can." That kicked off a very, very busy effort. Many of you were involved in this. It was at the time, in hindsight, very ad hoc in the sense that George Arnold came in, and we started this effort to develop a road map. The first thing you do when you are going to march off is decide where you're marching, developed a road map, set some priorities, identified some early standards, some early victories, and really set the stage to move forward.

And then last year, we kicked off a new phase in this effort, which was the transition from basically this planning phase to the beginning of what I would call normal operations. It was the stand up of the SGIP and the understanding that these standards, this technology that we're working on is not static. This is a dynamic set of technologies. And the way we were going to address this was through a public-private partnership. And we were going to set up the mechanics to do this correctly. And so a year ago, in Denver, I was talking to you and we were announcing the stand up of the SGIP.

And today I would say this is going to continue to evolve. We've added some, and I'm going to show, highlight a couple of achievements that we can all look to, but it continues to evolve, and one of the signs of that evolution is that the White House, there is also now, and George is the co-chair of this with Pat Hoffman from the Department of Energy, a National Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Smart Grid. Now you shouldn't confuse a proliferation of committees at the White House as an indication of progress necessarily, but this one, in particular, is a sign of the importance of this effort and the fact that it intrinsically cuts across a lot of agency lines.

And it was viewed as imperative that we have the machinery, we have the vehicle for these agencies to work effectively and efficiently together to tackle both the acceleration of the standards effort that we're working on, the investments that are being made to support this, but all of the related issues that come up when you're dealing with an infrastructural effort of this scale. And so it's another sign that we continue to evolve and mature.

So if we look at what we've accomplished so far, I think we can take a little moment to quietly celebrate. We have finalized and published the first version of the interoperability framework. We have the road map that will guide us as we focus on the details of this enormous effort. We've issued cyber security guidelines, which are designed to protect the two-way communications and ensure the integrity and trust in this infrastructure. In fact, without that, if we undermine that trust in this infrastructure, the system will not be what it needs to be.

We've established collaborations with partners in other countries. In my view a foundational and critical component, Smart Grid moved immediately into an international effort, and I think this is essential so that not only we work together because this is a problem that, frankly, doesn't stop at anyone's borders, but it means we can also move efficiently towards a set of truly international standards so that manufacturers all over the world have the benefit of a worldwide market.

We've identified the first set of standards that are ready for regulators to begin considering. So we're now beginning the process that the Energy Independence and Security Act envisioned over three years ago, which is this relationship between technical standards setting and regulation. And we're at the beginning of that journey. And we've developed this robust process that you've been sweating over all week, which are these priority action plans where we look at the critical gaps in the standard setting and we put together teams to address those gaps as urgently as possible.

And this is a tough challenge. There's the old adage that if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. And yet there are a lot of things that we have to do. So I think this process of identifying a critical subset of true priorities and putting action teams together to address them has been remarkable.

And the successes are quite equally remarkable. These efforts have led to upgradability standards for meters, to ensure that our investments are not stranded and meters can improve as the technology improves. We have a standard for energy usage data that we talked about before that will go into the catalogue of standards for the SGIP. This will set the stage for applications so that consumers can now move to actually managing their energy use in a real way. And it opens up new commercial opportunities for development of these tools by third parties. Standards for electric vehicle connection and charging will also move forward. A guide for internet protocols so we can begin to look at all of the communication technologies that will tie these components together--this is vital for the two-way communication among the devices on the grid, and the coexistence standards for power line carrier signals.

So this is pretty impressive. And I hope you feel that sense of accomplishment. I think this whole audience should be thanked for your efforts on this. There are a few people I would like to single out. The Plenary Officers: Steve Widergren, I want to thank you, and Mark Klerer and Paul Molitor. The Architectural Committee and its chair, Ron Ambrosio. The Testing and Certification Committee: Rick Drummond, Dean Prochaska, and Tobin Richardson, and the SGIP Governing Board and its chair, John McDonald and vice chair, John Caskey and secretary, George Bjelovuk.

There are many, many others. Those of you working at chairing and leading the Priority Action Working Groups--those group members and technical experts--I wish I could read all of your names today, but I want to extend my appreciation for your efforts and for your commitment to this project.

So that's sort of the journey we've been on. What I thought I would do is sort of reflect a little bit on where we're going to head from here. And, in particular, it's going to be an interesting time because it's also a point where we're going to begin to see some of the results of our work.

I think to characterize, there's been a lot of talk about valleys of despair and peaks of bliss and things of that type. But rather than use that terminology, let me use the analogy that a year ago we were in the design phase. We were designing a process that we were going to use to work with each other. And design phases are exciting; we've got architectural drawings and we can see what it's going to look like, and no one's gotten dirty yet. It's kind of fun.

Right now we're at the construction phase, and we're in the mud pits, and we're shoveling, and it's hard work. But this is actually where it becomes reality. And I actually think this is the point of the process where most of the dividends of our effort are going to be set, where we really are setting the stage for success. It's also the point sometimes where it's hard to keep your eye on the ball because you're no longer looking at the design drawings, you're down in the ditches working. So it's going to be a critical time.

And as I said last year, the goal we're after is not the completion of our work, but the achievement of a process where our ongoing work is basically made routine and we can continue to work effectively together, because as long as technology improvements can happen, this is not going to be static at all. In fact, one of the challenges that not everyone who engages in this fully understands that we have so many participants in this process, the realization that this standards effort touches things like regulation, this standards effort touches policy. We have to also educate regulators and policy makers how this works and to expect this dynamic and ongoing process. And that's going to be a key part of our work and something that we're already beginning to see as we move forward.

This is also a point in the process where we do start to see the fact that tackling an effort of this magnitude does create enormous economic activity. To give you some examples, one: we're already seeing results that Smart Grid technology, in fact, does have many of the things we were saying it would do a year ago.

Results from several demonstration studies are now showing that Smart Grid technologies perform as intended, saving customers money and easing strain on the power grid. We started this effort believing that was the case. In Washington State, for example, the GridWise Olympic Peninsula Project managed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and funded by DOE has tested Smart Grid technologies in more than 100 homes as well as with several commercial and municipal partners, and after one year consumers were saving approximately 10 percent on their electrical bills, in spite of the fact that utility costs were increasing and the fact at the same time peak demand in this area fell by 15 percent. This is a good omen. This means these technologies, in fact, worked as we thought.

The Brattle Group consulting firm estimates that over the next 20 years the U.S. will be spending on the order of one and a half to two trillion dollars modernizing its electricity system. Now a lot of that is going to go to the large aging power plant and power generation infrastructure, but approximately a third--about 600 billion--will be spent on the modernizations associated with the grid and transmission. This is a major investment.

The Grid Wise Alliance estimates that the Smart Grid will also put back into the economy about $1.8 trillion, largely through cost avoidance, by reduced energy usage and improved reliability of the system and by the fact that this new infrastructure means that the planned repairs on our old infrastructure won't be required. That's about $70 billion looking 20 years down the road. So there are immediate payoffs already there.

The International Energy Agency estimates that worldwide, $13 trillion will be spent globally to modernize the world's power grids between now and 2030. This is the market that we're talking about. This is a tremendous opportunity not only to move the world towards a cleaner and greener set of technologies, but also to drive economic growth and to create opportunities for those that manufacture, sell, build, and install this equipment.

These jobs will number in the hundreds of thousands. KEMA--another consulting firm--estimated last year about 140,000 new jobs will be created in the Smart Grid just in the United States. We're already beginning to see this happen. The Department of Energy awarded $100 million for 54 Smart Grid workforce training programs to help prepare the next generation of workers in the utility and electrical manufacturing industries get ready for this new technology. And according to the estimates of those companies winning these awards, these programs alone will train 30,000 American workers.

The news, it's hard to read the news recently and not realize that there are planned, significant investments in Smart Grid transmission capability. There's been news, press releases about offshore wind generation grids and also grids to handle large solar farms. The 400-megawatt BrightSource complex now under construction in the Mojave Desert, that power generation project alone is going to create, has already created about 1,000 construction jobs and will create another 100 long-term facility management jobs when it's completed. So you already begin to see the front end of this enormous set of economic activities.  

So these are just a few examples. I think now what we need to do is focus on how do we set the stage for continued success. And in my mind, there are sort of four overriding goal areas that we should focus on.

One is we have to empower consumers. The benefit of these technologies has to be visible to those that use the technologies. To sustain the investment, to make the business model work that has to be the case and so empowering consumers has to be a critical activity.

We have to continue to spur innovation and open markets. The standard setting that we're involved in fundamentally enables new ideas and new opportunities to take hold, and that has to continue to be a priority. We have to continue to facilitate regulators as they go about their task of adopting this and integrating our work into their work, and we have to strengthen the international ties that are so critical to this effort.

Let me give you an example. The standards for appliances to communicate with the grid that are, are necessary now for the appliance manufacturing industry to move forward. There is a danger in not having the standards ready. The appliance industry is ready to go forward with its plans to introduce smart appliances that react dynamically to pricing information and congestion information that they receive from the grid. These appliances will react not only during periods of peak demand, but any time, so that they can automatically adjust their energy usage accordingly. Without a unit, a set of effective national standards, this simply can't happen. We have to continue to leverage the work that's underway to make this, to move this work forward.

We have to work on a testing and certification framework so that the standards development we do, in fact, are translated into meaningful use. The first candidates for implementation are in the areas of substation automation, grid monitoring, and control communications. Getting this right is important because it sets the conditions for market acceptance that are so important to this technology. Consumers and the public need the tools to manage their energy more effectively. This includes not only the technology that we're working on, but also, frankly, education. They need to understand in plain language what these tools will enable them to do, and that effort has to continue.

And we must continue to engage international players in the Smart Grid arena, and frankly, I think this is going to continue to grow dramatically. I want to point out that Secretary Locke will be making a number of important international trade missions in the coming year. Innovation, technology, and trade are all linked. The trade balance of the United States is driven positively by our export of high technology, and Smart Grid is a key enabler in this. International standards are an important part of the equation. We are working to collaborate internationally wherever possible, because this stimulates innovation. It spurs efficient and effective competition to lower cost for suppliers, utilities, and consumers.

International standards also allow Smart Grid products developed by U.S.-based companies to be sold around the world. It opens up markets. We want to maximize the opportunities of those companies who are innovating and developing new technologies and employing Americans so that they can design, build Smart Grid products and systems and sell them wherever they are being built. And we want to be, frankly, a net exporter of Smart Grid products and systems. We don't want to simply outsource this and import all of our needed technology.

So this is critically important. I think the work that we've done thus far has been a critical first step. I think we have the mechanisms in place to continue to work together. And it's clear from the results from this week that, in fact, we've got the right group here to move these difficult technology challenges forward.

As I said, a year and a half ago, Secretary Locke, Secretary Chu convened this group of industry CEOs in the Old Executive Office Building at the White House, and at that time we hadn't done anything yet, and the real focus was to really kick-start and get their buy in. And I can still remember the demand that was made, the request that was made was: we can't do this without you, and we want you to commit your organizations to this national effort. I think you are proof that that commitment has been carried out. I want to applaud you for your efforts and for your commitment and ask you to renew that commitment as we continue to move forward on this great challenge. So thank you very much. (APPLAUSE)

NIST: A National Resource for the Forensics Community

Dr. Patrick Gallagher

Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology

MS: Dr. Patrick Gallagher was confirmed as the 14th Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, on November 5, 2009. Dr. Gallagher provides high-level oversight and direction for NIST. The agency promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards and technology. NIST's fiscal year 2010 resources include $856.6 million from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010, $49.9 million in service fees, and $101.5 million from other agencies.

The agency employs about 2,900 scientists, engineers, researchers, technicians, support staff, and administrative personnel at two main locations in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boulder Colorado, in addition to other locations. Dr. Gallagher had served as Deputy Director since 2008. Prior to that he served for four years as the Director of the NIST Center for Neutron Research, NCNR--a national user facility for neutron scattering on the NIST Gaithersburg campus. The NCNR provides a broad range of neutron diffraction and spectroscopy capability with thermal and cold neutron beams, and is presently the nation's most-used facility of this type.

Dr. Gallagher received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1991. In addition to his recently acquired enthusiasm for forensic science, his research interests include neutron and X-ray instrumentation and studies of soft, condensed matter systems such as liquid, polymers, and gels. In 2000, Dr. Gallagher was a NIST agency representative at the National Science and Technology Council, NSTC. He's been active in the area of U.S. policy for scientific user facilities and was a chair of the Interagency Working Group on Neutron and Light Source Facilities under the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Currently, he serves as co-chair of the Standards Subcommittee under the White House National Science and Technology Council. It's a pleasure for me to introduce our Director. In addition to being a nice guy, he's also very capable at what he does, so it's a pleasure to have a boss who knows what he's doing. And on that note I'd like to introduce to you Dr. Pat Gallagher. (APPLAUSE)

PG: Good morning, everybody. I can tell it's a Monday morning. It's also a distinct pleasure for me to join you this morning and kick off, I like the brave tone of the first annual, this shows the intention to keep this going, but this is actually a remarkable event to get two long-standing collaborators, the National Institutes of Justice and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to have a joint symposium, a conference to share information and to build the deep research ties that we need to work closely together. And so it's a pleasure for me to join you today, both as co-host and as a participant this morning to kick this off.

NIST and NIJ, in fact, have a long tradition of working together, going back as John [Laub] pointed out, nearly 40 years now. And I think that you're going to hear through the next three days a lot of highlights, progress reports, and hopefully deep discussions about these many areas. I think it's actually no surprise that we would find ourselves in such strong collaboration--NIJ with its mission to foster science that advances the practice of law enforcement, and NIST, which is the nation's measurement laboratory--it would be natural for us to find a deep set of issues to work closely on together. And I think you're going to hear a lot of this interesting work over the next three days.

In fact, I find it interesting, the history with NIST in forensic science actually goes back nearly to our founding. NIST is one of the nation's oldest national laboratories, founded in 1901 as the National Bureau of Standards, which many folks still remember us by the previous name. And in fact, going back at that time, it actually started to function immediately by 1912 as the nation's first criminal crime laboratory.

In particular, Wilmer Souder was the scientist with the National Bureau of Standards and became one of the early scientists doing forensic science, in fact, I guess his real claim to fame, his most famous case was helping to identify and convict Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby in 1932. Souder also then worked with the FBI to establish their crime laboratory in 1932. So it's a remarkable history going all the way back really to the roots of NIST, and again, should serve as no surprise that these two agencies work so closely together.

So my job this morning is to tell you a little bit about NIST and make a few comments hopefully to stimulate your thinking in terms of what we do and how we can work together.

NIST was founded actually as part of the Treasury Department only because it predated the founding of the Commerce Department. As soon as Commerce was founded, the National Bureau of Standards moved to the Commerce Department where we have been ever since. And as I said we are really thought of as the nation's measurement laboratory to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology.

Addressing national needs through measurement science has always been a key part of the NIST mission, whether that's forensic science as we heard about, or whether that's work on the war efforts during World War II, or whether that's work on the World Trade Center investigation after 9/11, NIST has always been called to apply its expertise in measurement science to address critical national problems. In my view this call, this recent call to address and strengthen the forensic science infrastructure of the United States is one of those needs. And that explains my renewed enthusiasm for forensic science, Mark [Stolorow].

So NIST, to think of us programmatically, the best way to do it is that we have four major program areas. The largest and most significant in terms of resources and personnel is the NIST Laboratory Program. I'll talk a little bit about that. That's what most of the people who work at NIST do. And it also explains most of the facilities that you see around us. We have two major campuses. The largest is the one you're on, here in Gaithersburg, Maryland. We also have another laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. And we also have a series of joint institutes with universities and other organizations and a few other locations around the country.

But we also have three programs that are extramural programs that work primarily through grant programs outside of the agency. The first of these is the Hollings MEP Program where NIST provides funds to a set of centers for small and midsized manufacturers across the United States. This is part of our mission to promote competitiveness. We also sponsor the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, which recognizes top performing organizations in terms of how they manage and perform. And the Technology Innovation Program, which funds high-risk, high-payoff research in areas of critical national need. And many of those calls have been in areas of advanced manufacturing.

The Laboratory Program is probably going to be what your conference focuses on, because that's really the measurement science tie that we have in this area. And we recently reorganized at NIST, and the best way to think of our laboratory programs now is really in three major theme areas. NIST has a mission to promote and advance the state of the art in measurement science. It does that primarily through two laboratories--a physical measurement laboratory and a material measurement laboratory--that specialize in cutting-edge research at the forefront of making measurements, either physical measurements on physical quantities or in characterizing materials.

The way that research is often translated to action, a key element of NIST work, is through measurement standards. We disseminate best practices protocols, and we also provide the measurement infrastructure that underpins accurate measurements from measurement standards to traceable quantities, calibration reference materials, things of that type. And, of course, that has deep ties with the work you're going to be talking on.

NIST also has two laboratories that specialize in areas of technology. Our Information Technology Laboratory and our Engineering Laboratory focus on systems of technologies in broad areas. So, for example, the Information Technology Laboratory supports work in advancing cyber security for federal IT systems, usability research for IT, large data sets--much of the work that you're familiar with in that area: cloud computing, electronic voting, things of that type. Our Engineering Laboratory also supports technology systems in fire research, in advanced buildings, in construction, advanced manufacturing, things of that type.

One of the key areas where that research effort is disseminated is through documentary standards--working with industry consortia to develop standards that address interoperability of the performance of these technology systems. In the United States, of course, these documentary standards are the responsibility of industry not of government, so our role in that case is really to work with industry to develop strong technical and science-based documentary standards. And again, technology plays a key role in forensic science and so there's a deep involvement with those two laboratories as well.

And finally, we have a series of national user facilities. These are collections of measurement capability that are unique or hard to replicate at this scale, and when Congress appropriates funding to do this, it often comes with the mandate that we provide these measurement services nationally, usually on a merit base.

So we have two of these major facilities. One is the Center for Neutron Research, which is a reactor base facility here on this campus. It specializes in using the reactor to generate neutrons, which probe the properties, both chemical and structural properties of materials. That program, too, has had a role in forensic science in the past, in particular, trace chemical analysis. And the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, which is a collection of capabilities that we have to study nano materials. And again, these six laboratories are spanned primarily on our two campuses.

So let me just make a few final remarks on where we are in forensic science. From a policy perspective, everyone's attention was caught by the forensic report issued by the National Research Council in 2009. It's easy to catch everyone's attention when you have a harshly worded report. But it was an interesting report in the sense that it illuminated basically a call for action on how to strengthen the scientific underpinnings of forensic measurements and made a number of recommendations that Mark [Stolorow] has already talked about.

It also specifically brought NIJ and NIST into its both discussions and recommendations. So I think it's timely for us to continue to focus on this and to, in particular, look at the way that we strengthen the role of standards in disseminating and underpinning forensic measurements with the best possible methodologies and to use this first annual conference as a way of initiating this discussion and how we take strong steps to strengthen these programs, just as this report is causing us to take looks both within our two agencies and how we strengthen and realign these programs.

The other interesting thing about this from a policy perspective is the fact that the signature recommendation, which was basically to blow everything up and start over with a new agency, is likely not to happen. And what that means instead is that it calls for very strong leadership at the interagency level to come up with a series of recommendations that meet the requirements, in other words, the functional need that that report was calling for, even if the solution that was put in place isn't going to be the solution.

And one of the key ways this has being done is at the White House level through the infrastructure known as the National Science and Technology Council. The National Science and Technology Council is basically the analog of the National Security Council or the National Economic Council. These are devices used within the White House to bring together the agencies to work together on a particular problem, and the working level, the full National Science and Technology Council, is chaired by the President and is comprised of the Cabinet.

But that's not where they're discussing forensic science. It's done through a series of working groups and key among these, in fact, one of the most active has been this subcommittee on forensic science currently under way within the NSTC. And while their work is still ongoing, and this is an interagency process, so it's not a public process, this is going to play, whatever it says, is going to play a key role in framing the actions of the government in a coordinated way across multiple departments. So this is going to be very important.

Meanwhile, we're going to, at NIST one of the things that you're going to hear about is that as I alluded to earlier, the forensic science activities are really spread across all six of our laboratories; it's not housed in any one particular area. To address that, the Office of Law Enforcement Standards plays a critical role in coordinating the activities across all of our laboratories in providing both the national visibility of its program and the essential internal coordination of its efforts, and you're going to hear a lot about these particular areas over this conference over the next few days.

And so once again, let me join my colleague, [Laub], in welcoming you to this conference. I'm delighted you're here. If there's anything we can do at NIST to make your stay more enjoyable and more productive, please don't hesitate to let us know. Thank you very much. (APPLAUSE)

MS: Thank you very much Drs. Laub and Gallagher for your introductions. While we have them present on-site, we thought we would take some opportunity for questions and answers of these two distinguished guests. And this is the opportunity to ask any questions pertaining to forensic science at NIJ or at NIST. Are there any questions that you'd like to direct to Dr. Lob or Dr. Gallagher? Yes, sir?

NVLAP Recognized by ENERGY STAR

ENERGY STAR, a program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE) to promote energy efficiency, has recognized the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) as an accrediting body. This recognition enables NVLAP to accredit independent labs as having the technical capability necessary to test products to determine whether they meet ENERGY STAR requirements.

NVLAP accreditation will be a necessary first step for a laboratory’s test data to be accepted under the enhanced ENERGY STAR program.

NVLAP already accredits laboratories that test for energy efficiency in lighting products, electromagnetic compatibility in telecommunications and other equipment, and the performance of thermal insulation products. NVLAP officials anticipate that many of these testing laboratories will be eligible for recognition under new EPA requirements.

The EPA introduced ENERGY STAR in 1992 as a voluntary labeling program to identify and promote energy-efficient products to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Beginning with computers and monitors, the ENERGY STAR label now includes more than 60 product categories, such as major appliances, office equipment, lighting, home electronics, and more. It is used by millions of Americans to identify efficient products and reduce energy costs—saving them an estimated $17 billion in 2009 alone. EPA has also extended the label to cover new homes and commercial and industrial buildings.

To ensure that ENERGY STAR remains a trusted symbol for environmental protection and superior energy efficiency, all businesses and other organizations seeking an ENERGY STAR label will be required to follow a new set of third-party certification procedures, starting Jan. 1, 2011. The enhanced program will require products testing and certification at an accredited laboratory, which necessitates evaluating laboratories for conformance with ENERGY STAR criteria.

Details of the program can be found on the ENERGY STAR website.

Visit NVLAP at nist.gov/pml/nvlap for more information about the accreditation program.

NIST's New Scanning Probe Microscope is Supercool

The discoveries of superconductivity, the quantum Hall effect and the fractional quantum Hall effect were all the result of measurements made at increasingly lower temperatures. Now, pushing the regime of the very cold into the very small, a research team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Maryland, Janis Research Company, Inc., and Seoul National University, has designed and built the most advanced ultra-low temperature scanning probe microscope (ULTSPM) in the world.

Detailed in a recent paper,* the ULTSPM operates at lower temperatures and higher magnetic fields than any other similar microscope, capabilities that enable the device to resolve energy levels separated by as small as 1 millionth of an electron volt. This extraordinary resolution has already resulted in the discovery of new physics (see "Puzzling New Physics from Graphene Quartet's Quantum Harmonies").

"To get these kinds of measurements, you need to combine coarse and extremely fine movement (the mechanical positioning of a probe tip about two atoms' distance from the sample surface), ultra-high vacuum, cryogenics and vibration isolation," says NIST Fellow Joseph Stroscio, one of the device's co-creators. "We designed this instrument to achieve superlative levels of performance, which, in turn, requires achieving nearly the ultimate in environmental control."

The NIST team had to overcome many technical challenges to achieve this level of precision and sensitivity, according to Young Jae Song, a postdoctoral researcher who helped develop the instrument at NIST.

Past designs used mechanical systems to move the probe tip that did not work over a wide range of temperatures. Researchers overcame this by creating piezoelectric actuators that expand with atomic scale precision when voltage is applied.

For vibration control, the group built the ULTSPM facility on top of a separate 110-ton concrete block buffered by six computer-controlled air springs. The ULTSPM, itself, sits on a 6-ton granite table, isolated from the concrete block by another set of computer-controlled air springs.

To achieve the ULTSPM's ultra low operating temperature of 10 millikelvins, the team designed a low noise dilution refrigerator to supplement the device's chilly 3-meter deep, 250-liter liquid helium bath. Because electromagnetic radiation entering through wires and cables can heat up the microscope, the ULTSPM lab is nested inside a separate, electromagnetically shielded room.

In order to ready new samples and probes without disturbing ongoing measurements, experimenters built a vacuum-sealed "railroad" system that they can disconnect from the chamber.

"The ability to create these kinds of experimental conditions opens up a whole new frontier in nanoscale physics," says Robert Celotta, founding director of the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. "This instrument has been five years in the making, and we can't help but be excited about all the discoveries waiting to be made."

* Y. Song, A. Otte, V. Shvarts, Z. Zhao, Y. Kuk, S. Blankenship, A. Band, F. Hess and J. Stroscio. A 10 mK scanning probe microscopy facility. Review of Scientific Instruments. In press.

JILA Unveils Improved 'Molecular Fingerprinting' for Trace Gas Detection

Scientists at JILA and collaborators have demonstrated an improved laser-based "molecular fingerprinting" technique that picks out traces of key hydrogen-containing and other molecules from a billion other particles in a gas in just 30 seconds or less—performance suitable for breathalyzers for diagnosing disease, measuring trace gases in the atmosphere, detecting security threats and other applications.

JILA is jointly operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado at Boulder (CU).

Described in Optics Express,* the research extends the range of an existing NIST/JILA invention** to cover the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is a critical range, because it includes the frequencies associated with strong molecular vibrations, including various hydrogen bonds. The technology thus can identify a much wider variety of molecules, including virtually any containing hydrogen—the most common element in the universe—and can measure lower concentration levels than before.

The heart of the JILA system is an optical frequency comb, a tool generated by ultrafast lasers that precisely identifies a wide range of different colors of light. Researchers identify specific molecules based on which colors of light, or comb "teeth," are absorbed by a gas, and in what amounts. The comb light usually passes through a gas mixture many times, significantly improving detection sensitivity. Concentrations are measured with the help of molecular "signatures" assembled from databases. The technique works quickly and reliably even when molecules have overlapping, continuous, or otherwise confusing absorption signatures. The rapid data collection, in particular, makes the technology suitable to replace or surpass conventional Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers for many applications, according to the paper.

In the demonstration, scientists measured a dozen important molecules at parts‐per‐billion precision, including the greenhouse gases methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide; and the pollutants isoprene and formaldehyde. In addition, the system detected molecules useful in human breath analysis: ethane (a sign of asthma) and methanol (a sign of kidney failure). The system is able to reach parts-per-trillion sensitivity for the first time in detecting carbon dioxide.

Collaborators from IMRA America, Inc. (Ann Arbor, Mich.), developed the fiber laser used to make the frequency comb. The comb itself is based on a non-linear optical process that shifts the light from the near-infrared to the mid infrared. The JILA researchers now plan to extend the system further into longer wavelengths to cover a second important molecular fingerprinting region, to identify a more diverse set of complex molecules containing carbon, and to modify the equipment to make it portable. Planning is also under way for clinical trials of the breathalyzer application.

The research is funded by the Air Force Office for Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Agilent Foundation, NIST, and the National Science Foundation.