Mobile app helps iPhone users 'Be Ready'

by John Burt
Air Force Civil Engineer Center Public Affairs

7/18/2013 - TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The "Be Ready" mobile app, or application, is now available for download on most Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Previously offered for Motorola Android products only, this app was developed by the Air Force Civil Engineer Center's Emergency Management Division, as an on-the-go emergency preparation resource.

"This app provides information on basic preparedness for natural disasters or manmade events," said Sam Hazzard, the Air Force Emergency Management education and training program manager. "It's a practical tool to help users prepare for, respond to and recover from emergency situations. It includes steps to take after a disaster has occurred."

The "Be Ready" app is free and gives detailed information covering a wide range of threats including floods, hurricanes and wildfires. It provides emergency numbers and relevant websites as well as customizable family evacuation plans and emergency supply checklists.

"We encourage everyone to have an emergency supply kit," said Hazzard. "The app provides a recommended emergency checklist of supplies that can be customized depending on the threat, geographic area or situation. You can check off items as you add them to your kit."

Since the release of the Android version in January, AFCEC's emergency management experts say the response has been good from both military members and civilians alike.

"EM offices throughout the Air Force use tools like this to help increase emergency preparedness across their base and community," said Rob Genova, emergency management education and training specialist. "We've received comments from the public saying they like the amount of information included, it's easy to use and moves smoothly from section-to-section. The Apple platform now allows us to provide this tool to more people."

The "Be Ready" app is available for download now at Apple's app store or the Google play site. For more information, visit BeReady.af.mil.

Large rocket test facility's altitude capability benefits from new control system

by Raquel March
Arnold Engineering Development Complex Public Affairs

7/16/2013 - ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. -- Large rocket testing at altitude conditions has been a common occurrence at Arnold Engineering Development Complex's state-of-the-art Large Rocket Motor Test Facility, or J-6, for almost 20 years. When ATK® recently tested its CASTOR®30XL rocket in the J-6 facility, a team of engineers had completed an upgrade of the facility's Test Unit Support System.

The result of the upgrade was the implementation of the new J-6 Facility Control System, or FCS, which controls 16 major systems needed to conduct a rocket test in the facility.

The J-6 Facility provides ground-test simulations for solid-propellant rocket motors and it is used mainly for testing of stages II and III for both Minuteman and Peacekeeper ICBMs.

"A few of the critical systems are steam, gaseous nitrogen (GN2) and liquid nitrogen (LN2)," said Mickey Gipson, an Information Technology System Development manager. "Basically, the J-6 FCS is the heart of the J-6 test facility."

One customer benefit of the FCS is better control of automatic facility flow and pressure of steam, GN2 and LN2. Customers like ATK and the Minuteman program will also benefit from improved system calibration and pre-operations automation.

Gipson added that customers will also experience "improved data logging and historian features and improved human machine interface and external interfaces using open standards."

The improved interfaces will allow interaction with different manufacturer's equipment, using a set standard, without developing special hardware or software for each test item.

System design, software design and installation were conducted by AEDC personnel.

"The original schedule of installation and checkout required nine months but our project (team) accomplished it in six months," said Simon Choi, the Air Force project manager for the new system. "We had experienced designers and operators who are very familiar with the J-6 test process which provided technical consistency and excellent ideas."

J-6 is designed to test Class 1.3 or 1.1 solid-propellant rocket motors capable of up to 500,000 pounds of thrust. Measuring 26-feet in diameter by 62-feet long, the horizontally oriented test cell is capable of testing rocket motors at simulated altitudes up to 100,000 feet

Air Force cracks down on protected information

by Tech. Sgt. Mark R. W. Orders-Woempner
434th ARW Public Affairs

7/13/2013 - GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. -- Using a new capability, the Air Force is cracking down on the unencrypted transmission of protected information and violators could find themselves locked out and in hot water.

Recently, the Air Force started using technology that specifically looks for protected critical unclassified information in emails sent from government to commercial servers without encryption.

This includes information that is For Official Use Only, protected under the Privacy Act of 1974, contains usernames or passwords, and sensitive personally identifiable information. Examples of PII can be found at the bottom of this article.

"The Air Force is utilizing its full capabilities to protect its members' personal information by actively scanning emails for violations," explained Maj. Ulric Adams Jr., 434th Communications Squadron commander.

If unencrypted or unprotected PCUI information is sent and detected, a user will be locked out of their account, must re-accomplish their information assurance training and have the first colonel in their chain of command write a letter to the 24th Air Force to reestablish the member's account.

The 24th AF establishes, operates, maintains and defends Air Force networks to ensure warfighters can maintain the information advantage as U.S. forces conduct military operations around the world.

"This new capability isn't meant to prevent such information from being sent when necessary, but helps ensure it's properly protected when sent," said Dan Harshman, 434th CS operations flight director.

"The point is, you cannot send any of that information outside the government system without protecting it," Harshman continued. "And, even if you do send it within the .mil domain, you still need to protect it by signing and encrypting it."

If an email containing PCUI can't be encrypted, there are still ways of protecting it.

If an email sent to a military organization box or an account that hasn't had the right security certificates posted, members can still protect that information by using an approved encryption program that communications focal point can provide, explained Harshman. He also said certain documents, such as those composed in Microsoft Word, can also be password protected as an acceptable form of protection.

And, while the current focus is on email systems, Airmen are reminded to protect PCUI in all cases.

"It's about general information security," said Harsman. "You want to watch what you put out anywhere, whether it's email, on social media or wherever, it's about protecting that information."

PII Examples:

According to Harshman, generally, when any two sensitive PII elements are associated in unencrypted correspondence, there may be a possible PII breach. PII breaches are reported to the Air Force PII manager at the Air Force Reserve Command and the Pentagon through the base Privacy Act manager, so it's important to know what information is considered sensitive PII. Below are some examples:

- Names and other names used
- Social Security numbers, including full and partial
- Driver's license and other identification numbers
- Citizenship, legal status, gender, race and ethnicity
- Birth date and place of birth;
- Home telephone and personal cell phone numbers
- Personal email addresses
- Mailing and home addresses
- Religious preference
- Security clearance
- Mother's middle and maiden names
- Spouse information and marital status
- Dependent and child information
- Emergency contact information
- Biometrics
- Financial information
- Medical and disability information
- Law enforcement information
- Employment information
- Educational information
- Military records

AF chief scientist addresses future

by Staff Sgt. David Salanitri
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs

7/11/2013 - WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force chief scientist addressed members of the Air Force Association about the Global Horizons study, which looks into the near and long-term application of science and technology in the force.

Dr. Mica Endsley, who was recently appointed as the 34th Air Force chief scientist, focused her talk around the future of air, space, cyber, and command and control.

"If we presume the future is going to look like today, I think we're going to be sorely mistaken," Endsley said. "The future environment in the next decade has some really significant potential threats that we need to be aware of and thinking of."

In the space environment, Endsley emphasized, the Air Force is not going to be the only player in the future.

"In space, we're not going to be operating with impunity," Endsley said. "It's going to be a much more congested, competitive and contested environment."

Speaking about air operations, Endsley noted that though the Air Force has enjoyed air superiority in recent operations, this may not always be the case as other nations use science and technology to continually develop their air forces.

"In air operations, I think over the past few decades, we've enjoyed pretty good air superiority in a lot of the theaters we operated in -- that's not necessarily going to be the case in the future," she said.

Endsley also suggested the potential for an attack on command and control capabilities.

"We believe our command and control and (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) operations are going to be targeted," she said. "That's something we're going to need to protect against very significantly."

Endsley emphasized the importance of protecting cyberspace and Air Force cyber capabilities from threats.

Cyber "is the thing that underlines everything that we're doing," Endsley said. "It's a very significant source of concern in terms of potential vulnerabilities."

As Endsley spoke, she stressed the importance of the ever-changing environment in which the Air Force operates in, and how the global horizons study identifies these future changes.

Endsley also made note that a key component of of Air Force efforts is to use science and technology to enable Airmen to carry out their duties more efficiently.

"One of our goals here is to develop technology that enhances the capability of our Airmen," she said. "My job is to enable our people to do their job effectively."

As Endsley concluded, a question from the audience brought up the impacts of sequestration, and how it is impacting in the Air Force.

In a field that is primarily comprised of civilian Airmen, Endsley said that with furloughs starting, a large part of her workforce will be out of the office, missing technical meetings that are vital to her researchers.

Furlough is "having chilling effects," she said. "If you look at who the researchers are in the Air Force, they are disproportionally civilians."

DARPA Competitors Develop Robots for Disaster Response

By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2013 – Leaps forward in simulation technology and cloud computing are making it possible for challengers from around the world to compete for support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to create robots that can help people during natural and other kinds of disasters.

The first DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge task involved the robot walking to, entering and driving a utility vehicle along an obstacle course, then exiting the vehicle and walking through a final checkpoint. DOD illustration   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

During a recent media roundtable, Dr. Gill Pratt, DARPA program manager, and Dr. Brian Gerkey, chief executive officer for the Open Source Robotics Foundation, told reporters about the ongoing DARPA Robotics Challenge, which launched in October 2012 and will end after the final event in December 2014.

The Open Source Robotics Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization in Mountain View, Calif., founded by members of the global robotics community to support open-source software development and distribution for robotics research, education and product development.

“DARPA is focused on the defense mission for DOD,” Pratt said. “Our primary reason for [creating the robotics challenge] is about the security of our citizens in situations of natural and manmade disasters. [But] the technology DARPA develops often finds its way into all sorts of other parts of life.”

The Internet is the best example, he observed, adding, “I expect that the robots we develop will be used very soon, at least in some form, … within people’s homes,” possibly as helpers for aging populations in nations like the United States and Japan.

The goal of DARPA’s Robotics Challenge, or DRC, is to generate groundbreaking research and development in hardware and software, according to the DRC website, helping future robots perform the most hazardous jobs in disaster-response operations, along with human supervisors, to reduce casualties and save lives.

Pratt calls this a way to make societies worldwide more resilient to natural and other disasters.
“We believe it’s important to develop robots that can go into areas that are too dangerous for people and that can be supervised by human beings despite the fact that communications might be quite difficult [during a disaster] both between human beings and between people and robots,” he added.

Through the DRC project, DARPA is helping create robots with three basic features. The first is that the robots should be compatible with environments engineered for people, Pratt said.

“That’s true even if those environments have been degraded. This gives the robots a certain size [and] it says exactly what their capabilities must be in order to interface for instance with doors and stairs and other things that human beings have engineered into the environment,” the DARPA program manager said.

The second feature is that the robots have to be able to use tools that were designed for people.
“This ranges all the way from a screwdriver to a fire truck,” he added, “so you’ll see in the different parts of the DARPA challenge that we are testing the ability of these machines to do that.”

Third is that the robots must be able to be supervised by people who aren’t necessarily trained to operate robots.

“Typically in a disaster there’s no time for training [and] there’s no time to acquire specialized tools. You have to use what you have on hand,” Pratt explained.

“If you want the robot to respond immediately,” he added, “the important thing is for the interface between that person and the robot to be intuitive to the people on the disaster response team who have the most expertise about what needs to be done … not the people who designed the machine.”

Overriding all the robot technology, though, is an assumption that communications between people -- and between people and the robot -- will be degraded by the effects of the disaster on infrastructure, Pratt said.
“So in the challenge itself,” he explained, “we will purposefully lower the bandwidth -- the number of bits per second -- that can go between the robot and the supervisors, and we will also increase the latency -- the amount of time delay -- in the communication between the people and the robots.”

The DRC has two kinds of events -- one for teams whose focus is software alone and that don’t have their own robots, and one for teams whose focus is both hardware and software and therefore have their own robots.

The first event, whose seven winners were announced June 27, was a software competition among 26 teams from eight countries.

The teams competed against each other using a virtual robot called Atlas inside the DARPA Robotics Challenge Simulator, an open-source tool created for DARPA by the Open Source Robotics Foundation.

A company called Boston Dynamics is using DARPA funding to build real Atlas robots that the winning teams have been awarded to use in upcoming DARPA challenges.

“Our reason for having this virtual challenge is that we wanted to open the contest to teams that were strong not just in building hardware for robots and programming them with software,” Pratt said, “but for a wider variety of teams, including those who had little expertise or experience with robot hardware.”

Pratt said work done by the Open Source Robotics Foundation with DARPA funding had advanced the simulation technology enough that the simulator could run in real time and a person could interact with the simulation to supervise the virtual robots.

The Foundation’s approach to simulation is to do the best possible job of reproducing the way physics works in the world inside a computer, Gerkey said.

Thanks to the increase in performance that allows the simulation to run in real time and the increased computational power available through advances in cloud computing resources, the seven teams who won the DARPA virtual challenge should be able to take the software they designed for the DARPA simulation and run it on the real Atlas robots.

“Our goal,” Gerkey said, “is always to have the simulator behave as close as possible to the physical system … so it should be the case that teams who … are awarded an Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics should be able to take the software that they develop for simulation and run it almost unchanged on the physical robot.”

He added, “That will actually be the test of how well we’ve done here in terms of building a simulation as a stand-in for the physical robot.”

All of what DARPA and the Open Source Robotics Foundation are building is open source, Gerkey noted, “so anyone in the world can do anything they want with this software.”

The next DRC live competition will be held in December 2013.

Critical Cyber Needs Include People, Partners, General Says

By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2013 – Despite the inherent technical “geekiness” of cyberspace and urgent Defense Department efforts in that area, people and partners are among DOD’s most critical cyber needs, the senior military advisor for cyber to the undersecretary of defense for policy said last week.

Navy Lt. John Knolla mans the tactical action officer watch in the combat direction center aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan during Exercise Valiant Shield 2006 in the Philippine Sea. Valiant Shield focuses on integrated joint training among U.S. military forces, enabling real-world proficiency in sustaining joint forces and in detecting, locating, tracking and engaging units at sea, in the air, on land and in cyberspace in response to a range of mission areas. U.S. Navy photo by Airman Christine Singh   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Army Maj. Gen. John A. Davis spoke to a large audience at the June 25-27 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International Cyber Symposium in Baltimore.

Cyber partnerships such as those with the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency and external partnerships such as those with industry, international allies and academia represent a transformation in the way DOD approaches cyber, Davis said.
For more than two years, he said, “DOD has been fundamentally and deliberately transforming the way we think, the way we organize, the way we train and equip, the way we provide forces and capabilities, the way we command and control those forces, the way we operate and the way we insure leadership and accountability for cyberspace operations.”

Even the general’s job as military advisor for cyber, a new position formally approved in August in an environment of reduced resources, “is an indication of how seriously senior department leaders are taking this subject,” he said.
The standup of U.S. Cyber Command in 2010 was part of this transformation, he said.

“It brought together disparate cyber functions of operating our networks, defending our networks and applying offensive capabilities against adversary networks,” said Davis, adding that Cybercom’s collocation with the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Md., greatly improved DOD cyber capabilities.

“There’s a much better integration of intelligence through NSA’s hard work,” the general said. “From shared situational awareness to a common operational picture, NSA is doing some really great work. Leveraging their skills and expertise is not only an operational advantage, it’s a necessity.”

Beyond NSA’s technical focus, Davis said, DOD needs broad strategic context for intelligence to fulfill its cyber mission and that DIA, along with other intelligence community organizations, plays a critical role.
Ultimately, people and organizations who work against the United States and its allies in cyberspace are behind the development of malicious code and software, he said.

“This is where DIA is helping us refine and improve our indications and warning so it’s not limited to actions taking place at the speed of light, but actions by humans and organizations and processes that might help us … act with more options for leadership decisions,” the general added.

As it does with interagency partners at the Department of Justice’s FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, DOD builds capabilities in cyberspace by working with industry, international partners and academia.

In its work with the defense industrial base, or DIB, DOD is the sector-specific agency under Homeland Security for interacting with the DIB.

In 2010, the voluntary DIB Cybersecurity Information Assurance, or CS/IA, effort opened as a permanent program after a pilot period with 34 companies. Activities under the program enhance cybersecurity capabilities to safeguard sensitive DOD information on company unclassified information systems.

With the publication of a federal rule in 2012, DOD expanded the program, and nearly 100 companies now participate. At the same time, the optional DIB Enhanced Cybersecurity Services, or DECS, became part of the expanded DIB program.

Homeland Security officials said DECS is a voluntary program based on sharing indicators of malicious cyber activity between DHS and owners and operators of critical infrastructure. The program covers 18 critical infrastructure sectors, including banking and finance, energy, information technology, transportation systems, food and agriculture, government facilities, emergency services, water, and nuclear reactors, materials and waste.

“DOD relies heavily on critical infrastructure, which is in part why the department has a role to play in providing support to defend these commercial systems,” Davis said. More than 99 percent of electricity and 90 percent of voice and communication services the military relies on come from civilian sources, he noted.
“Defending our networks is a challenge that’s not getting any easier because of our reliance on key networks and systems that are not directly under DOD’s control,” the general observed.

Davis said the DIB CS/IA program and DECS “are part of a whole-of-government approach to improve the nation’s cybersecurity posture. It’s a holistic approach, because that’s what’s required in order to achieve this goal.”

DOD international engagement supports the U.S. International Strategy for Cyberspace and President Barack Obama’s commitment to fundamental freedoms, privacy and the free flow of information, and the right of self-defense, Davis said.

DOD’s ongoing cyber engagement with allies and close partners takes many forms, he added, including sharing information about capabilities and processes, warning each other about potential threats, sharing situational awareness and fielding more interoperable capability.

Such engagement includes joint training venues and exercises, he said -- “everything from tabletop exercises to more sophisticated exercises, and we’re doing joint training and putting cyber into our bilateral exercises on a more regular basis.”

With the State Department and other interagency partners, the general added, DOD participates on cyber matters in bilateral, multilateral and international forums, such as the United Nations and NATO.

“As an example of a critical bilateral relationship,” he said, “I’ve had the great honor twice in the past year to engage as part of a U.S. academic and government interagency forum with counterpart Chinese academic and government organizations.”

The last meeting was in Washington in December, Davis said.

“We recognize China as a rising power and one of the world’s leading voices in this discussion, so senior government officials across the interagency have actively engaged their Chinese government counterparts, including their military [counterparts] … in a number of ways already and we would like to see those engagements expand,” Davis said.

On July 8, DOD officials and several interagency partners “will hold a working group meeting on cyber with our Chinese counterparts to talk about this directly and to strive for concrete solutions with actionable steps for progress,” he added.

DOD’s partnership with academia addresses what Davis describes as the department’s biggest challenge going forward: building the cyber workforce.

“DOD is looking at ways to fundamentally change the way it recruits, trains, educates, advances and retains both military and civilians within the cyberspace workforce,” he said. “The vision is to build a system that sustains the cyberspace operations’ viability over time, increases the depth of military cyberspace operations experience, develops capable leaders to guide these professional experts … and ensures that we build real cyberspace operational capability from within our human resources into the future.”

The department is looking to partner in new ways with other federal, academic and private institutions, he said, to attract and retain skilled professionals in cyberspace.

“While cyber is always viewed as a technical area,” Davis said, “the fact is it’s always about people. People are going to make the difference in cyber, just as they have in every other dimension of DOD operations. So we must get the people part right to guarantee success for the future.

DOD at Work on New Cyber Strategy, Senior Military Advisor Says

By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 1, 2013 – The Defense Department released its first strategy for operating in cyberspace two years ago this month, and officials are at work on the next version, the senior military advisor for cyber to the undersecretary of defense for policy said in Baltimore last week.

Air Force Tech Sgt. Kevin Garner and Air Force Senior Airman David Solnok, cyber transport technicians assigned to the 354th Communications Squadron, hook cables in to the new Air Force Network router system at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Jan. 26, 2012. The system enhanced cyber capabilities by providing network oversight to all U.S. Air Force installations. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Boitz   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Army Maj. Gen. John A. Davis spoke to a lunch audience at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International Cyber Symposium, noting that two years might equal 20 in the domain that accommodates distanceless travel.

“Senior leaders in the department and beyond the department understand that cyber is a problem [and] cyber is important. They’ve made cyber a priority, and there is a sense of urgency,” the general said.

The strategy’s five initiatives were to treat cyberspace as an operational domain, use new defense operating concepts to protect Defense Department networks, partner with other federal agencies and the private sector for a whole-of-government approach, partner with international allies for a global approach, and leverage the nation’s ingenuity through an exceptional cyber workforce and technological innovation.

The department’s method for implementing the strategy is called the cyber initiative group, the general said. “It’s a process that includes engagement at all levels, from the action-officer level all the way to senior defense leadership,” he explained.

A great deal of work remains, he added, “but we have made some really good progress in a number of areas under each of these strategy components.” The process has been difficult and complex, he added, which reflects the complex interrelationships involved in the cyberspace arena.

Over the past two years, Davis said, the department has made progress in several areas. For example, he told the audience, DOD has:

-- Established service cyber components under U.S. Cyber Command;

-- Established joint cyber centers at each combatant command;

-- Implemented a military-orders process to handle cyber action as it is handled in other operational domains in a process supported by an emergency conferencing procedure that links key organizations and leaders from across DOD and government to quickly assess major cyber threats and make decisions;

-- Established an interim command-and-control framework for cyberspace operations across joint service and defense agency organizations;

-- Developed a force structure model for cyber force organizations;

-- Established a plan and developed orders to transition to a new network architecture called the Joint Information Environment, or JIE, that will make DOD networks more effective, defendable and efficient; and

-- Conducted two years of Cyber Flag exercises at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada that were joint, full-spectrum cyberspace operations exercises using live opposition forces and a virtual environment that mirrored current cyber threats.

DOD’s mission is to defend the nation in all domains, but in cyberspace, the department shares its role with other members of the federal cybersecurity team, including the Justice Department and its FBI, the lead for investigation and law enforcement, the general said.

Other team members are the Department of Homeland Security -- the lead for protecting critical infrastructure and government systems outside the military -- and the intelligence community, which is responsible for threat intelligence and attribution, he added, noting that there are even roles and responsibilities for public-private and international partners.

DOD has begun to refine its role in defending the nation in cyberspace, Davis said.
“We have three main cyber missions, and three kinds of cyber forces will operate around the clock to conduct those missions,” the general explained.

National mission forces will be prepared to counter adversary cyberattacks, he said. A second, larger set of combat mission forces will be prepared to support combatant commanders as they execute military missions, integrating cyber capabilities and effects into their military contingency plans and operations alongside traditional capabilities and effects, he added.

Still other cyber protection forces -- the largest set, Davis said, will operate and defend the networks that support military operations worldwide.

“We will deter, disrupt and deny adversary cyberspace operations that threaten vital U.S. interests when approved by the president and directed by the secretary of defense,” he said. “If a crippling cyberattack is launched against our nation, the Department of Defense must be ready for an order from the commander in chief to act.”