Hanscom's cyber initiatives

by Justin Oakes
66th Air Base Group Public Affairs

7/15/2014 - HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. -- Today's battlefield is full of ever-changing and constantly evolving threats. In this environment, the Air Force not only defends against enemies in air and space, but also against adversaries within the cyber domain.

Hanscom Air Force Base may not have fighter jets, helicopters or remotely piloted aircraft flying from its runways, but it has a mission all its own. It is a hub for developing the Service's leading cyber programs and other systems that allow U.S. warfighters to collect, process and distribute critical information.

The Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, also known as C3I, Infrastructure Division is one of several units on base responsible for bringing these cyberspace capabilities to the field.

"Hanscom is host to some of the latest technologies and advancements on the cyber frontier," said Col. Bill Polakowski, C3I Infrastructure senior materiel leader. "The systems and products, which are acquired and tested through our program offices here, safeguard our nation and keep us on the forefront of cyber warfare."

Massachusetts' local and state representatives also recognize the innovation that takes place on base.

A military bond bill was approved in March that authorizes the state to support advancements in cyber and IT testing and integration. A prime example includes improvements being made to the CIEF -- a Hanscom facility that provides a secure environment for testing and integrating IT products.

While the base is home to cyber security centers like the CEIF and an Intranet Control Weapons System Gateway Integration Facility, the majority of cyberspace innovations are in the form of hardware and software technology.

The C3I Division works to acquire, integrate and support products such as the Air Force Portal, cyber weapons systems, theater deployable communications, base IT infrastructure and a cloud brokering service.

Other efforts include fielding an Assured Compliance Assessment Solution, a network scanner that searches for computer threats; Installation Processing Nodes, data centers that can host local applications and services, and Joint Regional Security Stacks, a multi-service/agency effort focused on providing a boundary solution that is common across all services.

Over the course of the next several months, Hanscom will be highlighting many of these initiatives individually.

"When dealing with cyber weapons and defenses, it can be a bit hard to explain," Polakowski said. "But, I look forward to showcasing the great advancements that take place here to the community. I want them to understand exactly what Hanscom brings to the fight."

Editor's note: This is the first of a series depicting Air Force cyberspace initiatives.

Air Force to highlight S&T priorities at industry event

by Derek Kaufman
88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

7/15/2014 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Creating tomorrow's Air Force is a delicate balance. It requires a mix of science and technology investment to meet current warfighter needs, as well as cutting-edge research to develop revolutionary capabilities which today's Airmen can only imagine, and may not see fielded this decade.

That is one important message Maj. Gen. Tom Masiello intends to share with academic and defense industry partners during the Wright Dialogue with Industry, July 22-24. The industry-hosted collaboration event will be held at the Hope Hotel and Richard C. Holbrooke Conference Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Masiello, who commands the Air Force Research Laboratory, said 60 percent of the Air Force's science and technology research and development is performed by universities and industry, including many high-tech small businesses.

"It is vitally important that AFRL engage with our industry and academia partners to highlight our requirements and research interests," Masiello said. "We need to communicate our S&T priorities and where there are gaps and opportunities in areas like cyber, autonomy and next-generation aerospace. We also get valuable feedback on industry capabilities and emerging technologies that show promise."

Masiello and Lt. Gen. C.D. Moore II, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center commander, will each deliver keynote presentations during the Dialogue with Industry.

Officials said a unique aspect to this year's dialogue is the ability for those seeking to do business with the Air Force to get detailed information about the Air Force Research Laboratory's "Technology Focus Areas" and specific S&T challenges. This information will be shared via the Defense Innovation Marketplace website and an event-specific portal hosted by DaytonDefense. All materials are restricted to U.S. citizens and government contractors. For registration and other event details, the Defense Innovation Marketplace weblink is http://www.defenseinnovationmarketplace.mil/AFRL.html.

Giovanni Pagán, AFRL's program manager for the Air Force Independent Research and Development program, said this year's dialogue will feature two full days devoted to technical discussions on eight key Technology Focus Areas, including:

· Next Gen Aerospace
· Space & Nuclear
· Weapons
· ISR (Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance)
· Human Performance
· C4 (Command, Control, Cyber & Communications)
· Affordability & Sustainment
· Electronic Warfare/Electronic Protection

Masiello said his team of AFRL scientists and engineers have "frequent contact with warfighters at all levels of command" to learn about challenges that urgently need solving and to share solutions that can be rapidly fielded, such as advanced airborne sensors to identify threats like improvised explosive devices. Just as important though is investment today in technologies that he called "the real game changers."

"At AFRL we really do turn science fiction into science fact. And it's the diversity of our government, industry and academic team that makes it possible," Masiello said. "In this uncertain funding environment, we need to work together to make every dollar count."

Small business is an important source of technology innovation and transition for the Air Force, Masiello said. Growing that portion of the industrial base both benefits the nation and strengthens defense, he added. At industry outreach events like the dialogue, representatives from AFRL's Small Business Office present topics on enabling small businesses to successfully compete for research grants and technology development contract awards.

"We defend America by unleashing the power of innovative air and space technology. It's the combined ecosystem of Government, academia, small business and large business, working in collaboration which enables that," Masiello said.

ARPA Robots to Face Final Challenge in California

By Cheryl Pellerin

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, July 15, 2014 – The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s third and final challenge among 24 or so U.S. and international human-robot teams will take place in California next June, ending with a $2 million prize and robots that for the first time may be capable of helping first responders save lives when a disaster strikes anywhere in the world.

The main goal of the DARPA Robotics Challenge program is to develop ground-robotics capabilities for executing complex tasks in the dangerous, degraded human-engineered environments created when disasters strike cities.

“The purpose is to protect lives during manmade and natural disasters,” DARPA program manager Dr. Gill Pratt told reporters during a recent media call. The program began in 2012, but DARPA has been trying to use robots to help in disasters since 2001.

In the days after 9/11, DARPA sent to New York City robots whose development the agency had funded. But those robots found no survivors, Pratt recalled in an analytic piece published last Dec. 3 in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

DARPA officials tried again in March 2011 when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake centered off the coast of Sendai on the eastern coast of Honshu Island, Japan, produced a 49-foot tsunami that killed 19,000 people, destroyed a million buildings and flooded Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

In the plant, the reactor cores of three operating units melted, and a fourth was damaged. Japanese officials declared a nuclear emergency and ultimately evacuated people within 12 miles of the plant.

Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief is a primary DOD mission, Pratt wrote in the Dec. 3 Bulletin, and as the disaster unfolded in Japan, “DARPA officials contacted researchers who had designed robots for the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl [nuclear] disasters and coordinated with companies that DARPA had funded to develop other robots.”

Each company already was making plans to send its robots and training personnel to Japan, he added, and others around the world sent robots, but it took weeks for power-plant personnel to complete the training they needed to operate the robots.

By then, Pratt said, it was too late for the robots to help.

“A key idea here is that these robots don't operate on their own,” Pratt said during the media call. “In fact, the state of the art is not capable of having a robot do useful work on its own in these very difficult environments. So we partner them with operators who supervise the robots … at a distance from the disaster zone, connected through a communication link to the robot in the disaster zone.”

In such a team, he added, “a robot does what it's best at, which is surviving difficult conditions in the disaster, and the human being does what they're best at, which is using human perception, planning and experience to tell the robot what to do.”

The DARPA Robotics Challenge launched in October 2012 and held two competitions in 2013 -– a virtual event in June and a two-day event in December at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.

The first competition tested software teams’ abilities to guide a simulated robot through three sample tasks in a virtual environment. In December, teams had to guide real robots through as many as eight individual physical tasks that tested robot mobility, manipulation, dexterity, perception and operator-control mechanisms.

At the trials in Miami, Pratt said, “we started with 16 teams and … went through eight different tasks, from cutting a hole in a wall using a tool, climbing a ladder and traveling over rough terrain, and even driving a small vehicle that a robot might be called on [to use] to go back and forth between [a safe area] and a disaster zone.”

DARPA officials developed the tasks in consultation with the teams, other experts and first responders, the program manager explained, adding that DARPA is not trying to match team skills to a particular kind of disaster.

“We try to use inspiration from one disaster, like Fukushima or the ferry disaster in [South] Korea, and abstract away and talk to first responders -- we've done that quite a bit now -- and say, ‘What's the common thread?’”

Bad communications almost always are a common thread, Pratt said, along with large areas of rubble and debris. First responders describe what bad comms or debris are like in a disaster zone, and DARPA comes up with a model for the robots.

“Often, what happens is that what we come up with is too hard for the robots,” Pratt said. “So if you look at the trials, you say, ‘Did the rubble in the trials disaster look like rubble in Fukushima?’ And the answer is, ‘Not even close.’ But we have to get there, and this is the slope we're trying to climb in terms of difficulty.”

But something did happen at the trials in Miami that no one, not even Pratt, expected.

“It turned out that things went better than we expected,” he said, adding that the robots were more reliable than expected, with better mobility, grasping and manipulation ability.

Because of that success and other factors, he said, DARPA officials are changing the scope of the program to raise the bar at the finals even more than they had planned.

Pratt said the other factors include a significant upswing in commercial investment in robotics, decisions by the governments of Japan, South Korea and countries in the European Union to sponsor and fund teams to participate in the finals, and a new concept in robotic autonomy called “cloud robotics.”

In cloud robotics, he explained, the robot is able to exploit remote information and remote computing capability on the Internet through a high-speed link and share information to increase their effectiveness by reusing information that's provided from past sources.

“We think that particular technical advance has a lot of promise, and we believe the commercial world is going to take off with it,” Pratt said. “But we want to exploit cloud robotics and the investment that's coming from other parts of the world in a way that is applicable to disaster response.”

That means doing work DARPA officials believe the commercial sector will not do, the program manager said -- “in particular, problems that are unique to disaster response.”

One of these is operation without the possibility of physical human intervention if something goes wrong.

“In a disaster, the reason you use a robot in the first place is because the environment is very harsh, and you can't send a person in,” he explained. “So we have to make sure the robot will continue to work well even if there's no way a human being can physically go there to help out.”

Such an environment will be more austere than it is in a home environment or a factory, or even on a farm, he added, so the robots must be more capable in locomotion and manipulation than under normal circumstances. Maybe most importantly, the connection to the cloud will be intermittent, Pratt said.

“In disasters typically communications … suffer most, so we are going to purposefully try to emulate the very degraded communication environments that happen in real disasters,” he said. “We don't think that's something the commercial world will try to tackle in the near term.”

But for the robots’ human supervisors during the finals, DARPA will provide high-bandwidth links that go between the operators and their computers and the Internet, and teams will be able to use as much cloud computing power and computer disk storage, and also may use as many other experts as they like to help them help their robots.

To accommodate such evolutionary changes in the program, DARPA has added six months to the original timeline for the finals – moving from December 2014 out to June 2015.

Total funding for the DARPA program, from October 2012 to June 2015, is $95 million. DARPA-funded teams will receive $1.5 million between now and June -- other teams are self-funded -- and the team that wins will receive $2 million.

Tasks for the finals are not yet solidified, but Pratt said they will be similar to tasks in the Miami trials, with some modifications.

“Instead of being eight separate tasks, each one of them done pretty slowly, we're going to put all the tasks together into a sequence that is much more authentic to a real disaster,” he said. “For instance, you have to drive the vehicle to the site, get out of the vehicle, climb up the stairs, go over the rough ground, and each one follows the next, and the robot doesn't have a choice,” he added. “It must keep managing to make it through the next challenge, and each one happens … right after the other one.”

Other differences include the following, Pratt said:

-- The robots will not be connected to any kind of physical tethers or wires. Communication will be wireless, power sources will be onboard the robot and must allow the robot to run for one hour, and the human supervisor won’t be allowed to physically intervene. “If a robot falls or gets stuck, the fall will have to occur without breaking something on the robot that is vital for its continued operation,” Pratt said, “and the robot will have to be able to get up without assistance.”

-- All eight tasks must be completed in less than an hour, meaning that robots in the finals will be asked to go at least four times faster than they did at the Miami trials.

-- Communications will be degraded to a greater degree than they were during the Miami trials, to be more authentic to real disasters. “We think it's going to require quite a bit of innovation from the teams to adapt to our adjustment of the goal,” Pratt said. “We're sort of raising the bar, so … we're going to give them more time and more funding to get that done,” Pratt said.

-- One of the tasks will be a surprise to all teams.

In general, Pratt said, “we’ll give teams less prior information as to the specifics of the tasks. We're trying to slowly move things so that we're closer to a more authentic test of what a real disaster would be like.”

Department of Justice Provides Update on Gameover Zeus and Cryptolocker Disruption

The Justice Department today filed a status report with the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania updating the court on the progress in disrupting the Gameover Zeus botnet and the malicious software known as Cryptolocker.   The disruption began in late May, when the Justice Department implemented a series of Court-authorized measures to neutralize Gameover Zeus and Cryptolocker - two of the most sophisticated and destructive forms of malicious software in existence.

In the status report, the Justice Department informed the Court that the technical and legal measures undertaken to disrupt Gameover Zeus and Cryptolocker have proven successful, and that significant progress has been made in remediating computers infected with Gameover Zeus.

The Justice Department reported that all or nearly all of the active computers infected with Gameover Zeus have been liberated from the criminals’ control and are now communicating exclusively with the substitute server established pursuant to court order.   The Justice Department also reported that traffic data from the substitute server shows that remediation efforts by internet service providers and victims have reduced the number of computers infected with Gameover Zeus by 31 percent since the disruption commenced.

The Justice Department also reported that Cryptolocker has been neutralized by the disruption and cannot communicate with the infrastructure used to control the malicious software.   As a result, Cryptolocker is effectively non-functional and unable to encrypt newly infected computers.

Computer users who believe they may be infected with Gameover Zeus are encouraged to visit the Department of Homeland Security’s dedicated Gameover Zeus webpage, which is located at www.us-cert.gov/gameoverzeus .   Among other resources, the webpage includes links to tools from trusted vendors that can detect and remove the Gameover Zeus infection.

New laboratory enhances efficiency, saves money

by Airman 1st Class Erin O'Shea
48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

7/9/2014 - ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England  -- The 48th Logistics Readiness Squadron fuels management flight held a ribbon-cutting ceremony June 27, 2014, in celebration of their newly-renovated fuels laboratory.

In 2011, the 48th LRS FMF laboratory was closed to address several host-nation fire code deficiencies. Once these risks were noted, the facility underwent renovation. Because of construction complications, the project was delayed more than two years, forcing the fuels flight to transport fuel samples several times a week to the lab at nearby RAF Mildenhall.

"The FMF is responsible for ensuring all fuel is safely and efficiently received, stored, and distributed to aircraft and vehicles on RAF Lakenheath, and we are required to ensure [that fuel is] on-specification according to applicable fuels technical orders," said 1st Lt. Jacob Maywald, 48th LRS FMF commander.

According to Maywald, this closure has had a negative effect on the unit, costing the 48th Fighter Wing manpower and money.

"This extra transit time is more than an inconvenience; it's extremely costly," Maywald said. "The back- and-forth trips costs the wing an extra $1,500 a year in fuels costs and makes a 30 minute job of running a sample into a three-hour ordeal."

The U.S. Air Forces in Europe Defense Logistics Agency representative, who oversees funding for the maintenance of base-level fuels infrastructure, recently made an unrelated site visit to the FMF and was made aware of the wing's frustrations with the laboratory.

"[The 48th Civil Engineer Squadron] programmed a new design and construction plan for performing an in-house training project, and we were able to align DLA with Base CE to fund the construction costs," Maywald said.

Completing the project in a fraction of the time, the 48th CE design slashed the laboratory's cost by 90 percent. According to Maywald, making the project more cost-effective was crucial as the project was programmed when the harshest effects of sequestration were affecting plans for new construction base-wide. The original contract for the fuels laboratory renovation was projected to cost an estimated $750,000, but with the assistance of the 48th CES and USAFE DLA, the final cost totaled $76,000.

With the new laboratory complete, the FMF can now reduce their man-hours and cost, while continuing to effectively support the mission of the 48th FW.

AFRL launches hypersonic branch at AEDC

by Deidre Ortiz
Arnold Engineering Development Complex Public Affairs

7/3/2014 - ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. -- The relationship between the Air Force Research Laboratory and Arnold Engineering Development Complex's hypervelocity capabilities is paying dividends and leading to a more in-depth and scientifically broader collaboration.

In light of the success of several joint projects, AFRL leadership has decided to extend the organization's partnership with AEDC by establishing a new hypersonic research branch, to be known as the High Speed Experimentation Branch, here.

The branch will be directed by AFRL's Aerospace Systems Directorate, the home office for which is located at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

Plans for the High Speed Experimentation Branch have been in the works since the beginning of the year. The branch is expected to be set up in AEDC's von Kármán Gas Dynamics Test Facility by Oct. 1, 2014.

Former AEDC Executive Director Dr. Douglas Blake, who once served as deputy director for AFRL Air Vehicles Directorate, stated he expects the development of this branch to be beneficial for everyone involved.

"Ricky Peters, AFRL executive director, has been the primary force behind [starting the hypersonic research branch at AEDC]," he said. "This is a very positive development; both AFRL and AEDC will benefit. Our vision is to bring together the research talent of AFRL, the test and engineering expertise and facilities of AEDC and the academic linkages brought by new talent coming on board at The University of Tennessee Space Institute to form a national center of gravity in hypersonics."

Dan Marren, site manager at AEDC's Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9, shared Blake's sentiments, stating that this collaboration will create a center for hypersonic research that's unlike any other.

"For years we have relied on an outstanding collaboration with AFRL in the scientifically demanding work we do in hypersonics," Marren said. "I am thrilled that the new hypersonic branch at AEDC can take the pilot activity we began at White Oak to a new level -- bringing in several hypersonic disciplines -- and form the basis for what we do across our hypersonic test enterprise."

Glenn Liston, AFRL's High Speed Systems Science and Technology advisor, will be heading the High Speed Experimentation Branch as branch chief.

"AFRL is excited to grow our partnership with AEDC," Liston said. "This new branch will leverage our long-standing relationship."

Liston explained that the team's mission will be to conduct foundational and systems research in propulsion, aeronautics and structural applications providing technology maturation related to the hypersonic flight regime.

"For AFRL's benefit, the branch will use the AEDC facilities and expertise to conduct research in larger scales than what we can typically handle in the facilities at Wright-Patterson," he said. "One benefit to AEDC will be the ability to engage the testing and evaluation workforce in the research process, generating new knowledge for hypersonic systems, while improving their capability to test revolutionary new flight systems."

According to Liston, AFRL and AEDC will together facilitate the transition of high speed science and technology through testing and evaluation to fielded systems, serving the development of the nation's aerospace capabilities.

Marren said he looks forward to seeing what the future holds for hypersonic research as a result of this development.

"Having Glenn Liston from AFRL, Dr. John Schmisseur at UTSI and the multi-disciplinary test facilities and teams at AEDC will give the Air Force a never-before-realized advantage of having everything the nation needs to move hypersonics to the warfighter co-located and moving in one direction," he said.

Reserve Airmen support CNET News highlight of cyber mission

by Minnie Jones
433rd Airlift Wing Public Affairs

7/1/2014 - JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas -- CNET News Senior Writer Daniel Terdiman visited the 346th Test Squadron here June 26 to view the unit's mission in action. The 346th TS is responsible for ensuring that all electronic emissions onboard military aircraft are secure.

The test squadron used one the 433rd Airlift Wing's C-5A Galaxy aircraft as a backdrop and as a test aircraft to assist technicians in demonstrating to CNET News how they provide that protection.

"It was great to show CNET and the public how the Air Force is committed to protecting our aircrew. The Air Force fleet needs to be hardened even against unintended information leakage," said Lt. Col. Brendan Casey, 346th TS commander. "The 346th Test Squadron was able to show our role in assessing this leakage so decision makers can weigh the risks. I want to thank the 433rd Airlift Wing for providing an aircraft for this demonstration."