Defense Science Board Task Force Research Articles

Operational Levels of Cyber Intelligence

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsTroy MatternTroy Mattern, Deputy Head of Cyber Security at the Zurich Insurance Company Ltd., is also Chairman of the Cyber Intelligence Task Force of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA). Previously the European Response Lead at Zurich Insurance, and Technical Director for Cyber Intelligence at the Software Engineering Institute, he is a graduate of the University of Arizona and the American Military University. A retired U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer, Mr. Mattern has also served as Military Executive Assistant to the Deputy Commander of the United States Cyber Command in the U.S. Department of Defense.John FelkerJohn Felker is Director of Cyber and Intelligence Strategy for Hewlett-Packard (HP) Enterprise Services. His primary focus is developing business strategy in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Intelligence Community. He is also co-chair of the Cyber Intelligence Task Force. Previously Vice President for Cyber Security Programs at SCI Consulting, during his thirty-year career with the U.S. Coast Guard, he served as Deputy Commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Cyber Command, and as Commander of the Coast Guard Cryptologic Group. A graduate of Ithaca College, he received his M.A. in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.Randy BorumDr. Randy Borum, Professor and Coordinator of Strategy and Information Analysis in the School of Information at the University of South Florida, previously taught at the Duke University School of Medicine. He has served on the U.S. Director of National Intelligence's Intelligence Science Board, on the Defense Science Board Task Force on Understanding Human Dynamics, and on the National Academy of Science's Steering Committee for Sociocultural Data to Accomplish Department of Defense Missions. He has also worked as a consultant for the U.S. Secret Service. A graduate of James Madison University, with a Ph.D. from the Florida Institute of Technology at Melbourne, Dr. Borum has written extensively on security matters.George BamfordGeorge Bamford, Deputy Director of the Border Security Division in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the United States Department of Homeland Security, was earlier Chief of its Cyber Threat Analysis Branch. He is also a Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, and Team Chief for Operations and Intelligence at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J-3) National Military Command Center. He was previously a Senior Information Technology Program Manager at the U.S. Department of Defense, and Director of the Acquisition and Program Management Support division of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Mr. Bamford is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, with an MBA from the George Washington University School of Business and an MPA from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. This article is adapted, in part, from the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) White Paper “Operational Levels of Cyber Intelligence,” developed by INSA's Cyber Intelligence Task Force in September 2013.1

Evaluation of Seismic-Acoustic Analysis Methods for a Real-time UXO Monitoring System

The Department of Defense (DoD) uses over two million rounds of high-explosive (HE) munitions per year ( Defense Science Board Task Force, 2003 ). A small percentage does not explode, thus generating unexploded ordnance (UXO) in current range areas at a substantial rate. As these ranges are closed, the DoD becomes responsible for the environmental restoration of the affected properties. Current methods of UXO remediation are costly because of high false alarm rates. Our current research is to develop a complementary technology that will alleviate false alarm rate by detecting, classifying, and locating UXO in near real time (less than 1 minute) as a munition impacts the range. This technology will utilize an array of buried seismic sensors in a calibrated range area, along with a set of algorithms based on theoretical and applied seismology and statistical analysis.Initial field tests at three sites focused on developing concepts of the seismic and acoustic location of ordnance impacts. Our research program developed from these initial field tests has four primary objectives: 1) fully implement a wired seismic-acoustic ordnance impact location system for live fire ranges; 2) develop a system capability to discriminate high-order (HE), low-order (partially exploded), and zero-order (UXO) events; 3) reduce location error to a stringent program metric of 1–2 m; and 4) investigate the feasibility of developing a wireless implementation of the technology.This paper describes the procedures and results from follow-on tests that were conducted in two locations at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Maryland. These tests were used to evaluate potential seismic-acoustic methods and system configurations for a Seismic-Acoustic Impact Monitoring Assessment (SAIMA) system for mitigating UXO hazards. Significant results from this work include: 1) seismic impulses from low-order impacts were detected at distances up to 1,000 meters; 2) classification features based on measurements of the amplitude of acoustic and seismic phases produce clear discrimination between HE and UXO impacts; 3) calculated location solutions for HE and UXO impacts yield an average location error of 10–20 meters; and 4) empirical observation and waveform modeling demonstrated that surface waves dominate the signal at all distances and therefore should be the primary phase used for all components of analysis. Furthermore, these tests demonstrated the current system design, allowing further enhancements, is capable of meeting the initial research objectives (1) and (2). Future research will focus on improving system performance with refinement of the sensor-layout geometry and the detection and location algorithms through system error analyses and follow-on field testing.

6.2.2 A Framework for Considering Cost Uncertainty for Complex Interdependent Systems Based on Weighted Nodal Analysis

AbstractNetworks, which are formed due to interdependencies between actors, have become a critical component of United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DoD) programs. “We are no longer network enabled. We are now network dependent” (Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Achieving Interoperability in a Net‐Centric Environment, 2009). U.S. DoD would significantly benefit from quantitative research that supports implementing improvements on establishing cost estimates and improved risk management analysis of these systems. This study defines a methodology for objectively assessing program interdependencies in a way that enables analyzers an improved method to more accurately estimate uncertainties associated with complex DoD interoperability cost assessments.

D1. Defense Science Board Task Force, Report on U.S. Strategic Communication, Washington, September 2004 (excerpts).

The Defense Science Board (DSB) is a federal advisory committee established in 2001 to provide independent advice to the Secretary of Defense. Early in 2004, the DSB created a special task force on U.S. Strategic Communication with the ultimate aim of making recommendations geared to improving America's negative image in world opinion. The ten-member task force, comprising academics and analysts from the private sector working with a panel of government advisers, presented its 111-page final report——which concludes that U.S. strategic communication ““must be transformed““——in August 2004. Footnotes in the excerpts below have been eliminated for space considerations. The entire report can be viewed on the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Web site at www.acq.osd.mil.

Toward a common prototyping language

Several years ago the U.S. Department of Defense created its Defense Science Board Task Force on Military Software, chaired by Dr. Frederick Brooks, to provide recommendations on how best to solve the problem of escalating military software acquisition costs. The final report (reference 2) of this task force was completed in September 1987, and was widely distributed. Among its several major conclusions are the following: DoD Directive 5000.29 and STD 2167 codify the best 1975 thinking about software, including a so-called 'waterfall' model calling for formal specification, then request for bids, then contracting, delivery, installation, and maintenance. In the decade since the waterfall model was developed, our discipline has come to recognize that setting the requirements is the most difficult and crucial part of the software building process, and one that requires iteration between the designers and users. In best modern practice, the early specification is embodied in a prototype, which the intended users can themselves drive in order to see the consequences of their imaginings. Then, as the design effort begins to yield data on the cost and schedule consequences of particular specifications, the designers and the users revise the specifications. Directive 5000.29 not only does not encourage this best modern practice, it essentially forbids it. We recommend that it be revised immediately to mandate and facilitate early prototyping before the baseline specifications are established. DoD STD-2167 likewise needs a radical overhaul to reflect best modern practice. Draft DoD STD 2167A is a step, but it does not go nearly far enough. As drafted, it continues to reinforce exactly the document-driven, specify-then-build approach that lies at the heart of so many DoD software problems.

Computing, research, and war: if knowledge is power, where is responsibility?

In the United States, artificial intelligence (AI) research is mainly a story about military support for the development of promising technologies. Since the late 1950s and early 196Os, AI research...

Excerpts from Fall 1987 report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on military software

Excerpts from Fall 1987 report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on military software

The Navy's Best Practices Approach to Reliability and Quality

For the first time in recent history, the US Army, Navy, and Air Force are in fundamental agreement on the priority of reliability in their weapon system requirements. Even more significant is mutual recognition that reliability is achieved not by setting numerical requirements and testing for compliance, but by focusing on the fundamentals of design and manufacturing; and that quality is achieved not by counting defects but by eliminating their causes. These lessons, long in coming to the Department of Defense and its contractors, are now beginning to be implemented in the acquisition or upgrading of most weapon systems. A major impetus to implementation was the 1982-83 work of the Defense Science Board Task Force on the Transition from Development to Production, which led to DoD Directive 4245.7, its companion DoD Manual 4245.7-M, and Department of Defense Advocacy. Each service is taking a somewhat different approach to the implementation of these similar new initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to outline the Navy's approach, for comparison with the initiatives of the other services.

Lessons from a Study of Defense Training Technology

The general findings and recommendations of a Defense Science Board Task Force on Training Technology are presented, and eight lessons for the training technology research and development community are drawn.