Here are some items of general interest that we have found or have had brought to our attention by readers. Thank you!
Can miracle material stop radiation? - Wired
Iraqis to take over Anbar Province - Military.com
Middlesex University gears up for MoD grand challenge - MoD
ITT wins upgrades to Swedish coastal radars - Defense Industry Daily
BAE Systems completes acquisition of Tenix Defence - BAE
Trust Digital mobile security meets DISA specs - GCN
Here are some items of general interest that we have found or have had brought to our attention by readers. Thank you!
Raytheon Company has accomplished a major requirement of the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) contract -- completing the end-to-end factory acceptance testing of the DCGS 10.2 system.
During the test, Raytheon conducted a series of on-site evaluations with representatives from the U.S. Air Force exercising the system and evaluating the results. In the next phase, Raytheon will deliver the DCGS 10.2 system to the first of several planned core sites, DGS-2 at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. There Raytheon will complete installation, integration and checkout in preparation for the site acceptance testing.
When fully fielded, DCGS Block 10.2 will be a worldwide distributed, network centric enterprise architecture that enables collaborative intelligence operations and production. Its environment provides for both the physical and electronic distribution of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data analysis and tools.
Raytheon's DCGS 10.2 upgrade will be capable of continuous on-demand intelligence brokering that will enable U.S. and coalition forces to get the information they need to take action and influence events in a significantly shorter amount of time.
Eagan, McAllister Associates, Inc., has been awarded a $22,071,517 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity performance-based contract with hybrid pricing arrangements to provide production engineering, integration product improvement, test and evaluation, and maintenance support as well as the capacity to modernize or introduce transformational technologies into systems and technical support services of various C5ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cryptology, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) programs for fielding on platforms such as: Marine Corps Up-Armored HMMWV, Joint Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Rapid Responded Vehicle, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, other Department of Defense vehicle platforms, Navy C5ISR tactical vehicles, and Marine Corps C5ISR tactical vehicles, in addition to other tactical vehicles.
This contract includes four one-year options and three-award terms, which if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $221,972,342. Work will be performed in Charleston, S.C., and is expected to be completed by May 2009 (May 2016 with all options and award terms exercised). The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Charleston, S.C., is the contracting activity.
Thales has announced the launch of its new-generation range of COMINT & EW services, systems and equipments called Q (Communications Intelligence & Electronic Warfare).
The CIEW family is primarily designed to meet the current defence and security threats while delivering information dominance and enabling Command & Control operations on the digitised battlespace.
Under the Q brand, the CIEW family includes the global know-how of Thales to design and deliver COMINT & EW solutions tailored to the missions and operational environments of defence and security users, respectively named Intelligence Q, Land Q and Naval Q.
Q mission packages rely on the same core equipment capabilities for interception, analysis, direction-finding and Command and Control warfare or force protection, which can be tailored to fulfil each user's operational environment.
- Land Q is a range of tactical electronic support and electronic attack solutions tailored to army tactical users. It is designed to target the current and near-term communication signals of airland engagement.
- Naval Q is a range of electronic support and electronic attack solutions tailored to maritime tactical users, either on littoral or onboard combat ships. It is designed to target the current and near-term communications environment of littoral and naval operations.
- Intelligence Q is a range of strategic intelligence gathering solutions for national or joint users. It is designed to meet the current and near-term communications signals of the homeland defence, border monitoring and national security environments.
Source: Thales
After years of silence on the issue of cyber security Washington's recent flurry of activity is quite astounding and far reaching. The state of affairs has gone literally from silence to the proposition that government become America's firewall.
How is this to be done? Who is going to do it? How will it be monitored? These questions currently are not clearly addressed or fall under the umbrella label of secrecy.
"A chief concern is that virtually everything about the initiative is highly classified, and most of the information that is not classified is categorized as `For Official Use Only.' These restrictions preclude public education, awareness, and debate about the policy and legal issues, real or imagined, that the initiative poses in the areas of privacy and civil liberties. Without such debate and awareness in such important and sensitive areas, it is likely that the initiative will make slow or modest progress. ... "
"The committee also shares the view of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that major elements of the cyber initiative request should be scaled back because policy and legal reviews are not complete, and because the technology is not mature. ..."
"The committee also concludes that some major elements of the cyber initiative are not solely or even primarily intended to support the cyber security mission. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that some of the projects support foreign intelligence collection and analysis generally rather than the cyber security mission particularly. ... That is not to say that the proposed projects are not worthwhile, but rather that what will be achieved for the more than $17.0 billion planned by the administration to secure the government's networks is less than what might be expected."
From: Senate Armed Services Committee, Report 110-335, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009
The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) has selected BAE to develop and evaluate new "protocol stacks" - sets of network protocol layers that work together - for military mobile ad-hoc networks, or MANETs.
Under the first phase of the DARPA Control-Based Mobile Ad-Hoc Network program, a BAE Systems-led team developed a new protocol that improves network performance by a factor of five over current practices. The $5 million award for the program's second phase will further develop and field-test these protocols.
In a MANET, each network node operates not only as an end-system, but also as a router capable of forwarding traffic and forming a network free of any fixed infrastructure. Traditional networking approaches have adapted poorly to rapid in-the field network changes, achieving only a fraction of the potential performance. The MANET's flexibility makes it an attractive networking option for tactical operations.
BAE Systems will work with its program teammates, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and CenGen Inc., to develop the next-generation protocols and demonstrate their utility in support of special operations applications. Spring 2009 field demonstrations are planned at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia.
Source: BAE
"The world has abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack." So writes Col. Charles Williamson III in Armed Forces Journal.
The Colonel's enthusiasm may be admirable but he may also be opening up a huge can of worms that will just lead to escalating botnet activity. Where does that leave everyone else? It's nice to have an attitude that if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. The implications for relations with allies, business, and the public are huge.
The U.S. Army has approved the final design of Increments 1 and 2 of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) program, authorizing General Dynamics C4 Systems and partner Lockheed Martin to prepare for field testing in October 2008. Testing will be followed by deployment of the WIN-T on-the-move communications capabilities in 2009. WIN-T will be the Army’s primary battlefield communications network.
The approval follows successful critical design reviews (CDR) conducted in January and February. During the CDRs, the Army assessed the systems’ final designs to validate that baseline requirements would be met.
A key success factor in these CDRs was the detailed plan to enable mobile battle command down to the company level. In particular, WIN-T Increment 2 will provide tactical communication nodes, mobile “points of presence,” vehicle wireless packages and soldier network extensions to enable mobile battle command in a completely ad-hoc, self-forming, self-healing network. These warfighter-mobility features will support a commander’s ability to exercise command-and-control and synchronize warfighting functions from anywhere on the battlefield.
“These successful CDRs further demonstrate that the WIN-T program is on track for initial fielding in 2009 and confirms that the Army’s incremental delivery strategy will put broadband, on-the-move communications capabilities in soldiers’ hands as soon as possible,” said Bill Weiss, vice president of Tactical Networks for General Dynamics C4 Systems.
Prime contractor General Dynamics and partner Lockheed Martin lead a team of communications, network systems and platform integration experts that includes BAE Systems, Harris Corporation and L-3 Communications.
