DARPA’s Four Big Things

When it comes to cyber security, the Defense Department has their work cut out for them. Hackers, adversaries, network security breaches, information obfuscation and confiscation – these are just a few of the constant threats to our military and government networks. In defense against these dangers, DARPA is doing their part to ensure network protection and information security.

And they’re using FOUR BIG THINGS to do it.

These four revolutionary programs will teach computers to think and learn. They will stop hackers in their digital tracks. They’re going to make the future more exciting, and more innovative, than ever before.

“I really think there are two wars that are happening,” says Dan Kaufman, DARPA’s Information Innovation Office director. “The one war, which we’re sort of familiar with [is] the kinetic war. On the network warfare, I think it’s sort of a new war. It’s this crossover between criminal organizations and terrorists organizations.”

So let’s talk cyber warfare.

When you hear about cyber stuff, most people tend to think about their PC, or their home computer system. That’s obviously important, but it’s not even the half of it. In fact, about 98% of microprocessors are embedded, Dan says.

“Think about it: everything in the world today has a computer. Your phone, your TV, your insulin pumps, all our weapons systems. These are all computerized and DARPA sees huge promise in it. We get these wonderful benefits from network technology.”

But how are they going to protect these systems? So glad you asked…

The FIRST BIG THING is called HACMS (pronounced like “Hack ’ems”). It stands for High-assurance Cyber Military Systems.

“Think about computers,” Dan says. “A computer is the only thing that we buy today where the day you buy it, it’s fundamentally broken.”

What he means by that is this:

When you buy your computer, one of the first things they tell you is to “go home and patch it.”
“Well okay,” you might say, “but didn’t I just pay you three-thousand dollars?”
So you patch it, and you say, “Now it’s fixed.”
And they say “No, next Tuesday there will be more patches.”
You say, “Will it ever be fixed?”
They say “No.”

That’s a little bit crazy, don’t you think? DARPA does, too.

“If you think about this even broader,” Dan continues, “how are we going to apply — For more information read the original article here.