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10 June 22. Thales takes collaborative combat to a new level with the Combat Digital Platform.
- Thales is consolidating its position in the age of collaborative combat with the Combat Digital Platform, a cybersecure platform designed to support collaborative engagements by land forces in the battlespace of the future in a unified system that allows them to understand, decide and act faster than the adversary.
- This tactical system uses advanced data techniques and artificial intelligence to exchange and automatically analyse large volumes of data sourced from all levels of command and all the units deployed in a given area.
- The Combat Digital Platform is designed to offer a user experience that reflects the realities of the battlespace and meets the needs of land forces today.
Developments in the threat landscape and the nature of conflict call for significant changes in the way that missions are conducted. As the number of actors in the battlespace increases, the digital transformation and advanced connectivity solutions have become an integral part of military operations. Today, Thales is introducing the Combat Digital Platform, a cybersecure platform designed to share, analyse and exploit the vast quantities of available data to guarantee information superiority for the forces deployed in the theatre of operations.
Much more than a command system, the Combat Digital Platform uses artificial intelligence to take collaborative engagements by land forces to a new level. Deployed at every level in the force, from the command centre to vehicles on the front line, the system shares information between sensors and weapon systems continuously and flexibly under the supervision of human operators. Real-time cooperation between the sensors deployed by land vehicles, drones and dismounted infantry significantly improves situational awareness in the battlefield thanks to automated data fusion, processing and analytics.
The system also offers important benefits for joint and allied operations. The Combat Digital Platform is designed to support the conventional tactical command or battle management systems operated by joint forces and alliance partners and to share data securely in compliance with key NATO standards. Information can be assimilated and exploited quickly and securely to accelerate mission preparation and simplify engagements by multiple stakeholders. The ability to share reliable, actionable information across every level of the command chain significantly enhances the interoperability of the forces in the field.
Thales’s expertise in mobile connectivity solutions is at the heart of this system. Based on a combat cloud architecture, the Combat Digital Platform provides advanced connectivity services using any combination of software-defined radios, satcoms and LTE mobile networks.1
Some 50 Thales experts worked with end users to design, develop and evaluate the system, drawing on experience from the SCORPION programme to optimise the user experience for real-world battlefield conditions.
“With the Combat Digital Platform, Thales enables land forces to exploit all tactical data in a unified, cybersecure system in order to understand, decide and act faster than the adversary. The soldier remains at the heart of the decision-making process.” – Gérard Herby, Vice President, Protection Systems, Thales.
10 June 22. Cloud data breaches and cloud complexity on the rise, reveals Thales.
- Multi-cloud adoption is accelerating with 72% of organizations using multiple IaaS providers vs. 57% in 2021
- 66% of organizations store 21%-60% of their sensitive data in the cloud
- 45% have experienced a data breach or failed an audit involving data and applications in the cloud vs. 35% in 2021
The 2022 Thales Cloud Security Report, conducted by 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, reports that 45% of businesses have experienced a cloud-based data breach or failed audit in the past 12 months, up 5% from the previous year1, raising even greater concerns regarding to protecting sensitive data from cybercriminals.
Globally, cloud adoption and notably multicloud adoption, remains on the rise. In 2021, organisations worldwide were using an average amount of 110 software as a service (SaaS) applications2, compared with just eight in 2015, showcasing a startlingly rapid increase. There has been a notable expansion in the use of multiple IaaS providers, with almost three-quarters (72%) of businesses using multiple IaaS providers, up from 57% the year before. The use of multiple providers has almost doubled in the last year, with one in five (20%) of respondents reporting using three or more providers.
Despite their increasing prevalence and use, businesses share common concerns about the increasing complexity of cloud services with the majority (51%) of IT professionals agreeing that it is more complex to manage privacy and data protection in the cloud. Additionally, the journey to the cloud is also becoming more complex, with the percentage of respondents reporting that they’re expecting to lift and shift, the simplest of migration tactics, dropping from 55% in 2021 to 24% currently.
Security Challenges of Multicloud Complexity
With increasing complexity comes an even greater need for robust cybersecurity. When asked what percentage of their sensitive data is stored in the cloud, a solid majority (66%) said between 21-60%. However, only a quarter (25%) said they could fully classify all data.
Additionally, nearly a third (32%) of respondents admitted to having to issue a breach notification to a government agency, customer, partner or employees. This should be a cause for concern among enterprises with sensitive data, particularly in highly regulated industries.
Cyber-attacks also present an ongoing risk to cloud applications and data. Respondents reported an increasing prevalence of attacks, with a quarter (26%) citing an increase in malware, 25% in ransomware and one-fifth (19%) reporting seeing an increase in phishing/ whaling.
Protecting Sensitive Data
When it comes to securing data in multicloud environments, IT professionals view encryption as a critical security control. The majority of respondents cited encryption (59%) and key management (52%) as the security technologies they currently use to protect sensitive data in the cloud.
However, when asked what percentage of their data in the cloud is encrypted, only one in ten (11%) of respondents said between 81-100% is encrypted. Additionally, key management platform sprawl may be an issue for enterprises. Only 10% of respondents use one to two platforms, 90% use three or more, and almost one in five (17%) admitted using eight or more platforms.
Encryption should be a priority area for enterprises to focus on when it comes to securing data in the cloud. In fact, 40% of respondents stated that they were able to avoid the breach notification process because the stolen or leaked data was encrypted or tokenised, showcasing the tangible value of encryption platforms.
Additionally, it is encouraging to see signs enterprises embrace Zero Trust and investing accordingly. Nearly a third of respondents (29%) said they are already executing a Zero Trust strategy, a quarter (27%) said they are evaluating and planning one and, 23% said they are considering it. This is a positive result, but there is certainly still room to grow.
Sebastien Cano, Senior Vice President for Cloud Protection and Licensing activities at Thales said: “The complexity of managing multicloud environments cannot be overstated. Additionally, the growing importance of data sovereignty is increasingly raising questions for CISOs and Data Protection Officers when considering their cloud strategy, governance, and risk management. The challenge is not only where the sensitive data resides geographically, but even who has access to sensitive data inside the organisation.
There are various solutions such as encryption and key management Last but not least, continuing to embrace a Zero Trust strategy will be essential in securing these complex environments, helping to ensure organisations can support their data and manage future challenges.”
Thales and 451 Research will discuss the findings in more detail during a webinar on 23 June 2022. To join, please visit the registration page.
About the 2022 Thales Global Cloud Security Study
As organizations step beyond the urgent actions of the last two years, they’re grappling with securing the more complex environments in which they now operate. The global edition of the 2022 Thales Cloud Security Study looked at various aspects of those impacts in a wide-ranging survey of security professionals and executive leadership that touched on issues including accelerated digital transformation, cloud migration, and the complexities of managing security in a multicloud world. The 2022 Thales Cloud Security Study is based on data from a survey of almost 2,800 security professionals and executive leaders. This research was conducted as an observational study and makes no causal claims.
08 June 22. Thales becomes the supplier of the only military data transmission terminal interoperable with any type of platform.
- Thales’s TMA 6000 very high-speed datalink terminal has been certified compliant with STANAG1 7085 Implementation 2 (European standard) following successful testing by the French defence procurement agency (DGA).
- The TMA 6000 was certified compliant with Implementation 1 of the standard in the US in 2014.
- This dual interoperability allows platforms equipped with the TMA 6000 to benefit from maximum connectivity with US and European platforms in allied/NATO operating environments.
In late 2021, Thales’s TMA 6000 datalink terminal was certified compliant with Implementation 2 of the NATO standard STANAG 7085 by the French defence procurement agency (DGA), following completion of successful testing. The TMA 6000 had already been certified compliant with STANAG 7085 Implementation 1 (Common Data Link) by the US Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) in late 2014. The new certification makes the TMA 6000 the first, and so far only, datalink terminal to comply with both implementations of STANAG 7085.
In air combat and allied operations, increasingly large volumes of data need to be shared, more securely and rapidly than ever, among allied users. The TMA 6000 is a high-data-rate line-of-sight (LOS) datalink terminal operating in the NATO Ku band. Combined with an antenna system and amplifier, it transmits real-time data gathered by sensors on board aircraft (video streams and images as well as radar and electromagnetic data) to ground or naval stations hundreds of kilometres away.
STANAG 7085 ensures interoperability for NATO forces. More specifically, it allows NATO allies to exchange raw data gathered by airborne sensors. STANAG 7085-certified datalink systems help shorten the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), allowing armed forces to leverage all available information, consider possible options and rapidly make the best decision to gain an advantage over the adversary.
The TMA 6000 is in service on a wide range of high-value aircraft and naval vessels, including combat aircraft (such as the Rafale), special-mission aircraft (ALSR2), helicopters, combat UAVs, MALE UAVs, tactical UAVs, aircraft carriers and frigates.
“Thales’s TMA 6000 has been tested in extreme environments and meets the highest military standards. It is the world’s most reliable field-proven data communication system for large platforms. Backed by more than twenty years of engineering work across three generations of products, the TMA 6000 offers an extremely reliable and robust European datalink solution. With dual compliance, it is ready to meet the most demanding requirements of the platforms of tomorrow.” Bruno Kerjean, head of development for TMA and micro-TMA datalink terminals, Thales.
08 June 22. US: Chinese state-backed cyber espionage will remain a persistent threat as Beijing seeks to gain superiority in critical industries. On 7 June, several US federal agencies – including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – claimed that Beijing-linked threat actors were targeting telecommunications and network service organisations with malicious cyber activity. These hackers are reportedly utilising vulnerabilities in unpatched “network devices, such as office/home office (SOHO) routers” to gain access to their victims’ devices and exfiltrate data. Further details of this incident, including the attackers’ identities, are scarce. However, these attacks are consistent with the trend of Chinese state-linked hacking groups exploiting “internet-facing servers” to engage in cyber espionage (see Sibylline Cyber Daily Analytical Update – 5 May 2022). This campaign is also indicative of Chinese hackers targeting Western organisations of strategic interest to Beijing, such as telecoms, with cyber espionage in a bid to acquire information that could be used to give Chinese companies a competitive edge over foreign firms. Further such campaigns are highly likely in the coming six months, especially with the objective of making Chinese companies industry leaders in critical sectors such as energy or defence featuring high on Beijing’s policy agenda(Source: Sibylline)
07 June 22. Forcys brings to market world-changing solutions from leading technology partners Chelsea Technologies, EIVA, Sonardyne, Voyis and Wavefront. Backed by over fifty years of experience, Forcys offers the global maritime defence sector remote, autonomous and networked control capabilities that deliver integrated situational awareness to customers in the underwater domain.
Covering a range of maritime operations including asset protection, littoral strike, mine warfare, submarine rescue, and submarine and anti-submarine warfare, Forcys draws on the extensive experience and expertise from across its technology partners to offer a comprehensive capability to the market.
Commenting on the launch, Ioseba Tena, Commercial Director of Forcys, said: ‘Our technology partners have a strong and proven pedigree in the undersea domain, one that offers trusted capabilities to our customers. In bringing these services and technologies together under Forcys, we are not simply providing technologies that address the challenge our customers face today, but ensuring they are able to meet the operational requirements of tomorrow with comprehensive, integrated solutions.’
Forcys will continue to support customers with full lifecycle management in meeting mission requirements, including integrated solutions, consultancy, concept and assessment, customised project management and integrated logistics, to help them meet capability requirements efficiently whilst minimising risk.
Justin Hains MBE, Business Development Manager for Forcys, explains: ‘By combining our extensive experience and expertise, we are creating an ecosystem for sharing knowledge and insights with our technology partners, helping us to meet our customers’ operational needs, now and in the future. This not only enhances our ability to offer the best possible solutions to the market; it creates a more efficient and cost-effective engagement for our customers.’
03 June 22. Pentagon Calls for New Ideas in ‘Third Wave’ of AI Evolution.
A new artificial intelligence program attempts to streamline machine learning algorithms to make better warfighting decisions.
A key research and development agency within the Department of Defense is accepting new contract proposals specifically focused on advancing algorithmic processing within Defense’s artificial intelligence projects.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is formally soliciting contracts for its new Enabling Confidence program, a subsect within its Artificial Intelligence Exploration initiative. The AIE focuses on what DARPA defines as its “third wave” of artificial intelligence research, which includes AI theory and application research that examines limitations with rule and statistical learning theories belying AI technologies.
“The pace of discovery in AI science and technology is accelerating worldwide,” the program announcement says. “AIE will enable DARPA to fund pioneering AI research to discover new areas where R&D programs awarded through this new approach may be able to advance the state of the art.”
The AIE’s goal is to invest in “high-risk, high-reward” artificial intelligence topics that will ideally lead to quick prototype development. Technologies fostered within the AIE will primarily be related to Defense’s national security initiatives.
Bryan Jacobs, program manager for the AIE’s Enabling Confidence unit at DARPA, told Nextgov that the AIE program is focused on implementing machine learning algorithms into data processing chains that can compute both accuracy and uncertainty in their output results.
“The problem is that machine learning algorithms do not currently fit well into the modern statistical processing paradigm. Producing an accurate statistical model describing the uncertainty in the results of a machine learning algorithm, for example a deep neural network, is a computationally intensive process,” Jacobs said. “DARPA’s Enabling Confidence aims to find ways to overcome this hurdle so that AI can be fully integrated into statistical processing chains.”
He added that the EC’s focus within the AIE initiative is enabling new technologies that will refine the uncertainty estimates generated by these algorithms, to make better warfighting decisions, such as plotting the trajectory for an incoming fighter jet using data from several sensors or RADARs.
“Accurately estimating, predicting, and extrapolating information from multiple combined sensors and subsystems are all key to advancing AI performance—and in deriving and delivering reliable, actionable intelligence for military operations,” Jacobs said.
The total award value for the combined Phase 1 feasibility study and Phase 2 proof of concept option is capped at $1,000,000. (Source: glstrade.com/https://www.nextgov.com/)
06 June 22. Iran-Israel: Tehran-linked hackers will increasingly target Israel’s critical sectors due to their high utilisation of vulnerable cyber security appliances. On 2 June, Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) claimed that they “identified and disabled” cyber attacks launched by a previously unidentified Lebanon-based hacking group. The threat actor, tracked as Polonium, targeted or compromised more than 20 Israel-based organisations and one intergovernmental organisation “with operations in Lebanon” over the past three months, with the Israel-based targets likely in sectors such as manufacturing, IT, or defence. Evidence gathered through forensic investigations and the “uniqueness of the victim organisations” indicate that these hackers may be collaborating with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). MSTIC suggested that the targeted organisations may have been compromised through Fortinet appliances. If officially confirmed, such activity would be indicative of the US, UK, and Australian government’s November 2021 joint warning that Iranian state-linked hackers were actively exploiting Microsoft Exchange Proxyshell and Fortinet vulnerabilities to engage in malicious cyber activities (see Sibylline Cyber Daily Analytical Update – 18 November 2021). Considering the widespread utilisation of these appliances in critical sectors, such as tech or defence, Tehran-backed cyber campaigns will likely represent a persistent and disruptive threat to these sectors over the coming six months.
06 Jun 22. Pentagon calls for new ideas in ‘third wave’ of AI evolution. A new artificial intelligence program attempts to streamline machine learning algorithms to make better warfighting decisions.
A key research and development agency within the Department of Defense is accepting new contract proposals specifically focused on advancing algorithmic processing within Defense’s artificial intelligence projects.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is formally soliciting contracts for its new Enabling Confidence program, a subsect within its Artificial Intelligence Exploration initiative. The AIE focuses on what DARPA defines as its “third wave” of artificial intelligence research, which includes AI theory and application research that examines limitations with rule and statistical learning theories belying AI technologies.
“The pace of discovery in AI science and technology is accelerating worldwide,” the program announcement says. “AIE will enable DARPA to fund pioneering AI research to discover new areas where R&D programs awarded through this new approach may be able to advance the state of the art.”
The AIE’s goal is to invest in “high-risk, high-reward” artificial intelligence topics that will ideally lead to quick prototype development. Technologies fostered within the AIE will primarily be related to Defense’s national security initiatives.
Bryan Jacobs, program manager for the AIE’s Enabling Confidence unit at DARPA, told Nextgov that the AIE program is focused on implementing machine learning algorithms into data processing chains that can compute both accuracy and uncertainty in their output results.
“The problem is that machine learning algorithms do not currently fit well into the modern statistical processing paradigm. Producing an accurate statistical model describing the uncertainty in the results of a machine learning algorithm, for example a deep neural network, is a computationally intensive process,” Jacobs said. “DARPA’s Enabling Confidence aims to find ways to overcome this hurdle so that AI can be fully integrated into statistical processing chains.”
He added that the EC’s focus within the AIE initiative is enabling new technologies that will refine the uncertainty estimates generated by these algorithms, to make better warfighting decisions, such as plotting the trajectory for an incoming fighter jet using data from several sensors or RADARs.
“Accurately estimating, predicting, and extrapolating information from multiple combined sensors and subsystems are all key to advancing AI performance—and in deriving and delivering reliable, actionable intelligence for military operations,” Jacobs said.
The total award value for the combined Phase 1 feasibility study and Phase 2 proof of concept option is capped at $1,000,000. (Source: Defense Systems)
08 June 22. ELSA Centre of Excellence teams up with RMIT to combat disasters. Elbit Systems of Australia’s (ELSA) Centre of Excellence in Human-Machine Teaming and Artificial Intelligence is teaming up with RMIT University to develop drone technology to protect lives amid the chaos of unfolding disasters.
The two-year partnership, announced at the ELSA Centre of Excellence (CoE) Open Day in Melbourne on 6 June, will undertake two joint research projects using drones to assist with mass evacuations during natural disasters and other emergencies.
ELSA Managing Director Major General (retired) Paul McLachlan AO, CSC, said he was anticipating some cutting-edge research to be carried out over the next two years.
The CoE was officially opened on 6 June by Victorian Minister for Trade Martin Pakula MP who noted that it is the first of its kind outside Israel and the USA. “It adds to the growing number of universities, research organisations and businesses in Victoria’s growing defence sector and many of them are located here at Fishermans Bend. This area has long been a centre of innovation,” he added. The CoE is a joint venture with the Victorian government which is looking to enhance the State’s defence as well as civilian R&D.
“Our partnership with RMIT University demonstrates that we are determined to create solutions to deal with the complex problems that emergency management organisations face during natural disasters,” said. Paul McLachlan.
“The projects will research how to use drones to count the number of people in designated evacuation zones, then to co-ordinate and communicate the most efficient evacuation routes to everyone in the zone, as well as monitoring the area to ensure that everyone has been accounted for.”
The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, released in October 2020, clearly recommended there was a need to improve evacuation planning:
“Effective national coordination will be a critical capability in managing natural disasters on a national scale or with national consequences. Arrangements need to be clear, robust and accountable,” the report says.
“It is rare that an emergency management organisation has access to research and development money to spend as most funding goes to operations that is spent – _and quite rightly – on appliances and people,” said Mr McLachlan, who has also served as a Commander of the Operation Queensland Flood Assist taskforce.
“Our vision is to create an opportunity to collaborate and co-develop innovative technology that would make their jobs easier and better and that’s what this partnership with RMIT signifies today.”
As Elbit continues its enhancement of ELSA as an Australian subsidiary, collaboration and diversification with industry partners is a top priority, Mr McLachlan added.
RMIT University’s Professor John Thangarajah, Director of the Centre for Industrial AI Research and Innovation, said he looked forward to the research collaboration with ELSA’s team at the CoE.
“RMIT is proud to partner with ELSA’s Centre of Excellence for the research projects in which we are determined to break new ground for emergency services and government agencies to ensure the safety of those who are caught in distressing circumstances that sadly we are all becoming familiar with after recent fires and floods,” Professor Thangarajah said. Research is due to commence later this year. (Source: Rumour Control)
06 Jun 22. Army verifies info-sharing abilities with forces joining Project Convergence 22. The U.S. Army said it verified that military services and international forces participating in Project Convergence this year can exchange information and connect over long distances, a critical milestone ahead of the capstone experiment this fall.
The Army on June 3 said a communications exercise known as COMMEX 1B was a success, replicating and informing the scale and scenarios of Project Convergence in far-flung laboratory and field settings.
The testing included more than 50 technologies, according to the Army, and stretched from the Combined Joint Systems Integration Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and Fort Bliss in Texas to the U.K. and Australia. Lt. Col. Nate Saul, a Project Convergence planner, in a statement described the testing as “the most distributed COMMEX we’ve done yet.”
This year’s Project Convergence, often referred to as PC 22, will be the first to actively involve international partners; the U.K. and Australia will participate in the grand experiment, while Canada and others observe. Project Convergence is the Army’s contribution to Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, the yet-to-be achieved ability of seamless information sharing regardless of service or national affiliation.
“The fourth industrial revolution is changing the nature of warfare, and it will become really well connected, with data flowing across all the different functions,” Brigadier Stefan Crossfield, the British Army’s chief data officer and head of information exploitation, said in a statement. “If we can build up a pervasive network that we can use to fight with, then it opens up all other opportunities. It’s challenging technically, that’s for sure, and this is an example of how we go after that.”
The annual Project Convergence kicked off in 2020 at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. It has expanded each year, putting cutting-edge tech to the test and folding in new players. PC 22 will focus on the Indo-Pacific and European theaters, aligning with U.S. perceptions of complex Chinese and Russian threats. Russia began massing materiel on its border with Ukraine as the previous Project Convergence, PC 21, wrapped.
Officials expect PC 22 to generate actionable insights and guidance. Upgrading networks and expanding the reach and resilience of communication is one of six modernization priorities established by Army leadership.
Brig. Gen. Jeth Rey, the director of Army Future Command’s Network Cross-Functional Team, last month said plenty of lessons will be learned, especially when it comes to sharing data with joint and coalition partners.
06 June 22. Mexico: Corporate insider-enabled ransomware attacks will remain a long-term threat amid developing economies’ ongoing recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. On 2 June, electronics manufacturer Foxconn confirmed that one of its Mexico-based production plants was subject to a ransomware attack, estimating that the attack will have “little impact on the group’s overall productions”. While the electronics firm refrained from providing additional details of the incident, including the attackers’ identity, a dark web investigation revealed that the LockBit 2.0 ransomware gang claimed responsibility for the attack. It remains unclear which tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) were used by LockBit during this campaign, but there is a notable possibility that the attack was enabled by the hackers’ LockBit 2.0 RaaS programme. This initiative began in June 2021 and claims to offer “ms of dollars” to any corporate insiders who provide LockBit with access to organisations’ networks. Although unconfirmed, the prolonged negative economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on developing economies, such as Mexico, have heightened the risk of insider threats giving hackers access to their firms’ networks for financial rewards. With these factors set to persist, further such corporate insider-enabled campaigns are highly likely to be targeted against firms across all sectors throughout 2022. (Source: Sibylline)
28 May 22. CalypsoAI Partners with Riverside Research to Advance AI Solutions for nment Customers. CalypsoAI, the leader in building trust in Artificial Intelligence (AI) through independent testing and validation, has partnered with Riverside Research to make our AI testing capabilities available through its Commercial Innovation Center (CIC).
Riverside Research, a not-for-profit organization that invests in multi-disciplinary research and development to accelerate innovation and advance science, will integrate CalypsoAI’s solution VESPR Validate into the CIC and make it available to CIC users. This collaboration will enable government stakeholders to more effectively design their AI strategy.
“At CalypsoAI, our goal is to mature AI testing, and one of our observations has been that government stakeholders often need a place to experiment with AI and identify the use cases and mission problems that will have the highest return on investment,” said Andrew Spage, CalypsoAI’s VP of Solutions Architecture. “We could not be more excited to begin this partnership with Riverside Research, and the U.S. Government will benefit from this collective experience in ensuring mission-ready AI through independent testing and validation.”
Dr. Ann Carbonell, Director of the CIC, states, “We are thrilled to offer CalypsoAI’s capabilities to our CIC participants. CalypsoAI provides our developers with opportunities to run Quality Assurance (QA) tests. Quality Assurance is an essential component of any development methodology. You build. You test. Simply put, you don’t do QA for AI projects like you QA other projects. This is because the concept of what we’re testing, how we test, and when we test is significantly different for AI projects. AI projects are unique in that they revolve around data. Data is the one thing in testing that is guaranteed to continuously change. This will be a game changer for our participants.”
About Riverside Research
Riverside Research is a not-for-profit organization advancing scientific research in the interest of National Security. Through the company’s Open Innovation Center (OIC), it invests in multi-disciplinary research and development and encourages collaboration to accelerate innovation and advance science. Research areas include AI/ML, Secure and Resilient Systems, Optics, Electromagnetics, Commercial ISR, and Collection Planning. Learn more at http://www.riversideresearch.org.
About CalypsoAI
CalypsoAI’s mission is to build trust in AI through independent testing and validation. We solve one of the biggest issues facing AI: machine learning models not getting deployed into production. Through CalypsoAI’s automated testing and validation solution, decision-makers gain the performance visibility needed to confidently deploy their models into production. This ensures the success of AI strategy while drastically reducing the amount of risk, time and money spent to manually test and validate models. CalypsoAI was founded in Silicon Valley by DARPA, NASA, and DoD veterans. For more information visit calypsoai.com.
03 June 22. Special operations forces need AI that can explain its decisions, says military data chief. Developers need to build “ethical” artificial intelligence for military use, but that same technology must also explain what it does, according to the chief data officer of U.S. Special Operations Command.
“At some point we’ve got to get to explainable AI,” Thomas Kenney said May 19 at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Florida. “And explainable AI is a little bit different than saying ethical AI, because explainable AI means that algorithm needs to tell us why it made the decision it did.”
That’s because the speed of future warfare will mean AI talking to AI to make decisions that might not have a human at the helm, Kenney said.
This is no different than expecting a Navy SEAL team to explain its decision-making process following an overseas deployment, he explained.
“That’s essentially what we’re doing today from an AI ethics perspective,” he said. “We’re going back to the engineer and asking the engineer to explain: ‘Why’d you code that algorithm that way?’ ”
Instead, he added, the algorithm must explain to its user the decisions it makes, and the “explainability” factor will be “absolutely essential.”
“If they cannot explain to each other how they are making decisions programmatically, we’re never going to be able to win a strategic fight that is dominated by AI,” Kenney said.
Explainable AI isn’t an entirely new idea. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency demonstrated some early capabilities in 2018, according to its website. That effort sought to simultaneously keep high-prediction accuracy with the algorithm while also delivering results that humans could understand and trust, DARPA has noted.
In 2018, DARPA demonstrated “explainable artificial intelligence” to better connect algorithms with human users. (U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
Notably, Kenney said, one of the areas in which SOCOM wants to improve is the “semantic layer” — or a means by which the command can deliver data in layperson’s terms.
“This is for the non-data scientists,” he said. “Advanced computing shouldn’t just be with the engineers. It should be with the [subject matter experts] on the battlefield every day.”
To do that, SOCOM needs a better way to inform mission command and fuse intelligence across multiple platforms and sources, he added.
The first step on the mission command front requires a quick way to see the status of its people and logistics. “We have to know where we are when the phone call comes in and says this is what we need to do,” Kenney said.
He pointed to lessons on information operations coming out of Ukraine as a prime example, with social media often providing as good or better information than Ukraine’s military intelligence agencies. But without a way to harness that data by fusing intelligence from various points, it’s difficult to create a complete picture.
To tackle that problem, mission command systems must have an application programming interface design built-in, an open architecture that is platform-agnostic, and — most important for intelligence fusion — real-time data integration, he said.
One of the areas in which SOCOM wants to improve is the semantic layer — or a means by which the command can deliver data in layperson’s terms. (U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
That real-time data is critical because operators can’t work with outdated information or pause a mission for a refresh.
At another panel during the conference, Mark Taylor, who serves as SOCOM’s chief technical officer, pointed to the concept of a hybrid cloud as one solution. But since the government uses several vendors for its cloud services, he said, software and application developers need to bake into their products ways for the command to operate on multiple clouds.
“It’s like that ‘Star Trek’ elevator that goes up and sideways,” Taylor said, adding that the command is looking for ways to perform computing tasks “no longer bound by the environment that it’s in.” (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
03 June 22. Pentagon eyes commercial 5G network integration into tactical systems. The US Department of Defense (DOD) is exploring potential technologies that would enable the US Armed Forces to field advanced tactical networks integrated with commercially developed 5G communications networks, linked via air-based relay nodes.
The Beyond 5G Integrated Tactical Communication Networks programme is focused on leveraging device-to-device (D2D) or sidelink capabilities inherent in commercial and military 5G applications, to “offer multiple novel architectural options and system design opportunities”, for future tactical network systems, according to a request for solution (RFS) issued by the Pentagon.
DOD officials are poised to review and downselect industry prototype offerings for the programme by the end of June, according to the RFS issued on 25 May.
The critical capabilities being sought in the RFS include development of end-user network access to terrestrial and airborne communication infrastructures via “direct commercial 5G-enabled devices”, capable of receiving and transmitting internetwork data through 5G and non-5G radio interfaces across domains, programme officials said. On development of an airborne node element, department officials want to explore two variants of the capability. (Source: Janes)
03 June 22. DoD and National Spectrum Consortium Team for Open RAN Acceleration. The National Spectrum Consortium, with support from the Department of Defense (DoD), recently announced the release of a “Call for Whitepapers” to their membership requesting feedback and ideas from industry and academia that could help accelerate the development, manufacturing, and testing of 5G Open Radio Access Network (“Open RAN”) technologies in the United States. The central goal of this outreach is to help identify obstacles to emerging or existing companies in accelerating the commercialization of Open RAN in the U.S.
The DoD has identified the development of Open Architecture and Virtualization as one of its major lines of effort under its 5G Strategy Implementation Plan. RANs are traditionally vendor-locked, vertically integrated telecommunications architectures composed of base stations, radios, and antennas that enable wireless communications, such as 4G, 5G, and subsequent generations of communications technologies. By disaggregating RAN architectures – thus making them “Open” – more companies can pursue innovation on advanced 5G network architectures and related security.
It is believed that this market-based approach represents a sustainable model for accelerating critical 5G innovation while spurring the growth of domestic supply chains based on trusted and secure vendors. To this end, the Department also collaborates with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) on the 5G Challenge. The challenge is a prize competition aiming to accelerate the adoption of open interfaces, interoperable components, and multi-vendor solutions toward developing an open 5G ecosystem while also increasing the domestic industrial base of innovative wireless companies.
The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering (OUSD (R&E)) and the National Security Council are planning an Industry Day in July to discuss and further explore the ideas and suggestions submitted via the “Call for Whitepapers.” For more information, visit https://www.nationalspectrumconsortium.org/.
About USD(R&E)
The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E) is the Chief Technology Officer of the Department of Defense. The USD(R&E) champions research, science, technology, engineering, and innovation to maintain the United States military’s technological advantage. Learn more at www.cto.mil, follow us on Twitter @DoDCTO, or visit us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ousdre. (Source: US DoD)
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Spectra Group Plc
Spectra Group (UK) Ltd, internationally renowned award-winning information security and communications specialist with a proven record of accomplishment.
Spectra is a dynamic, agile and security-accredited organisation that offers secure Hosted and Managed Solutions and Cyber Advisory Services with a track record of delivering on time, to spec and on budget.
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