29 Jun 06. QinetiQ and Thales UK have signed an agreement to co-develop products, services and solutions based on the Secure Communications Interoperability Protocol (SCIP). Targeted at providing ‘best of breed’ telephony solutions to the growing UK and export markets for secure telephony, both companies will use their sovereign UK High Grade and related Information Assurance capabilities to create a UK-based centre of excellence. Initial offerings will include fixed telephony solutions based on both PSTN and VoIP and interoperable mobile solutions. SCIP has been selected by the UK Government as its future secure telephony standard and is currently under consideration by at least 29 nations worldwide for defence and public safety environments. The standard is designed for both wide and narrowband voice and data security, providing media independent solutions at a time of rapid change in the telephone communications industry. Key components to the SCIP standard include: key management, voice compression, encryption and a signalling plan.
22 Jun 06. The Boeing Company recently demonstrated the automatic interception of signals and intelligence as well as the ability to track potential terrorists during a multi-site, real-time network collections demonstration to U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence customers. For the first time, signal intelligence receivers proved that they could automatically identify the target — a mock terrorist — and trigger airborne surveillance assets to track the target on the ground, while capturing full-motion imagery and broadcasting it instantly to analysts several hundred miles away. Boeing used a mobile mesh-net satellite communications network to broadcast live video and command and control information from two different unmanned aircraft systems simultaneously to the East and West coasts. Boeing describes this concept as part of the traditional intelligence cycle of Tasking, Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (TPED), but adding the concept of “collection” to form TCPED, which emphasizes the growing importance of organic collection systems in generating actionable intelligence for the warfighter.
28 Jun 06. Perseus wins first contracts. Perseus, the Guildford based security consultancy, has won its first three contracts. Two of them involve Perseus testing their clients’ requirements for various aspects of security and the third wishes to take advantage of Perseus’ highly accurate and rapid survey capabilities. Since becoming fully operational on 1 April 2006 Perseus has been dealing with an increasing number of companies and organisations which are interested in using Perseus’ integrated one stop shop to meet their often complex security problems. In addition Perseus now has framework agreements with two government agencies which means any security work that are within Perseus’ remit will be given to the company as and when there is a requirement. Perseus is able to undertake rapid and highly accurate photo realistic surveys. One of the clients is required to conduct an accurate survey of a large area containing numerous residential properties. Following essential excavation and engineering work the area must be restored to its original condition. With its capability to survey to an accuracy of 10mm at a range of 800 metres, Perseus will produce a highly accurate survey illustrated with photo imagery so enabling the client to restore the boundary markers with maximum accuracy as well as any other features that may have been disrupted.
28 Jun 06. Unisys Corp. said Wednesday it has joined a team that is trying to win a contract to implement the first phase of the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative. If the team is selected, Unisys would provide U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents with real-time information so they could better approach situations with the proper resources and determine what to do with the people they catch. The Blue Bell