Just as flight simulators provide real-world experience to pilots without jeopardizing lives, a new cyber security training capability under development at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will give computer system administrators experience defending against cyber attacks without compromising their networks.
PNNL scientists have created a prototype Systems Administrator Simulation Trainer, or SAST, to rapidly develop the cyber security experience of system administrators in any type of organization to identify, circumvent or recover from hacker activity.
The program consists of a network of training tools that simulate the cyber environment and are launched through an automated system. When fully developed, students with broadband Internet access would use these tools remotely, reducing training costs and allowing continual access.
SAST was developed for the Department of Defense’s Technical Support Working Group, or TSWG, at the PNNL-based Critical Infrastructure Protection and Analysis Laboratory, a dedicated cyber research and development laboratory created specifically to counter cyber threats. TSWG's mission is to conduct the national interagency research and development program for combating terrorism through rapid research, development and prototyping.
Museum visitors 'dig' augmented reality
“Don’t touch” is a common sign found among priceless artifacts displayed at museums. But visitors to the Seattle Art Museum are encouraged to interact with objects found in a Chinese sacrificial burial plot using a new technology called the Virtual Reality Dig developed by PNNL and the University of Washington’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory, or HIT Lab.
The system uses a gesture-recognition hardware and software immersive environment developed at PNNL called the Human Information Workspace, or HI-SPACE, that allows visitors to explore an archeological site by virtually “brushing” away or “digging” through dirt to find artifacts. Once artifacts are exposed, the HIT Lab’s Augmented Reality Toolkit projects them onto a screen where visitors interact with them.
Industry could use this technology for human-computer interaction and collaboration, such as national security, city planning, education and entertainment. The dig is on display until Aug. 12.
Radiation study of techa river neighbors
An epidemiological study to evaluate radiation exposure to residents of a former Soviet Union community is offering researchers a unique opportunity similar to survivor studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Researchers are analyzing data to determine if radiation delivered at low dose rates is equally responsible for causing cancer and other adverse health effects as the same doses delivered at high rates.
PNNL scientists are working with other national and international institutions to evaluate radiation exposures in communities located in the Techa River basin, near the southern Ural Mountains. They will study potential human health impacts to more than 30,000 people from past plutonium production efforts. Accidents and poor waste disposal practices from 1949 to 1956 exposed individuals living in 39 villages along the Techa River basin to elevated radiation doses.
Statistics stack odds in favor of airlines
Some airline travelers may think safety is just a question of odds and not realize the enormous efforts government and industry exert to make flying one of the safest forms of travel. For example, statistical science is playing a larger role in ensuring flight safety.
PNNL and Battelle, which operates the lab for the Department of Energy, are developing a suite of tools called the Aviation Performance Measuring System, or APMS, that extracts crucial safety information from digital flight data.
While some of APMS’ tools detect and display well-known problems, PNNL statisticians have created statistical algorithms to recognize atypical flights by first studying thousands of hours of flight data to understand how normal flights look then searching the database for flights that don’t fit those patterns.
Aviation experts analyze these atypical flights for evidence of previously unrecognized operational or equipment problems. Airlines soon will use APMS to monitor internal flight data.
Battelle has led this research since 1993 for the NASA Ames Research Center.