Carnegie Mellon Fights Back

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55649,00.html

Associated Press 
2:05 p.m. Oct. 8, 2002 PDT 

PITTSBURGH -- The Defense Department is giving Carnegie Mellon 
University $35.5 million to develop tools and tactics for fighting 
cyberterrorism. 

The inventions to be researched and engineered at the top computer 
science school would serve equally well in battling hackers and 
Internet crooks. 

"These problems have always existed. Terrorism only increased the 
visibility of these problems," said Pradeep Khosla, who heads the 
university's electrical and computer engineering department and 
directs the new Center for Computer and Communications Security. 

The 5-year grant, combined with other federal, state and private 
funding, gives the center an $8 million budget this year. 

Better technology is needed so Internet users can verify the identity 
of others and keep hackers from infiltrating computer networks, said 
Khosla. 

The center is already researching ways to engineer artificial 
intelligence into hardware so that components such as disk drives 
could take countermeasures in a hacker attack. Such components would 
shut down and even automatically report an incident to network 
administrators 

Researchers are also studying how to use signatures, fingerprints, 
iris patterns, face recognition technology and voice scans to confirm 
the identity of computer users. 

Khosla believes some combination of those technologies will likely be 
used in the future. 

"You may wear a mask so you look like me, but it's not likely that 
you're going to look like me, sign (your name) like me and sound like 
me," he said. 

Some of the technologies could even be used outside cyberspace. For 
example, computer-linked cameras could confirm the identity of an 
airline pilot and place the plane on autopilot if someone else took 
the controls or if the pilot unexpectedly left the camera's view, 
Khosla said. 




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