[ISN] Carnegie Mellon Fights Back

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Wed Oct 09 2002 - 00:23:32 PDT

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    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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