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4.  Technologies for the Information Infrastructure

 The HPCC Program is developing technologies underlying the National  Information Infrastructure (NII)to facilitate addressing National  Challenge problems of significant social and economic impact (HPCC  National Challenges are described in Section II.7).  These technologies build upon and extend those needed to accomplish the  goals of the original HPCC Program. They will also contribute to the  Government Services Information Infrastructure (GSII), the Defense Information Infrastructure (DII), and the Global Information  Infrastructure (GII).  Other non-HPCCtechnologies to support the NII  are under development by Federal departments and agencies.  Such efforts are being followed and in many cases coordinated with HPCC  Program activities. 
**Information Infrastructure Services Technologies**
NII technologies must be integrated and interoperable -- information  must be transmitted overdifferent bitways among different  computing systems in a seamless fashion; services such as authorization and accounting must be integrated and interoperable;  and they must serve people withdifferent communications  preferences (for example, voice rather than visual). 
Integration and interoperability are most easily accomplished by  using tools that implicitly providethem.  Toward this end, ARPA has  initiated a program to develop the software and services technologies needed to facilitate a marketplace of advanced  distributed applications that willinteroperate over the underlying  networking infrastructure.  The following are examples of some current activities in this program. 
***HORUS*
The HORUS project is developing an environment for reliable  distributed computing.  Its "virtualsynchrony" environment  integrates distributed computing with fault tolerance (detection of  andreaction to failures) and will make it easier to develop  distributed software.  An example ismilitary mission planning and  control software that integrates data from space, air, and ground resources. 
  http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Projects/HORUS/ARPA/arpa.html 
***SILDS*
Billing, payment, accounting, and associated privacy mechanisms are  critical to the NII, especiallythe National Challenge in Electronic  Commerce.  ARPA is developing the underlying technologies to provide these capabilities in an interoperable manner, building upon  underlying security services. An example is the SILDS project that  is developing an infrastructure to support authorization, authentication, accounting, and related security services for the  Internet that is layered over theKerberos authentication system. 
   http://nii-server.isi.edu/gost-group 
***Adaptive Communication*
Portable information and communications devices will be  extensively used in the NII.  ARPA isdeveloping the required  underlying mobile and wireless technologies (wireless networking technologies are described in Section II.1). Toolkits are needed for  developing applications that adapt to changes in the computing and communications environment (such as platform mobility, sporadic  connectivity, and dynamically varyingbandwidths).  An example is  "middleware" services that can automatically or semi- automatically adaptthe amount and form of communications  between a mobile computer and the infrastructure to vastly different operating circumstances. 
   http://www.mcl.cs.columbia.edu/ 
***TRAVLER*
The TRAVLER project funded by ARPA is packaging systems software  and services for mobile computers. These include support for  adaptive agents, data consistency, database support, predictive  caching offiles, real-time modeling and simulation, resource  discovery, security, user-level replication, andvirtual networking. 
   http://www.cs.ucla.edu/ficus/ 
***Wide-Area File System*
ARPA funds Transarc Corporation in developing a system for  organizing and locating information in aWide-Area File System.   Each file has a "synopsis" that summarizes its contents, while a  "digest"contains multiple synopses.  The system lets users control  who can access their data.  It builds onthe AFS (Andrew File  System) software developed at Carnegie Mellon University and  Transarc and isused by more than 200,000 people at more than 120  government, industry, and academic Internet sites. 
  ftp://grand.central.org/afs/transarc.com/public/www/Department/ARPA/summary.html 
***FICUS*
The FICUS project is developing a peer-to-peer file replication  system that keeps multiplefull-function copies of files so that (1)  workers can improve their efficiency by keeping multiplecopies of  key files on systems both at work and at home; (2) individuals  collaborating at a distancecan each have copies of their working  files, and updates are propagated; and (3) copies of files canbe  stored on portable systems.  Replicating and updating files is done  over the Internet.  Ficus isbuilt using its "stackable layers" technology in which software modules providing new services (such as these new file system functions) are added to existing operating  systems; this technology can alsobe used to add other file system  functions such as encryption and data compression. 
   http://www.cs.ucla.edu/ficus/ 
***Nile Project*
The NSF-funded Nile Project is building scalable systems for  reliable access to distributed datausing distributed computing  resources.  The immediate application is processing enormous  amounts ofdata accumulated by CLEO, a large High Energy Physics  experiment.  While the goal of Nile is to solvethe computing and  network problems specific to this particular scientific endeavor,  accessing 10 to1,000 TB (terabytes or trillions of bytes) of  distributed data and processing those data on 100 to1,000  distributed computing systems is becoming increasingly important  to such diverse areas asenvironmental science, medical imaging,  seismology, and video-on-demand.  Two particular features ofthe  Nile project are the importance of low-latency access to the data  and working with an enormousamount of data on tape.  Nile  collaborating institutions include Cornell University, the University of Florida, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of  California at San Diego.  CLEOitself is a collaboration of 23  universities in the U.S. and Canada, and several members of CLEO are also involved with Nile. 
  http://www.nile.utexas.edu/NC/Report/Report-950118.html 
***Video Teleconferencing*
Video teleconferencing explicitly requires integration and  interoperability as well as resourcemanagement.  DOE is addressing  the need for standard file systems, graphics, spreadsheets, serial interfaces for access and configuration, and sliding bar control of  video interaction.  Another DOEeffort addresses merging telephone,  FAX, e-mail, and video into one resource. 
**World Wide Web (WWW) and NCSA Mosaic**
WWW and Mosaic are described in earliersections.  Assuring the  continued coordination of a global infrastructure for information is critical to the success of the NII.  The HPCC Program will continue  R&D in WWW and browsers such asMosaic.  In addition HPCC  agencies support and ARPA funds the World Wide Web Consortium, headquartered at MIT. 
Issues being addressed at NCSA and elsewhere include collaborative  document preparation (withappropriate security), coupling to mass  storage and database management systems, forms for userqueries  and submission of information/data to the server, interactivity,  needs of the disabled inthe Web environment, next generation WWW  architectures, replacing the transient Web link addresseswith  permanent identifiers (today if a file is moved, its address changes,  and every hypertext linkto it would have to be changed in order to  refer to the same file), scaling issues, searching (andthe  information that is used in the search), security and privacy, tools  for performance measurementand load management, and usage  metering/accounting/payment.  Furthermore, the development and extension of Web standards continues to be a priority. 
**Security and Privacy**
The NII will place increased demands on security and privacy  systems.  Two examples are medicalrecords and financial records �  both users and providers need to know that there is no unauthorized access to or updating of the information.  Already because of the  growing dependence on informationsystems and their  interconnection, these systems are more exposed and vulnerable to  attack. 
In response to this vulnerability, incident response teams have been  established to monitor and reactto unauthorized activities and  potential network intrusions.  Each team serves a specific constituency such as an organization or a network.  Two of the first  such teams, CERT and CIAC, werefounded in 1989 as a result of an  increase in wide-spread, malicious network-based attacks such as the Morris Worm, and provide round the clock incident handling: 
- CERT is the Computer Emergency Response Team based at the     Software Engineering Institute inPittsburgh, PA.  CERT was     established by ARPA to support Internet users without response     teamsand continues to serve as the response team for much of the     Internet.  In 1994 CERT was contactedmore than 33,000 times to     report computer security incidents or to request security-related    information that affected more than 40,000 different Internet sites.      Community outreach includedissuing 15 CERT advisories.  As the     incident rate has grown, so has the sophistication of theintruders.      To counter these threats, CERT is expanding its program to increase     emphasis onincident prevention through technology improvement,     security awareness and training, and securityassessment activities.    http://www.sei.cmu.edu/SEI/programs/cert.html 
CIAC is the computer security incident response team for DOE and     its contractors.  CIACprovides training classes, white hat reviews,     and awareness documents in the form of bulletins,advisories,     electronic notes, tools, and references.  CIAC's hotline number is     510-422-8193;its e-mail address is 
[email protected]
; and its ftp     server is 
[email protected]
. 
   http://ciac.llnl.gov/ 
CERT and CIAC are founding members of FIRST, the Forum for  Incident Response and Security Teams. Other Federal agencies  participating in FIRST include DOE, NASA, NIST, VA, the Navy, and  the SmallBusiness Administration.  Members work together in  handling complex incidents, testing vulnerabilityfixes, and sharing  incident trend information.  Members participate in the annual  incident handlingworkshop sponsored by FIRST; the next workshop  will be held September 18-22, 1995, in Karlsruhe,Germany; details  about FIRST and the workshop can be found at: 
   http://www.first.org/first/ 
HPCC agencies are also responding by increasing emphasis on  security research and prototypedeployment in FY 1996 and beyond.   ARPA, DOE, NASA, NIST, and NSA are addressing issues including preventing unauthorized entry into computing systems, protecting  the network infrastructure (theInternet, higher speed networks as  they are deployed, and other "bitways" such as satellite, cableTV,  cellular, and broadcast) from external and internal attack,  protecting information inrepositories and in transit, providing data  security controls within applications, privacy protectionfor  medical and other sensitive applications, secure electronic  commerce, secure internetworking fordistributed simulations,  secure collaborative work (for example, video teleconferences),  security inemergencies or crises or hazards (for example robots in  hazardous areas), and emergency response. The long-term challenge  is to provide security solutions that can scale to emerging high  performancecomputing technologies, such as multimedia, ultra-high  data rates, mobile computing, and verylarge-scale distributed  information storage and retrieval. 
For example, one-time password technology and the Kerberos  authentication system are helping toalleviate this problem.   Kerberos is a cryptographic-based network system, originally  developed atMIT, that provides a mechanism for client/server  computing authentication.  Several HPCC-funded sitesare  implementing such technologies: 
- The NSF Supercomputer Centers are collaborating to become a     "metacenter" by sharing theirresources.  As the metacenter     evolves, a researcher will be able to direct that in the middle ofthe     night a large program is to be run using computers and archival     storage systems at severalof the other centers.  In order to do this,     all involved systems and networks must be assured thatthe work is     authorized.  Extending such models for use throughout the Internet     can minimizefuture attempts to exploit security vulnerabilities.  The ESnet-based DOE laboratories added cross-realm functionality     to Kerberos in order tocomplete their 1994 multi-site and multi-    organization demonstration of authentication to support    collaborative research. 
   http://nii-server.isi.edu/gost-group/ 
http://www.es.net/pub/esnet-doc/auth-and-security/
The secure-http protocol is an enhanced version of the WWW http  protocol that supports privacy,authentication, and digital  signatures.  Secure http enhancements have been added to NCSA  Mosaic tocreate Secure-Mosaic.  It has been incorporated into  CommerceNet, a TRP-funded  government/industryconsortium,  which is the first full-scale market trial of electronic commerce on  the Internet (the Electronic Commerce National Challenge is  described in SectionII.7).
   http://www.commerce.net 
Through a new joint Defense effort, ARPA, NSA, and the Defense  Information Systems Agency willcoordinate their research  programs in digital signatures, e-mail security, secure operating  systems,secure distributed applications over a single  administrative domain, secure routing protocols,security checking,  and survivability and recoverability. 
Security tools and services developed by government, industry, and  academia will be integrated,scalable, and suitable for use by  commercial carriers, by third-party providers of security services, and by applications for embedded security functions.  Resultant  technologies will be flexible inmeeting specific needs and in  providing varying degrees of protection. 
These security and privacy systems must be both policy flexible and  cost effective.  For example,medical and financial records require  more security and privacy than information in libraries,although  library users needs privacy guarantees.  The Synergy system being  developed at NSA, as wellas other security technologies developed  by NSA and ARPA, is being integrated into basic research in computing systems that will result in the next generation of  commercial products.  This strategy willlead to products that are  easily specialized for a wide variety of security needs. 
NASA supports a coordinated effort to improve the protection of  sensitive but unclassified data usedin collaborative aeronautics  engineering both between the Federal government and industry and  amongindustrial partners.  The aeronautics community will use  encryption tools and the securityarchitecture developed for  electronic commerce as a basis for communicating data that require protection from premature or unauthorized release. 
**Information Infrastructure Applications Technologies**
An easy-to-use NII requires complex interfacing of humans to  intelligent information management,control, and sensor systems.   Performance and usability also depend on the ability of those  systemsto interface among each other.  In FY 1995 and 1996, HPCC  agencies are addressing many issues in thisarea, including the  following: 
- Research on software environments focuses on application     developers having a designenvironment that matches the     application.  Tools developed in this effort are being used to    construct human-computer interfaces used in applications ranging     from software testing tovisualizing thermal signatures in the B-2     tailpipe (Northrop).  Test and evaluation tools used byHughes     Aircraft improve testing productivity by approximately 25 percent.      The AnalyticalScience Corporation uses the same tools to develop     an Avionics Verification and Validation systemfor Wright Labs.      Science Applications International Corporation uses tools developed     by thisresearch community to provide interoperability between C     and Ada software for U.S. Armysimulators.  Under related software     research programs, tools are being developed to reverseengineer     software to extract design information and provide tailored     explanations of thatsoftware.  The Army MICOM Software     Engineering Directorate is evaluating some of these tools for    supporting the Patriot upgrade program.  ARPA and NSF provide support to addressing problems in long-term     management and evolution ofcomplex software -- system lifetimes     are long, applications cluster in families with common    characteristics, and change is rapid.  The effort builds on the     architecture-based approach ofdefining product families by adding     capabilities for recording information about the rationaleunderlying     a design so that modifications can be made more rapidly without     introducing errors. Common components will be shared, reducing the     cost of providing and maintaining productivityenhancers such as     domain-specific architectures for families of systems and very high     levellanguages (fourth generation languages).  In FY 1996 consensus     Architecture Description Languageand Interactive Architecture     Synthesis Tool for complex systems will be defined, cluster    applications identified, and applied demonstrations initiated. 
ARPA is developing technology to enable the integration of DOD's     existing legacy datasystems into more effective functionally     integrated information services -- without developinglarge-scale     monolithic information systems.  This effort has demonstrated that     by using aninformation-integrating mediator, F-22 engineers can     execute design changes in 80 percent lesstime, which is essential     for streamlining the weapon systems acquisition process.  A     mediationmodule developed from this effort enables air campaign     planners to locate the highest prioritytargets for a particular     military objective in 10 minutes instead of 48 hours, providing    military advantage in time of crisis.  It is enabling military doctors     to locate patientinformation within minutes instead of days,     providing a life saving difference in emergencies. These advances     will be incorporated in other applications in FY 1996. 
ARPA is developing enabling technologies and design tools that     potentially will aidaffordable acquisition and upgrade of next     generation DOD platforms.  In FY 1996 cognitive supporttools will     improve the ability of engineers to generate, store, retrieve, track,     explore, andanalyze design alternatives.  Today humans generate     alternatives in an ad hoc manner and explorethem by detailed     physical simulations that are time consuming to create and execute.     Consequently, most complex design efforts explore a small number     of solutions rather than anexpanded design space.  Rockwell is     developing "Design Sheet," a tool used in the Air Force'sAirborne     Laser program to integrate weight, performance, and cost data and     models from teamsrepresenting several disciplines and companies;     the time to build an integrated model was reducedfrom two years to     six months. 
ARPA is developing tools to support military planners in creating,     executing, monitoring,and adapting courses of action and plans for     logistical and transportation support.  Interactivetools have been a     key focus area; several have been developed and are in varying     phases oftransition.  Planning is a labor-intensive, time-consuming,     detailed activity that underliesnearly all aspects of military     operations.  ARPA's efforts have advanced the state of the art in    planning and have produced several systems that support specific     planning functions and arebeing transitioned.  Applications of this     technology to the operating forces include (1) DART, a    transportation analysis and planning tool that supported logistics     planning for Desert Storm byreducing the time required to develop     transportation plans from a few weeks to a few hours (DARThas     been fielded to every commander-in-chief, where it is in daily use);     (2) TARGET, adistributed collaborative planning tool that supports     the split-base concept and lets multiplegeographically distributed     planners work together in a single shared planning workspace    (TARGET is being transitioned into the Global Command and Control     System Leading EdgeEnvironment); and (3) Air Campaign Planning     Tool (ACPT), a system that guides a user through theanalysis of     national objectives into military objectives, military objectives     into tasks, andtasks into specific actions, finally resulting in a     Master Attack Plan with traceability of allactivities back to     national objectives (ACPT is being incorporated into the joint air     planningsystem known as CTAPS). 
ARPA and NSF support development of core technology in human     language processing and thetransfer of this technology into     productive use.  Language-based applications help improve overall    readiness of our forces by allowing the user to interact directly and     naturally with complexsystems.  Intuitive interaction using natural     human language will make for rapid acquisition ofexpert skills.  For     example, the TIPSTER system uses text understanding technology to     supportdetection and extraction of key information for intelligence     analysts from NSA and the CIA.  In FY1996 tools for speech     understanding will be applied to command and control problems     includinglanguage interaction with tactical warfare training     simulators, language-based access for jointservice logistics     planning, and language-based access to in-transit visibility of     logisticalassets. 
ARPA is developing new technology to enable humans and computers     to interact effectively,efficiently and naturally, including (1)     adaptive presentation and input that is sensitive to thecontext of     the user, task, and application domain, (2) multimodal interaction     incorporatingspeech and gestures, and (3) problem and information     visualization, focusing on clearly presentingsymbolic and numeric     data.  Emerging technologies and methods are being inserted into the    Joint Task Force Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD),     Planning and Decision Aids, andHealthcare Information Systems     programs. 
In FY 1995 and FY 1996, NSF will enhance its support for research in  intelligent systems, especiallyhuman-machine information  systems.  The research will advance the underlying scientific  knowledgeand technologies needed to create an intelligent service  layer that will enable a significantlybroader base of information  providers, developers, and consumers, while reducing existing  barriersto accessing and using information and computing resources  for real-world applications.  Work in thisarea includes: 
- Human language technology -- Development of new technologies for     speech recognition, textunderstanding, and multi-lingual language     processing, including machine-aided language translation Multi-modal human-computer interfaces -- Image processing and     analysis, computer vision, andintegration of images with sound,     text, and other forms of information source and presentation      oVirtual environments/collaboration technology -- Sharable     computing and communicationenvironments that many can access,     interact with, and use effectively across time/geographical and    physical/artificial boundaries 
Very large knowledge repositories -- Models, tools, and     technologies for storing,representing, accessing, and using large     amounts and different kinds of objects, data, andknowledge sources****************