September-October 2014 

Issue 131 

Information Technology Laboratory Newsletter

INSIDE THIS 

ISSUE

ITL Focuses on Forensic Analysis 

Technologies 

NIST Engineers Test Initial Flight 

of a Robotic Sensor Platform 

ITL Contributes to the DARPA 

XDATA (Big Data) Summer Camp 

Staff Recognition 

Selected New Publications 

Upcoming Technical 

Conferences 

Engineer Rick Ayers makes sure commercial forensics tools for cell phones conform to required specificaƟons by tesƟng them on

a number of phone models.

ITL Focuses on Forensic Analysis Technologies 

Mobile devices in today’s society often contain valuable information that can help investigators 

reconstruct events and solve crimes. Numerous research advances have occurred in both 

mobile devices and the tools used to analyze these devices. Investigators and analysts that rely 

on the outputs of the devices and tools require confidence that the data recovered is reliable 

and reproducible. Stakeholders in the mobile forensic science community continue to work 

together to maintain pace with the rapid change experienced in the industry. These 

stakeholders perform research to develop new analysis tools, use collaborative venues to 

develop procedural standards, and validate tools through testing programs to support 

investigators through the investigation and judicial process. 

To explore the latest technology advances and applications in mobile device forensics, ITL’s 

Computer Forensic Tool Testing (CFTT) program recently hosted a free one-day workshop and 

live webcast. Focusing on how technologies are used in casework, the workshop provided 

information that was tailored to increase the situational awareness of investigators and criminal 

justice stakeholders across the United States about the latest trends, analysis protocols, and 

issues encountered when applying analysis tools to mobile devices. 

The workshop addressed a broad range of mobile forensic topics including mobile forensic tool 

testing at NIST; mobile forensics from A to Z; mobile forensic research needs from academic 

and practitioner perspectives; mobile device forensics – is it actually forensics; open-source, 

Blackberry, and Apple forensics; chip-off technology and JTAG analysis tools; and real-world 

application of mobile forensic analytical tools. 

Toolmakers continually face the challenge of releasing software updates in a timely manner, 

providing forensic examiners and law enforcement with an acquisition solution for the current 

mobile devices. The ongoing mobile testing performed by ITL’s CFTT program provides 

information necessary for toolmakers to improve tools and for interested parties to understand 

tools limitations and capabilities. Additionally, ITL recently released NIST Special Publication 

800-101 (Revision 1), Guidelines on Mobile Device Forensics, which discusses procedures for 

the validation, preservation, acquisition, examination, analysis, and reporting of digital 

information. For more information, see this website. 

Credit: Nicholas McIntosh Photography  
   

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NIST Engineers Test Initial Flight of a 

Robotic Sensor Platform 

Engineers from ITL and NIST’s Engineering Laboratory (EL) 

recently performed initial flight tests on a robotic aerial sensor 

platform on the NIST Gaithersburg campus. The tests are the first 

phase of a project aimed at developing unified methods for 

capability provisioning and information assurance between 

physical perception and cyber infrastructure. 

Given the growing use of robotic sensor platforms and the advent 

of cloud-based curation and analysis of large data sets, NIST 

engineers are collaborating to demonstrate strategies and 

interfaces required to co-optimize robot perception, via sensor 

tuning and path planning, along with metrics used for data science 

and information assurance. As an application scenario, the team 

will focus on optimizing data collection and data organization tools 

used in an emergency response situation such as a multiple 

vehicle collision. 

ITL Contributes to the DARPA XDATA 

(Big Data) Summer Camp 

ITL contributed to the eight-week DARPA XDATA Summer Camp, 

the second such camp that brings together the current field of 

XDATA program performers in a hack-a-thon setting aimed to 

develop data analytics and big data visualization techniques for 

inclusion in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

(DARPA) Open Catalog. XDATA is developing an open source 

software library for big data to help overcome the challenges of 

effectively scaling to modern data volume and characteristics. The 

program is developing the tools and techniques to process and 

analyze large sets of imperfect, incomplete data. Its programs and 

publications focus on the areas of analytics, visualization, and 

infrastructure to efficiently fuse, analyze, and disseminate these 

large volumes of data. 

I 

ITL’s role in XDATA is to support the program’s evaluation of 

analytic accuracy and system benchmarking. During the past 

three months, the NIST team developed three evaluation tracks 

and the corresponding software tools necessary to support the 

assessment of analytic accuracy; perform system benchmarking; 

and automatically generate a common report for inclusion in the 

software’s documentation. Each evaluation track consisted of four 

tasks, the first three of which were designed to measure 

infrastructure or analytic software, and the fourth was designed to 

measure visualizations. 

Occurring from June through mid-August, the XDATA Summer 

Camp had between 20 and 100 researchers gathered in the lab 

daily. Researchers from around the country presented daily 

updates on research and progress. Participation in the NISTdesigned evaluations was voluntary and will continue for the next 

couple of months. ITL’s participation in the XDATA program has 

helped NIST prepare for its own Data Science evaluation series 

that will build upon the tools and infrastructure created to support 

XDATA. 

STAFF RECOGNITION 

Jeffrey Fong, Applied and Computational Mathematics Division, 

received the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award from the 

International Conference on Computational Engineering and 

Science (ICCES). Fong was cited for his “seminal contributions to 

reliability engineering and probabilistic mechanics.” The ICCES 

Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes sustained and significant 

contributions in the form of research, teaching, and service to the 

community, in the technical areas of the ICCES series of 

conferences. 

Chris Schanzle received an Outstanding Service award from 

Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Schanzle was 

recognized for his exceptional service in support of the ITL 

Applied and Computational Mathematics Division, the Statistical 

Engineering Division, and their collaborators throughout the NIST 

Laboratories. 

This summer ITL hosted 28

students from 20 colleges and

universiƟes in the Summer

Undergraduate Research

Fellowship (SURF) program,

which provides hands‐on

research experience in applied

mathemaƟcs, staƟsƟcs, soŌware

tesƟng, computer security,

informaƟon access, and

networking.

Credit: Denease Anderson,  NIST
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Selected New Publications 

Approximate Matching: Definition and 

Terminology

By Frank Breitinger, Barbara Guttman, 

Michael McCarrin, Vassil Roussev, and 

Douglas White 

NIST Special Publication 800-168 

May 2014 

This document provides a definition of and terminology for 

approximate matching, which is a promising technology 

designed to identify similarities between two digital 

artifacts. It is used to find objects that resemble each other 

or objects that are contained in another object. This can be 

very useful for filtering data for security monitoring, digital 

forensics, and other applications. 

NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Panel Priority Action Plan 

2, Guidelines for Assessing Wireless Standards for Smart 

Grid Applications

Participants of the Priority Action Plan 2 Working Group 

David E. Cypher, Editor 

NISTIR 7761 Rev. 1 

July 2014 

This report is a draft of key tools and methods to assist 

Smart Grid system designers in making informed decisions 

about existing and emerging wireless technologies. An 

initial set of quantified requirements have been brought 

together for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and 

initial distribution automation (DA) communications. These 

two areas present technological challenges due to their 

scope and scale. These systems will span widely diverse 

geographic areas and operating environments and 

population densities ranging from urban to rural. 

Policy Machine: Features, Architecture, and Specification

By David Ferraiolo, Serban Gavrila, and Wayne Jansen 

NISTIR 7987 

May 2014 

The ability to control access to sensitive data in 

accordance with policy is perhaps the most fundamental 

security requirement. Despite over four decades of security 

research, the limited ability for existing access control 

mechanisms to enforce a comprehensive range of policy 

persists. This report describes an access control 

framework, referred to as the Policy Machine (PM), which 

fundamentally changes the way policy is expressed and 

enforced. The report gives an overview of the PM and the 

range of policies that can be specified and enacted. The 

report also describes the architecture of the PM and the 

properties of the PM model in detail. 

Design and Testing of a Mobile Touchscreen Interface for 

Multi-Modal Biometric Capture

By Kristen K. Greene, Ross Micheals, Kayee Kwong, and 

Gregory P. Fiumara 

NISTIR 8003 

May 2014 

This report describes the design and usability testing of a 

touchscreen interface for multi-modal biometric capture, an 

application called WSABI, Web Services for the Acquisition 

of Biometric Information. The application code is publicly 

available online at https://github.com/NIST-BWS/wsabi2. 

The interface is a tablet-based reference application for the 

Web Services for Biometric Devices (WS-BD) protocol. 

Just as WS-BD specifies a method of communication 

between client and sensors (i.e., machine-to-machine 

communication), WSABI provides a consistent and 

modality-independent method of interaction between 

human operators and sensors (i.e., human-to-machine 

communication). 

Performance of Face Identification Algorithms

By Patrick Grother and Mei Ngan 

NISTIR 8009 

May 2014 

This report documents performance of one-to-many face 

identification algorithms and compares it with performance 

in 2010. Performance in this context refers to recognition 

accuracy and computational resource usage as measured 

by executing those algorithms on massive sequestered 

datasets. These datasets consist of reasonable-quality law 

enforcement mugshot images; poor-quality webcam 

images collected in similar detention operations; and 

moderate-quality visa application images. The mugshot 

and visa images are used to approximate performance 

obtainable using high-quality ISO standardized images 

collected in passport, visa, and driving license duplicate 

detection operations. 

A Measurement Metric for Forensic Latent Fingerprint 

Preprocessing

By Haiying Guan, Andrew Dienstfrey, Mary Theofanos, 

and Brian Stanton 

NISTIR 8017 

July 2014 

This report describes a proposal to extend Spectral Image 

Validation and Verification (SIVV) to serve as a metric for 

latent fingerprint image quality measurement. ITL 

researchers implemented and tested the new SIVV-based 

metric for latent fingerprint image quality and used it to 

measure the performance of the forensic latent fingerprint 

preprocessing step. Preliminary results show that the new 

metric can provide positive indications of both latent 

fingerprint image quality and the performance of the 

fingerprint preprocessing. 
The InformaƟon Technology Laboratory (ITL) is a major research component of the NaƟonal InsƟtute of

Standards and Technology (NIST). As a world‐class measurement and tesƟng laboratory encompassing a wide

range of areas of computer science, mathemaƟcs, staƟsƟcs, and systems engineering, our research program

supports NIST’s mission to promote U.S. innovaƟon and industrial compeƟƟveness by advancing measurement

science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life. ITL

cybersecurity experts collaborate to develop cybersecurity standards, guidelines, and associated methods and

techniques for federal agencies and industry. Our mathemaƟcians and staƟsƟcians collaborate with

measurement scienƟsts across NIST to help ensure that NIST maintains and delivers the world’s leading

measurement capability. ITL computer scienƟsts and other research staff provide technical experƟse and

development that underpins naƟonal prioriƟes such as cloud compuƟng, the Smart Grid, homeland security,

informaƟon technology for improved healthcare, and electronic voƟng. We invite you to learn more about

how ITL is enabling the future of the naƟon’s measurement and standards infrastructure for informaƟon

technology by visiƟng our website at hƩp://www.itl.nist.gov.

ITL Editor: Elizabeth B. Lennon

NaƟonal InsƟtute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8900

Gaithersburg, MD 20899‐8900

Phone: (301) 975‐2832

Fax: (301) 975‐2378

Email: elizabeth.lennon@nist.gov

T඗ ඛඝඊඛඋකඑඊඍ ග඗ ගඐඍ

ඍඔඍඋගක඗ඖඑඋ ඍඌඑගඑ඗ඖ ඗ඎ

ගඐඍ ITL Nඍඟඛඔඍගගඍක, ඏ඗

ග඗ 

ITL ඐ඗ඕඍ඘ඉඏඍ

Upcoming Technical 

Conferences 

2nd Privacy Engineering Workshop

Dates: September 15-16, 2014 

Place: San Jose, California 

Sponsors: NIST and the International Association of Privacy 

Professionals 

As part of NIST’s Privacy Engineering Initiative, this 

workshop will consider draft privacy engineering definitions 

and concepts. The results of the workshop will inform the 

development of the NIST report on privacy engineering. 

System design and privacy engineers as well as privacy 

subject matter experts should attend this interactive 

workshop. 

NIST contact: Suzanne Lightman

2014 Global Identity Summit

Dates: September 16-18, 2014 

Place: Tampa Convention Center, Tampa, Florida 

Sponsors: NIST and National Security Agency 

Presented by the Biometric Consortium and the Armed 

Forces Communications and Electronics Association, this 

conference promotes information exchanges on scientific 

and technical advancements, operational requirements, and 

future strategic directions of biometrics and identity 

management. It focuses on solutions for the corporate, 

defense, and homeland security communities. 

NIST contact: Fernando Podio

Safeguarding Health information: Building Assurance 

through HIPAA Security – 2014

Dates: September 23-24, 2014 

Place: Grand Hyatt Hotel, Washington, D.C. 

Sponsors: NIST and the Department of Health and Human 

Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) 

This 7th annual conference will explore the current health 

information technology (IT) security landscape and the 

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) 

Security Rule. The conference will address security 

management and technical assurance of electronic health 

information. Topics will include updates on the Omnibus 

HIPAA/HITECH Final Rule, breach management, 

strengthening cybersecurity in the healthcare sector, 

integrating security safeguards into health IT, managing 

risk, securing mobile devices, and more. 

NIST contact: Kevin Stine

6th Cybersecurity Framework Workshop

Dates: October 29-30, 2014 

Place: Florida Center for Cybersecurity, Tampa, Florida 

Sponsor: NIST

The purpose of this workshop is to gather input to help 

NIST understand stakeholder awareness of, and initial 

experiences with, the Cybersecurity Framework and related 

activities to support its use. NIST plans to release a formal 

Request for Information (RFI) asking for further feedback in 

these areas. Responses to the RFI will inform the workshop 

agenda. 

NIST contact: Suzanne Lightman

Disclaimer: Any menƟon of commercial products or reference to commercial

organizaƟons is for informaƟon only; it does not imply recommendaƟon or

endorsement by the NaƟonal InsƟtute of Standards and Technology nor does it

imply that the products menƟoned are necessarily the best available for the

purpose.

. 

Credit: Katherine Green, NIST

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