ACI News

Should Police Be Able To Keep Their Devices Secret?
October 22, 2014 — "Officers use "Stingrays" to mimic a cell phone tower and intercept information from phones in a whole neighborhood. The federal government and police have kept such devices under wraps for years.Now a question about the way police do their jobs. When is it OK for them to keep secrets about the tools they use - tools that can spy on us? That's... MORE

West Point's Defense and Strategic Studies 'War Council' Series (Part II)
October 21, 2014 — Iran is in the headlines every day. The new Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, has raised the possibility of diplomacy with the United States, providing hope for a deal on the nuclear front. At West Point, in class, instructors find cadets asking pointed questions about what American military intervention might look like. Many of these teachers, in... MORE

Using the Discrete Event System Specification to model Quantum Key Distribution system components
October 17, 2014 — In this paper, we present modeling a Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) system with its components using the Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) formalism. The DEVS formalism assures the developed component models are composable and exhibit well-defined temporal behavior independent of the simulation environment. These attributes enable users to... MORE

Conceptual Modeling of a Quantum Key Distribution Simulation Framework Using the Discrete Event System Specification
September 18, 2014 — Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a revolutionary security technology that exploits the laws of quantum mechanics to achieve information-theoretical secure key exchange. QKD is suitable for use in applications that require high security such as those found in certain commercial, governmental, and military domains. As QKD is a new technology, there... MORE

Towards A Career Path in Cyberspace
August 18, 2014 — In the past five years, the Department of Defense (DoD) recognized the emergence of cyberspace as an operational domain and created U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). These events were the result of the realization that cyber operations are both a critical vulnerability and a massive opportunity. Within the Army, U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) was... MORE

Deconstructing the Relationship Between Privacy and Security
July 1, 2014 — From a government or law-enforcement perspective, one common model of privacy and security postulates that security and privacy are opposite ends of a single continuum. While this model has appealing properties, it is overly simplistic. The relationship between privacy and security is not a binary operation in which one can be traded for the other... MORE

What the StingRay Teaches Us About How Congress Should Approach the Reform of Law Enforcement Surveillance Authorities
June 25, 2014 — In June 2013, through an unauthorized disclosure to the media by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the public learned that the NSA, since 2006, had been collecting nearly all domestic phone call detail records and other telephony metadata pursuant to a controversial, classified interpretation of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Prior to the... MORE

Key terrain in cyberspace: Seeking the high ground
June 3, 2014 — In military doctrine, key terrain refers to areas which, if seized, afford an advantage to an attacker or defender. When applied to geographic terrain, this definition is clear. Key terrain might include a hill that overlooks a valley an enemy wants to control or a crossing point over a river that must be traversed before launching an attack. By... MORE

The Cyber Losers
May 22, 2014 — National security cyber activities harm human rights and democracy activists. With increasing state cyber capabilities comes heightened pressure on civil society and democracy activists. We often think of the cyber arms race from the perspective of states and corporations; however, the real losers are activists who seek to promote democracy,... MORE

Cyber Actions by State Actors: Motivation and Utility
May 12, 2014 — Covert action is as old as political man. The subversive manipulation of others is nothing new. It has been written about since Sun Tzu and Kautilya. People and nations have always sought the use of shadowy means to influence situations and events. Covert action is and has been a staple of the state system. A dark and nefarious tool often banished... MORE