Information Technology for Counterterrorism: Immediate Actions and Future Possibilities

146 Pages·2003·41.74 MB·English

by  Committee on the Role of Information Technology in Responding to Terrorism

INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
FOR
COUNTERTERRORISM
IMMEDIATE ACTIONS AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
Committee on the Role of Information Technology
in Responding to Terrorism
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
John L. Hennessy, David A. Patterson, and Herbert S. Lin, Editors
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
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Suggested citation: Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, Informa-
tion Technology for Counterterrorism: Immediate Actions and Future Possibilities, The
National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003.
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COMMITTEE ON THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
IN RESPONDING TO TERRORISM
JOHN HENNESSY, Stanford University, Chair
DAVID A. PATTERSON, University of California at Berkeley, Vice Chair
STEVEN M. BELLOVIN, AT&T Laboratories
W. EARL BOEBERT, Sandia National Laboratories
DAVID BORTH, Motorola Labs
WILLIAM F. BRINKMAN, Lucent Technologies (retired)
JOHN M. CIOFFI, Stanford University
W. BRUCE CROFT, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
WILLIAM P. CROWELL, Cylink Inc.
JEFFREY M. JAFFE, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
BUTLER W. LAMPSON, Microsoft Corporation
EDWARD D. LAZOWSKA, University of Washington
DAVID LIDDLE, U.S. Venture Partners
TOM M. MITCHELL, Carnegie Mellon University
DONALD NORMAN, Northwestern University
JEANNETTE M. WING, Carnegie Mellon University
Staff
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist and Study Director
STEVEN WOO, Program Officer
DAVID DRAKE, Senior Project Assistant
iv
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
2002-2003
DAVID D. CLARK, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chair
ERIC BENHAMOU, 3Com Corporation
DAVID BORTH, Motorola Labs
JOHN M. CIOFFI, Stanford University
ELAINE COHEN, University of Utah
W. BRUCE CROFT, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
THOMAS E. DARCIE, AT&T Labs Research
JOSEPH FARRELL, University of California at Berkeley
JOAN FEIGENBAUM, Yale University
HECTOR GARCIA-MOLINA, Stanford University
WENDY KELLOGG, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
BUTLER W. LAMPSON, Microsoft Corporation
DAVID LIDDLE, U.S. Venture Partners
TOM M. MITCHELL, Carnegie Mellon University
DAVID A. PATTERSON, University of California at Berkeley
HENRY (HANK) PERRITT, Chicago-Kent College of Law
DANIEL PIKE, Classic Communications
ERIC SCHMIDT, Google Inc.
FRED SCHNEIDER, Cornell University
BURTON SMITH, Cray Inc.
LEE SPROULL, New York University
WILLIAM STEAD, Vanderbilt University
JEANNETTE M. WING, Carnegie Mellon University
Staff
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Executive Director
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist
ALAN S. INOUYE, Senior Program Officer
JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer
LYNETTE I. MILLETT, Program Officer
CYNTHIA A. PATTERSON, Program Officer
STEVEN WOO, Dissemination Officer
JANET BRISCOE, Administrative Officer
RENEE HAWKINS, Financial Associate
DAVID PADGHAM, Research Associate
KRISTEN BATCH, Research Associate
PHIL HILLIARD, Research Associate
MARGARET HUYNH, Senior Project Assistant
v
DAVID DRAKE, Senior Project Assistant
JANICE SABUDA, Senior Project Assistant
JENNIFER BISHOP, Senior Project Assistant
BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Staff Assistant
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vi
Preface
Immediately following the events of September 11, 2001, the National
Academies (including the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Re-
search Council) offered its services to the nation to formulate a scientific
and technological response to the challenges posed by emerging terrorist
threats that would seek to inflict catastrophic damage on the nation’s
people, its infrastructure, or its economy. Specifically, it supported a
project that culminated in a report entitled Making the Nation Safer: The
Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism (The National Acad-
emies Press, Washington, D.C.) that was released on June 25, 2002. That
project, chaired by Lewis M. Branscomb and Richard D. Klausner, sought
to identify current threats of catastrophic terrorism, understand the most
likely vulnerabilities in the face of these threats, and identify highly lever-
aged opportunities for contributions from science and technology to coun-
terterrorism in both the near term and the long term.
Taking the material on information technology contained in Making
the Nation Safer as a point of departure, the Committee on the Role of
Information Technology in Responding to Terrorism, identical to the
Panel on Information Technology that advised the Branscomb-Klausner
committee, drew on sources, resources, and analysis unavailable to that
committee during the preparation of its report. In addition, the present
report contains material and elaborations that the Branscomb-Klausner
committee did not have time to develop fully for the parent report. Both
reports are aimed at spurring research in the science and technology com-
vii
viii PREFACE
munities to counter and respond to terrorist acts such as those experi-
enced on September 11.
In addition to presenting material on information technology (IT),
Making the Nation Safer includes chapters on nuclear and radiological
threats, human and agricultural health systems, toxic chemicals and ex-
plosive materials, energy systems, transportation systems, cities and fixed
infrastructure, and the response of people to terrorism. The present
report focuses on IT—its role as part of the national infrastructure, sug-
gested areas of research (information and network security, IT for emer-
gency response, and information fusion), and the people and organiza-
tional aspects that are critical to the acceptance and use of the proposed
solutions. Note that policy is not a primary focus of this report, although
policy issues are addressed as needed to provide context for the research
programs outlined here.
Information Technology for Counterterrorism draws on many past re-
ports and studies of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
(CSTB). These CSTB reports include Cybersecurity Today and Tomorrow:
Pay Now or Pay Later; Computers at Risk: Safe Computing in the Information
Age; Embedded, Everywhere: A Research Agenda for Networked Systems of
Embedded Computers; Realizing the Potential of C4I: Fundamental Challenges;
Information Technology Research for Crisis Management; and Computing and
Communications in the Extreme, among others. Furthermore, the report
leverages current CSTB studies on geospatial information, authentication
technologies, critical infrastructure protection and the law, and privacy.
The Committee on the Role of Information Technology in Respond-
ing to Terrorism included current and past CSTB members as well as
other external experts. The 16 committee members (see the appendix for
committee and staff biographies) are experts in computer, information,
Internet, and network security; computer and systems architecture; com-
puter systems innovation, including interactive systems; national security
and intelligence; telecommunications, including wireline and wireless;
data mining and information fusion and management; machine learning
and artificial intelligence; automated reasoning tools; information-pro-
cessing technologies; information retrieval; networked, distributed, and
high-performance systems; software; and human factors. To meet its
charge, the committee met several times over a 2-month period and con-
ducted extensive e-mail dialogue to discuss the report text.
As was the parent report, this focused report was developed quickly,
with the intent of informing key decision makers with respect to the role
of information technology in the homeland security effort. The treatment
of any of the subjects in this report is far from comprehensive or exhaus-
tive—instead, the report highlights those subject aspects that the commit-
tee deems critical at this time. Accordingly, the report builds on, and cites