Thomas Wingfield, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy in the Trump administration, said that the Department of Defense (DoD) should work to align cyberspace and emerging operations within the larger information environment, C4ISRNet reported on Friday. “If cyber as a domain is in its adolescence, then information is surely in its infancy,” Wingfield said. 

In Nov. 2019, Wingfield noted that his third policy priority for the job was to help integrate cyber and information as doctrines and domains. He stated that adversaries see information and cyber as a coherent whole and are moving forward with speed and confidence.

Wingfield said that cross-functional teams can be limited and create confusion. To remedy this challenge, he recommended that the DoD appoint two deputy assistant secretaries of defense, with one heading cyber policy and the other charged with information operations.

Under Wingfield’s plan, the assistant secretary of defense would be the principal adviser on both topics, which would preserve their separate spheres of expertise at the working level, while ensuring integration before presenting information to the secretary of defense.

“But we should be thinking in terms of defining the problem we want to solve, then mapping out concrete next steps,” he added. Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense and 2021 Wash100 Award recipient, pledged during his confirmation to reevaluate the department’s posture within the information sphere and how it conducts operations.

Austin committed to the cybersecurity review and to joining the ongoing review of SolarWinds impact on DoD. He also indicated in his responses to advanced policy questions that the U.S. needs to be more proactive in cybersecurity and operations to counter persistent malicious cyber campaigns by China and Russia.

"I believe the Department must effectively counter these campaigns by taking proactive action to: generate insights about the adversary's cyber operations and capabilities; enable its interagency, industry, and international partners to create better defenses, and; acting, when necessary, to disrupt adversary cyber actors and halt malicious activities," Austin wrote.

"Any intrusion operation is of great concern to the security of our systems and country," Austin said. The SolarWinds compromise is "greatly concerning, as it impacts a wide swath of American public and private networks."

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) System-of-systems Technology Integration Tool Chain for Heterogeneous Electronic Systems (STITCHES) program has been developed to create networks via self-writing software to deliver broad support to the military services, FedScoop reported on Friday. 

The program will work to solve critical battlefield networking challenges. The software will enable commanders to link data from disparate platforms, such as different weapons systems, to connect “every sensor and every shooter” under the Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept.

“We are getting tremendous pull and demand for it,” Tim Grayson, director of the Strategic Technology Office at DARPA said. “The thing that has been the challenge with STITCHES is it’s weird… Anyone can develop their own STITCHES graph-based database but the current knowledge of the team which generated the existing database will be disbanded.” 

STITCHES will build a military Internet of Things by linking data from operations and hardware in air, land, sea, space and cyberspace, then funnel that data to commanders and artificial intelligence-enabled machines for better decision making. STITCHES could provide that data link without strict data standards for endpoints by creating data links and interoperable networks. 

DARPA said STITCHES was able to link different platforms that were built decades apart, allowing for interoperability and data sharing. The software is also entirely owned by the Department of Defense (DoD), without any commercial proprietary tech. 

“The toolchain does not force a common interface standard; rather it rapidly creates the needed connections based on existing fielded capabilities obviating the need to upgrade in order to interoperate,” according to DARPA.

There is also no unit structure set up to effectively use the software, Grayson said. “STITCHES falls in the seams between the boundaries of existing systems and System Program Offices… The Department is moving in this direction, but currently the STITCHES end user does not fully exist,” Grayson said.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released a notice of proposed rule-making to seek comments on changes to FCC rules implementing the Privacy Act of 1974.

FCC has proposed to update its list of exempted systems by eliminating systems of records that have become outdated since the enactment of the privacy rules, according to the notice released Thursday.

The commission has proposed several clarifying updates to allow the public to better understand their rights under the Privacy Act and to align its privacy rules with guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget and current practices.

“We believe these proposals would not only bring the Commission’s rules up to date but would also make it easier for individuals to exercise their rights under the Privacy Act,” the notice reads.

Some of the proposed amendments to FCC’s privacy rules cover definitions of several terms, request for notification of and access to records, disclosure of record information to individuals, request to correct or amend records, administrative review of an initial decision not to provide access or amend a record, advice and assistance and penalty for false representation of identity.

Specific changes to the commission’s privacy rules include replacing the term “system manager” with “privacy analyst,” allowing individuals to submit an Identity Affirmation form instead of providing two forms of identification to verify their identity and proposing “an administrative review process that would treat denials of requests to access or amend a record under the Privacy Act in the same way the Commission treats other appeals of decisions made under delegated authority.”

Kristen Baldwin, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology and engineering, said the service is applying digital engineering to speed up the development of new platforms and an example of that is the T-7A trainer aircraft, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

She said using modeling and design tools helped the service reduce aircraft assembly hours to 80 percent, cut in half the time spent on software development and transition the aircraft design from computers to initial flight within 36 months.

“You know, digital engineering starts with model-based systems engineering. … But what’s really new is today’s instantiation, along with modern data analytics and computing capabilities, creates a transformational opportunity,” Baldwin told Federal Drive host Tom Temin. “So as the Air Force and space force fully embrace digital engineering, we’re seeing benefits, such as we’re able to model 1000s of different design concepts early on in acquisition, before a program even starts.”

Baldwin said the Air Force is working with industry and pursuing efforts to develop a “digital stack of models and infrastructure, so that we can have consistent ways to design an interface with our tools with the data and engage with our multiple defense supply chain actors.”

She also explained the concept of digital trinity of digital engineering, agile software practices and open architecture and cited the Air Force’s efforts to transition to a “more dynamic iterative, digital artifact-based process.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will hold a Proposers Day on March 18 for a program that seeks to develop artificial intelligence-enabled assistants that could help human users carry out complex tasks, minimize errors and expand their skillsets.

The Perceptually-enabled Task Guidance program intends to explore advances in augmented reality for human-computer interfaces and deep learning for speech and video analysis to develop virtual “task guidance” assistants that can provide users with audio and visual feedback, DARPA said Wednesday.

“Increasingly we seek to develop technologies that make AI a true, collaborative partner with humans,” said Bruce Draper, a program manager at DARPA’s information innovation office. “Developing virtual assistants that can provide substantial aid to human users as they complete tasks will require advances across a number of machine learning and AI technology focus areas, including knowledge acquisition and reasoning.”

PTG has two research areas and the first seeks to address a group of interconnected problems, including knowledge transfer, perceptual attention, user modeling and perceptual grounding. The second research area centers on integrated demonstrations of basic research outputs on use case scenarios that are relevant to the military.

DARPA said the program seeks to determine how task guidance assistants could be used in battlefield medicine, pilot guidance and mechanical repair.

The Potomac Officers Club will host its 3rd Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 30 to foster discussions on how to advance AI technology at speed and how private-public partnerships are key to maintaining the competitive advantage within the tech race. To register for this virtual summit and view other upcoming events, visit the Potomac Officers Club Events page.

Morcom International has received a $153,000 award to develop a sea pollution tracking technology for the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate. DHS said Wednesday it issued the award under phase one of the Silicon Valley Innovation Program's Maritime Object Tracking Technology solicitation.

The Virginia-based small business will further develop its Tracking Unit for Navigational Aid or TUNA technology to help the U.S. Coast Guard track oil spills, debris and various hazardous materials floating on seas and other bodies of water.

"We are looking forward to evaluating Morcom’s augmented design of TUNA and how it will benefit USCG missions,” said Wendy Chaves, manager of the Coast Guard's Research, Development, Test and Evaluation and Innovation program.

The existing TUNA technology offers reusable batteries, GPS-based tracking and automatic identification, and is designed to function in saltwater environments. Morcom will use awarded funds to make TUNA capable of airdropping, as per USGC's requirements.

The U.S. Navy found through inspections that its fleet of surface ships is experiencing degradation across multiple aspects, Defense News reported Wednesday.

The Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) discovered that ships are degrading in areas including electrical, damage-control, anti-submarine warfare and propulsion systems. The study covered a total of 21 assessment areas, with degradation found in 11 of them.

Inspectors looked at 24 ships so far this year, including a Freedom-class littoral combat ship and 16 destroyers. They also observed signs of degradation in the Aegis system, which facilitates a ship's weapon operation and missile defense.

INSURV also found that the Navy's submarines exhibited more signs of degradation in 2020 compared to the past five years. These findings were present in combat systems and auxiliary engineering systems of the underwater vessels.