The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced its intent to gain access to Twitter’s enterprise-level application programming interface as part of a project aimed at backing research into social media analytics during natural disasters and emergencies.

A notice posted Tuesday says NIST identifies and prioritizes tweets during natural disasters based on an emergency response ontology under its Text Retrieval Conference Incident Streams project.

Through the TREC Incident Streams project, NIST invites research teams worldwide to come up with software platforms that can classify the tweets and then develops the infrastructure to assess the effectiveness of such platforms. The agency expects those platforms to help public safety organizations improve their decision-making processes.

“NIST requires access and use on an Enterprise-Level API to search Twitter during emergencies, such as safety emergencies like floods, wildfires, earthquakes, other natural disasters, so that we can identify as many tweets coming from the emergency as possible,” the notice states.

Twitter has authorized the New Jersey Institute of Technology to serve as its sole intermediary and provide NIST access to API data through a contract, which has a base term of four months and an option period of five months.

Responses to the notice are due July 16.

The Census Bureau and other agencies are looking for commercial off-the-shelf systems that could help protect data computation and privacy to securely link datasets and generate predictions about the COVID-19 pandemic, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

Cavan Capps, big data lead at the Census Bureau, said industry could help ensure public trust and facilitate data sharing by providing a better platform that could help secure the environment used for data storage and analysis.

Lynne Parker, deputy chief technology officer at the White House, cited the lack of a “silver bullet” solution to data privacy protection due to weaknesses of certain techniques, including data de-identification, data aggregation and homomorphic encryption.

“Much more needs to be done to create scalable solutions that are not just a point solution for a particular data sharing goal, but an approach that can scale to more use cases,” Parker said. “So I close with a call to all of you across industry, academia and government: What we need is a better pathway forward for addressing data sharing hurdles more quickly and in the shorter term.”

The Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has announced the creation of a program to facilitate sharing of information on supply chain-related security risks with communications service providers and equipment suppliers.

A Federal Register notice posted Wednesday says the Communications Supply Chain Risk Information Partnership will be established through four phases in compliance with Section 8 of the Secure and Trusted Communications Network Act of 2019, which President Trump signed into law in March 2020.

NTIA is working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Communications Commission to establish C-SCRIP.

“C–SCRIP will allow for regularly scheduled informational briefings, with a goal of providing more targeted information for C–SCRIP participants as the program matures over time,” the notice reads. “NTIA will aim to ensure that the risk information identified for sharing under the program is relevant and accessible, and will work with its government partners to enable the granting of security clearances under established guidelines when necessary.”

Meritalk reported NTIA will accept comments on the program through July 13.

The U.S. Army has discovered a new method to approach quantum information security as parties continue to leverage quantum science for advanced information applications.

The service branch said Tuesday it sees quantum paradigms as potential tools to transform, streamline, accelerate and better protect the process through which battlefield information moves.

“To engineer a useful quantum network, we need to understand how far, how fast and how reliably we could send quantum information,” said Army Research Laboratory's Michael Brodsky.

He added that the study requires researchers to understand the attributes of noise found in communication channels.

Brodsky and his team found that bad noise can undergo conversion into good noise through a tool that allows for adjustments of signal-distorting noise.

“Our research results are a step towards arming the warfighter of the future with quantum advantages and a good example of how operationalizing science results in transformational overmatch,” Brodsky noted.

The Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center (AFIMSC) and the Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) have partnered to create a data call list of deliverables that will guide base civil engineers in mapping projects and requirements.

Each data call includes snapshots of timelines and a list of actions meant to help installations complete tasks within specific timeframes, the U.S. Air Force said Tuesday.

"Base civil engineers were getting tasked with numerous data calls, which span many different programs within the Air Force," said Ivonne Bates, utility asset management plan manager at AFIMSC.

Bates added the two centers agreed to develop the list to mitigate potential gaps from numerous data calls. USAF noted 13 programs under AFCEC submit CE data requests annually prior to the creation of the list.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued its data and cloud strategies aimed at improving the agency’s use of data to support related strategies in areas such as artificial intelligence and unmanned systems.

NOAA said Tuesday its data strategy seeks to ensure the agency’s compliance with the federal data strategy as well as current environmental data management directives.

The cloud strategy is meant to build on NOAA’s existing cloud initiatives involving data storage and analytics to support applications such as weather forecasting, marine resource analysis, ocean models and data dissemination.

NOAA intends to align its cloud efforts with the federal “CloudSmart” strategy and ensure smooth migration operations while promoting wider and more secure access to NOAA data.

The agency noted that it also seeks to develop a governance framework for using enterprise cloud services as part of its strategy.

“Our Cloud and Data strategies provide a guide to address emerging science and technology, and ultimately help accelerate NOAA’s mission and further increase the value of our data,” said Neil Jacobs, acting administrator of NOAA.

“Creative partnerships with commercial cloud providers set NOAA apart from others in making more of its data publicly accessible.”

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released an updated draft publication that lists new requirements regarding controlled unclassified information.

Draft NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-172 tackles federal CUI security from advanced persistent threats that use physical and cyber means to breach systems and access information with no authorization, the agency said Monday.

The updated publication aims to protect organizations from information exfiltration, compromise of missions and other objectives pursued by threats. Applied updates include boosted requirement flexibility and explanations of how new requirements can help address cyber attacks.

NIST developed these updates based on input gathered from the public.

The U.S. Space Force has released a draft proposal for the organizational structure of its headquarters which is expected to have a workforce of around 200 personnel, SpaceNews reported Tuesday.

Maj. Gen. Chance Saltzman, deputy Commander of the U.S. Air Forces Central Command, will serve as acting staff director at the Office of the Chief of Space Operations (OCSO) and help oversee the appointment of both military and civilian leadership posts.

The draft proposal states that OCSO will have four chief officers assigned to lead operations, strategy and resourcing, human capital and technology and innovation. Sources told SpaceNews that plans for OCSO’s staff organization are being reviewed by congressional committees and the Department of the Air Force. 

Gen. John Raymond, chief of space operations at the Space Force and 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, approved the draft proposal last month, according to the publication.