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Gen. Paul Nakasone Assumes Leadership of Cybercom, NSA
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Gen. Paul Nakasone Assumes Leadership of Cybercom, NSA


Gen. Paul Nakasone Assumes Leadership of Cybercom, NSA
Paul Nakasone

U.S. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone has succeeded U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Rogers as commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency.

Nakasone, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, previously commanded the Army Cyber Command and led Cybercom’s Joint Task Force-ARES in efforts to counter cyber activities of the Islamic State militant group, NSA said Friday.

The change in leadership ceremony took place Friday at Fort Meade in Maryland and also marked the transition of Cybercom into the country’s 10th combatant command.

NSA added the event also coincided with the opening of the Integrated Cyber Center designed to support threat response planning and coordination efforts.

The center is located within NSA and Cybercom’s Fort Meade-based East Campus, which is scheduled to be completed in 2028 and will house more than 20,000 personnel.

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Navy Revives Second Fleet; Adm. John Richardson Comments
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Navy Revives Second Fleet; Adm. John Richardson Comments


Navy Revives Second Fleet; Adm. John Richardson Comments
John Richardson

Navy Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, announced Friday the service branch has restored the U.S. 2nd Fleet in a move to help address National Defense Strategy objectives.

The Navy said Friday the reactivated fleet will manage naval ships, aircraft and landing forces assigned to the East Coast and northern Atlantic Ocean.

Second Fleet will also train and certify forces for international maritime contingency operations, as well as plan and implement joint and combined sea and ocean missions.

“Our National Defense Strategy makes clear that we’re back in an era of great power competition as the security environment continues to grow more challenging and complex,” said Richardson.

The service branch deactivated the 2nd fleet seven years ago and transferred many of the group’s assets, personnel and responsibilities to the U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

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Intelligence Community Launches AI-Based Competition to Verify Information Credibility
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Intelligence Community Launches AI-Based Competition to Verify Information Credibility


Intelligence Community Launches AI-Based Competition to Verify Information CredibilityThe offices of the Director of Science and Technology and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence have launched a competition to verify the credibility of information using artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Thursday the Xamine challenge aims to match the current development and assessment of products through machine learning approaches.

Challenge participants will be tasked to provide a technology-based explanation as to how an approach was used to validate information before it is incorporated into machine-generated intelligence products.

Solvers are required to describe their plan in a way that will enable intelligence analysts to comprehend and assess the solution according to its credibility.

David Isaacson, DS&T program manager for Xamine, stated that the intelligence community requires a scalable means to inspect and ensure IC collection systems ingest the integrity of data.

Initial winners of the Xamine challenge will initially receive $25,000, while solvers who will be able to further elaborate on their proposed solution upon the request of ODNI and OUSD will be given $50,000.

Xamine succeeds the XPress and Xtend challenges, both of which were conducted in 2017.

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Report: DoD Aims to Address Bid Protest-Related Procurement Delays Via Legislation
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Report: DoD Aims to Address Bid Protest-Related Procurement Delays Via Legislation


Report: DoD Aims to Address Bid Protest-Related Procurement Delays Via LegislationThe Defense Department has proposed a new measure that aims to address delays in government procurements by limiting the ability of government contractors to challenge contract award decisions by agencies in federal courts, Federal News Radio reported Friday.

The proposed legislation would direct contractors to file bid protests with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims within 10 days of the award decision and prohibit them from using COFC as a backup if they fail to win their cases at the Government Accountability Office.

“The amount of time that could be consumed by protests would be reduced, scarce agency procurement resources would be conserved by ensuring that two separate trial-level forums do not adjudicate the same bid protest, and protesters would be assured of accountability and transparency no matter which forum they elected,” DoD officials wrote in their official proposal to Congress.

“This reform would largely eliminate an unintended ‘forum shopping’ practice that has arisen under the existing bid protest system, and would materially contribute to the expeditious yet fair resolution of bid protests,” they added.

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ODNI Report: NSA Collected 534M Call Records in 2017
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ODNI Report: NSA Collected 534M Call Records in 2017


ODNI Report: NSA Collected 534M Call Records in 2017The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its fifth annual report that provides statistics on how frequent the federal government uses national security authorities.

ODNI said in the transparency report published Friday that the National Security Agency collected more than 534 million call detail records in 2017, up from 151 million phone records recorded in 2016.

The number of national security letters issued rose from 12,150 in 2016 to 12,762 last year, while the number of requests for information also increased to at least 41,000 from nearly 25,000 in 2016.

The report showed that the total number of orders for the use of pen register and trap-and-trace devices under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act dropped by nearly half from 60 in 2016 to 33 in 2017.

ODNI noted that the total number of “probable cause” court orders under FISA’s sections 703 and 704 and titles I and III provisions declined from 1,559 in 2016 to 1,437 in 2017.

The estimated number of targets under those provisions who are non-U.S. citizens reached 1,038 last year, down from 1,559 in 2016.

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NASA Mulls Helicopter Tech Inclusion in Mars 2020 Mission
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NASA Mulls Helicopter Tech Inclusion in Mars 2020 Mission


NASA Mulls Helicopter Tech Inclusion in Mars 2020 MissionNASA could decide in late May whether the space agency will add a small helicopter on the Mars 2020 rover as part of technology demonstration efforts, SpaceNews reported Friday.

The space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing the helicopter separately from the upcoming mission to the red planet in an effort to determine how the platform can serve as a scout for future rovers and conduct additional science experiments.

Ken Farley, the project scientist for Mars 2020, said he expects the helicopter to operate in the first 30 days of the rover’s mission if NASA includes the platform.

NASA will review Mars 2020 during its Key Decision Point D milestone, which would formally authorize the program to enter assembly, test and launch phases.

The agency aims to launch the rover in July 2020 on a mission to seek signs of life in Mars, as well as collect information to address concerns for possible human expedition to the red planet.

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Change-of-Command Ceremony to Mark Cybercom’s Elevation to Combatant Command
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Change-of-Command Ceremony to Mark Cybercom’s Elevation to Combatant Command


Change-of-Command Ceremony to Mark Cybercom’s Elevation to Combatant Command
Paul Nakasone

Paul Nakasone, formerly commander of the Army Cyber Command, on Friday will officially become head of the U.S. Cyber Command during a change-of-command ceremony that will mark the transition of Cybercom into a combatant command, DoD News reported Thursday.

Nakasone will succeed the retiring Navy Adm. Michael Rogers and accept his fourth star as his military rank changes from lieutenant general to general at the ceremony to be presided by Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Dana White, a spokesperson for the Defense Department, told reporters Thursday that Nakasone will oversee cyber operation planning and implementation, facilitate training of cyber professionals and advocate for additional cyber resources.

White said Cybercom will become the 10th combatant command that will work to deter and respond to cyber attacks.

Nakasone, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, received Senate confirmation in April to serve in the dual-hatted role of Cybercom chief and director of the National Security Agency.

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DARPA Picks University Research Teams for Lifelong Learning Machines Program
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DARPA Picks University Research Teams for Lifelong Learning Machines Program

DARPA Picks University Research Teams for Lifelong Learning Machines ProgramThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has picked research teams that will develop new machine learning methods designed to enable artificial intelligence systems to adapt to new changes and implement previous knowledge and skills to new situations.

DARPA said Thursday teams from the University of California in Irvine, Tufts University and University of Wyoming will perform work on two technical areas of the agency’s Lifelong Learning Machines program.

The L2M program’s first technical area will deal with the development of complete platforms and components, while the other will look at learning methods in biological organisms and transition those mechanisms into computational processes.

The University of California team plans to develop a machine learning system designed to predict potential outcomes through comparison between inputs and existing memories.

The Tufts University team has begun to investigate how salamanders and other animals regenerate in an effort to develop robots designed to adjust to changing environments through alteration of function and structure.

The University of Wyoming team will develop a computational system designed to identify modular memories through the use of context and rearrange those memories with sensory input to establish behaviors in order to correspond to new circumstances.

“With the L2M program, we are not looking for incremental improvements in state-of-the-art AI and neural networks, but rather paradigm-changing approaches to machine learning that will enable systems to continuously improve based on experience,” said Hava Siegelmann, L2M program manager.

“L2M seeks to enable AI systems to learn from experience and become smarter, safer and more reliable than existing AI,” Siegelmann added.

 

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DOE to Invest $78M in Bioenergy R&D Projects
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DOE to Invest $78M in Bioenergy R&D Projects


DOE to Invest $78M in Bioenergy R&D ProjectsThe Energy Department will invest a total of $78 million to fund early-stage bioenergy research and development projects.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in a statement released Thursday that DOE seeks to improve the conversion of algae, energy crops and various waste streams into biofuels, biopower and bioproducts through the four new funding opportunities.

DOE will award up to $28 million under the BioEnergy Engineering for Products Synthesis funding opportunity that looks to identify conversion processes for fuel and other products from biomass or waste streams.

The department also seeks proposals in the algae-based biofuel and bioproduct areas under the potential $15 million Efficient Carbon Utilization in Algal Systems FOA.

The Affordable and Sustainable Energy Crops research funding opportunity offers up to $15 million and seeks to produce energy crops for use as bioproduct feedstocks.

DOE added the Process Development for Advanced Biofuels and Biopower FOA will provide up to $20 million to studies that aim to develop production processes to help improve biofuel cost-competitiveness and biosolid-to-power

Interested parties can submit letters of intent through May 30.

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NIST Unveils New Competition to Advance Data Utilization, Privacy Protection
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NIST Unveils New Competition to Advance Data Utilization, Privacy Protection


NIST Unveils New Competition to Advance Data Utilization, Privacy ProtectionThe National Institute of Standards and Technology has launched a new challenge that aims to develop a new platform that will work to provide researchers access to personally identifiable information while ensuring data privacy.

NIST said in a Challenge.gov notice The Unlinkable Data Challenge is a multi-stage competition that calls for participants to propose a method for the de-identification of a dataset and provide conceptual platforms that describe how to adopt and combine methods to prevent privacy loss.

Competitors should propose an algorithm designed to optimize data privacy and utility and a dataset that would serve as a use case for the proposed algorithm.

NIST will accept submissions through July 26 and announce the winners on Sept. 12, according to the notice.

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