Ethical Control of Unmanned Systems: lifesaving/lethal scenarios for naval operations

Prepared for: Raytheon Missiles & Defense under NCRADA-NPS-19-0227This research in Ethical Control of Unmanned Systems applies precepts of Network Optional Warfare (NOW) to develop a three-step Mission Execution Ontology (MEO) methodology for validating, simulating, and implementing mission orders for unmanned systems. First, mission orders are represented in ontologies that are understandable by humans and readable by machines. Next, the MEO is validated and tested for logical coherence using Semantic Web standards. The validated MEO is refined for implementation in simulation and visualization. This process is iterated until the MEO is ready for implementation. This methodology is applied to four Naval scenarios in order of increasing challenges that the operational environment and the adversary impose on the Human-Machine Team. The extent of challenge to Ethical Control in the scenarios is used to refine the MEO for the unmanned system. The research also considers Data-Centric Security and blockchain distributed ledger as enabling technologies for Ethical Control. Data-Centric Security is a combination of structured messaging, efficient compression, digital signature, and document encryption, in correct order, for round-trip messaging. Blockchain distributed ledger has potential to further add integrity measures for aggregated message sets, confirming receipt/response/sequencing without undetected message loss. When implemented, these technologies together form the end-to-end data security that ensures mutual trust and command authority in real-world operational environments—despite the potential presence of interfering network conditions, intermittent gaps, or potential opponent intercept. A coherent Ethical Control approach to command and control of unmanned systems is thus feasible. Therefore, this research concludes that maintaining human control of unmanned systems at long ranges of time-duration and distance, in denied, degraded, and deceptive environments, is possible through well-defined mission orders and data security technologies. Finally, as the human role remains essential in Ethical Control of unmanned systems, this research recommends the development of an unmanned system qualification process for Naval operations, as well as additional research prioritized based on urgency and impact.Raytheon Missiles & DefenseRaytheon Missiles & Defense (RMD).Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Naval Research Program 2019 Annual Report

NPS NRP Annual ReportThe Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP) is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. The NPS NRP serves as a launch-point for new initiatives which posture naval forces to meet current and future operational warfighter challenges. NRP research projects are led by individual research teams that conduct research and through which NPS expertise is developed and maintained. The primary mechanism for obtaining NPS NRP support is through participation at NPS Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) meetings that bring together fleet topic sponsors, NPS faculty members, and students to discuss potential research topics and initiatives.Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)This research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Open Education

"This insightful collection of essays explores the ways in which open education can democratise access to education for all. It is a rich resource that offers both research and case studies to relate the application of open technologies and approaches in education settings around the world. Global in perspective, this book argues strongly for the value of open education in both the developed and developing worlds. Through a mixture of theoretical and practical approaches, it demonstrates that open education promotes ideals of inclusion, diversity, and social justice to achieve the vision of education as a fundamental human right. A must-read for practitioners, policy-makers, scholars and students in the field of education.

Developing a trusted computational grid

Within institutional computing infrastructure, currently available grid mid-dlewares are considered to be overly complex. This is largely due to behaviours required for untrusted networks. These behaviours however are an integral part of grid systems and cannot be removed. Within this work the development of a grid middleware suitable for unifying institu-tional resources is proposed. The proposed system should be capa-ble of interfacing with all Linux based systems within the QueensGate Grid (QGG) campus grid, automatically determining the best resource for a given job. This allocation should be done without requiring any ad-ditional user effort, or impacting established user workflows. The frame-work was developed to tackle this problem. It was simulated, utilising real usage data, in order to assess suitability for deployment. The re-sults gained from simulation were encouraging. There is a close match between real usage data and data generated through simulation. Fur-thermore the proposed framework will enable better utilisation of cam-pus grid resources, will not require modification of user workflows, and will maintain the security and integrity of user accounts

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate

The Future of the Internet: Millennials Will Benefit and Suffer Due to Their Hyperconnected Lives

Presents technology stakeholders' survey responses about whether the Millennial generation's always-on connection to people and information through social media, mobile Web, and multi-tasking will be a net positive or negative by 2020. Excerpts comments

Educating the effective digital forensics practitioner: academic, professional, graduate and student perspectives

Over the years, digital forensics has become an important and sought-after profession where the gateway of training and education has developed vastly over the past decade. Many UK higher education (HE) institutions now deliver courses that prepare students for careers in digital forensics and, in most recent advances, cyber security. Skills shortages and external influences attributed within the field of cyber security, and its relationship as a discipline with digital forensics, has shifted the dynamic of UK higher education provisions. The implications of this now sees the route to becoming a digital forensic practitioner, be it in law enforcement or business, transform from on-the-job training to university educated, trained analysts. This thesis examined courses within HE and discovered that the delivery of these courses often overlooked areas such as mobile forensics, live data forensics, Linux and Mac knowledge. This research also considered current standards available across HE to understand whether educational programmes are delivering what is documented as relevant curriculum. Cyber security was found to be the central focus of these standards within inclusion of digital forensics, adding further to the debate and lack of distinctive nature of digital forensics as its own discipline. Few standards demonstrated how the topics, knowledge, skills and competences drawn were identified as relevant and effective for producing digital forensic practitioners. Additionally, this thesis analyses and discusses results from 201 participants across five stakeholder groups: graduates, professionals, academics, students and the public. These areas were selected due to being underdeveloped in existing literature and the crucial role they play in the cycle of producing effective practitioners. Analysis on stakeholder views, experiences and thoughts surrounding education and training offer unique insight, theoretical underpinnings and original contributions not seen in existing literature. For example, challenges, costs and initial issues with introducing graduates to employment for the employers and/or supervising practitioners, the lack of awareness and contextualisation on behalf of students and graduates towards what knowledge and skills they have learned and acquired on a course and its practical application on-the-job which often lead to suggestions of a lack of fundamental knowledge and skills. This is evidenced throughout the thesis, but examples include graduates: for their reflections on education based on their new on-the-job experiences and practices; professionals: for their job experiences and requirements, academics: for their educational practices and challenges; students: their initial expectations and views; and, the public: for their general understanding. This research uniquely captures these perspectives, bolstering the development of digital forensics as an academic discipline, along with the importance these diverse views play in the overall approach to delivering skilled practitioners. While the main contribution to knowledge within this thesis is its narrative focusing on the education of effective digital forensic practitioners and its major stakeholders, this thesis also makes additional contributions both academically and professionally; including the discussion, analysis and reflection of: - improvements for education and digital forensics topics for research and curriculum development; - where course offerings can be improved for institutions offering digital forensic degree programmes; - the need for further collaboration between industry and academia to provide students and graduates with greater understanding of the real-life role of a digital forensic practitioner and the expectations in employment; - continuous and unique challenges within both academia and the industry which digital forensics possess and the need for improved facilities and tool development to curate and share problem and scenario-based learning studies

Building information modeling – A game changer for interoperability and a chance for digital preservation of architectural data?

Digital data associated with the architectural design-andconstruction process is an essential resource alongside -and even past- the lifecycle of the construction object it describes. Despite this, digital architectural data remains to be largely neglected in digital preservation research – and vice versa, digital preservation is so far neglected in the design-and-construction process. In the last 5 years, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has seen a growing adoption in the architecture and construction domains, marking a large step towards much needed interoperability. The open standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) is one way in which data is exchanged in BIM processes. This paper presents a first digital preservation based look at BIM processes, highlighting the history and adoption of the methods as well as the open file format standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) as one way to store and preserve BIM data