UCB, USC To Build (And Hack) A Model Internet

darksoulz writes "Associated Press stories from TheKansasCityChannel.com and TheChamplainChannel.com have an interesting report today. It appears that the U.S. Government has given a $5.5 million grant to the University of California, Berkley and the University of Southern California so that they can build a model of the internet, so they can hack it. They are trying to find better defenses against hacking, without breaking the real Internet. The first phase is scheduled to be completed by February."

Comments

Good

[delirium28]

This is an intersting approach, but if they keep this a "closed system" (i.e. a hidden internet), then how much real "hacking" can they expect? Are they going to use honeypot data? Will they expose this system externally for real "hackers" to play with? Just my $0.02 worth.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the real point here is to make a testbed where they can unleash worms and then try different techniques to try and trace, contain, stop, and prevent them. Not to actually attract hackers. They will be the hackers, do the hacking, etc. Also to play with DDOS attacks and whatnot, without saturating any existing networks. I think the operative term is hacking a model 'internet' not a machine on the internet.

Are they doing the FULL internet here?

[paroneayea]

I mean, will sixty percent of it be model porn?

I'll do it for 1 million

[the_skywise]

Why do you need 5 million for that? How many computers can it possibly take? 50? 100? Let's say 100. That's $100,000 (and that's generous these days) Let's say $200,000 to lease building space and power for 2 years (also generous) and let's pay 3 professors part time, plus 10 students work study wages (Figure $50,000 per professor and $20,000 per student...$350,000)

What do we got?
$100,000 parts
$200,000 space
$350,000 labor
--------
$650,000

What's the other ~5 million going for?

Oh wait... they must need Windows licenses and full copies of Outlook to properly test the hacks...

Re:I'll do it for 1 million

[dr_dank]

What's the other ~5 million going for?

Mountain Dew doesn't come cheaply, my friend....

In ten years...

[sandbenders]

In ten years everyone will wonder why USC and Berkley produced all of the decade's best crackers. This project will result in three things:

1. Good dissertations for CS PhDs.
2. More secure software, which will rarely be implemented and even more rarely be implemented well.
3. A whole bunch of research assistants who think they are l33t h4x0rs. And some of them will be right.

Re:Is it dead already?

[nate1138]

My old roommate used to say that only two good things ever came from Berkeley:

• BSD
• LSD

Of course he went to Cal-Tech (Which I've always heard was a trade school for surfers ;-)

Similar Project at Iowa State University

[logrey]

Iowa State has a similar project funded with a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Iowa State Computer Security Lab

here's the real scoop

[t_parker16]

all this speculating on what's involved, but the project is described in pretty good detail over at the ISI web site. (and so, its apparently not USC specifically but the usc information sciences institute):

http://www.isi.edu/stories/70.html

excerpt:

"The DETER testbed will consist of approximately 1,000 computers with multiple network interface cards, located off the actual Internet. Three permanent hardware clusters, or nodes, at UC Berkeley and at ISI's Southern California and Virginia facilities, will serve as the core of the system.

"This isolated mini-Internet will serve as a shared laboratory where researchers from government, industry and academia can test existing and new security technology, using a wide variety of attack techniques."