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US Military Blocks Data On Incoming Meteors
Hugh Pickens writes "Nature reports that the US military has abruptly ended an informal arrangement that allowed scientists access to data on incoming meteors from classified surveillance satellites, dealing a blow to the astronomers and planetary scientists who used the information to track space rocks. 'These systems are extremely useful,' says astronomer Peter Brown, at the University of Western Ontario. 'I think the scientific community benefited enormously.' Meteor data came from the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite network consisting of infrared satellites in geosynchronous orbit to monitor the globe for missile launches or atmospheric nuclear blasts, forming the principal component of the United States' ballistic missile early-warning system. The satellites' effectiveness was demonstrated during Desert Storm, when DSP detected the launch of Iraqi Scud missiles and provided warning to civilian populations and coalition forces in Israel and Saudi Arabia. As a side benefit, the satellites could also precisely detect the time, position, altitude and brightness of meteors as they entered Earth's atmosphere, information the military didn't consider particularly useful, or classified. 'It was being dropped on the floor,' says former Air Force captain Brian Weeden. Although the reason for ending the arrangement remains unclear, Weeden notes that it coincides with the launch of a new generation of surveillance satellites and speculates that the Pentagon may not want details of the new satellites' capabilities to be made public, or it may simply lack the expensive software needed to handle classified and declassified data simultaneously. 'The decision may have been made that it was perhaps too difficult to disclose just these data.'"
Congratulations, you just failed your NSA cert because you attempted to mix classified and non-classified processing in the same processor. If you want to handle classified data, a processor can only handle classified data, you cannot mix and match. In devices that are forced to mix and match (edge devices, like encryptors typically) you have to build your device in two halves and minimize the contact between the halves (typically they will be in separate metal boxes inside of the device, with a single wire connecting them. That single wire will eat up pages and pages of documentation when you try to get your device certified explaining how there is no possible way to leak information out of it (even in cases like slamming the crypto with bad traffic on the red side to cause it to slow down in some pattern that could be identified on the black side).
Your failure in design just cost your company a million dollars and several man-years of effort.
The satellites were picking up data on meteors as they hit the atmosphere. This has nothing to do with the search for large objects that may or may not hit the earth.
This is technically made clear by the use of the word meteor, as opposed to asteroid, but I only remembered that as I type this so I expect I am not the only one that could have used a clarifying sentence in the summary.
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