DARPA Issues $2mil Cyber Grand Challenge

First time accepted submitter Papa Fett writes "DARPA announced the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC)--the first-ever tournament for fully automatic network defense systems. International teams will compete to build systems that reason about software flaws, formulate patches and deploy them on a network in real time. Teams would be scored against each other based on how capably their systems can protect hosts, scan the network for vulnerabilities, and maintain the correct function of software. The winning team would receive a cash prize of $2 million , with second place earning $1 million and third place taking home $750,000." Also at Slashcloud.

Comments

What happened to Skynet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they already have it running. Did their crash and lost the backup?

$2 Million as a bait

[Taco Cowboy]

Darpa's intention is not to build a secured system, but rather, finding fresh international talents to enable NSA to break more systems all over the world.

I am an American, and it is not that I do not trust my own country.

I do trust my country.

I simply have lost all trust to my own government.

Re:$2 Million as a bait

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you have absolute trust in your government to misbehave.

No.

I have absolute confidence that as long as lobbyist's intentions are to fight for private entities to maximize revenue streams as the #1 priority at all times, it will all but guarantee absolute corruption, which is what we have today.

You're kidding yourself if you think Congress runs the show around here. They are the lobbyist's bitch.

Re:$2 Million as a bait

[iserlohn]

As a respresentative democracy, the government is who we vote in. However, as long as billionaires and their corporations control political funding, there is no chance that we will be able to vote in people that can make a real difference. It also does not help that they fund polarizing news organizations that discourages debate and promotes ridgid ideological agendas.

Overthrowing the government is useless. Any new government that forms will immediately be under the influence of vested interests. We need real political finance reform in order to have lasting effect.

Re:$2 Million as a bait

[LordLimecat]

However, as long as billionaires and their corporations control political funding, there is no chance that we will be able to vote in people that can make a real difference.

Thats not really true. The votes still have to come from the people; all the funding does is get the word out.

We need real political finance reform in order to have lasting effect.

To my eyes the problem is that restricting the things an organization may say (in advertising, for example) seems to run directly afoul of the first amendment.

Seems to me youre saying you think the indirect influence of lobbying / campaign contributions has a sufficiently negative effect that it outweighs directly attacking the right of free speech. Im not really comfortable with that notion, the first amendment seems pretty core to a functioning democracy.

Re:Two million?

[Chrisq]

Chump change for a project like this. No one with the skills to build a good solution will give it away for two million.

Who said give it away? They'll probably take the 2,000,000 then sell the system as the "DARPA Cyber Challenge winner". There is no requirement for the software to be free or open source.

Egads! "build systems that reason" ???

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could "build systems that reason" you'd be able to get a whole lot more than $2mil - why would anyone divulge this technology to the government when they could license it to Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and everyone else? If I had this technology, my first stop would be the patent office and I would patent it out the wazoo and start licensing it. If the government wants it, they can get in line.

Re:laughable

[malakai]

We go through this every time there is a DARPA challenge:

5 Intellectual Property
DARPA claims no rights to software developed by Open Track competitors as a result of participation in the CGC. DARPA does not intend to disclose the CQE and CFE Technical Papers outside the Government, with the following exception: CGC Technical Papers may be handled by DARPA support contractors for administrative purposes and/or to assist with technical evaluation. All DARPA support contractors performing this role are bound by nondisclosure agreements. DARPA does not intend to disclose CGC Technical Papers to contractors to duplicate, commercialize, or for reprocurement or reverse engineering purposes.

Do you think all the participants of the past DARPA grand challenges relating to autonomous vehicles have given away their IP? Of course not. Those teams that pushed through have made lucrative deals with car manufacturers and others.

All DARPA want's to do is spur innovation. A challenge like this is essentially a heads up that in 5 years they'd like to spend a lot of money on procuring services like these. In the past, they'd just give someone the money to build it, and maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. At least now it's a bit more market driven.