Pentagon wants Cyberwar...

May 2008

Pentagon wants cyberwar range to ‘replicate human behavior and frailties’. The Pentagon’s researchers do not just want to build an Internet simulator, to test out cyberwar tactics. They want the range’s operators to “realistically replicate human behavior and frailties,” too. Congress has ordered the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to put together a National Cyber Range, as part of a massive $30 billion, government-wide effort better prep for battle online. The project is now considered a top priority for the Agency. To make sure the facility is as true-to-life as possible, Darpa wants the contractors running the Range to be able to “replicate realistic human behavior on nodes,” a request for proposals, released today, reveals. Several examples of the specifics the Agency wants to have from its contractors include: provide robust technologies to emulate human behavior on all nodes of the range for testing all aspects of range behavior; replicants will produce realistic chain of events between many users without explicit scripting behavior; replicants must be capable of implementing multiple user roles similar to roles found on operational networks; replicants will interact with authenticate systems, including but not limited to DoD authentication systems (common access cards – CAC), identity tokens. These mock people have to be able to “demonstrate human-level behavior on 80 percent of all events,” the Agency adds. And mimicking humans is only one of a wide array of tasks Darpa wants to see operators of the National Cyber Range pull off. The facility should also feature a “realistic, sophisticated, nation-state quality offensive and defensive opposition forces” that can fight military info-warriors in mock combat