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All MITRE Projects (with summaries and presentations where available)
Listing of project titles in alphabetical order
Pages: 1234567891011121314151617
Trust and Human Response in Cyber C2
Primary Investigator:Boiney, Lindsley
Problems:
Most approaches to cyber defense emphasize technological capabilities, yet in reality the “system” under attack is technology + processes + people. Both commanders and operators report they do not know how to identify and respond to a cyber attack, which is a critical weakness. Our goal is to enumerate tools, processes, displays, and other interventions that effectively support human-system decision making under cyber threat. Our research will develop models of automation for trust and create a framework for decision-making processes capable of balancing the intertwined needs of ongoing mission support, information gathering, sense-making, and cyber defense actions. By increasing our knowledge of operators' reactions to cyber threats through experimentation, interviews with subject matter experts, and operational exercises, we will create guidance for the development of robust operational processes for settings such as an AOC.
Objectives:
To improve C2 responses to cyber threats, we will model the unique types of interrelated decisions that must be made under cyber threats, and develop a rich understanding of how human operators do—and should—react, behave, and perform in a degraded environment. We will recommend processes, training, and other interventions that improve command and control decision making and human-system interactions under a range of cyber threats.
Activities:
Interview SMEs and perform gap analysis with respect to human cyber responses
–Use cases and existing TTPs.
Leverage operational exercises with cyber mission threads
–Document behaviors and communication patterns
–Identify key variables and challenges of cyber threat scenarios.
Develop an initial model of factors influencing performance under cyber threat.
Perform experimentation in individual/team environments where investigators can inject system and data faults
–Identify and implement cyber C2 interventions
–Measure task performance.
Impact:
Provide guidance for Cyber Commands
–Identify factors/interventions that positively affect mission performance
–Map out decision options
–Provide guidelines for the development of procedures.
Evaluate system health indicators
–Test the SA technologies developed in other MITRE research
–Establish reliability requirements for user trust.
Assemble a repository of lessons learned and best practices and share them across MITRE's sponsors.
Public Release No:09-0815
[Presentation]
Uncorrelated Track Processing for Space Surveillance
Primary Investigator:Miller, James G.
Unified Predictive Analysis: A Novel Method for Integration of Structured and Unstructured Data Analysis
Primary Investigator:Han, Brent M
Problems:
The proposed approach to text mining integrates text classification with a predictive analytics process. The aim is not simply to use text classification to build a set of classifiers for the unstructured data. Rather, the resulting models are used to extract features from the unstructured data to be used in conjunction with the structured data in the mining process (i.e., building classifiers over both structured and unstructured data).
Objectives:
The objective of this effort is to design and develop a novel algorithm that combines the analyses of numerical and textual data to build unified predictive models for the detection of financial fraud. The research will result in a fully functioning prototype as well as several peer-reviewed publications focusing on various aspects of the research.
Activities:
At the heart of the proposed method is a Concept Extraction process. This, in essence, is a Text Classification algorithm that builds models of unstructured data (i.e., document collections, based on the labels assigned to them using the annotations specified by the structured data). However, the aim here is not simply to use Text Classification to build a set of classifiers for the unstructured data. Rather, the resulting models are used to extract features from the unstructured data to be used in conjunction with the structured data in the mining process (i.e., building classifiers over both structured and unstructured data). The intended features specify the presence or absence of various “concepts” within each class of documents, hence the term Concept Extraction. The Concept Extraction process works as follows. Documents are first grouped into classes assigned to them, using the class labels of the corresponding data points in the structured data table. Again, the documents and data points in the structured database are registered with common keys. A classifier is then learned for each of these document classes. A rule learning algorithm will be employed for this purpose. Each learned rule captures some aspect of the document class. In other words, each rule identifies the various “concepts” present in the class. The presence or absence of such concepts in documents can then be used as features to populate a structured database table.
Impact:
Financial fraud is a current and growing concern for MITRE’s sponsors (e.g., SEC, PCAOB, IRS, FinCEN). Sifting through large volumes of numerical financial data, as well as unstructured textual data, in corporate financial statements is a challeging task that requires the use of automated tools. Currently, however, there are no effective approaches to combining the analyses of both structured numerical data and unstructured textual data for building unified predictive models. This research will provide MITRE with a greatly enhanced understanding of financial fraud and potential methods and techniques that we can use to support our sponsors in combating it. This will put MITRE in a unique position to help solve some of our sponsors’ more challenging financial fraud problems and to provide them with practical and actionable recommendations. In addition to tackling the problem of financial fraud, the innovative method developed in this project will be able to assist sponsors with other challenges such as medical claims fraud (CMS/VA), cargo screening (CBP), and counter terrorism (DHS). Also, the method developed from this research will be a contribution to the data mining research community and will result in publishable work. The products developed as a result of this research could be licensed to vendors in order to make them available to potential users beyond MITRE’s immediate sponsors.
Public Release No:09-1111
[Presentation]
Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Capability
Primary Investigator:Sogandares, Frank M.
Problems:
This research is exploring the potential for using the Internet-based Virtual Air Traffic SIMulation (VATSIM) community as an aviation research environment. The project will investigate whether or not it is possible to use the VATSIM community to inform the design and execution of experments conducted in MITRE's laboratories and/or to perform feasibility studies on new concepts, procedures, or technologies.
Objectives:
We will develop a demographic profile of the VATSIM community to determine what makes their contributions usable and/or credible to the aviation community. We will then plan, execute, and analyze exploratory experiments and demonstrations that engage the community. These experiments and demonstrations will help us better understand VATSIM strengths and weaknesses, and will expose the VATSIM community to aviation research problems and questions.
Activities:
The project plans several experiments and demonstrations this year. We plan experiments to determine if we can distribute extensions to PC-based flight simulators and obtain usable results. We plan interactive demonstrations of advanced capabilities to help evaluate if unfieldedadvanced data and functional products can be put to effective use by the VATSIM community. We also plan to run experiments that simultaneously involve participants from both VATSIM and MITRE's air traffic management laboratory. Other potential areas for experimentation include airspace design research and procedures for integrating unmanned aircraft into the national airspace system.
Impact:
VATSIM has the potential to expand current laboratory-based human-in-the-loop simulation environments to involve many more participants. Many of these participants have ready access to high-fidelity flight simulator products, as well as significant knowledge of current flight procedures and technology. If VATSIM proves useful, the scale and realism of NextGen experimentation could expand beyond the physical boundaries of MITRE laboratories and could involve a whole new dimension of stakeholders.
Public Release No:09-1025
[Presentation]
Exhibit Date(s):May 6, May 7
Visual Knowledge Integration (VIKI)
Primary Investigator:Clemente, Bernadette E.
Problems:
VIKI is intended to provide a rich gestalt of the enterprise knowledge space by connecting strategic goals to tasks, showing cross-organization task collaboration, and highlighting knowledge network attributes such as authorship, quality ratings, expertise, etc. Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Can simple interactions such as wiki contributions across an enterprise result in the emergence of improved communication and collaboration?
Objectives:
Apply network science concepts to enterprise content
Prototype a network visualization tool to provide guided navigation across the enterprise wiki space to increase usage (reading, searching, mining) and growth (authoring)
Provide analytics and metrics to improve value of enterprise content.
Activities:
·Provide an alternative entry point into the knowledge network by accessing pages by clicking on map nodes
·Show where the selected wiki page is located within set of communities and distance of that pages to other pages
·Allow users to toggle greater community attributes
·Categorize links by community type (inter, intra, extra) as well as by other attributes (author, creation time, title, recent changes, quality, etc.)
We propose to increase knowledge creation and exchange through increased use of enhanced wikis.
Impact:
The successful deployment of VIKI will make a significant difference to MITRE, its sponsors, and the open source community. It provides an alternate entry point into an enterprise's digital representation and applies network science principles to reveal enterprise insight.
Public Release No:09-1466
[Presentation]
Exhibit Date(s):May 5, May 7
Visualization Service Bus
Primary Investigator:Callner, David A.
Problems:
Currently aviation research visualizations are customized for each new simulation or analysis. This research seeks to develop an integrated visualization architecture that will allow analysts to rapidly and easily integrate Air Traffic Management (ATM) data sources, analytical results, and simulation output for use on advanced visualization displays.
Objectives:
The Visualization Service Bus (VSB) will provide an environment that fosters the generation of more effective visualizations from existing and new tools. We will demonstrate innovative ways to visualize data, and will develop a deployment plan to provide these capabilities to MITRE and our sponsors. This work will also influence X3D standards for networking, X3D-Earth, and user interfaces through the Web3D Consortium.
Activities:
We will identify internal and external data sources and develop a visualization interface to a number of these so that users can assemble visualizations of National Airspace System data. We will identify MITRE projects that could benefit from such an environment and work to tailor this environment to their needs. We will also develop a deployment strategy to expose this interface more broadly to the research community.
Impact:
This architecture will enable users to develop and tailor visualizations to their specific needs. This should lead to improvements by MITRE staff in the use of visual techniques for communicating results, both internally and to sponsor and stakeholder communities. Through this research we also expect to gain insight into advanced service-oriented architecture technologies and their application.
Public Release No:09-1013
[Presentation]
Warfighter Widgets
Primary Investigator:Warner, Jerald R.
Problems:
The goal of this research is to provide the warfighter with a configurable set of universal, modularized, rich Internet applications to improve theperformance, functionality, and interoperability of systems. Widgets provide unique reusable solutions, for example, RSS feeds, news alerts, sports scores, stock tickers, battery power levels, maps, database statistics, and weather reports.
Objectives:
Facilitate unique reusable solutions for C2 systems across the warfighter community.
Create a mechanism to publish and share widgets.
Develop Warfighter Widgets that can serve as building blocks and that others can interact with.
Demonstrate that a reusable framework can be implemented for C2 systems.
Implement a scalable domain-wide collaboration effort/plan for the development/acquisition of Warfighter Widgets within the domain.
Activities:
Our MOIE identified existing widget development tools and techniques that lend themselves to the warfighter domain. Consideration was given to security, compatibility with existing C2 systems, and the ability to support disconnected operations. The team identified properties, functions, and features that a Warfighter Widget should possess to support composability. This resulted in the creation of a Common Widget Language and a Composable Widget Framework. The team reviewed existing technologies and selected suitable platforms that can be used to host, aggregate, and build widgets. A Widget Gallery is being developed to provide a mechanism to discover and share widgets; a data gateway is being developed to support interfaces with external data sources. Finally, the team is developing a reference set of composable widget components that can work together to build composed applications.
Impact:
Warfighter Widgets will provide agile systems for the user. The end user (as the developer) is able to discover, develop, and share widget components and data sources through a widget gallery; rapidly compose functionality to meet new or changing needs; develop new interfaces to support a wide range of data sources; and share data and analysis results with remote users. Warfighter Widgets can augment fielded weapon systems to rapidly provide a needed capability where it does not exist. For example, Missile Defense operators can use Warfighter Widgets to rapidly build a capability to access and visualize airspaces, tracks, threats, and air missions in the vicinity of missile defense platforms to determine the status of relevant Air Tasking Order offensive and defensive support missions and Airspace requests. These operators can also use widgets to overlay missile defense engagement tracks over radar search sectors to visualize the causes of potential holes in the defense designs. It could take years to augment weapon systems to provide these capabilities.
Public Release No:09-0851
[Presentation]
Exhibit Date(s):May 6, May 7
Web Mashup and Metadata Scripting Language (WMSL)
Primary Investigator:Sabbouh, Marwan
Problems:
Current mashup approaches do not effectively deal with structured data and lack the metadata necessary for net-centricity. As such, the web user is left with the task of developing the mediation software necessary for enabling work flows as well asdeveloping the mashup's shared vocabulary and the metadata needed for net-centricity.
Objectives:
1. Develop a unified approach that automates the generation of XSLT, aligned ontologies, and the mediation schema needed for enabling net centricity; demonstrate automated mediation of Web services; and transition technology to DoD, academia, and industry
2. Demonstrate the automated generation of mediation schema from mappings between legacy schemas by web users
3. Demonstrate the automated generation of XSLT that achieves translation between instances
4. Prototype a mashup editor that allows for the generation and the reuse of code and metadata
Activities:
1. Define the mapping relations as vocabulary for composing XML Schemas
2. Define the formal operations of mapping relations on XML instances
3. Prototype data transformation mediator: XSLT generator, in-memory generator
4. Prototype schema mediator
5. Demonstrate technique using government use cases: UCORE to CoT, maf-caf, or IIB-SOA
6. Transition methodologies to the IC/DoD mediation working group, DISA NCES, and the BTA GEX
7. Author papers to transition to academia
8. Participate in the MITRE and HAFB innovation exchanges
9. Transition mapping techniques to DoD guidance documents:NESI
Impact:
We expect to impact COIs, GCIC/RINIV, DISA NCES, and the BTA NCES. We also expect to author and submit a related paperfor publication. Additionally, we think that this approach provides a way to bootstrap the IIB/SOA initiative of SAF/XC. Finally, we are also working hard to influence industry.
Public Release No:09-0704
[Presentation]
WIQI Intelligence Quality Index
Primary Investigator:Williamson III, William
Exhibit Date(s):May 5, May 7
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