Lynette I. Millett – författare

The growing scale and complexity of software-intensive systems are introducing fundamental new challenges of uncertainty and scale that are particularly demanding for defense systems. To assist in meeting these challenges, the Department of Defense asked the NRC to assess the nature of U.S. national investment in software research. As part of this study, a workshop was held to examine uncertainty at scale in current and future software-intensive systems. This report presents a summary of the workshop discussions that centered on process, architecture, and the grand scale; DoD software challenges for future systems; agility at scale; quality and assurance with scale and uncertainty; and enterprise scale and beyond. The report also offers a summary of key themes emerging from the workshop: architectural challenges in large-scale systems; the need for software engineering capability; and open questions and research opportunities.

Biometric recognition—the automated recognition of individuals based on their behavioral and biological characteristic—is promoted as a way to help identify terrorists, provide better control of access to physical facilities and financial accounts, and increase the efficiency of access to services and their utilization. Biometric recognition has been applied to identification of criminals, patient tracking in medical informatics, and the personalization of social services, among other things. In spite of substantial effort, however, there remain unresolved questions about the effectiveness and management of systems for biometric recognition, as well as the appropriateness and societal impact of their use. Moreover, the general public has been exposed to biometrics largely as high-technology gadgets in spy thrillers or as fear-instilling instruments of state or corporate surveillance in speculative fiction. Now, as biometric technologies appear poised for broader use, increased concerns about national security and the tracking of individuals as they cross borders have caused passports, visas, and border-crossing records to be linked to biometric data. A focus on fighting insurgencies and terrorism has led to the military deployment of biometric tools to enable recognition of individuals as friend or foe. Commercially, finger-imaging sensors, whose cost and physical size have been reduced, now appear on many laptop personal computers, handheld devices, mobile phones, and other consumer devices. Biometric Recognition: Challenges and Opportunities addresses the issues surrounding broader implementation of this technology, making two main points: first, biometric recognition systems are incredibly complex, and need to be addressed as such. Second, biometric recognition is an inherently probabilistic endeavor. Consequently, even when the technology and the system in which it is embedded are behaving as designed, there is inevitable uncertainty and risk of error. This book elaborates on these themes in detail to provide policy makers, developers, and researchers a comprehensive assessment of biometric recognition that examines current capabilities, future possibilities, and the role of government in technology and system development.

The end of dramatic exponential growth in single-processor performance marks the end of the dominance of the single microprocessor in computing. The era of sequential computing must give way to a new era in which parallelism is at the forefront. Although important scientific and engineering challenges lie ahead, this is an opportune time for innovation in programming systems and computing architectures. We have already begun to see diversity in computer designs to optimize for such considerations as power and throughput. The next generation of discoveries is likely to require advances at both the hardware and software levels of computing systems.There is no guarantee that we can make parallel computing as common and easy to use as yesterday''s sequential single-processor computer systems, but unless we aggressively pursue efforts suggested by the recommendations in this book, it will be "game over" for growth in computing performance. If parallel programming and related software efforts fail to become widespread, the development of exciting new applications that drive the computer industry will stall; if such innovation stalls, many other parts of the economy will follow suit. The Future of Computing Performance describes the factors that have led to the future limitations on growth for single processors that are based on complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. It explores challenges inherent in parallel computing and architecture, including ever-increasing power consumption and the escalated requirements for heat dissipation. The book delineates a research, practice, and education agenda to help overcome these challenges. The Future of Computing Performance will guide researchers, manufacturers, and information technology professionals in the right direction for sustainable growth in computer performance, so that we may all enjoy the next level of benefits to society.

Who Goes There?: Authentication Through the Lens of Privacy explores authenticationtechnologies (passwords, PKI, biometrics, etc.) and their implications for the privacyof the individuals being authenticated. As authentication becomes ever more ubiquitous,understanding its interplay with privacy is vital. The report examines numerousconcepts, including authentication, authorization, identification, privacy, and security.It provides a framework to guide thinking about these issues when deciding whetherand how to use authentication in a particular context. The book explains how privacyis affected by system design decisions. It also describes government''s unique rolein authentication and what this means for how government can use authenticationwith minimal invasions of privacy. In addition, Who Goes There? outlines usability andsecurity considerations and provides a primer on privacy law and policy.

IDs—Not That Easy highlights some of the challenging policy, procedural, and technological issues presented by nationwide identity systems. In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, nationwide identity systems have been proposed to better track the movement of suspected terrorists. However, questions arise as to who would use the system and how, if participation would be mandatory, the type of data that would be collected, and the legal structures needed to protect privacy. The committee''s goal is to foster a broad and deliberate discussion among policy-makers and the public about the form of nationwide identity system that might be created, and whether such a system is desirable or feasible.

Biometric recognition—the automated recognition of individuals based on their behavioral and biological characteristic—is promoted as a way to help identify terrorists, provide better control of access to physical facilities and financial accounts, and increase the efficiency of access to services and their utilization. Biometric recognition has been applied to identification of criminals, patient tracking in medical informatics, and the personalization of social services, among other things. In spite of substantial effort, however, there remain unresolved questions about the effectiveness and management of systems for biometric recognition, as well as the appropriateness and societal impact of their use. Moreover, the general public has been exposed to biometrics largely as high-technology gadgets in spy thrillers or as fear-instilling instruments of state or corporate surveillance in speculative fiction. Now, as biometric technologies appear poised for broader use, increased concerns about national security and the tracking of individuals as they cross borders have caused passports, visas, and border-crossing records to be linked to biometric data. A focus on fighting insurgencies and terrorism has led to the military deployment of biometric tools to enable recognition of individuals as friend or foe. Commercially, finger-imaging sensors, whose cost and physical size have been reduced, now appear on many laptop personal computers, handheld devices, mobile phones, and other consumer devices. Biometric Recognition: Challenges and Opportunities addresses the issues surrounding broader implementation of this technology, making two main points: first, biometric recognition systems are incredibly complex, and need to be addressed as such. Second, biometric recognition is an inherently probabilistic endeavor. Consequently, even when the technology and the system in which it is embedded are behaving as designed, there is inevitable uncertainty and risk of error. This book elaborates on these themes in detail to provide policy makers, developers, and researchers a comprehensive assessment of biometric recognition that examines current capabilities, future possibilities, and the role of government in technology and system development.

Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision examines the Social Security Administration''s (SSA''s) proposed e-government strategy and provides advice on how the SSA can best deliver services to its constituencies in the future. The assessment by the Committee on the Social Security Administration''s E-Government Strategy and Planning for the Future was based on (1) its examination of the SSA''s current e-government strategy, including technological assumptions, performance measures and targets, planned operational capabilities, strategic requirements, and future goals; (2) its consideration of strategies, assumptions, and technical and operational requirements in comparable public- and private-sector institutions; and (3) its consideration of the larger organizational, societal, and technological context in which the SSA operates.

The focus of Software for Dependable Systems is a set of fundamental principles that underlie software system dependability and that suggest a different approach to the development and assessment of dependable software.Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess the dependability of software. The field of software engineering suffers from a pervasive lack of evidence about the incidence and severity of software failures; about the dependability of existing software systems; about the efficacy of existing and proposed development methods; about the benefits of certification schemes; and so on. There are many anecdotal reports, which—although often useful for indicating areas of concern or highlighting promising avenues of research—do little to establish a sound and complete basis for making policy decisions regarding dependability. The committee regards claims of extraordinary dependability that are sometimes made on this basis for the most critical of systems as unsubstantiated, and perhaps irresponsible. This difficulty regarding the lack of evidence for system dependability leads to two conclusions: (1) that better evidence is needed, so that approaches aimed at improving the dependability of software can be objectively assessed, and (2) that, for now, the pursuit of dependability in software systems should focus on the construction and evaluation of evidence.The committee also recognized the importance of adopting the practices that are already known and used by the best developers; this report gives a sample of such practices. Some of these (such as systematic configuration management and automated regression testing) are relatively easy to adopt; others (such as constructing hazard analyses and threat models, exploiting formal notations when appropriate, and applying static analysis to code) will require new training for many developers. However valuable, though, these practices are in themselves no silver bullet, and new techniques and methods will be required in order to build future software systems to the level of dependability that will be required.

The growing scale and complexity of software-intensive systems are introducing fundamental new challenges of uncertainty and scale that are particularly demanding for defense systems. To assist in meeting these challenges, the Department of Defense asked the NRC to assess the nature of U.S. national investment in software research. As part of this study, a workshop was held to examine uncertainty at scale in current and future software-intensive systems. This report presents a summary of the workshop discussions that centered on process, architecture, and the grand scale; DoD software challenges for future systems; agility at scale; quality and assurance with scale and uncertainty; and enterprise scale and beyond. The report also offers a summary of key themes emerging from the workshop: architectural challenges in large-scale systems; the need for software engineering capability; and open questions and research opportunities.

The end of dramatic exponential growth in single-processor performance marks the end of the dominance of the single microprocessor in computing. The era of sequential computing must give way to a new era in which parallelism is at the forefront. Although important scientific and engineering challenges lie ahead, this is an opportune time for innovation in programming systems and computing architectures. We have already begun to see diversity in computer designs to optimize for such considerations as power and throughput. The next generation of discoveries is likely to require advances at both the hardware and software levels of computing systems.There is no guarantee that we can make parallel computing as common and easy to use as yesterday''s sequential single-processor computer systems, but unless we aggressively pursue efforts suggested by the recommendations in this book, it will be "game over" for growth in computing performance. If parallel programming and related software efforts fail to become widespread, the development of exciting new applications that drive the computer industry will stall; if such innovation stalls, many other parts of the economy will follow suit. The Future of Computing Performance describes the factors that have led to the future limitations on growth for single processors that are based on complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. It explores challenges inherent in parallel computing and architecture, including ever-increasing power consumption and the escalated requirements for heat dissipation. The book delineates a research, practice, and education agenda to help overcome these challenges. The Future of Computing Performance will guide researchers, manufacturers, and information technology professionals in the right direction for sustainable growth in computer performance, so that we may all enjoy the next level of benefits to society.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is the agency in the Department of Health and Human Services responsible for providing health coverage for seniors and people with disabilities, for limited-income individuals and families, and for children—totaling almost 100 million beneficiaries. The agency''s core mission was established more than four decades ago with a mandate to focus on the prompt payment of claims, which now total more than 1.2 billion annually. With CMS''s mission expanding from its original focus on prompt claims payment come new requirements for the agency''s information technology (IT) systems.

Strategies and Priorities for Information Technology at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reviews CMS plans for its IT capabilities in light of these challenges and to make recommendations to CMS on how its business processes, practices, and information systems can best be developed to meet today''s and tomorrow''s demands. The report''s recommendations and conclusions offered cluster around the following themes: (1) the need for a comprehensive strategic technology plan; (2) the application of an appropriate metamethodology to guide an iterative, incremental, and phased transition of business and information systems; (3) the criticality of IT to high-level strategic planning and its implications for CMS''s internal organization and culture; and (4) the increasing importance of data and analytical efforts to stakeholders inside and outside CMS. Given the complexity of CMS''s IT systems, there will be no simple solution.

Although external contractors and advisory organizations will play important roles, CMS needs to assert well-informed technical and strategic leadership. The report argues that the only way for CMS to succeed in these efforts is for the agency, with its stakeholders and Congress, to recognize resolutely that action must be taken, to begin the needed cultural and organizational transformations, and to develop the appropriate internal expertise to lead the initiative with a comprehensive, incremental, iterative, and integrated approach that effectively and strategically integrates business requirements and IT capabilities.

A broad and growing literature describes the deep and multidisciplinary nature of the sustainability challenges faced by the United States and the world. Despite the profound technical challenges involved, sustainability is not, at its root, a technical problem, nor will merely technical solutions be sufficient. Instead, deep economic, political, and cultural adjustments will ultimately be required, along with a major, long-term commitment in each sphere to deploy the requisite technical solutions at scale.

Nevertheless, technological advances and enablers have a clear role in supporting such change, and information technology (IT) is a natural bridge between technical and social solutions because it can offer improved communication and transparency for fostering the necessary economic, political, and cultural adjustments. Moreover, IT is at the heart of nearly every large-scale socioeconomic system-including systems for finance, manufacturing, and the generation and distribution of energy-and so sustainability-focused changes in those systems are inextricably linked with advances in IT.

The focus of Computing Research for Sustainability is "greening through IT," the application of computing to promote sustainability broadly. The aim of this report is twofold: to shine a spotlight on areas where IT innovation and computer science (CS) research can help, and to urge the computing research community to bring its approaches and methodologies to bear on these pressing global challenges. Computing Research for Sustainability focuses on addressing medium- and long-term challenges in a way that would have significant, measurable impact. The findings and recommended principles of the Committee on Computing Research for Environmental and Societal Sustainability concern four areas: (1) the relevance of IT and CS to sustainability; (2) the value of the CS approach to problem solving, particularly as it pertains to sustainability challenges; (3) key CS research areas; and (4) strategy and pragmatic approaches for CS research on sustainability.

Federal laws, regulations, and executive orders have imposed requirements for federal agencies to move toward the sustainable acquisition of goods and services, including the incorporation of sustainable purchasing into federal agency decision making. Since the federal government is such a significant player in the market, its move to incorporate sustainable procurement practices could have a profound impact on the types of products being developed for the market as a whole.

The General Services Administration (GSA) has played a key role in furthering sustainable procurement practices throughout the federal government. GSA is responsible for formulating and maintaining government-wide policies covering a variety of administrative actions, including those related to procurement and management. GSA has several ongoing activities related to sustainable procurement to assess the feasibility of working with the federal supplier community - vendors and contractors that serve federal agencies to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the supply chain while encouraging sustainable operations among suppliers. GSA has also been actively developing programs to assist federal agencies in making sustainable procurement decisions. As federal agencies cannot directly fund the development of sustainable procurement tools, they are particularly interested in understanding how to foster innovation and provide incentives for collaboration between developers and users of tools for sustainable purchasing throughout the supply chain. The training of procurement professionals is also a priority for these agencies.

To assist efforts to build sustainability considerations into the procurement process, the National Research Council appointed a committee to organize a two-day workshop that explored ways to better incorporate sustainability considerations into procurement tools and capabilities across the public and private sectors. The workshop was designed to help participants assess the current landscape of green purchasing tools, identify emerging needs for enhanced or new tools and opportunities to develop them, identify potential barriers to progress, and explore potential solutions. The workshop provided an opportunity for participants to discuss challenges related to sustainable purchasing and to developing new procurement tools. Sustainability Considerations for Procurement Tools and Capabilities reviews the presenters'' recommendations and tools currently used in sustainable procurement, such as databases for ecolabels and standards, codes, or regulations and other nontechnological tools such as policies, frameworks, rating systems, and product indexes.

The Next Generation Air Transportation System''s (NextGen) goal is the transformation of the U.S. national airspace system through programs and initiatives that could make it possible to shorten routes, navigate better around weather, save time and fuel, reduce delays, and improve capabilities for monitoring and managing of aircraft. A Review of the Next Generation Air Transportation provides an overview of NextGen and examines the technical activities, including human-system design and testing, organizational design, and other safety and human factor aspects of the system, that will be necessary to successfully transition current and planned modernization programs to the future system. This report assesses technical, cost, and schedule risk for the software development that will be necessary to achieve the expected benefits from a highly automated air traffic management system and the implications for ongoing modernization projects. The recommendations of this report will help the Federal Aviation Administration anticipate and respond to the challenges of implementing NextGen.

Attaining meaningful cybersecurity presents a broad societal challenge. Its complexity and the range of systems and sectors in which it is needed mean that successful approaches are necessarily multifaceted. Moreover, cybersecurity is a dynamic process involving human attackers who continue to adapt. Despite considerable investments of resources and intellect, cybersecurity continues to poses serious challenges to national security, business performance, and public well-being. Modern developments in computation, storage and connectivity to the Internet have brought into even sharper focus the need for a better understanding of the overall security of the systems we depend on.

Foundational Cybersecurity Research focuses on foundational research strategies for organizing people, technologies, and governance. These strategies seek to ensure the sustained support needed to create an agile, effective research community, with collaborative links across disciplines and between research and practice. This report is aimed primarily at the cybersecurity research community, but takes a broad view that efforts to improve foundational cybersecurity research will need to include many disciplines working together to achieve common goals.

Software update is an important mechanism by which security changes and improvements are made in software, and this seemingly simple concept encompasses a wide variety of practices, mechanisms, policies, and technologies. To explore the landscape further, the Forum on Cyber Resilience hosted a workshop featuring invited speakers from government, the private sector, and academia. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

The Forum on Cyber Resilience of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted the Workshop on Recoverability as a First-Class Security Objective on February 8, 2018, in Washington, D.C. The workshop featured presentations from several experts in industry, research, and government roles who spoke about the complex facets of recoverability—that is, the ability to restore normal operations and security in a system affected by software or hardware failure or a deliberate attack. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

IDs—Not That Easy highlights some of the challenging policy, procedural, and technological issues presented by nationwide identity systems. In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, nationwide identity systems have been proposed to better track the movement of suspected terrorists. However, questions arise as to who would use the system and how, if participation would be mandatory, the type of data that would be collected, and the legal structures needed to protect privacy. The committee''s goal is to foster a broad and deliberate discussion among policy-makers and the public about the form of nationwide identity system that might be created, and whether such a system is desirable or feasible.

Who Goes There?: Authentication Through the Lens of Privacy explores authenticationtechnologies (passwords, PKI, biometrics, etc.) and their implications for the privacyof the individuals being authenticated. As authentication becomes ever more ubiquitous,understanding its interplay with privacy is vital. The report examines numerousconcepts, including authentication, authorization, identification, privacy, and security.It provides a framework to guide thinking about these issues when deciding whetherand how to use authentication in a particular context. The book explains how privacyis affected by system design decisions. It also describes government''s unique rolein authentication and what this means for how government can use authenticationwith minimal invasions of privacy. In addition, Who Goes There? outlines usability andsecurity considerations and provides a primer on privacy law and policy.

Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision examines the Social Security Administration''s (SSA''s) proposed e-government strategy and provides advice on how the SSA can best deliver services to its constituencies in the future. The assessment by the Committee on the Social Security Administration''s E-Government Strategy and Planning for the Future was based on (1) its examination of the SSA''s current e-government strategy, including technological assumptions, performance measures and targets, planned operational capabilities, strategic requirements, and future goals; (2) its consideration of strategies, assumptions, and technical and operational requirements in comparable public- and private-sector institutions; and (3) its consideration of the larger organizational, societal, and technological context in which the SSA operates.

The focus of Software for Dependable Systems is a set of fundamental principles that underlie software system dependability and that suggest a different approach to the development and assessment of dependable software.Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess the dependability of software. The field of software engineering suffers from a pervasive lack of evidence about the incidence and severity of software failures; about the dependability of existing software systems; about the efficacy of existing and proposed development methods; about the benefits of certification schemes; and so on. There are many anecdotal reports, which—although often useful for indicating areas of concern or highlighting promising avenues of research—do little to establish a sound and complete basis for making policy decisions regarding dependability. The committee regards claims of extraordinary dependability that are sometimes made on this basis for the most critical of systems as unsubstantiated, and perhaps irresponsible. This difficulty regarding the lack of evidence for system dependability leads to two conclusions: (1) that better evidence is needed, so that approaches aimed at improving the dependability of software can be objectively assessed, and (2) that, for now, the pursuit of dependability in software systems should focus on the construction and evaluation of evidence.The committee also recognized the importance of adopting the practices that are already known and used by the best developers; this report gives a sample of such practices. Some of these (such as systematic configuration management and automated regression testing) are relatively easy to adopt; others (such as constructing hazard analyses and threat models, exploiting formal notations when appropriate, and applying static analysis to code) will require new training for many developers. However valuable, though, these practices are in themselves no silver bullet, and new techniques and methods will be required in order to build future software systems to the level of dependability that will be required.

The Intelligence Community Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop on February 27, 2020 to explore insights from world-class experts and technologists familiar with the extensive range of issues associated with the counterproliferation mission, which is countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, related technologies, and expertise as a result of indigenous developments and/or transfers between entities. The workshop was designed to explore emerging technology intersections of interest and areas of convergence with relevance to the mission of the National Counterproliferation Center (NCPC) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.