Geographically-Aware and Targeted Secure Information Dissemination (GATSID)

ABSTRACT: The ability of warfighters on-the-move to securely send/receive communications using mobile devices is essential to the safety of the warfighter and successful execution of mission objectives. Personnel on-the-move present challenges to the communications infrastructure of any organization. Providing the right actionable information to the right persons, at the right times, and right locations, in a mobile context, requires context-sensitive services that can respond to changing battlefield conditions. These services must be capable of determining on-the-fly what is needed tactically, strategically, geographically, and temporally, in austere, secure communications environments. Existing systems fail to limit delivery using geospatial and other mission factors, resulting in spurious, superfluous message and alert delivery, and bandwidth congestion. What is needed is a system that not only constrains message delivery by geographic location, but also is also capable of processing other context-sensitive factors affecting the mission. The objective of this research is to determine the feasibility and readiness of an operational, commercially-viable Geographically-Aware and Targeted Secure Information Dissemination (GATSID) system. This research will investigate the challenges and enabling technology required to design and build a prototype GATSID system that securely transmits messages to a class of receivers determined by geographical, temporal, tactical, strategic and social constraints. BENEFIT: The completion of this project will result in the creation of a secure alert dispatch system for mobile devices that can be used with confidence in adverse communications and hostile environments, including warfighting, peace-keeping, drug interdiction, border patrol, law enforcement, and intelligence collection. Advanced applications include advanced multi-media content including messages, alerts, reports and multicasts using semantically defined routing and relay that target specific personnel, devices or classes of recipients.