Information Assurance and Anti-Tamper System Level Protection

The “smart dust” micro-radio concept developed by DARPA provides an outstanding demonstration of the potential of distributed micro-sensor networks connected by low-power radio frequency (RF) data links in a self-organizing network. Distributed micro-sensor and control networks are poised to become a major component in the global information grid (GIG), and have vast potential in DoD and Homeland Security applications such as border security and nuclear/biological/chemical (NBC) threat detection sensor networks. GIG node products are now being manufactured for commercial applications, however, these initial devices do not yet address the important issues of security, robustness, and tamper resistance that are necessary to deploy these devices in mission-critical applications. In Phase I Athena will directly step from the current generation of GIG node products to produce a robust, secure GIG node, called Black Dust, that provides defense in depth through an innovative combination of single-chip module anti-tamper features and information assurance techniques.