ITL FOCUSES ON WIRELESS PERSONAL AREA NETWORKS
A growing number of industry groups are developing
specifications for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs), which permit closely located digital devices to exchange
information. By allowing, for example, devices such as a PDA and a PC, printer
and modem, to exchange information using a wireless interface, current cables
can be replaced to achieve mobility and flexibility. It will no longer
be necessary to carry the correct cable to connect to the appropriate device;
wireless technology can make the connection. Most technologies considered for
WPANs employ an unlicensed radio frequency band in the range of 2.4GHz (the
so-called Industrial, Scientific, and
Medical [ISM] band). Other types of wireless networks use the same band. As the
number of technologies using the ISM band expands, the telecommunications
industry has become increasingly concerned about the potential detrimental
effects of mutual electromagnetic interference.
Designing wireless protocols that can share this scarce spectrum presents a key
challenge in the design and deployment of WPANs.
Within the past year, ITL researchers have made significant contributions to industry’s ongoing efforts to standardize WPAN technology, through participation in the standards development work of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Working Group 802.15. Specific contributions include modeling and validation of the Bluetooth* protocol specifications, assessment of interference among wireless devices operating in the 2.4 GHz frequency band, and development and evaluation of coexistence mechanisms for wireless devices sharing the same spectrum.
Researchers Nada Golmie and Robert
Van Dyck led efforts within the IEEE 802.15 Task Group on Coexistence, to
study, characterize, and quantify the radio-frequency interference between
Bluetooth* and the now widely deployed IEEE 802.11b WLAN devices. Further,
Golmie and Van Dyck proposed mechanisms and technical solutions to allow these
devices, emitting radio frequency energy in the same 2.4GHz frequency band, to
coexist and operate effectively when in close proximity. Proposed solutions
from the ITL researchers, for both the Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical
(PHY) layers, were combined with contributions by Mobilian, Symbol, and Texas
Instruments and then adopted by the IEEE 802.15 as the basis for a document on
recommended practices for device designers.
In another contribution, ITL researchers used a formal specification technique, known as the Specification and Description Language (SDL), to model and validate the Bluetooth* protocols for link control and MAC. Using these models, numerous flaws in the original protocol specifications were identified, resulting in hundreds of suggestions for improvement to the Bluetooth specifications. These SDL models, created by David Cypher of ITL, will be published as part of the official 802.15 specifications, significantly clarifying the intent of the standard and thereby improving its testability.
Due to the growing importance of the scarce unlicensed wireless spectrum, ITL’s work continues within the IEEE 802.15 Task Group on Coexistence. The ITL team continues to lead industry work in this area, concentrating on modeling the MAC and the PHY layers. The studies published by ITL on the interference between various technologies under different data traffic conditions and deployment scenarios have been contributed to the task group bi-monthly meetings and presented in several professional conferences. ITL researchers also serve as editors of the Recommended Practices document on the coexistence of various wireless devices in the 2.4 GHz band. IEEE 802.15 is expected to release this document later this year.
Beyond the IEEE 802.15, ITL works with other industry partners to further disseminate relevant technical results. For example, the MAC models developed by ITL were released to OPNET Technologies, Inc., for inclusion in its OPNET software, a network simulation package widely used within the telecommunications industry. For more information, see http://w3.antd.nist.gov/.
*Bluetooth SIG, Inc., U.S.A., owns the Bluetooth trademarks.
ITL and the SANS Institute worked together to provide an enhanced computer vulnerability list of the top 20 vulnerabilities (http://www.sans.org/top20.htm). The original list produced by SANS/FBI contained 20 important vulnerability areas with reference to over 140 specific vulnerabilities. The specific vulnerability references were not hyperlinked to associated vulnerability information. We remedied this deficiency by providing a version that links each of the 140 specific computer vulnerabilities to the associated vulnerability entry in the NIST ICAT Metabase at http://icat.nist.gov.
UPDATE
ON NEW PUBLICATIONS
ITL publishes the results of studies, investigations, research, and conferences. The reports listed below may be available online or ordered from the following sources as indicated for each:
Superintendent of Documents
U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO)
P.O. Box 371954
Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954
Telephone (202) 512-1800
Fax (202) 512-2250
Home Page: http://www.access.gpo.gov
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Telephone (703) 605-6000
Rush Service (800) 553-6847
Fax (703) 321-8547 or (703) 321-9038
Home Page: http://www.ntis.gov/onow
The Ninth Text Retrieval Conference (TREC-9)
Ellen M. Voorhees and Donna K. Harman, Editors
NIST SP 500-249
October 2001
http://trec.nist.gov/pubs.html
By Marianne Swanson
NIST SP 800-26
August 2001
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/index.html
Self-assessments
provide a method for agency officials to determine the current status of their
information security programs and, where necessary, establish a target for
improvement. This self-assessment guide utilizes an extensive questionnaire
containing specific control objectives and techniques against which an
unclassified system or group of interconnected systems can be tested and
measured. The guide does not establish new security requirements. The control
objectives and techniques are abstracted directly from long-standing
requirements found in statute, policy, and guidance on security.
Guidelines on Active Content and Mobile Code
By
Wayne A. Jansen
NIST
SP 800-28
October
2001
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/index.html
This
document provides an overview of active content and guidelines to federal
agencies for the protection of sensitive (i.e., non-national security)
unclassified systems.
Broadly
speaking, active content refers to electronic documents that, unlike past
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) character documents,
can carry out or trigger actions automatically without an individual directly
or knowingly invoking the actions. Taken to its extreme, active content
becomes, in effect, a delivery mechanism for mobile code. Therefore, exploits
based on vulnerabilities in active content technologies by their very nature
are often insidious.
By Rebecca Bace and Peter Mell
NIST SP 800-31
August 2001
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/index.html
Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are software or hardware systems that automate the process of monitoring the events occurring in a computer system or network, analyzing them for signs of security problems. As network attacks have increased in number and severity over the past few years, intrusion detection systems have become a necessary addition to the security infrastructure of most organizations. This guidance document is intended as a primer in intrusion detection.
By D. Richard Kuhn, Vincent C. Hu, W. Tim Polk, and Shu-Jen Chang
NIST SP 800-32
February 2001
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/index.html
This publication was developed to assist agency decision-makers in determining if a PKI is appropriate for their agency, and how PKI services can be deployed most effectively within a federal agency. It provides an overview of PKI functions and their applications. Additional documentation will be required to fully analyze the costs and benefits of PKI systems for agency use and to develop plans for their implementation. This document provides a starting point and references to more comprehensive publications.
Constructing Sibson Elements for a Rectangular Mesh
By David E. Gilsinn
NISTIR 6718
February 2001
PB2001-102792 $23.00 paper
Order from NTIS $12.00 microfiche and CD-Rom
This paper documents the construction of a finite element known as the Sibson element. The shape function of this element is formed on rectangular grids by splines defined on a triangulation of each subrectangle by dividing it into four subtriangles formed by drawing the diagonals. The splines are constructed from bivariate cubic polynomials and are written in such a way that they are linear functions of the z, at each node of the rectangle with bivariate polynomial coefficients up to order three. Conditions are given for the existence of such an element. They are used to construct the bivariate polynomial coefficients, first for a unit rectangle and then for a general rectangle. Since the first and second derivatives of these functions are sometimes needed, they are also given.
NIST Sparse BLAS User’s Guide
By Karin A. Remington and Roldan Pozo
NISTIR 6744
May 2001
PB2001-104875 $27.00 paper
Order from NTIS $15.00 microfiche
This document provides a guide and reference manual for a portable numerical library for sparse matrix computations. These Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS) provide kernels for forming sparse matrix products (of the form C = aAB + bC. where a and b are scalars, B and C are dense matrices, and A is a sparse matrix) and solution of triangular systems with left and right scaling (C = aLATRB +bC, where a and b are scalars, L and T are diagonal matrices, T is the conceptual inverse of a triangular sparse system, and B and C are dense matrices). Complete function listings for the ANSI C programming language are also provided.
By Javier Bernal
NISTIR 6786
September 2001
PB2001-108263 $23.00 paper
Order from NTIS $12.00 microfiche
This paper discusses REGTET, a Fortran 77 program for computing a regular tetrahedralization for a finite set of weighted points in 3-dimensional space. REGTET is based on an algorithm by Edelsbrunner and Shah for constructing regular tetrahedralizations with incremental topological flipping. At the start of the execution of REGTET, a regular tetrahedralization for the vertices of an artificial cube that contains the weighted points is constructed. Throughout the execution, the vertices of this cube are treated in the proper lexicographical manner so that the final tetrahedralization is correct.
Latent Fingerprint Training with NIST Special Database
27 and Universal Latent Workstation
By Michael Garris
NISTIR 6799
September 2001
PB 2002-100246 $23.00 paper
Order from NTIS $12.00 microfiche
In collaboration with the FBI, ITL published NIST Special Database 27 (SD27), Fingerprint Minutiae from Latent and Matching Tenprint Images. The CD-ROM collection contains images of 258 latent crime scene fingerprints and their matching rolled tenprints. In addition, minutiae features validated by a team of professional latent examiners are provided for each fingerprint. The FBI also developed the Universal Latent Workstation (ULW). The workstation has been designed to render and enhance fingerprint images, assist the operator in labeling minutiae and other fingerprint features, and formatting this information into a standard transaction file for searching federal, state, and local law enforcement fingerprint repositories. Using the ULW in conjunction with SD27 poses a powerful and inexpensive training tool for fingerprint examiners. This report documents the steps needed to load SD27 fingerprint images into ULW, and how trainee results can then be overlaid with the validated minutiae in SD27. Given these steps, a variety of training scenarios are possible.
UPCOMING TECHNICAL CONFERENCES
4th International Workshop on Networked Appliances (IWNA-4)
Sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society with ITL as a Technical Co-Sponsor, this workshop will provide an industry, government, and academic forum for technical information exchange on recent developments about home networking and networked appliances. Topics will include home media and local area networks (LANs); home automation networks; home intranets; protocol, programming environment and transmission standards; device discovery and control paradigms; field trial and demos; interoperability, data and program migration, security and digital/intellectual property rights management; applications and appliances for the special needs community; residential gateways; and Quality of Service (QoS) measurements and modeling.
Dates: January 15-16, 2002
Place: NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Technical Contact: Alan Mink, 301/975-5681, alan.mink@nist.gov
Website: http://www.cmr.nist.gov/iwna4/
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Disclaimer: Any mention of commercial products or reference to commercial organizations is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology nor does it imply that the products mentioned are necessarily the best available for the purpose.