WIRELESS PRIORITY ACCESS RECOMMENDED IN COUNTERTERRORISM REPORT

National Research Council report on technology use to fight terrorism includes recommendation for priority wireless access to emergency responders during crisis. Report, released Tues., said interoperability among public safety officers should be priority research focus. “Existing interoperability solutions are ad hoc and do not scale well,” report said. Other recommendations include: (1) Learn how to transition gracefully and with minimal disruption from a unit-specific communication system to systemwide structure. (2) Define new communication protocols and develop generic technology to facilitate interconnection and interoperation of diverse information sources. (3) Develop approaches for communication systems to handle surge capacity and function in a saturated state. (4) Develop methods to provide more capacity for emergency communication and coordination. (5) Understand special security needs of rapidly deployed wireless networks.

Stanford U. Pres. John Hennessy, who headed portion of report on IT and telecom security, said report focused on emergency response for cities, where attack is more likely to occur. In those areas, commercial wireless technology is viable technology for public safety responders in urban areas. CTIA is advocating use of commercial wireless technology in its HEROES plan, which CTIA said would create more efficient use of spectrum. APCO isn’t supporting CTIA proposal, saying commercial wireless technology is not appropriate in all areas.

Report was drafted before President Bush released his recommendation for homeland security dept., but its authors said congressional leaders should keep its findings in mind when reviewing creation of new department. New department should be structured to facilitate technological solutions and research and development, authors said. At joint hearing Tues. before House Science Committee and Senate Commerce Technology Subcommittee, they also recommended creation of independent homeland security institute. House Science Chmn. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) praised recommendation that new Dept. of Homeland Security have undersecy. devoted to R&D. Senate Technology Subcommittee Chmn. Wyden (D-Ore.) said he hoped Congress would be able to deliver a “technology package” to President by Nov. that would include NET Guard act and cybersecurity legislation that already had passed the House.

Hennessy said more research should be devoted to creating more secure software. Such research could make future computer software “pretty close” to being completely secure, he said. However, such security would be dependent upon compromises on usage of system that were likely to hinder ease of use, he said.