Edge Computing and Communications Over Untrusted Transport

Today’s “gray zone” battlefield has become increasingly digital.  The fielding of “edge” sensors, processing tools, and ubiquitous transport—coupled with global cloud infrastructures—is transforming data collection, exploitation, and sharing, driving rapid decision-making at the speed of relevance.  Adversaries actively target U.S. communications, making it difficult for operators to use untrusted infrastructures securely and surreptitiously.  Securely exfiltrating data from contested networks into U.S.-owned networks at operational tempos remains a significant technical challenge and requires developing technologies that allow us to do so unimpeded.  Future technical solutions must enable us to route, rapidly secure, and obfuscate data while preventing the adversary from detecting, intercepting, or exploiting critical information.  These technologies must also allow secure and covert communications between operators’ smartphones, end-user devices, and local commercial cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and navigation satellite sources.