US Govt: $1000 for papers on Cyber Security
By Sandhya

A recently concluded competition organized by PayPal gave $50,000 in cash and another $50,000 in waived transaction fees to the best application which could be used on its payment system.  An ongoing Nokia competition ‘Calling All Innovators’ gives a first prize of $30,000 to the best application for its phones.

That’s how capitalism works – you pay top dollars to attract the best minds.

The US Director of National Intelligence has a budget of about $50 Billion.  The Director of National Intelligence has requested its National Research Council (NRC) to start a project named ‘Deterring Cyberattacks: Informing Strategies and Developing Options for U.S. Policy.’ The project is aimed at fostering a broad, multidisciplinary examination of strategies for deterring cyberattacks on the United States and the possible utility of these strategies for the U.S. government. 

The US Director of National Intelligence via the National Research Council has asked for Cyber experts to sent in papers which answer questions like

- Is there a model that might appropriately describe the strategies of state actors acting in an adversarial manner in cyberspace? Is there an equilibrium state that does not result in cyber conflict?

- What longer-term ramifications accompany the status quo of strategic ambiguity and lack of declaratory policy?
 
- On what basis can a government determine whether a given unfriendly cyber action is an attack or an exploitation? What is the significance of mistaking an attack for an exploitation or vice versa?

And what are the monetary rewards for giving solutions to such questions of national and international importance?  Apparently, each ‘accepted’ paper could get a reward of up to $1000.  The National Research Council website states:  “An individual prize is $1000, and prizes will be awarded to papers rather than to individual authors (that is, a group of authors awarded a prize will share the prize).   Prize-winning papers will be published by the National Research Council in the fall of 2010.”.

And in case the cyber gurus who mull over such important questions get too greedy,  the Government website makes it clear that it ‘may not cover the hotel and transport costs’ of everyone invited to present the selected papers.

Admittedly, many Americans will volunteer their time to help protect their national computing grid. But if the US Government’s NSA is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to it techie cyber gurus, why should the men who help formulate national policy be given such small awards? Not a very practical incentive.