SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- Notice of Contract Action for Advanced Technologies for the Software Protection Initiative (ATSPI)
- Notice Date
- 5/31/2002
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- Contracting Office
- Department of the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, AFRL - Wright Research Site, Det 1 AFRL/PK Bldg 167, Area B, 2310 8th Street, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, 45433-7801
- ZIP Code
- 45433-7801
- Solicitation Number
- BAA-02-14-SNK
- Response Due
- 7/15/2002
- Archive Date
- 7/30/2002
- Point of Contact
- Rinda Kearney, Contract Negotiator, Phone (937)-656-9036, - David Shellabarger, Contracting Officer, Phone (937) 255-4863, Fax (937) 656-9074,
- E-Mail Address
-
Rinda.Kearney@wpafb.af.mil, David.Shellabarger@wpafb.af.mil
- Description
- Air Force Research Laboratory, Sensors Directorate (AFRL/SNA) is issuing a single step (full initial proposal), 6 year, open-ended Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to solicit research proposals for the Advanced Technologies for the Software Protection Initiative program (ATSPI). Multiple contract awards and/or assistance instruments are anticipated with an estimated value of $2.0M or less with typical periods of performance of 6-24 months including final report. (1) RESEARCH NEED: ATSPI seeks to identify and promote research topics that provide software protection technologies for the OSD Software Protection Initiative (SPI). The overall objective of the ATSPI BAA is to identify, study, research and develop the key technologies needed to strengthen current software protection capabilities for scientific, engineering, and modeling/simulation software that executes on general-purpose computers spanning HPC clusters to advanced desktop machines. The anticipated ATSPI Focused Research Topics (FRTs) support the SPI program and include the following research areas: 1) Protection Against Unauthorized Use/Theft/Piracy where this research involves such areas as hardware/software node-locking and other means to protect application software on general purpose computers; 2) Protection Against Reverse Engineering where this research involves areas such as disassemblers, decompilers, obfuscation techniques, binary editors, and debuggers; 3) Secure Distribution and Tracking Methods where this research involves areas such as distribution management/accountability, encryption, and watermarking; 4) Secure Application Development Tools where this research involves areas such as virtual machines, special encryption methods, specialized computer hardware, special editors, software pedigree development/management, and tools/methodologies for security of object/component based elements of software applications; 5) Software Benchmarks, Measures of Effectiveness, and Measures of Performance where this research involves areas such as the definition, development, and evaluation of science-based software protection metrics, the development of software applications for use in benchmarking protection techniques, and the development of software protection technology tools and theory. (2) BACKGROUND: Historically, the ability to effectively exploit high performance computing depends upon the availability of high performance computer systems and application software that can execute on these systems. The combination of these two technologies has enabled advances in defense science and technology and has provided the computational capability that is a key component of maintaining US national security. Because of the perceived national value of HPC assets, these assets have been protected almost from their very inception. Traditionally, the strategy employed to maintain the US lead in the HPC arena has consisted of two parts: (1) research and development to insure the maintenance of superior technology and (2) export controls to restrict access by potential adversaries to these assets. Recently, rapid advances in computer hardware technology (e.g. Linux clusters) have rendered export controls on high performance computer systems ineffective. At this time, there is no reason to believe that this trend is reversible and there are many reasons to believe that it will instead worsen with time. Concomitantly, there has been an increasing realization that the software (executing on these high performance computers) is the crucial intellectual property that must be protected. The wide spread availability of computer clustering technology in conjunction with the realization that DoD software has a tremendous intellectual value mandates stronger protection of application software. This insures continued US superiority in research and development of advanced weapon systems along with superiority in the generation of scientific and technical intelligence. In December 2001, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics directed the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Science and Technology) to establish the Software Protection Initiative (SPI) to improve the protection of critical national security application software. The SPI goals are to slow the acquisition of DoD application software by adversaries, make cost-prohibitive the exploitation of DoD software when it does leak, and insure technology/policy protection measures are appropriately applied balancing mission requirements and software security. The Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Science and Technology) appointed the Air Force Research Laboratory as the Office of Primary Responsibility for management and execution of the DoD Software Protection Initiative. The Advanced Technologies for the Software Protection Initiative (ATSPI) identifies, investigates, develops, evolves, and matures the R&D software protection technology base for the SPI. This initial BAA solicits research proposals in Focused Research Topics (FRT) #1, #2, #3 and #4 only (see http://www.eps.gov/). (3) Proposal Information: Proposal instructions are contained in the solicitation and specific FRT on the EPS homepage (http://www/eps.gov/). Proposals for these four topic areas are due on 15 July 2002, 4:00 PM, local time. Periodically over the 6 year period (ending 31 May 08), amendments to the BAA/solicitation will be issued in the CBD to request proposals for subsequent Focused Research Topics (FRT). Proposals for subsequent Focused Research Topics (FRT) will be due 30 days after issuance of the BAA amendment in the CBD. This BAA is being conducted under full and open competitive procedures. However source restrictions, such as no foreign participation due to International Tariff Arms Regulations (ITAR), may apply and will be addressed on an FRT by FRT basis with specific instructions within each FRT. One or more Inter-Government Personnel Act (IPA) employees will perform the evaluations and will be used during the evaluation process. IPA employees are subject to the Conflict of Interest Laws and Standards of Conduct provisions, such as rules on disclosure of confidential information. The Government may employ non-government personnel as technical advisors or to provide administrative support under this solicitation. Currently, the Government plans to use Riverside Research Inc. and MITRE, Inc. to provide administrative support. These individuals and the firms that employ them have signed non-disclosure statements and will be authorized access to only those portions of the proposal data and discussions that are necessary to enable them to perform their respective duties. Interested offerors may view and/or download the full BAA solicitation by accessing the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) homepage at http://www.eps.gov/. PRIOR TO AWARD OF ANY CONTRACT, POTENTIAL OFFERORS MUST BE REGISTERED WITH THE CENTRAL CONTRACTOR REGISTRATION (CCR) (http://www.ccr2000.com/) AND BE ABLE TO RECEIVE PAYMENT VIA ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER (EFT). Potential offerors must also have a DUNS Number (http://www.ccr.gov/faqs.html#10). It is anticipated awards may be either firm fixed price or cost-reimbursable type with cost-reimbursable type being the preferred method. Prior to award of a cost-reimbursable type contract, the offeror must have an adequate accounting system for determining costs IAW FAR 16.301-3. (4) Points of Contact: Interested offerors may submit questions to AFRL TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT: Jeff Hughes (AFRL/SNAS) or Dr. Martin R. Stytz (AFRL/SNZW), email: atspi@wpafb.af.mil or CONTRACTING POINT OF CONTACT: Mr. David L. Shellabarger (AFRL/SNKD), (937) 255-4863.
- Record
- SN00086019-W 20020602/020531213305 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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