DARPA: SBIR Opportunity: Mobile Anti-Totalitarian HumaNets (MATH)

Category	Opportunity
DoD Communities of Interest	Big Data
Subject	SBIR Opportunity: Mobile Anti-Totalitarian HumaNets (MATH)
Due Date	29 June 2021
Government Organization	Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Description The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Business Programs Office (SBPO) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts in the technical domain(s) of Information Systems. In particular, DARPA is interested in understanding the feasibility of Mobile Anti-Totalitarian HumaNets (MATH). This SBO will open for proposals on May 27, 2021, and close at 12:00 p.m. ET on June 29, 2021. I. INTRODUCTION The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Business Programs Office (SBPO) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts in the technical domain(s) of Information Systems. In particular, DARPA is interested in understanding the feasibility of Mobile Anti-Totalitarian HumaNets (MATH). This SBO is issued under the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for SBIR/STTR, HR001121S0007. All proposals in response to the technical area(s) described herein will be submitted in accordance with the instructions provided under HR001121S0007, found here: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/d0cde4fb668d40b1982da8296d5349c0/view II. TOPIC OVERVIEW a. Objective MATH will use Human Movement Networks (HumaNets), which are inherently resistant to surveillance and blocking, implemented with smartphones to disseminate information in scenarios where speed of message delivery is not of primary importance. b. Description Totalitarian societies strictly control communications and the distribution of content that is controversial or politically inconvenient. MATH will develop a HumaNet [1,2] implemented with smartphones to disseminate information within highly censored environments. HumaNets are inherently resistant to surveillance and blocking, albeit at the cost of significant delay. All information exchanges are directly between phones of MATH participants, and dissemination achieves large scales via human movement, which offers many asynchronous opportunities for exchanges. These exchanges rely on proximity and form a network via variations in the set of proximal nodes. Over time, a message will reach its destination with some probability via a sequence of movements and exchanges. As shown in [1], the key parameters in message delay will be: · the number of opportunities for message exchange, more (as in urban areas) being better than fewer (as in rural areas); · the diversity and distance of movement, more is better (e.g., package delivery services and taxi drivers versus single-occupant automobiles used solely to get to and from work, etc.); and · replicating the message, with more replicas generally better for delay (unless the system experiences congestion as it tends toward epidemic routing). MATH’s opportunistic exchanges are decentralized in time and space, placing the logistics burden on the authoritarian regime rather than on MATH users. Cryptography can protect message privacy and integrity, and message exchange protocols [2] can prevent traffic analysis of metadata. Notably, the delay characteristics of MATH make it unattractive for interactive communications. Proposers should explicitly state how their designs will inhibit extremists and terrorists in coordinating their activities. One way to do this, not done in today’s HumaNets work, is to keep the product of (path opportunities)*(message rate) below a limit. This allows MATH to share more efficiently when opportunities abound (such as in a rail station or a crowd) while maintaining the delay via controlled service of a message queue, even where many fast links are available. This would make it impossible to use for flash mobs while adding benefit, which further reduces the possibility of surveillance. MATH, however, is extremely well-suited to two roles of interest to DARPA where delay is of secondary importance: · messaging by military personnel seeking rescue from behind enemy lines where conventional communication might enable identification, geolocation, or time correlation and put the individual at risk for capture; and · scalable information dissemination systems such as Netnews / Usenet [3], creating a decentralized service enabling sharing of information that totalitarian regimes would otherwise suppress. c. Phase I Phase I feasibility will be demonstrated through evidence of a completed feasibility study or a basic prototype system; definition and characterization of properties desirable for both DoD and civilian use; and comparisons with alternative state-of-the-art methodologies (competing approaches). Proposers interested in submitting a DP2 proposal must provide documentation to substantiate that the scientific and technical merit and feasibility described above have been met and describe the potential commercial applications. DP2 documentation should include: (1) technical reports describing results and conclusions of existing work, particularly regarding the commercial opportunity or DoD insertion opportunity, risks/mitigations assessments; (2) presentation materials and/or white papers; (3) technical papers; (4) test and measurement data and tradespace analyses; (5) prototype designs/models; (6) performance projections, goals, or results in different use cases beyond those covered in item (4); and (7) documentation of related topics such as how the proposed MATH solution can enable communication between MATH users without the fear of message interception. This collection of material will verify mastery of the required content for DP2 consideration. DP2 proposers must also demonstrate knowledge, skills, and ability in smartphone technologies, networking, privacy, security, communications, computer science, mathematics, and software engineering. For detailed information on DP2 requirements and eligibility, please refer to Section 4.2, Direct to Phase II (DP2) Requirements, and Appendix B of HR001121S0007.
Website	https://beta.sam.gov/opp/0adc67677eca4efc8b90a16d9ad0e51d/view