------------------------------ Publication: The Age Publication date: 2-2-1999 Edition: Late Page no: 9 Section: Computers Sub section: It Professional Length: 706 ------------------------------ Starlight closes the `Air gap' IT ONE - SECURITY - AWARD Byline: SUELETTE DREYFUS MILITARY agencies have battled with the problem for decades; how to create a system which lets staff simultaneously use both classified and unclassified networks all on the same computer. Their search has just come to an end, thanks to Australian scientist Dr Mark Anderson, of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. MILITARY agencies have battled with the problem for decades; how to create a system which lets staff simultaneously use both classified and unclassified networks all on the same computer. Their search has just come to an end, thanks to Australian scientist Dr Mark Anderson, of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. Traditionally, the military used one major security tool to separate their classified and unclassified networks: the air gap. The best way to protect against an intruder who might slip in and copy secret information was to ensure classified networks were not plugged into the outside world. Dr Anderson, who won the prestigious Minister for Defence Achievement Award last month, has developed a suite of information security products called Starlight, which the Australian Defence Organisation will use as its primary means of achieving high-grade protection of its information systems. `As far as I am aware, no one else in the world has been able to do this before in this manner,'' said the SA-based Dr Anderson, who is the head of the Advanced Computer Capabilities Group in the Electronics and Surveillance Research Laboratory's IT division. Starlight will, for example, allow someone sitting at one workstation to cut and paste text from documents from both inside a classified network and in the Internet, or any other unclassified network. They can then merge the data into a new file and mail it to either the Internet or the military network.=20 One of the big advantages of Starlight is that it provides protection even if the dual-use computer is compromised by a virus or worm. The suite includes both hardware and software products. There are three components: Stubs, the interactive link and a third item, of which, Dr Anderson said, `I can't tell you'' - presumably it is classified information, as is much of DSTO's work.=20 All scientists working for DSTO, the technology research wing of the Defence Department, must have a minimum security clearance of `secret''. The interactive link, a piece of hardware that can be clipped on to the side of a computer with the ease of plugging in a printer cable, has two parts: the Data Diode, which only allows data to flow in one direction (from the untrusted network to the trusted military computer network); and the `trusted switch'', lodged between the keyboard and computer, which allows users to swap the keyboard between classified and unclassified use for data input. Both parts can work with `untrusted'' software, which has not been cleared for military use. The interactive link can be used with or without encryption, which makes make the product less expensive, Dr Anderson said. In presenting the researcher with the award and a $15,000 cheque, the Minister for Defence, John Moore, said that the Defence Signals Directorate, a key defence group, had benefited from Dr Anderson's work. The official DSD-licensed evaluation facility, Canberra-based Admiral Management Services, is testing Starlight's security for an E6 rating - the military's highest level of assurance. A South Australian company Vision Abell is leading a consortium to commercialise Starlight. And Compaq in the US recently bought 30 units of the interactive link, the first sale of a Starlight product. More recently, Dr Anderson has been working on Shapes Vector, an intrusion-detection system for policing and managing large networks subject to information warfare attacks. Shapes Vector uses intelligent agents to collect information, and then presents it in a way which lets a user visualise and patrol a network. A former Melburnian, the 39-year-old Dr Anderson earned a computer science degree from the University of New England in 1982, and a PhD from Monash. `I learned computers using punch cards,'' he laughed. He was inspired to create Starlight after reading a military wish-list of unsolved problems in 1991. The researcher and his team worked up to 65 hours a week for about a year. In his spare time, he tried to keep his mind fresh for the project by reading sci-fi books. Hundreds of paperbacks by the likes of Philip K. Dick, Iain Banks and Isaac Asimov line his shelves at home. Caption: Photo: Starlight express: Dr Mark Anderson's program, Starlight, will allow people to use classified and unclassified networks simultaneously.=20 Picture: PETER MATHEW