Stealth security engineer launches MSU lecture series Monday

Contact: Phil Hearn

STARKVILLE, Miss.--The senior security engineer for the U.S. Air Force's F-22 stealth fighter project will speak Monday [March 27] at Mississippi State.

Gary Smith, who works for the Science Applications International Corp. in Washington, D.C., will be the first speaker in the 2006 Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by the university's Center for Computer Security Research.

A key source for leading-edge technologies, SAIC is a Fortune 500 company and the largest employee-owned research and engineering firm in the United States.

Smith will discuss computer security as applied to the F-22 project. His public presentation will begin at 2 p.m. in 100 Butler Hall, which is home to MSU's department of computer science and engineering. Seating is limited.

The F-22 Raptor is a highly maneuverable stealth fighter aircraft built for the Air Force by Lockheed-Martin Aeronautics and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. It is equipped for air combat, ground attack, electronic attack and signals intelligence roles.

The computer security research center is directed by Ray Vaughn, MSU's Billie J. Ball Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. The department, headed by Julia Hodges, is a part of the Bagley College of Engineering.

Three other lecture series speakers are scheduled during the spring semester. Their programs will begin at the same starting time and in the same location.

They include:

--April 12, David Bell, developer of the Bell/LaPadula Model, the first and most frequently used practical mathematical model of computer security implemented in operating systems. He has more than 35 years of experience working in computer security, with an emphasis in formal modeling and application of modeling tools.

--April 20, Ronda Henning, the senior scientist for information assurance at Harris Corp.'s Government Communication Systems Division. Also, as a network security officer for the Federal Aviation Administration's Telecommunication Infrastructure Modernization Program, she is responsible for the security architecture, management and operations of a mission-critical national infrastructure.

--April 26, Lance Spitzer, an internationally known expert on Honeypots/Honeynets and president of the Honeynet project. Honeypots/Honeynets are computer systems designed to be attacked so that the actions of the attacker can be studied and controlled. Spitzer, author of the well-known book "Honeypots--Tracking Hackers" (Addison Wesley, 2003), is a senior security architect for Sun Microsystems Inc.

For more information, contact Vaughn at (662) 325-7450 or Vaughn@cse.msstate.edu.