In security we TRUST?

“My mother called me and asked me about some weird stuff that was happening on her computer.”

“Really? Mine too.”

I’m kind of amazed at how many times I have this conversation with people, particularly people in the computer industry — and more specifically in the computer security industry.

That “weird stuff” is usually some sort of virus, bot, or other breed of malicious code that has wormed its way onto a parental computer. Why those who work in the computer industry are still shocked by these nefarious programs’ ability to work through the traps they set is anyone’s guess.

So it comes as no surprise that the National Science Foundation (NSF), just in time for Mother’s Day, has announced it intends to establish two new STCs (Science and Technology Centers) this year. One of them will be dedicated to computer security — or more accurately, cybersecurity — and that project will be led by the University of California at Berkeley.

The project is called — I hope with some degree of humor — TRUST (Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology). Aside from a few other participating universities, TRUST will include Bellsouth, Cisco, ESCHER (a research consortium that includes Boeing, General Motors, and Raytheon), Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Qualcomm, Sun Microsystems, and Symantec.

TRUST, in typical government gobbledygook, will “investigate key issues of computer trustworthiness in an era of increasing attacks at all levels on computer systems and information-based technologies.” To put that in English, the group plans to develop technologies that will make it possible to build computer software and networks that are inherently reliable and secure from the inside out. That means addressing internal threats as well as those coming from the outside world.

Part of the funding ($19 million initially) was secured via that always-dependable, good ol’ fashioned source of government funds: fear. A report released last month by the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee stated that the “information infrastructure of the United States is highly vulnerable to disruptive domestic and international attacks.” The report recommended increased support for fundamental research in computer security.

Voila. Instant government funding.

As for the other project funded by the NSF, it will study how the balance of mass in the polar ice sheets may affect sea level.

That’s fine, but I’ve never received a call from my mother on that problem.