Dartmouth's Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection has completed a massive database of its research on cyber-security available to any student, researcher or industry expert across the globe with a valid e-mail address. I3P, as the institute is known, transferred control of this database to the Naval Post-Graduate School at a ceremony last month.
I3P is a national network of universities, laboratories and non-profit organizations that researches and coordinates information security under Dartmouth's management. Its cyber-security library, called the Digital Commons Project, contains peer-reviewed articles, notes, and so-called "grey literature" -- information that would otherwise be very hard to obtain, such as internal government reports and memos.
The library was first conceived as a way to make hard-to-find security literature more accessible, said Martin Wybourne, vice provost of research at the College and principle investigator at I3P. The National Institute of Standards and Technology agreed to finance the project, and work began on the library soon after I3P was founded in 2002.
Since that time, the library has amassed a collection of more than 7,000 items related to cyber-security, and in the past few years I3P created an advanced search engine that directs patrons to more information, according to a College press release. The library is designed for use by students, researchers, librarians and security experts.
"It gives people access to material that is not commonly found in the literature, that you would not find in a normal library," Wybourne said.
The Institute was founded at Dartmouth under a Clinton Administration mandate to combat foreseeable cyber security problems. Dartmouth was chosen to lead the program both because of its long history of leadership in the field of computer science and through the lobbying efforts of Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., according to Martha Austin, executive director of I3P. The cyber-security library was one of I3P's initial projects. As the library project drew to a close in 2007, its creators began to search for partners to maintain the library into the future, according to Austin.
"Our business was not to 'hold a library,' our business was to push the edge of the envelope in that research space," Austin said.
She added that because they are researchers and not librarians, I3P members could not have maintained the library after creating its infrastructure.
Patricia Irwin, the former director of the project, reached out to people she knew in the cyber-security field this fall to find a suitable partner to maintain the library, Austin said. The Naval Post-Graduate School seemed to be the best fit because it had the resources and desire to maintain and expand the library, she said. At the time, NPS was building its own online security library, titled the Homeland Security Digital Library, though it lacked a section on cyber-security.
I3P and NPS signed an agreement to turn over control of the I3P's cyber-security library a few months ago and officially transferred responsibility in a ceremony on the campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology outside of Washington, D.C., on March 20.
Currently, the I3P researches a variety of computer security concerns, such as how companies deal with corrupt employees and how to market cyber-security to corporations.
