Publications

Abstract not provided.

This report contains documentation from an interoperability study conducted under the Late Start LDRD 149630, Exploration of Cloud Computing. A small late-start LDRD from last year resulted in a study (Raincoat) on using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to enhance security in a hybrid cloud environment. Raincoat initially explored the use of OpenVPN on IPv4 and demonstrates that it is possible to secure the communication channel between two small 'test' clouds (a few nodes each) at New Mexico Tech and Sandia. We extended the Raincoat study to add IPSec support via Vyatta routers, to interface with a public cloud (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)), and to be significantly more scalable than the previous iteration. The study contributed to our understanding of interoperability in a hybrid cloud.

An important aspect of insider protection in production facilities is the monitoring of the movement of special nuclear material (SNM) and personnel. One system developed at Sandia National Labs for this purpose is the Personnel and Material Tracking System (PAMTRAK). PAMTRAK can intelligently integrate different sensor technologies and the security requirements of a facility to provide a unique capability in monitoring and tracking SNM and personnel. Currently many sensor technologies are used to track the location of personnel and SNM inside a production facility. These technologies are generally intrusive; they require special badges be worn by personnel, special tags be connected to material, and special detection devices be mounted in the area. Video technology, however, is non-intrusive because it does not require that personnel wear special badges or that special tags be attached to SNM. Sandia has developed a video-based image processing system consisting of three major components: the Material Monitoring-Subsystem (MMS), the Personnel Tracking Subsystem (PTS) and the Item Recognition Subsystem (IRS). The basic function of the MMS is to detect movements of SNM, that occur in user-defined regions of interest (ROI) from multiple cameras; these ROI can be of any shape and size. The purpose of the PTS is to track location of personnel in an area using multiple cameras. It can also be used to implement the two-person rule or to detect unauthorized personnel in a restricted area. Finally, the IRS can be used for the recognition and inventory of SNM in a working area. It can also generate a log record on the status of each SNM. Currently the MMS is integrated with PAMTRAK to complement other monitoring technologies in the system. The paper will discuss the system components and their implementations, and describe current enhancements as well as future work.

Segmentation is a process of separating objects of interest from their background or from other objects in an image. Without a suitable segmentation scheme, it is very difficult to detect contraband in X-rays images. In this paper, a Probabilistic Relaxation Labeling (PRL) segmentation scheme is presented and compared with other segmentation methods. PRL segmentation is an interative algorithm that labels each pixel in an image by cooperative use of two information sources: the pixel probability and the degree of certainty of its probability supported by the neighboring pixels. The practical implementation and results of the PRL segmentation on X-ray baggage images are also discussed and compared with other segmentation methods. 13 refs., 12 figs.