December 2003
http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/1203
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UC Berkeley professor and chair of electrical engineering and computer sciences, Shankar Sastry is the principal investigator on the DETER project.

Seeking an edge in the battle against computer worms and viruses, UC Berkeley researchers are building a virtual playing field for cyber war games. By simulating the Internet on a small scale, the virtual laboratory of 1,000 networked computers will help researchers develop new ways to beat hackers who threaten our online infrastructure.

Supported by a three-year, $5.46 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the Cyber Defense Technology Experimental Research (DETER) network is a collaboration between UC Berkeley researchers in the Center for Information Technology Researchers in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (USC-ISI).

"One of the challenges of creating effective defense programs for attacks from viruses and worms is that they are only tested in moderate-sized private research facilities or through computer simulations that are not representative of the way the Internet works in reality," says UC Berkeley professor and chair of electrical engineering and computer sciences Shankar Sastry, the principal investigator on the DETER project.

In recent years, cyber-attacks have become more common, and increasingly severe. For example, in January 2003 the Slammer/Sapphire worm infected more than 75,000 hosts globally within 10 minutes, leading to ATM failures and major network outages. Then, in August, the MSBlaster and SoBig worms brought portions of the commercial Internet to its knees. Indeed, SoBig was considered the most economically damaging virus ever, causing an estimated $14.62 billion in business losses.

Cyberwarriors will be fighting a fast-spreading foe. These maps show the January 2003 spread of the Sapphire worm (also known as Slammer), growing from nothing (top) to global impact (blue zones at bottom) in only half an hour. (Courtesy CAIDA)

"With so much of the nation now dependent on the Internet, we are no longer talking about nuisance pranks and vandalism, but potential losses in the billions of dollars," says Terry Benzel, assistant director for special projects at USC-ISI and co-investigator of the project.

The DETER network will be a scale model that simulates the multitude of components on the real Internet--from routers and hubs to desktop PCs. The network will consist of three permanent hardware clusters, or nodes, located at UC Berkeley, USC-ISI, and ISI-East in Virginia. Each computer in a node will represent several network connections. Through this shared online laboratory, researchers from government, academia, and the private sector will have the opportunity to unleash their own malicious computer code and test new defense methods in a contained environment.

"There is a lot of very good research from the past 10 years that hasn't made its way to commercial products," Benzel says. "I believe strongly that one of the reasons we haven't seen security technology used as much is because there has been a lack of sufficient evidence of the benefits and tradeoffs these new technologies bring."

In July, Sastry, CITRIS's interim Chief Scientist, testified before the Congressional Committee on Homeland Security regarding the need for DETER. The US Department of Homeland Security is helping fund the testbed through a collaboration with the NSF.

"Through this project we will develop traffic models and architectures that are scaled down from the actual Internet, but still representative enough that people can have confidence in it," Sastry says.

UC Berkeley Civil and Environmental Engineering professor John Dracup believes the biggest breakthroughs in hydrologic forecasting will come from his students who are only now beginning their research careers.

Daniel Kammen, professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, researches an alternative energy technology called "combined heat and power" (CHP). Peg Skorpinski photo

In the near future, the heat that warms your apartment in the winter may be piped in from the dry cleaner next door. According to UC Berkeley researchers, harnessing the "waste" heat that's currently vented out the back of turbines and generators could help ease our energy bill woes by doubling the effective efficiency of fossil fuel combustion in a wide range of power plants.

This alternative to gas or electric heaters is part of an energy technology called "combined heat and power" (CHP), where both the waste heat as well as the electricity is captured from the combustion of fuel. The CHP effort is being driven by a growing interest in distributed power generation, the integration of small power plants into buildings, so individuals and businesses can produce their own electricity instead of buying it from centralized power plants.

"Building a market for waste heat improves the economics of distributed power generation," says Daniel Kammen, professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, the Energy and Resources Group (ERG), and the Goldman School of Public Policy.

In the United States, more than 60 gigawatts of power are generated via CHP, with a Department of Energy (DOE) goal of 92 gigawatts by 2010. After all, CHP makes perfect economic sense. For example, a gas turbine requires approximately 1000 megawatts of input fuel to make 333 megawatts of electricity. That means the turbine's fuel efficiency -- the ratio of the useful energy obtained to the fuel it burns -- is just 33 percent. Capturing the heat that's generated during the combustion process ups the unit's efficiency to nearly 70 percent in some cases.

With some shifts in policy and the design of infrastructure to transfer waste heat, Kammen is convinced the U.S. building industry could put CHP and distributed power generation to more widespread use here as well. For example, take a mini-mall where a dry cleaner and restaurant both produce a great deal of heat.

"All of that heat currently vents out the windows or the backs of turbines and generators," Kammen says. "If the mini-mall could sell the heat to an apartment complex next door, it improves the mall's economics and decreases our overall need for fossil fuels to make heat."

In that scenario, Kammen envisions public utilities acting as the middleman, connecting heatsellers with buyers. It's a model that's already been proven to work by the Danish National Power Utilities, among others. Indeed, heating homes with the waste heat from large and small CHP power plants, like those at industrial facilities, is already commonplace in many European towns, Kammen says.

"The utility can even work the deal so that their income is a percentage of their customers' savings over a period," Kammen says. "This kind of performance-based contract gives the utility a revenue stream, an incentive to do a good job, and provides a way for customers to participate in CHP programs without much up-front cost."

High-efficiency solar panels, such as these, could be used to produce hydrogen to power a fuel cell vehicle Peg Skorpinski photo

While there are plenty of lessons to be learned from European CHP efforts, importing their approach isn't so easy, Kammen says. For instance, some regions in Europe take CHP opportunities into account during urban planning. Physically connecting heat sellers and buyers in this country's urban sprawl environments is much more difficult.

The aim of a new DOE-funded partnership between UC Berkeley, the California Energy Commission, UC Irvine, and San Diego State University, is to get a handle on the viability of widespread CHP in this country. Under the direction of Dr. Timothy Lipman, executive director of Berkeley's Center for Interdisciplinary Distributed Energy Research (CIDER) and an ERG research associate, the Southwest CHP Regional Application Center (SWAC) is charged with studying and promoting CHP in the southwestern United States.

The multidisciplinary SWAC effort spans engineering, economics, and public policy. For example, students in Kammen's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory are developing novel technologies for heat conduction along with new power generators -- from fuel cells to "greener" external combustion engines. Meanwhile though, the DOE grant calls for the researchers to act as "a conduit of information to the private sector," Kammen says.

To that end, Kammen, Lipman and their colleagues are assessing the feasibility of CHP systems for several large industrial facilities, examining regulatory policy, and beginning outreach to the private sector to encourage a shift in the "energy economy."

"Hopefully once we get the story out, building and industry will see the opportunities," Kammen says. "Combined heat and power is good economics and contributes to energy independence."

T.Y. Lin was a professor emeritus of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley

The College lost a luminary Saturday night, in the passing of Tung-Yen (T.Y.) Lin at his home in El Cerrito, California. At 91, T.Y. Lin was active, alert, and engaged until the end of his life, including meeting with former students in the past week.

"T.Y. Lin brought great light to Berkeley and to our department," says Greg Fenves, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where T.Y. Lin was a professor emeritus. "As one of the most innovative structural engineers in this century he was recognized internationally in many ways."

Lin achieved worldwide renown not only for the projects he designed, such as San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, but also for the innovative ideas he proposed, beginning with a "Peace Bridge" across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia.

In 2001, the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library's Regional Oral History Office (ROHO) published T.Y.Lin's oral history, a series of interviews capturing the life and times of this extraordinary man's visionary spirit.

"For half a century, I have been witness to the brilliance of T.Y. Lin," wrote Berkeley colleague and professor emeritus Alexander Scordelis in the oral history's introduction. "It is a brilliance that illuminates not only from his mind, but from his heart; not only from the excellence of his innovations, but from the warmth of his intentions; not only from his pioneering work, but from his visionary spirit."

Born in 1912 in Fuzhou, China, Lin earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Jiaotung University in 1931 and then came to Berkeley as a graduate student. His master's thesis on direct moment distribution led to important advances in structural design, and, as the first student thesis published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), became a classic in the field.

Lin returned to Shanghai in 1933 to work with the Chinese Ministry of Railways. At 25, he became chief bridge engineer of the mountainous Chungking-Chengdu Railway system, helping to survey, design, and build more than a thousand bridges across China's rugged terrain. He married Margaret Kao in 1941 and five years later joined the Berkeley engineering faculty. Here he pioneered the development and use of pre-stressed concrete, which combines concrete with steel tendons for both strength and economy. Engineering News Record called the material a "radically simple idea" that made standard the fabrication of pre-stressed frames, slabs, and shells used in construction worldwide.

To link his teaching and research with actual practice, Lin founded T.Y. Lin International in 1954. He retired from Berkeley in 1976 to lead the company full-time. He left in 1992 after the firm was sold and went on to form Lin Tung-Yen China.

T.Y. Lin at the San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, which he designed.

Honored throughout his life for his groundbreaking achievements, Lin received the National Medal of Science, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, was named Alumnus of the Year by the California Alumni Association, was listed among the 125 "Top People of the Past 125 Years" by Engineering News Record, and was the first recipient of ASCE's Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Design award. ASCE renamed its annual Pre-stressed Concrete Award the T. Y. Lin Award.

"As an enthusiastic supporter of Cal, the College of Engineering, and the civil and environmental engineering department, we will greatly miss T.Y.'s inspiration and encouragement," added Fenves.

Lin is survived by his wife of 62 years, Margaret of El Cerrito; his son, Paul Lin of Palo Alto; his daughter, Verna Lin-Yee of Oakland; his younger sisters, Nancy Li of Massachusetts, Amy Shen of Virginia, Sylvia Chen of New York, and Anna Hu of San Jose; his younger brothers, Tung-Qi Lin of Massachusetts and Tung-Kuan Lin of Torrance, Calif.; and five grandchildren.