From: glen mccready 
  To: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 17:50:37 -0500

Forwarded-by: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: mo@uunet.uu.net (Mike O'Dell)

ARPA Science Research Funding News Today......

		ARPA to Fund Network Reliability Research

Washington, DC -

The Advanced Research Projects Agency of the DoD announced today they are
funding a three-year effort to improve the field reliability of
fiber-optic communications networks.  The program is aimed at reducing
network outages from damage to buried fiber optic cables caused by
construction machinery.  Many telecommunications outages are caused each
year when machines called "backhoes" dig-up underground fibers, cutting
them and causing massive service disruptions.

This phenomenon is commonly referred to as "backhoe fade" and
the uncanny ability of the construction backhoe to locate buried
cables will be the focus of this effort.

Dr. Zweiback Gimfizel of the Marginalia Institute of Technoplasty
has been designated Principle Investigator on the project and
held a news conference today and described the proposed line of
research. 

	"We are taking a page from the biologists who discovered
	the magnetic organ in the brains of homing pigeon. This
	organ senses the earth's magnetic field and allows the
	pigeon to track its location.  

	"In like manner, our research will focus
	on identifying the specialized organ structure within
	the backhoe that can somehow sense the location of glass
	fibers."

	"The hope is that if this fiber-seeking mechanism can be
	identified, measures can be developed to disguise
	telecommunications cables, thereby creating "stealth"
	fiber bundles which will not attract the attention of
	the rampaging backhoes."


In another unrelated statement today, ARPA announced the creation of the
Remote Autonomous Rodent Program which will work on developing specialized
weapons systems for attacking the underground communications systems of
adversaries.  In recent theater actions, modern fiber-optic communications
systems have proven quite resilient to traditional attacks and require
new techniques to disable them.

Dr. Gimback Zweifizel of Hardly Yardwell University was designated
Principle Investigator.  In a prepared statement, Dr. Zweifizel noted that
this work program was funded for three years and was to produce a field
demonstration of a working system.  Other details of the project are
classified.