PlugFest Winners Develop Short Order Cybersolutions

Using resources available on the global network, three developers raced the clock to create solutions to a security problem as part of the third PlugFest competition. The winners were announced Thursday during the final day of TechNet Land Forces East in Baltimore. Third place went to Morakot Pilouk with ESRI Incorporated in Thailand, who delivered a solution that verified whether a data source at the far end of a network was malicious or harmless. Steve Guerin received second place. He used SIMTABLE, a device to create 3-D maps, combined with input from smartphones held by warfighters in the field, to develop a situational map of a wildfire in Afghanistan. The first place winner, Steve Price from Omni Rational Enterprises and San Diego State University, used multiple social networks worldwide to form a verifiable "cybercop" to ferret out important event information. Both Price and Guerin participated in the previous PlugFest competition held at TechNet Land Forces South in Florida earlier this year.