The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking for the networking equivalent of a firing range to test out cyber-military tactics and new networking technologies.

DARPA's Strategic Technology Office has issued a request for information (RFI) on existing cyber network range capabilities that already exist today in the government, academic, and business communities. DARPA says it needs such infrastructures for developing and testing out new networking ideas and approaches -- including in support of the Department of Defense's Net-Centric Warfare (NCW) effort, which uses IT to boost military capabilities.

The catch: No funding has been allocated to the program as yet, and it appears DARPA wants to leverage existing networks.

According to the DARPA RFI, NCW is an "information superiority enabled concept of operations that generates increased combat power by networking sensors, decision makers, and shooters as well as administrative and business processes to achieve shared awareness, increased speed of command, higher tempo of operations, greater lethality, increased survivability, and a degree of self synchronization."

DARPA hopes to conduct R&D in support of NCW with this cyber network proving ground/test range, including new networking protocols and architectures, and leading-edge network-enabled military systems.

— Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading