Keep Moving Data Forward: Galois TKOs $7M DARPA Contract for ROCKY

In the film Rocky Balboa, Rocky tells his son, “Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”  

At Galois, we appreciate Rocky’s tenacity and inventiveness. Rocky is the ultimate underdog who perseveres despite overwhelming odds. We think these attributes are indispensable when we talk about assuring the security of data – its confidentiality, integrity, and availability – particularly data moving through networks where an adversary may have an overwhelming capability to surveil – and censor – communications. 

We’re pleased to announce a project entitled Reliable Obfuscated Communications Kit for everYone, or ROCKY, part of the DARPA Resilient Anonymous Communication for Everyone (RACE) program. 

ROCKY is currently in its first phase, but we’ve already achieved two significant program milestones in early field test exercises of undetectable communications schemes. In both exercises, we exceeded expectations for reliability and delivered bandwidth. These initial schemes “hide in plain sight,” mimicking normal, everyday communications in the same network area.

We foresee many opportunities for ROCKY. We plan to make ROCKY open source and see the potential for many applications outside the government sphere. In particular, we’re discussing transition opportunities with NGOs focused on censorship avoidance around the world.

To learn specifics about the ROCKY project, visit our project page.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Air Force and DARPA.

This project or effort depicted was or is sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and DARPA under contract number FA8750-19-C-0085.

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