A software that prevents terrorist attacks through water

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 28 July 2011, 23:30 IST
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Bangalore: U.S. researchers have reportedly developed a free software that can safeguard water utilities from terrorists attack and natural contaminants. The software programmed known as CANARY Event Detection Software has been developed by scientists at the Sandia laboratories in New Mexico in association with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is said that the habit of taking drinking water from kitchen taps are prone to terrorist attacks and other contamination and the researchers claim that through the enhanced detection by the new software program, public water system can be protected. According to a Sandia statement, Regan Murray, Acting Associate Division Director at EPA's Water Infrastructure Protection Division, said, "People are excited about it because it's free and because we've shown that it works really well. We would love to have more utilities using it." The software can alarm the utility operators within minutes if they find something wrong with their water. CANARY runs on a desktop computer and can be modified for individual water utilities working with existing sensors and software. Sean MacKenna, the Sandia researcher who led the team that developed CANARY, added that it works at lightning speed and will also enhance the water qualities. More versions of the software are to be installed at water utilities. Moreover, researchers are now functioning on new areas for CANARY, like computer network traffic logs and geophysical log analysis used by petroleum drillers to analyze rocks at different depths. They claimed that it is being used in the city of Cincinnati, in Singapore and Philadelphia is soon to follow them.