Princeton University researchers say they have come up with a new way to securely transmit crucial rescue information to first responders to situations such as natural disasters and terroist attacks.

The new architecture supports what Princeton electrical engineering professor Ruby Lee calls "transient trust"- that is, the ability to swap sensitive data such as floor plans of a building or personal medical information securely on an as-needed basis. A paper (Hardware-rooted trust for secure Key Managment and Transient Trust) describing the work by ex-HP computer architect Lee who leads the Princeton Architecture Lab fo Multimedia and Security [PALMS] and graduate student Jeffery Dwoskin was presented this week at the Association for Computing Machinery Computer and Communications Security conference in Alexandria, Va.

The paper describes outfitting devices such as handheld computers used by 1st responders with elements dubbed a "device root key" and a "storage root hash" to enable temporary access to information. Building security from scratch into devices has been a big push for Lee.

"Our research shows that these hardware roots of trust are actually quite deployable on consumer devices like desktop computers or PDAs, and also in sensor networks and larger servers", said Lee in a statement.

The work is part of the SecureCore multi-university research project, funded by the National Science Foundation Cyber Trust program and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency.

Using network technology to better equip 1st responders to so their jobs has been a focus for many researchers and network product venders of late

It was reported earlier that Maryland Department of Transportation was trying to build a system for identifying 1st responders in an effort to get emergency workers to disaster sites quickley and efficiently.

In September, a consortium of security vendors dubbed Tiers of Trust aired its plans to make it easier for emergency personnel to identify themselves at the scene of a disaster.

Individual companies such as Cisco have been increasingly aggresive about building out their first responder gear.

Check out Network Worlds Alpha Doggs blog for the latest in network research at universities and other labs. This information can be found at www.networkworld.com/news/2007/110207-security-architecture.html