POSE: Phase I: Planning an Open-Source Ecosystem Approach for the ZMap Toolkit

Award ID: 2449183

This Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) project provides cybersecurity and networking researchers, in academia, government, and industry, a reliable open-source software toolkit for measuring and monitoring Internet infrastructure at a global scale. Real-time, global visibility into Internet infrastructure (e.g., servers, websites, critical infrastructure, and other Internet-connected devices that compose the Internet) is paramount for uncovering security weaknesses, for fixing vulnerabilities before they can be attacked, and for guiding the deployment of more performant and secure Internet protocols. This project builds the foundation to transform a frequently utilized Internet measurement toolkit for finding, understanding, and securing tens of millions of Internet devices and the most depended on protocols into a self-sustaining open-source community that can operate without government funding long-term. This community will maintain and improve this toolkit, as well as help education and support new users, such that it can continue to serve as the technical foundation for academic research and industry solutions that protect the core of the Internet and the infrastructure connected to it. This POSE project enables ecosystem discovery with the communities (e.g., academic researchers, Internet security companies, certificate authorities) that use the ZMap Internet Measurement Toolkit (e.g., ZMap, ZGrab, ZDNS, ZLint tools) to understand their needs, frustrations, use, appetite for providing financial or in-kind support, and their requirements for long-term support. The project will also enable an understanding of how best to build community, support, and documentation around the toolkit that enables further deployment and utilization of data to improve Internet security. This project will develop a plan to transform the ZMap Toolkit from an open-source toolkit into a healthy, self-sustaining open-source ecosystem. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Florence Rabanal