Homeland Security and Cloud: Challenges and On-Going Developments

In this chapter we deal with the Homeland Security issue, which is a very crucial topic for all over the world. We specifically focus on how to benefit from cloud computing to prevent and face off terrorism attacks. To show and discuss such benefits, we analyse a specific scenario for HS, that is the Transport of Dangerous Goods. We introduce the concept of “Concurrent” transport, that describes the contemporary movement of goods through different modes in a specific geographical area in a given time interval. Spatial and temporal constrains allow to analyze the global Societal Risk of the transport in that area and to highlight the requirements of the Homeland Security activities. We present a new Cloud architecture specifically designed for supporting Homeland Security, both in terms of prevention and management of dangerous situations. It offers world wide services for the cooperation of governments and organizations involved in disaster prevention and/or rescue through the creation of federations. It also guarantees a capillary interaction with the environment along with different and heterogeneous sensing infrastructures, in order to collect massive information for detection, planning, and management activities against terrorism.