Step up and move forward

You know about blogs, right? Hey, you're reading one. What about Wikis? Well, maybe not so much.

Below you will find a link to a presentation by Chris Rasmussen of the NGA. It's about how the American Imtelligence community is using a wiki, rss,tagging and, dare we say it, living the Web 2.0. Rasmussen's presentation is direct and honest. The positives and the pitfalls are there. These could be the words that inspire you to move your organization forward and, perhaps, streamline some processes at the same time.

Thanks to All News, All about Intellipedia for the heads up.

Kudos to Federal Computer Weekly for posting this presentation. Here it is.

Source: FCW

Getting caught up

Here are some items of general interest that we have found or have had brought to our attention by readers. Thank you!

• What do the NSA and You Tube have in common? The Register


• Nuclear Missile Deployment Area Discovered in Central China FAS

• Booz Allen business sale to the Carlyle Group for $2.54 billion Press release

• Canadian General gagged? Ottawa Citizen

Sources: As linked

National cyber security initiative

After years of silence on the issue of cyber security Washington's recent flurry of activity is quite astounding and far reaching. The state of affairs has gone literally from silence to the proposition that government become America's firewall.

How is this to be done? Who is going to do it? How will it be monitored? These questions currently are not clearly addressed or fall under the umbrella label of secrecy.

"A chief concern is that virtually everything about the initiative is highly classified, and most of the information that is not classified is categorized as `For Official Use Only.' These restrictions preclude public education, awareness, and debate about the policy and legal issues, real or imagined, that the initiative poses in the areas of privacy and civil liberties. Without such debate and awareness in such important and sensitive areas, it is likely that the initiative will make slow or modest progress. ... "

"The committee also shares the view of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that major elements of the cyber initiative request should be scaled back because policy and legal reviews are not complete, and because the technology is not mature. ..."

"The committee also concludes that some major elements of the cyber initiative are not solely or even primarily intended to support the cyber security mission. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that some of the projects support foreign intelligence collection and analysis generally rather than the cyber security mission particularly. ... That is not to say that the proposed projects are not worthwhile, but rather that what will be achieved for the more than $17.0 billion planned by the administration to secure the government's networks is less than what might be expected."

From: Senate Armed Services Committee, Report 110-335, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009

You know someone who wants this ...

General Dynamics C4 Systems has announced that their Sectéra Edge mobile phone has been certified by the National Security Agency (NSA) for voice communications classified up to the Top Secret level and access to email and web-sites classified at the Secret level and below.

"The smartphone interfaces with the U.S. Department of Defense Public Key Infrastructure using the government’s standard Common Access Card. Information stored in the Sectéra Edge is protected using data-at-rest encryption.

Developed under the NSA Secure Mobile Environment/Portable Electronic Device (SME PED) program, the Sectéra Edge smartphone is compliant with the Secure Communication Interoperability Protocol (SCIP), enabling secure interoperability with SCIP devices including the Secure Telephone Equipment (STE) and existing Sectéra phones and terminals. The smartphone is also compliant with the High Assurance Internet Protocol Encryptor Interoperability Specification (HAIPE® IS) for secure interoperability with in-line encryption devices, including TACLANE® encryptors, that secure information on the U.S. Government’s Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet)."

Editor's note: Remind anyone of their "crackberry"?

Source and Photo: General Dynamics C4

US espionage enters the 'un-Rumsfeld' era

"As the George W Bush administration winds up nearly seven years of intelligence fiascoes, a quiet revolution has been going on at the Pentagon, which controls more than 80% of America's US$60 billion intelligence budget. Since taking over from Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense in the winter of 2006, Robert Gates has greatly scaled down the Pentagon's footprint on national security policy and intelligence."
Tim Shorrock writes this in a very interesting article in the Asia Times. Check it out.

Source: Asia Times

General Dynamics makes a big VOIP step.

VOIP is everywhere. A huge concern is security.

General Dynamics' vIPer phone has been certified by the National Security Agency. It complies with: the government's Secure Communications Interoperability Protocol (SCIP); other compliant phones; Cisco Systems' Skinny Client Control Protocol and Sectera terminals.

General Dynamics will now develop it to support Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Both SIP and SCIP are required for government and military secure communications from top-secret level down.

Source: General Dynamics