How the Army found middle ground to embrace the internet

"This winter, the Air Force, as the Pentagon’s point agency for Internet operations –“cyberwarfare,” in military jargon – banned access from official networks to many blogs, declaring that they weren’t “established, reputable media.” The Air Force didn’t seem concerned that America’s greatest enemies, international jihadists, had long ago latched onto websites as cheap, effective tools for sharing ideas."

David Axe looks at The Military's Internet 'Civil War' in The Washington Independent. This is the first of three parts.

Source: As cited
Photo: U.S. Army

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

UAE to get deployable tactical internet

After an international competition Thales has been selected to supply the United Arab Emirates with military capable, deployable, multimedia IP services.

The Zagil solution, based on IP standards and Wimax technology, demonstrates Thales' ability to develop solutions from civil products and technologies. This large use of COTS and the development of an active policy of Transfer of Technology, along with a highly performing offer, are the key elements of Thales' international successes in tactical networks. Today, in addition to UAE, clients of Thales' tactical communication solutions include France, Switzerland, the UK, and Austria.

The core of the Di@ne/IP system is the IPS (IP-Services) software suite which comes on top of standard IP equipment and features subscriber mobility, military quality of service, and efficient networking as a perfect answer to operational military communication requirements.

Including a very new secured IEEE 802.16 Wimax technology, this network solution will provide to users a broadband wireless IP access even on the move.

The main transmission media of Di@ne is the TRC 4000 Microwave Radio Relay operating in NATO Band IV (4.4 to 5.0 GHz) and providing secured 34 Mbps high data rate transmission links. Its integrated planel antenna and its split design offers low wind resistance, flexible deployment and quick setup and teardown.

The TRC 4000 radio is fielded in operational service with numerous armed forces, most notably in France, Switzerland, and TRC 4000 34 Mbps is currently under delivery for FALCON in UK, PTPRS in Austria and of course Zagil in the Emirates.

Di@ne also provides Automatic integration of PR4G/Fastnet combat radios offering both radiotelephony and efficient data networking on the battlefield using high secure but sometimes bandwidth constrained military radios.

Source: Thales

OMB consolidating agency Internet connectivity

" The Office of Management and Budget is calling on agencies to reconfigure their connection points to the Internet, in hopes of reducing the federal government's exposure to malicious hackers accessing agency networks.

OMB's newly announced Trusted Internet Connections requires agencies to develop a plan of action and a set of milestones by Jan. 8 on how they will reduce the number of connection points they maintain to the Internet."

Source: Jason Miller at GCN