Classified Wiki For U.S. Intelligence Community

CortoMaltese noted that the U.S. intelligence community has unveiled their own classified wiki, the Intellipedia. Reuters says "The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia, which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much like its more famous namesake on the World Wide Web. A 'top secret' Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000 pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less restrictive versions exist for 'secret' and 'sensitive but unclassified' material." For kicks, you can also read about Intellipedia on Wikipedia."

Comments

Well well well....

[MrNaz]

So how long until its accuracy is disputed over things like WMD in Iraq and it is forked by a high ranking officer who goes away and starts Intellendium to be run by supposedly more reliable intelligence analysts?

Re:Well well well....

[Xserv]

Do you think some of that would really be an issue. You could probably add a rating system or something for "more trusted" sources to have a higher priority on an update.

You have to admit that this is a good move for the intelligence community as a whole. ANY way for them to share a COMMON source of information is productive. Wasn't one of the main problems suspected behind the 9/11 committee's findings that there WASN'T enough communication and interoperability between branches of the intelligence sects?

Just a thought...

Xserv

Re:Well well well....

[MysticOne]

As I understand it, that was by design, not by mistake. The CIA isn't supposed to handle domestic problems, and the FBI isn't usually supposed to be involved in international issues. I think they're supposed to work together where they overlap (say, if someone the CIA was tracking comes into the country, they're supposed to work with the FBI, but it's the FBI's territory at that point). This was all to keep a little separation between the departments so you don't have one massive one that controls everything. Unfortunately, those barriers seem to be weakening much the way our government's separation of powers is being eroded.

I'm not an expert on this, so if I'm mistaken about the original separation, I'll stand corrected. But I'd read in several places it was set up that way on purpose.

Re:Well well well....

[diersing]

On one hand I think its great they are using an online collaborative solution to bring together different agencies and sharing intelligence. But I'm also concerned that with each agency having their own agenda, budget and staff it could lead to misleading and/or rogue comments be accepted as fact. I hope they do have a rating system for the validity/reliability of information posted to allow analyst the freedom to interpret and place value on differing pieces of data.

Re:Well well well....

[Mercano]

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. You can help Intellipedia by spinning this article or replacing it with the administration's position on the topic.

Re:Well well well....

[Xserv]

Right, right. And it is by design for good reason. I guess one of the main points to label this as a "pro" and not a "con" was that in the scenario you're mentioning where a transition of information must occur, rather than having agents from say the FBI have to dig through tens of thousands of paper records to find what they need on a subject very quickly, the CIA could essentially "open" an area as part of the hand-off so that the FBI could then get the wealth of data the CIA had already collected. Seems logical to me.

As far as combining the departments, I gathered FTA and the Wiki on it this doesn't seem like it being the intent. It's an information repository. I don't think you're going to see a "Director of the World Intelligence Cult" forming anytime soon.

Does this clarify a little at what I was getting at and maybe make more sense now? IANAE either but it just seems like a logical solution to a problem the IC has faced over half a century...

Xserv

Re:Well well well....

[MysticOne]

I definitely agree that there are times when they need to share information. They seem to have been lacking a decent way to store the information for some time, much less share it. So this is a good thing on the surface. What worries me, though, is that it may make it easier and all the more likely for them to share information when they don't need to be sharing it. So, we'll just see how it all goes. If it's used responsibly, I think it's a very good thing.

Re:Well well well....

[operagost]

I think they're supposed to work together where they overlap (say, if someone the CIA was tracking comes into the country, they're supposed to work with the FBI, but it's the FBI's territory at that point).

And obviously, this wasn't possible because of the wall Jamie Gorelick had erected during the Clinton administration. Ironically, she was also the one to bring this poor decision to light through her questioning of John Ashcroft on the 9/11 Commission.

Re:Well well well....

[Amouth]

i has the same thought.. but more importantly.

has the population of terrorists increased 300% in the past year??

Re:Well well well....

[genthree]

The real question is how long till someone portscans the server?

Re:Well well well....

[tmjva]

Any port scan would have to come from within the IC.

I can't believe it's taken this long

[slusich]

They should have had something like this years ago. The goverment takes far too long to adopt new technology in vital areas.

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think they didn't?

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[interiot]

Erm, a lot of companies, even those who who deal primarily with knowledge and who have internal communications issues, haven't embraced wikis. So either wikis aren't effective, or they're a bit out of the mainstream, and it's taking everyone a bit of time to recognize their value (you mean... anyone outside my department can edit these pages?? Is there a way to prevent that?)

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[thePig]

In my view, these are some areas which can provide a security nightmare.
Think of spies - One spy gets into a high security clearance position, he has a complete list of all information, for which he might had to work for (or ask sub-ordinates) to obtain, in his fingertips.

I know they would have thought about it and provided adequate security for the same, but even then this is a little worrying developement.

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[SnowZero]

On the other hand, an electronic version such as this can easily log every page you've ever looked at. That's more difficult with paper. If done right, with the appropriate security compartmentalization, this could work very well for them; Let's just hope they listened to the NSA when designing it.

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[James McGuigan]

But such a spy could also subtily tweak the data in the wiki to perpetuate false information.

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[Ana10g]

I'm actually intending to reply to this and the the entire tree of comments, from the GP on down. People ask why it's difficult to deploy new technology in the security arena. This is why. Everyone who has even the slightest interest in the idea or initiative puts in their two cents, explaining little doomsday caveats, and scaring the shit out of management. Then, because management is afraid of compromising information, nothing gets done.

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[thePig]

I agree.
But, wouldn't most of the people be interested in what is going on around the world, and go through most of the pages?
I know, I would. I regularly read wiki (for 1-2 hrs per day at the least) on most of the areas which I am remotely interested in.

And higher security clearance means that person is able - and able people do try to get in more information that others.

Not that these spies wont have such information otherwise, but this makes it much easier.
Also, the spy, who would have just contributed only in his milieu, could now contribute in much vaster areas than earlier.

Re:I can't believe it's taken this long

[geekoid]

If the government shifted gears everytime a new technology came out, it would cost 25 times more money then it does now.

I think it is a good thing to look at the technology and see if it is going to work.
Plus, they needed to make change to incorporate there own features.

Did you know...

[Rob T Firefly]

...that the number of WMDs has tripled in the past six months?

Re:Did you know...

[MarkGriz]

"the number of WMDs has tripled in the past six months?"

Really? Wonder if they'll be smuggling them inside elephants.

This Is A Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what we need more than any new stealth fighter jet in this post-9/11 world. Better Human intelligence and analysis and collaboration tools is necessary to win this Global War on Terror. We must find and kill them before they can try to kill us.

9/11 happened because we couldn't get different agencies and intelligence communities to work together. This sounds like something useful to prevent the next big suicide attack on the US.

Negroponte?

[Mikya]

Sounds like someone Dave Chappelle made up for one of his skits.

Re:Negroponte?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

Re:Negroponte?

[jeffmeden]

You're thinking of [[Negrodamus]]... erm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrodamus. John Negroponte is a rather notable figure in American politics. Try to keep up, eh?

Re:Negroponte?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, do everyone a favor: don't vote. We don't need uninformed idiots running the show anymore.

Need to Know

[EnderGT]

When deciding whether or not to reveal classified information to someone, there are 3 things to examine:

1. Clearance - Has the person been cleared to know this information
2. Access - Has the person been given access to this information by the party responsible for the information (in the US DoD, signed SF 312)
3. Need to Know - Does the person really need to know this information

This seems like they're skipping steps 2 and 3 all together. Now anyone with clearance can find out anything they want? Seems fishy to me...

Re:Need to Know

[Anonymous Coward]

SIPRnet contains a wide variety of resources that people with an access to do not necessarily have "need to know." If you do not have "need to know," it is expected that you will not look for it.

Its a compromise between keeping the information locked in a safe and having humans judge it, then shipping it by federal carrier after judging whether you specifically have "need to know" and expediency of access to that information.

If anything is judged "too sensitive," then it is kept behind either a login or a PKI cert in order to further restrict who would roughly need to know, but you would still be on your honor once on that system not to go riffling through information you have no business knowing.

Re:Need to Know

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two major types of failures with intelligence agencies (aside from bad data). One is the wrong people finding out important information. The other is the right people NOT finding out important information. I think the US intelligence community has traditonally erred on the side of too little information sharing (the right hand not knowing what the left is doing) rather than too much. With the speed of execution of threats against us, by the time an agency can demonstrate a "need" to know, it may be too late. Much of the reorganization of governmental departments under Homeland Security was done to counter this specific defect in the US intelligence system (there are various governmental reports that led to this, it wasn't just a whim of lawmakers to do it). With the perspective of learning from our mistakes, this Wiki seems like a great idea.

Re:Need to Know

[RingDev]

Yes and no. Do you need to know everyone with in two degrees of separation from your target? Probably not. But if the vast majority of know intrest groups and persons of intrest are in a wiki like system, a script could generate a listing of all associations and individuals within two degrees of the target. And with any such system it is only as useful as the data it contains. The more data it contains, the more associations, and the more accurate the patterns, that can be determined. In order to get that kind of data you need to open the system up to the widest possible safe audience. Which means, clearance and access. Need to Know gets traded for Need to Share.

-Rick

Re:Need to Know

[Llywelyn]

They don't seem to be skipping #2 at all. They still require access to get onto the network on which the information is held, which requires a clearance.

Re:Need to Know

[Mikey-San]

You are assuming you know the classification level of the information in the Intelliwiki, when you do not. All that is known is that the system is classified to the extent that the public is not allowed to see it.

Without evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to assume that SCI or SSBI-level information is there for anyone with "confidential" clearance to see.

Re:Need to Know

[jandrese]

More importantly, with the change in our threats has come a change in where the threats come from. When the "big bad guy" was the Soviets, we had to assume that they had paid off at least some strategic people in every agency, or possibly even had plants, that allowed them some access to data that should otherwise be protected by our security clearance and secure data handing procedures. Because of this, it was very necessary to keep everyone as compartmentalized as possible, even though this is far from optimal when trying to organize the efforts of thousands of analysts and field operatives.

Modern day threats are different. Al-Quieda probably doesn't have a vast network of spies gaining access to our intelligence serivices, so it makes sense to open up the internal communication a bit to allow our own intelligence workers to be more efficient. While it does make a compromise that much more painful, the advantages gained through the information sharing probably outweigh the risks.

Re:Need to Know

[PPH]

I won't dispute 1 or 2, but the 'need to know' isn't easy for the originator of the information to determine. Some good analysis can be done by looking across the organizational boundaries to pick up patterns or best practices.

Re:Need to Know

[SnowZero]

Regarding "Access", there's no reason they can't apply security at the granularity of categories; i.e. analyst X is only allowed access to items about Afghanistan and Pakistan, and won't be allowed to look up things on China or Russia. You can push that as far as you want in terms of compartmentalization to make it as fine as needed. The traditional paperwork for access to documents becomes paperwork for getting the access keys, so that can still be there. "Need to Know" is harder to model, but I'd expect this system is very aggressive at logging page views. If someone is consistently looking at things they don't need to know, it should turn up soon enough. As an aside, a software system becomes a great method for planting incorrect information for suspected leaks. A page can be modified quite easily depending on who is looking at it.

Re:Need to Know

[swillden]

When the "big bad guy" was the Soviets, we had to assume that they had paid off at least some strategic people in every agency, or possibly even had plants, that allowed them some access to data that should otherwise be protected by our security clearance and secure data handing procedures.

That makes sense. I recently read an SF book that had a more extreme version of that notion as a key subplot. The situation was alien mechanized probes attacking the earth, and much of the research on countering the threat was being done, obviously, by the defense and intelligence establishment. Even after the threat was made known to the whole world, and after it became clear that the machines barely even noticed humans, much less conducted intelligence operations, it took significant time for the spooks to play down their fear of breaking secrecy and share their research and ideas broadly. By the end, they published all of their data on the Internet, trying to open the data up to every human on the planet.

On a more serious note, any competent analysis of any security system begins with a threat analysis, because until you understand the threat, you can't effectively defend against it, and you also can't be sure that you're applying your security resources efficiently. From that perspective, it seems obvious that a security infrastructure that was designed to counter the large-scale, well-funded, high-tech, centralized, thoroughly organized intelligence services of major world governments is not ideal for defending against small-scale, intermittently-funded, low-tech, extremely decentralized and very loosely organized opponents like terrorist organizations.

Against the KGB, exquisite care with secrets was far more important than agility. Against Al Quaeda, the reverse is true.

Re:Need to Know

[Registered Coward v2]

This seems like they're skipping steps 2 and 3 all together. Now anyone with clearance can find out anything they want? Seems fishy to me...

Except that every hit will be logged - providing a trail as well as data that could be mined to see who is looking at what and flag suspicious use. hell, that's better than a paper system where you really don't know who looks at what and where it's hard to connect the dots that someone is looking in multiple areas for information.

Hmm, Analyst xx looked at 10 articles on Y which is way out of his area - I wonder why? I would think anyone that is doing bad will avoid leaving that sort of trail.

Plus, making info more readily available is critical to doing good work - especially if you can use people with different POV to comment and update articles; as well as tap into expertise you might not have in house.

Re:Need to Know

[EnderGT]

Actually, it's quite easy - if it is not obvious that they do need to know, then they don't!

Re:Need to Know

[gatesvp]

I think that 1 & 2 would be pretty easy to handle. Storing and displaying information based on clearance should be pretty easy if we can assume a standardized set of clearance levels across departments. Access is pretty much implied by my posting information to the wiki, but there is nothing to stop me from classifying information as "department-specific" and not having it display to other users. These are basic tweaks to a wiki.

The problem with point #3 is that it runs entirely counter to the concept of a wiki. A wiki works on the assumption that there is a "need to know". The whole reason this is in place is b/c people who "needed to know" didn't actually know that they "needed to know".

This whole "need to know" concept inherently assumes that a small body of people "know everything"; we're assuming that the right and left hands are connected somewhere. Obviously this has gotten out of hand (pun) b/c there is simply too much information for any small # of people to fully grasp, so the hands are no longer connected.

A well-designed wiki will increase cohesion. But the wiki doesn't really preclude points 2 & 3, it just gives me a better chance at figuring out "what I need to know". Heck maybe the entry I'm looking for just comes up with a "talk to department X for info", but that's way better than not knowing that anyone was working on it in the first place. At least now I know where I'm going for access.

Re:Need to Know

[LexNaturalis]

You also need to have access to JWICS (for the TS/SCI version) or SIPRNET (The Secret version). A person having a clearance doesn't mean they have access to either of those networks, and having access to either of those networks doesn't mean you have access to everything on the networks.

Re:Need to Know

[dangerz]

Right, I was just wondering the same thing. Even if they have access roles in place, are these roles secure enough to make sure that someone that doesn't need to see the top speed of Fighter X can't?

Re:Need to Know

[Yogs]

It seems much more likely to me, since we all

1: Don't have clearance
2: Haven't been given access
3: Don't need to know anyway

that we just aren't being told what the security mechanisms are in place or what their technical underpinnings are.

Nothing to see here folks, move along!

Re:Need to Know

[eMarv]

Well put! How can any group even begin to know what others need to know. Saying that any individual or organization in the intelligence community has no need to know is arrogant and presumptuous!

Re:Need to Know

[TubeSteak]

Modern day threats are different. Al-Quieda probably doesn't have a vast network of spies gaining access to our intelligence serivices, so it makes sense to open up the internal communication a bit to allow our own intelligence workers to be more efficient.

You talk like Al-Qaeda is the only modern day threat.

Instead of a lengthy criticism of the rest of your post, I'll just point out that once you remove the assumption that "Al-Qaeda = the only modern day threat," the rest of your supporting statements don't hold together very well.

Re:Need to Know

[Anonymous Coward]

but you would still be on your honor once on that system not to go riffling through information you have no business knowing.

On your honor, yes... and access would be logged, of course! So, if you download every page, and couldn't subsequently demonstrate a need to know, then that should probably be flagged. It is far better to log who accesses classified information than it is to assess their need to know on a case by case basis requiring prior approval. At least when it involves human intelligence that is trying to outmaneuver our enemies, so it needs to have fastest possible dissemination of information (within the intelligence agencies and Whitehouse). Other areas would be compartmentalized, so intelligence analysts probably wouldn't have access to R&D materials in the DOD or DOE. What we are talking about is probably terrorist dossiers and pictures and other material about the groups and such that they belong to. Probably looks a lot like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda, except that it would contain bits of classified reports which would be labeled as such.

Really is a good idea. It has all the benefits of Wikipedia, and the downside is much less because you can log both access and contribution and more quickly identify disputes over information. Also, this puts more information in a modern search able form in way that makes it easier to keep it up to date. The disputes between CIA, NSA and Pentagon analysts over the minutiae wording of articles would be terribly interesting. And I am guessing that DNI's job would be to make sure that there is some uniformity to the format for articles on people, places and things.

Re:Need to Know

[Anonymous Coward]

...since we all 1: Don't have clearance 2: Haven't been given access 3: Don't need to know anyway

Speak for yourself! Isn't it interesting how the AC's all seem to converge on these occasional topics that discuss classified information handling...

Re:Need to Know

[Max Threshold]

Not really. I have a friend in the Air Force who has access to Intellinet; she told me about it a few months ago, but based on my own experience with the military making things happen, I doubt much has changed.

Intellinet eliminates the need for this three-step security process in an extremely elegant way. First, even if you've been given clearance and access, your login and password usually don't work. People with an actual need to know have to use somebody else's login information. Second, once you get in, all you find is outdated copies of Wikipedia articles.

Re:Need to Know

[EnderGT]

I'm betting that a good bit of the well-informed AC's on this thread actually do hold clearances, and rather high ones at that. The GP of this post wasn't an AC, though, and almost certainly his post describes himself perfectly.

Re:Need to Know

[jandrese]

You're acting like they're going to post all information they have on the Wiki. Clearly you only post information for threats that aren't likely to have a shot at looking at it. I don't think you'll be seeing Chinese information on it for instance.

Re:Need to Know

[PPH]

That's pre 9/11 thinking. The terrorism analysts didn't 'need to know' who was taking lessons at flight schools.

If we want to stay ahead of an enemy who is continually evolving new tactics, the 'need to know' requirement can only be satisfied by hindsight. In other words, we will become aware of what we 'needed to know' after the fact.

Link?

[mgblst]

...and login details pleass??

I would love to see what they have on this. I wonder if they use it to track individuals, each agecny adding their own knowledge. Could be useful.

On another issue, I wonder if these Agencies have really adopted a mandate to co-operate. It is really in their interests not too, and claim the glory themselves. Even when they fail, they just blame it on lack of funds, and get more money.

Re:Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

and login details pleass??

Would a link matter to you if you aren't on the classified networks? If you were already on the classified networks, you'd probably have seen a link on your portal page.

Re:Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.lemonparty.com/ userid: johnwalke4, pass: xHXbwswJ384XkhjaawrjRH

Wow

[mogrify]

This makes so much sense, I can hardly believe they're actually doing it. A properly wielded wiki is the perfect tool for this problem.

Re:Wow

[x2A]

Could be, providing a tagging system. For example, any persons names that appear in a page should be tagged as a persons name. Transcriptions of telephone calls could be tagged as such, with the date/time etc. Would make automated cross referencing, building structured queries, more fruitful.

What the?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked. This appears to be a geniune example of thinking by the government. This is an actual, honest to goodness, good idea. Not only that, it's an IT project that apparently didn't require an army of consultants, a $12billion appropriation and seven years to implement!

P.S: I did like this bit from the article:

"That might help avoid errors of the kind that led to the widely criticized 2002 national intelligence estimate that said Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."

Yes. Error. Right.

Re:What the?

[friedmud]

"it's an IT project that apparently didn't require an army of consultants, a $12billion appropriation and seven years to implement!"

How do you know that? I bet there was still a $12Billion dollar appropriation and an army of consultants... seriously... really. I've worked for the government.... nothing gets done without an army of consultants and _lots_ o cash.

Friedmud

Re:What the?

[x2A]

"That might help avoid errors of the kind that led to the widely criticized 2002 national intelligence estimate that said Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction."

Of cause it would... because they would give write access to the wiki to governments of countries they're about to invade, who would be able to correct the articles to say "we got nuffin boss".

Re:What the?

[geekoid]

As someone who does software for the government, I'd say it's no different here then in the corporate world. Something I have years of experience with.

Knowledge Base Software

[jmagar.com]

What we are seeing here is the emerging winner in the knowledge base software category. Wiki's are able to harness the power of being fully distributed in content creation. Anyone can contribute, correct, and read the data. Also they are not shackled with structured meta data requirements so that the content collection/creation is far easier than other systems. They rely on FULL TEXT search to find the knowledge held within, and this suits perfectly well with a user based trained, by Google, in how to construct meaningful keyword based searches.

Re:Knowledge Base Software

[TopShelf]

And best yet, it probably didn't require hundreds of millions of dollars, multiple revisions over a number of years, and an endless line of bloodsucking leeches (err... consulting firms) to implement.

Re:Knowledge Base Software

[OJCIT]

I'm not sure what you mean by metadata "shackles." I thought xml and similar frameworks were forgiving enough, and can enhance searchability in a variety of ways. If full text was good enough for every application, we wouldn't need Google.

Gasp!

[Sazarac]

We have met the enemy, and he is us!

Secure

[dontspamme]

Hope it hasn't been developped by Diebold.

Re:Secure

[Anonymous Coward]

You have my votes on that one...

Obligatory

[UbuntuDupe]

(cur) (last) 02:09, 27 October 2006 CIALuvR (Talk | contribs) (rm unsourced edit -- no proof CIA did that)
(cur) (last) 01:31, 24 October 2006 DodDude(Talk | contribs) (added pt a/b selling drugs in inner city)

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

9/11 happened because we couldn't get different agencies and intelligence communities to work together.

Keep telling yourself that.

about as quickly as wikipedia became unreliable.

[Shivetya]

Any system can be slanted to suit a paticular view.

aside from the parrot wmd jab, why are our intelligence services so political anymore? When did this start? the late 60s and early 70s perhaps (vietnam etc) or did it become so after the mccarthy era?

then again, if any of the contributers to intellipedia read and post on /. the number of WMD will be zero.

New admin procedures

[Dr. Cody]

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As an added security feature ...

[Keyslapper]

In order to log on, you must be situated at a specially designed workstation equipped with a Cone of Silence ...

But really, if it's so top secret, how come the whole world knows about it?

Geez, now, everybody's going to want one. I can see it now, there'll be an Al' Qaedapedia next.

Re:As an added security feature ...

[x2A]

"But really, if it's so top secret, how come the whole world knows about it?"

I know the pentagon exists, but I don't know what's written on all of the documents within it. I think that's the important bit.

Re:As an added security feature ...

[AeroIllini]

Al' Qaedapedia

Article | Discussion | Edit this page | + | History | Move | Watch

Talk:Future Plans

Contents [hide]
1 Added possible plot
2 Page needs cleanup

Added possible plot
I added the "underwear bomber" idea. The shoes thing worked, let's see if we can get them to take off their underwear at the airport! - AlMusari 10:14, Oct 14, 2006 (UTC)

Page needs cleanup
IMHO, we need to clean up this page to better organize our thoughts. Please complete the entries for future plans with specific information about participants, methods, and dates/times. Cite your sources. - NotTheCIA 14:35, Oct 25, 2006 (UTC)

Category: Western Infidels to Blow Up

Re:As an added security feature ...

[Keyslapper]

True, but keep in mind that the Pentagon itself (meaning its existence) isn't exactly top secret. This "Intellipedia" was announced as A "top secret" Intellipedia system, not a system for managing "top secret" content. I mean really, next they'll have brightly colored uniforms with fancy frilled cloaks for the secret police.

Of course we don't know the contents of every document within the Pentagon. You probably don't (and never will) know the purpose, name, or regularity of a great many of these documents, never mind their existence. The Intellipedia is essentially a document that contains much (and will probably eventually contain a vast majority) of the intelligence data within the 16 agencies that use it. And all in an editable format. Now you know it exists, what it's called, and you have an idea what kind of data it contains.

My point is that anything of this nature is going to be an obvious target for the more tech savvy flavor of terrorist, foreign intelligence agency (don't forget the alleged hacks to government systems from China), and even domestic glory-seeking nerd with no sense of "don't touch, that's hot".

Now, I'm well aware that security through obscurity is no security at all, but when that obscurity includes a target's actual existence, well, that's something. It's a little more difficult to attack something you don't even know exists.

And isn't announcing "We have this shiny new top secret thingy that does this and that" a prime example of the oxymoronic "(Military|Governmenet) Intelligence" concept.

Of course, maybe I just tend to wax cynical when anything to do with (Military|Government) Intelligence comes up. Yah, that's probably it.

Re:As an added security feature ...

[Cyno]

I'm just amused the first thing you think of in relation to the Pentagon and this supposed "intelligence" wiki and community is Al' Qaeda. Or is it Al' Qaeda in Iraq(tm)? ;)

hehe

Re:As an added security feature ...

[Keyslapper]

Now you mention it, so am I ...

I wonder why that is?

Re:As an added security feature ...

[mounthood]

Geez, now, everybody's going to want one. I can see it now, there'll be an Al' Qaedapedia next.

So if Wikipedia has http://uncyclopedia.org/, does that mean Intellipedia has ...



(I had to.)

Re:As an added security feature ...

[kabocox]

But really, if it's so top secret, how come the whole world knows about it?
Geez, now, everybody's going to want one. I can see it now, there'll be an Al' Qaedapedia next.

It's a wiki. I can't get excited by them any more. I think it's a good idea and will be useful for those that need to access it for intel. The first thing that I thought of when you said that everyone will want one is that they'll make wiki-rumor-pedia. Forget the standards of wikipedia, if its a rumor or you just want to do a community blog stick your latest rumors in wiki-rumor-pedia. If you dislike some one stick that it. If you notice some one having an affair, or cheating on other girl/boy friend, stick it in. If you are into gossip of all sorts, put all of it in. Forget references, this wouldn't be an encyclopedia. This is just rumor mogering on a huge scale. If you've hear of a job opening, post it. If you hear of something that needs whistle blowing, slip it in there. If you want to put in church meetings, political rally info or KKK meetings go ahead. The goal of wiki-rumor-pedia would be for the public to spy and gossip on each other and easily search though all that rumor info for dirt on folks. Met some one from out of town, search them just to see if anyone has entered any dirt on them. Now, I just need to wait for about an hour for some other slashdotter to post a link to a site that's doing that. It'll happen.

Re:As an added security feature ...

[x2A]

"This "Intellipedia" was announced as A "top secret" Intellipedia system, not a system for managing "top secret" content"

I think at worst you're splitting hairs, and at best you're interpreting an ambigious sentence in the not-intended way. A "top secret content management system" could be read as "a [top secret content] management system", or "a [top secret content management system]" easily enough.

"The Intellipedia is essentially a document"

No, it's a system that will hold, index, and manage documents, and control access to them, a sort of computerised version of filing rooms within the pentagon. We know of its existance, but can't exactly reach its contents.

On the other point, you're forgetting the side where knowing that the agencies have this new collaborative tool may decrease the chance that someone thinks they're gonna get away with planning something, and increase public confidence. This effect could outweight the risk of people knowing that it exists.

Re:As an added security feature ...

[Keyslapper]

Good points all around. I should've seen the ambiguity there.

Still, your last point probably only applies to the less ambitious perpetrator. And almost certainly does not apply to a great many of those willing to blow themselves to some imaginary heaven. I can see how it might reduce (maybe just a little) the "mosquito swarms" though.

Re:As an added security feature ...

[Anonymous Coward]

CIC from Snowcrash.

Revert wars!

[locokamil]

"This document needs to be cleaned up to conform to wikipedia standards. Please add sources."

-- 3.2003 entry on Iraq weapons of mass distruction.

Intelligence officer with fief to protect: "Lame." ::Revert::

Bad language

[Anonymous Coward]

"The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia"

If anything disolves faith in elected officials and journalists, it's when they're naive or blasé enough to faddishly use a word which means emperor to describe the positions of public servants in places of authority.

Re:Bad language

[trongey]

"The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia"

If anything disolves faith in elected officials and journalists, it's when they're naive or blasé enough to faddishly use a word which means emperor to describe the positions of public servants in places of authority.

They're just trying to be honest for a change. They thought it would be easier to start with something everybody knows anyway.

Re:Bad language

[eln]

While the word might literally mean "emperor," in the US it seems to mean "political appointee whose job is to look busy, so the people will think something is actually being done about a problem, while not actually accomplishing anything." See "drug czar."

Re:Bad language

[truthsearch]

Negroponte's involvement in the Iran-Contra affair definitely disolves my faith in this government more than this label.

Your point is still a good one.

Re:Bad language

[aminorex]

No, in the U.S. it literally means "emperor", as in a person who, without any democratically derived legitimate authority, excercises control over the systems of government for their personal gain, regardless of public detriment. See "drug czar".

Re:Bad language

[dapyx]

Negroponte is a name of Venetian origins, so maybe Doge would be appropriate. :-)

Re:Bad language

[treeves]

Yeah, but he did come up with the idea for those $100 laptops to help kids in third-world countries! OK, he couldn't get people to buy them for $300 to help others out, but it was a good intention!

Note: this is not a real opinion. If it had been a real opinion, you would have been informed as to where to put it. Thank you.

Viewing edit history for Fidel Castro

[Anonymous Coward]

2006-10-31T14:29:16 Agent1131412 (Talk | Contribs) m (That's not how you spell dictator!)
2006-10-31T14:11:13 GWB (Talk | Contribs)
2006-10-31T13:41:03 Agent3232452 (Talk | Contribs) (rv. 1234-XY-11 not authoritative. See Top Secret memo-231 from 2006-10-29)
2006-10-31T13:20:16 Agent5432342 (Talk | Contribs) (rv. Not dead. See Report-1234-XY-11)
2006-10-31T12:54:14 Agent3232452 (Talk | Contribs) (He is dead. My sources tell me it's a lookalike)
2006-10-31T06:39:59 Agent1131412 (Talk | Contribs) m (That's not how you spell dictator!)
2006-10-28T18:29:06 Agent5432342 (Talk | Contribs) (rv. My sources tell me he's not dead)
2006-10-26T00:05:53 Agent3232452 (Talk | Contribs) (Added note about Fidel Castro being probably dead)

The terrifying future of intel. is here

[hairypalmer]

Now would be a great time for the FBI to reopen their investigation of the Kennedy assisnation.

A sample classified doc from Intellopedia

[Salvance]

The nice thing about Intellopedia is that it's easy to see a history of all changes. For instance, check out this document from the Intellopedia based upon the UN's mid 1990's estimate of their capabilities. You can see all the changes made by the CIA (deletions on sep lines, adds in bold) prior to our Executive branch using it as a pretext for war:

Iraq, an evil empire, is a country of

highly educated people

vast oil fields ruled ruthlessly by Saddam Hussein. Since the first Gulf war,

the various embargos, sanctions, and oil for food program has stripped Iraq of much of it's wealth and industrial capacity

Saddam has been working tirelessly to destroy us and take away our freedoms. Our estimate is that Iraq, under such conditions,

could not have possibly

has resurrected its evil nuclear, or even chemical weapons, capabilities.


Hopefully politicians don't have access to such a system!

Re:A sample classified doc from Intellopedia

[x2A]

Yeah but you know they're gonna try distract everyone by pointing out Clintons revisions to whether he had sexual relations with "that woman".

On a platter?

[ParraCida]

I'm not sure how the intelligence community usually handles their information sharing between agencies and members, but this seems a rather easy target.

One database with thousands of user accounts, remotely accessible, each account has full viewing access, the information is displayed in an easy to copy format ready to be picked clean by a single compromised account. One key logger, one leak, one vulnerability and it's all gone, that to me seems rather risky.

Now like I said, I don't know if it would be the same if one single person in the CIA or something would be compromised, ie that they would have unlimited access to a full database, but to me this seems a rather risky business.

Re:On a platter?

[antifoidulus]

Have you ever set up a wiki before? You can use mediawiki to set who can view what(mostly using namespaces) so if you are smart about not everything is viewable to everyone. Not to mention being open source allows them to modify their code. And who ever said a wiki had to be remotely accessible? If an agent needs info on the run you can just make a pdf and encrypt it, otherwise the wiki would be as secure as everything else in their network. Finally, who ever said anything about "one database" In the article it mentions something about Nigeria, so Nigeria may have it's own database. Saudi Arabia another etc.

As per key loggers and whatnot, wikis are no more in danger of being compromised than other data management systems. Interpret that however you like.

Re:On a platter?

[XdevXnull]

You have to take into account that this thing is running on the government's ultra classified private network. It is absolutely NOT accessible from ANY Internet based node or router. The network is totally (read: physically) separate from the Internet that you and I use. Only specific secured computers can log in at all.

Don't like it - Just click edit

[kenj0418]

Well, this should make it much easier on the adminstration whenever they don't like an intelligence report. Now they can just click "Edit" and change it to what they want it to say.

--
sig withheld by request

Re:Don't like it - Just click edit

[ScentCone]

Well, this should make it much easier on the adminstration whenever they don't like an intelligence report. Now they can just click "Edit" and change it to what they want it to say.

Excellent lack of getting it! Try again once you understand the differences between intel, analysis thereof, and briefings for policy makers based on those two things.

Re:Don't like it - Just click edit

[kenj0418]

Try again once you understand the differences between intel, analysis thereof...

And you can try again when you understand the differences between sarcasm, humor, and serious commentary. Can you guess which one my post wasn't intended to contain?

That was fast...

[NIN1385]

Wow, that only took FOR-EV-ER! Good thing the government is on the cutting edge of technology, I was worried for a minute.

"unveiled"?

[Bobtree]

classified intelligence mistake #1

Really?

[stupidnickname]

How, exactly, can one "unveil" a classified, secret project?

Re:Really?

[rk]

"How, exactly, can one 'unveil' a classified, secret project?"

I don't know how it works, but I used to get messages all the time like "Gaia's Stepdaughters have begun a secret project called 'The Self-Aware Colony'" and stuff like that. Maybe I just had good probe teams, and occasionally I was planetary governor.

What we really want to know...

[Channard]

.. is which pages have had to be locked due to vandalism?

Re:What we really want to know...

[Bieeanda]

It's not vandalism. It's terrorism.

Example WMDs Found

[N8F8]

Reference:

• 1.77 metric tons of uranium -- certainly raw materials for WMDs, but not actual WMDs. How quickly convertible to fuel for A-Bombs dependent on sophistication of secretly constructed at Tuwaitha.

• 1,000 (items of) radioactive materials -- definitely at least some WMDs.

• The "Polish 17 chemical weapons -- definitely WMDs.

• The Mosul Chem Lab -- inconclusive, straining credulity that none of Saddam's chemical weapons ever passed though there.

• The Sarin Shell -- definitely a WMD.

• The Mustard Shell -- not a WMD itself, but indicative of hundreds of shells known to be unaccounted for and later found to be 75% filled and usable WMDs.

Re:Example WMDs Found

[Anonymous Coward]

* <------ joke

???
O_O <---- your head

Re:Example WMDs Found

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise, I hope, that all of the chemical weapons found in Iraq to date have been pre-Desert Storm items which are long degraded to the point of uselessness?

Not a single one of the things you list are anywhere near enough evidence of the need to urgently invade Iraq. If anything, it is blindingly obvious that if weapons inspections were allowed to continue, all of these rusting weapons would have been found anyway.

Re:Example WMDs Found

[Zeinfeld]

The issue is not whether Saddam attempted to gain WMDs in the 1980s, it was whether he was still attempting to do so and whether he represented the most significant threat to the US at the time of the invasion.

Clearly he did not and the diversion of troops, logistics from Afghanistan and the failure to conclude that campaign successfully before embarking on an ill-planed and ill-judged adventure has seriously harmed US interests, US prestige and US security.

The choice that we now face is whether the Middle East is to be dominated by Iran or Al Qaeda. Neither is a particularly appealling prospect but the corrupt mullahs of Iran can at least be trusted not to harm their own private interests.

The cause of improving the security situation in the Middle East is hopelessly lost. This outcome was utterly predictable from the start and was in fact predicted. Before the invasion I predicted that the civilian deaths would at least equal the 50,000 killed during the British occupation. Turns out that I underestimated by an order of magnitude, the reported deaths are 50,000 and thats just the parts that are safe enough to compile statistics.

Its an utter disaster and those responsible have absolutely no credibility left on any question whatsoever.

Re:Example WMDs Found

[N8F8]

You have been too brainwashed by the press to listen to reason and understand.

Re:Example WMDs Found

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the guy who brings up items under UN seal as proof of wmd. Carry on.

Re:Example WMDs Found

[Wavicle]

Gosh, so many lies, how does one find the time?

1.77 metric tons of uranium... Well, near as anyone can tell this uranium was enriched to the point of usefulness for a reactor, but not for a fissile weapon. Not just any uranium is useful for a weapon. But come on, if you're going to play the pathetic "oh could have been for a dirty bomb" card, you should have played it with this. That uranium would be thousands of times easier to put in a dirty bomb than to enrich it for a nuclear weapon.

1,000 items of radioactive materials... oh you forgot to mention most of them were for medical or industrial use. Are you saying the WMD ban should have removed high quality medical care from Iraq? Do you realize that more than 90% of the "radioactive" waste produced in this country comes from nuclear medicine?

"The Sarin Shell" - Uh, that was an IED rigged dud shell. When we speak of WMD's we're talking about known caches of materials. Using a spent, unexploded dud that was dug up and used by the insurgency doesn't count.

"The Mustard Shell" - Oh where do I begin? The filled shells, if they exist, are expected to be worthless. Mustard gas is not stable for long term storage. Oh, I see your source has an unimpeachable expert witness telling us about the effectiveness of these weapons... Republican Senator Rick Santorum. A man with absolutely impeccable impartial opinion (not).

Re:Example WMDs Found

[CAIMLAS]

Uh, no, the issue was whether he had them at all, now whether or not he were attempting to acquire more. This is a foregone conclusion.

Great idea..?

[madsheep]

Great idea? Well, until some bonehead with access to it posts parts of it on his blog or argues on Slashdot and references sections they looked up on their Intellipedia!

I can, and for "good" reason ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have had something like this years ago. The goverment takes far too long to adopt new technology in vital areas.

You act as if it was a simple thing. Well, technically it obviously is, but you forget, this is classified information. One of the major tenants of protecting classified information is the concept of "need to know". Just because you have a top secret security clearance, doesn't mean that you have a need to know and thereby have access to ALL information that is marked as top secret. An example of this is just because one has a TS clearance to write intelligence software, doesn't mean that you should have access to information regarding the control system of a missle. This is actually the lynch-pin behind the entire notion of SCI and compartmentalizing of classified information. So now you have a system that allows people to enter what is obviously classified information, so how do you balance the desire to maintain "need to know" access with the desire to make sure that those who "need to know" actually find out? It's a tough question, and from the article, it's one that they haven't fully figured out, though it looks like they've reached the point where they are just going for it and will try to deal with those issues as they come along.

So bottom line, it's not that simple. While I would be the first person to acknowledge that the govt is pretty behind the times with tech, and that this could have been implemented earlier, this is an issue that isn't nearly as straight forward as you make it to be.

Malware

[nurb432]

Would only take one infection of some PC to start broadcasting content . Just what we need.

Re:Malware

[jackbird]

Machines with clearance to view this are not allowed to be connected to the public internet. Only other machines with similar clearance would receive those broadcasts.

Re:Malware

[nurb432]

And the rules are *always* followed, arent they.

Re:Malware

[jackbird]

DoD computer stuff is taken pretty seriously, as I beleive there are criminal penalties attached to screwing it up, as well as being evicted from your sweet spot at the government teat.

Re:Malware

[PPH]

And George Bush likes to use Google Earth to look at pictures of his ranch in Texas.

Dear Mr. Bush
Your Intelliwiki password has expired. Please click on the link below to restore access to your account:

intelliwiki.ru/login.pl

Re:Malware

[jackbird]

How is that different from phishing a login to the classified network in general? And you still need physical access to log in, which means that the mole likely has their own credentials already.

Re:Malware

[timeOday]

What, you're holding out for a security policy that's still effective even when it's disregarded? Good luck with that.

Some entries

[Timesprout]

Makes you wonder who is editing this stuff.

Terrorist

Everyone I dont like.

UnPatriotic

See Democrat

Donald Rumsfeld

Brilliant Republican politician and military strategist who overturned conventional military wisdom with his theory that countries could be stripped of despot leaders and converted to functional democracies in a matter of weeks with just 20-30000 troops. Almost achieved proof of theory in Iraq, is fairly sure proof will come with in Iran, or North Korea, or maybe Somalia. Likes to have the President over for dinner.

George Bush

President and best bud/emmisary of the real God. Likes my wifes cooking.

Commanding General

Complete looser who is incapable of executing my visionary plans for liberation and who will be demoted to sentry duty in Alaska if he modifies this entry.

Re:Some entries

[ScentCone]

Makes you wonder who is editing this stuff.

Right. Because there certainly aren't any career people in the intel community who happen to sit on the other side of the idealogical spectrum, right (see: Valerie Plame, etc).

You aren't, by any chance, anywhere nearly as ignorant as you're pretending to be, are you? Because as annoying as pretending to be that way is, actually being that way is much, much worse.

Might be a good idea...

[DragonWriter]

With much the same caveats that apply to the regular Wikipedia: that is, insofar as the information is linked to more regularly generated and reviewed source documents (in this case, though, classified ones), and if people in the community use it as a tool to get basic info on conclusions of the intelligence community, but go to the source information when its critical to get a good understanding.

It has the risk, though, like Wikipedia that people will use it without going to the source information, when the application is critical. Sometimes its better to know that you don't know than to think that you know when you don't have all the facts you should.

(Of course, since its a classified system of information sharing, and yet its being announced just before an election, there's also the possibility that there is not a lot of substance behind it, and its just a PR ploy to create the—conveniently unverifiable—impression that the party of the current administration is "doing something" to make things better.)

Canada...

[Anonymous Coward]

...which pages have had to be locked due to vandalism?

Apparently it is mostly the page on Canada, a user with the handle KR0VE was constantly editing this page and changing the political relations rating from "Nato ally" to "Terrorist state" and the 'Recommended presidential reaction' field from "Peace" to "Invade" as fast as the moderators could correct it.

Page histories

[teh kurisu]

I'd love to see some of the page histories from this wiki.

-- I doubt that he will reveal any WMD, because I think both we UN inspectors and the American inspectors have been looking around and come to the conclusion that there aren't any. - 17:01 16 December 2003 HansBrix

++ Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability - 16:44 24 September 2002 TBlair

Finally a place...

[Lars T.]

where Mohammad Reza Aghaei Laghaei can dwell.

STUB

[Anonymous Coward]

This Iraq occupation article is a stub. You can help Intellipedia by expanding it.

Re:about as quickly as wikipedia became unreliable

[jfengel]

Intelligence influences policy, so intelligence has always been politicized, since well before the founding of the United States. Check out what Sir Francis Walsingham told Elizabeth I four hundred years ago, and I'm sure it goes back much further than that.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[x2A]

What's with this "post 9/11 world"? Surely, it was what you needed PRE 9/11.

"We must find and kill them before they can try to kill us"

Yes, everyone will agree with you once you've killed everyone who doesn't. It's a good job threats from the US don't put other countries on the defensive, and doesn't make people want to fight back.

Believe it or not, there are people out there with valid grievances about the way America conducts its business. Killing them doesn't make Americas actions, which their grievancies are about, any less wrong.

What's the URL?

[xTMFWahoo]

What's the URL? I wana check out this cool new site I read about on slashdot!!!

Sincerely,

Al Qaeda

Re:What's the URL?

[Aqua_boy17]

What's the URL?

I'd give it to you but it wouldn't do any good. The site appears to be slashdotted.

Yes! I love it!

[jesdynf]

The authoritative source on US foreign policy that anyone can edit!

Which really explains a lot...

Re:Yes! I love it!

[Sigg3.net]

- America is the country where anybody can become a president.
- Anobody?
- Anybody.
- .. A body of water? A celestial body? Body of Christ? A dead body?

Inner circle vs. outer circle information

[gd23ka]

To tell you the truth honestly don't see why this is exciting enough to show up on
Slashdot News for Nerds, stuff that matters. Since the name of the game is
compartmentalization, whatever they put on that wiki will be just more of the same kind
of (dis)information they try to feed us through Fox and CNN. It's like 1984 and they
(like any other organization really) have their "outer" and "inner" party or rather outer
and inner circle.

Re:Inner circle vs. outer circle information

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, 97% of their intelligence analyst staff is only on payroll in order to be disinformed and leak what they hear? I assume there exist a shadow 'REAL CIA' which works to spread this disinformation to the 'Pretend CIA'?

By the way, I am interested in how you define 'disinformation'. Does it include purposeful spreading of incorrectness? This curiousity after seing numerous 9/11 sites describe the theory of a missile hitting the Pentagon as 'disinformation'.

Re:Inner circle vs. outer circle information

[Anonymous Coward]

dear lord your an idiot.

Re:Inner circle vs. outer circle information

[gd23ka]

I'll go even farther, AC and say 97% percent of employed corporate America still largely believes
their labors serve a productive and worthwhile purpose towards worthy ends.

How do I define disinformation? Any arbitrary set of lies, half-truths, omissions and truths that
I hope you will find plausible and swallow and will make you think what I want you to think.
I suppose that includes purposefully spreading 'incorrectness'.

As far as the other AC who replied to my post is concerned who called me an idiot. I don't think he's
in a position to arrive at that kind of assessment.

"not an enemy spy"

[erroneous]

I like the idea of enemy spies infiltrating or cracking the system and editing their own entry to read "not an enemy spy".

Typical Search Results

[Eradicator2k3]

Hmmm, let me try typing

https://www.classifiedintelwiki.gov/Weapons_of_M ass_Destruction/

"This wiki does not exist yet. Perhaps you are looking for one of our other projects: $600_Hammers"

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, there are people out there with valid grievances about the way America conducts its business. Killing them doesn't make Americas actions, which their grievancies are about, any less wrong.

Believe it or not, Americans have valid grievances about the way people out there conduct their business. Killing Americans doesn't make people out there's actions, which American's grievancies are about, any less wrong.

Where Death Squads pop-up - John Negroponte is

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the framer of the death squads need wiki?

The Day of Negroponte

[partymonkey]

This is the second story of a man named Negroponte in Slashdot today. What are the odds? http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/ 01/0239245

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[x2A]

Well done, you've realised there shouldn't be two different standards for americans vs everybody else. Please spread the word.

I was actually commenting on the idea of stopping people who might try and kill by killing them.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[mnmn]

Hmm I wonder what the article on me says in the Intellipedia. I'd be really interested to make a few changes there.

Next will be insurance, credit, crime and health pedia.

More seriously, I think shared stores of information online have always existed in these departments, its only now they're calling it 'pedia' just as they're calling websites with text 'blogs' now.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

to win this Global War on Terror

Two comments:

a) Only the U.S.A. has declared "War on Terror."
b) Only the U.S.A. thinks that "War on <insert idea>" actually works.

Captcha: flattery

Trustworthy?

[5tephen]

Why do I get the feeling that uncyclopedia.org will be the more trustworthy wiki?

Google cache

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we going to see google caches of the wiki?

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[cptnapalm]

As much of the rest of the world holds America to a different set of standards than they hold other countries or themselves to, perhaps a world wide education drive is necessary to teach the rest of the world the error of their ways.

Quick Search Aliens

[garlicbready]

Quick search subject: Aliens

References:
Hanger 13

Further Reading:
Project bluebook

Thank you...

[Anonymous Coward]

for that opinion, Judge Anonymous.

Re:Thank you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Opinion? The first paragraph certainly isn't. The second paragraph, yeah. Who knows? Bush never even wanted to give inspections a chance.

This Just In...

[8ball629]

President Bush was banned from Intellipedia for lack of... intelligence - more on this at 6.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[hador_nyc]

Hmm I wonder what the article on me says in the Intellipedia. I'd be really interested to make a few changes there. Next will be insurance, credit, crime and health pedia. More seriously, I think shared stores of information online have always existed in these departments, its only now they're calling it 'pedia' just as they're calling websites with text 'blogs' now.

Not really. I helped setup the first data centric website for section within the center that I worked for while I was on active duty; 98-02. While I was there, there was an attempt to make a linked database for all the centers, but it was crap. Everyone I know thought so, but it was all we had. We tried to make the best of it. The basic web stuff, sites dedicated to each individual center/section thereof was much better and more useful. The truth is, from someone who was an analyst (me), this is a great idea, and should solve a lot of problems that I had. I seriously doubt any information on specific Americans would be there. We were always very careful about that, and there was quite a bit of pressure from above to ensure we never did that. Granted, my specialty was foreign military aircraft, so not a problem for me to worry about Americans. In thinking further about it, it well, helps with the daily workflow of a analyst. You don't have to make new reports, you don't have to keep notes in one place that you will later collect into a report, and more. Were I still in my old job, I'd just update the wiki, like my own wiki, with the latest data; when I felt I had enough confirmation of it, moving it from my local notes stored in well, whatever appropriate. Granted for technical data, it would be less useful; think like the performance numbers of a piece of hardware, but for a lot of stuff; like who's using what and where, that would be great. I expect a lot of positive outcomes from this. It is huge! The only problem will be the center or two, I'll leave you to guess who, who doesn't like to share. Things changed a bit with them after 9/11, but not significantly in the 10 months after it that I was still working there. Hopefully now 4 years out, things are better.

What it will look like:

[nodnarb1978]

Hassan Nasrallah
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Another point of view

[missing000]

The government is off to a great start on skynet.

This, the repeal of Habius, Posse Comitatus, and amending the Insurrection Act all pave the way for a power grab unlike the world has ever seen.

Do you really think the government can be trusted not to abuse this system? Now one mistake in one file allows everyone from the White House to the cop down the street will allow them to arrest you because your name is in a shared system you can't access.

There should be a wall between the feds and the police. We're watching that wall being turned into an IP link.

China?!?

[certain death]

FTA:
Even China could be granted access to help produce an unclassified intelligence estimate on the worldwide threat posed by infectious diseases.

Okay...what happens when they have the Chinese hackers find a xss vuln and can then access all the intel on their own country?!?!?

lol

[missing000]

You have Fox News on 24/7 don't you?

SCI????

[r00t]

I'd think you'd need a separate wiki for each compartment/project/codeword.

Anything less and somebody needs to go to jail.

Re:SCI????

[EnderGT]

I'm glad to see that someone else understands the issues I was tryng to point out.

Re:SCI????

[Anonymous Coward]

The wiki itself isn't any less secure than the network it's running on. There have already been maybe hundreds of websites running on these networks, accessible to the same community as the wikis. Was it ok to post Information X to a static web page on Network Y? If so, then why wouldn't it be ok to post Information X on a wiki on Network Y?

In general, the wiki doesn't add information to the community sphere. It just provides a (much-needed) way to organize the same information that existed before.

For kicks

[slapout]

"For kicks, you can also read about Intellipedia on Wikipedia."

I think I'd rather read about Wikipedia on Intellipedia. :-)

Re:For kicks

[maxwell demon]

Only read? What about editing? Anonymous, of course! :-)

Torrent

[alienmole]

For those of us without clearance, a .torrent link would be useful. Thanks. ;)

Intel Net

[bkedersha]

There is a high degree of compartmentalization in the Intel community, so I really do not know how effective this Wiki will be. You are not allowed to share info with people you are not authorized to see it. Unless they start granting blanket clearance, it seems pretty useless. I guess they are just using general topics and have secured areas for special topics. As far as access goes, Intelink has no outside connections, they use government owned or leased lines. You either have to tap the right fiber, and decrypt the traffic or be at an actual terminal. Probably use the special network hardware, you have to have a special connector and network card just to hook the terminal in.

RE: unveil

[inKubus]

How, exactly, can one "unveil" a classified, secret project?

Easy: they're hypocrites, you oxymoron.

Hey, something new! Well..not really.

[lwap0]

This is not the first time a 'wiki' has been created for the Intel community. I can think of several offhand that have been used over the years - the trick was keeping the community using them. You see, most of them were produced by various departments and agencies. As roles and responsibilities changed, handing them off (or outright abandoning them) became common, and quality suffered. On top of that, you'll have several different intel communities using different forums/wiki's - this is practical as well as impractical. While sharing information is nice, sometimes Need to Know takes precedence over your security clearance - it's not always advisable to share everything outright, with folks who got no business knowing about it.

The most current iteration that I know of is the Harmony Database, created by the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. I actually got to see the demo of this, and I was impressed. Things like video searches, document searches, and intel officers documenting and discussing what they find is neat. It's not a 'wiki', but it has the same purpose - a collaborative database that everyone contributes too, and can search.

The 'Sensitive but Unclassified' wiki gave me a chuckle - it's information that isn't classified, but not for public release. You might have seen FOUO (For Offical Use Only) - it's the same thing. The craziest stuff is FOUO, it's all common knowledge stuff - but you can't discuss it. I can't get into specifics (lol), but it does give me a chuckle.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[sgt_doom]

Ha.ha.ha.ha. That's a good one. No doubt they'll forget Mr. Negroponte's real career occupational title: Civil insurgency expert, (that is, one who creates and foments civil insurgencies and follows up with torture and terror. Anything for those fruit and softdrink companies, hey?

9/11 happened because we couldn't get different agencies and intelligence communities to work together.

You bet.....ha.ha.ha.

who says? - Re:Well well well....

[eMarv]

Who says they're not trying to do that already? :) (Seriously, I really hope not!)

Why should there be a need to know requirement?

[eMarv]

...if people that have access to it have clearances and the network is not accessible to the public. Need-to-know is nonsense. It is practically impossible to create a solution that is 100% secure. Why? Because people are involved in it. And people are unpredictable. And if a bad person wants to do bad things, having a super-secure, compartmented and fine grain access controlled wiki is not going to stop the (very few) cleared bad guys from doing bad things. However, it will prevent the cleared good folks (i.e. the majority) from doing good things.

What's really needed is a good amount of security training to practically eliminate the potential of cleared bad guys in the IC. How? Train everyone to report suspicious behavior. If something looks fishy, take note and report it!

So why all of the comments about super securing a wiki that only a select number of people (that have had extensive background investigations) have access to? Why can't they (default to) trust each other?

Re:Why should there be a need to know requirement?

[lwap0]

It's the cell theory - a clearance does not automatically entitle you information you have no buisness knowing about. Why? Because you can't compromise or divulge what you don't know -- this is the greatest bane of a security officer (protecting Need to Know).

Your blanket "train everyone" response doesn't, and will not work. What's suspicious behavior? My definition is likely different from yours, and yours is different from the next guy. And while security education plays a critical part of maintaing a clearance and access to classified information, it is only layer in the greand scheme of offering security in depth for a classified facility, or program.

If you RTFA, you'll notice that this particular wiki is more 'open' and accessible than usually allowed by our intel services - and it's a risk they acknowledge and are willing to take.

Re:Why should there be a need to know requirement?

[eMarv]

But that is exactly what training is supposed to do, train everyone on what suspicious behavior is. If the US military can have boot camp where they are taught basic military training (and they are reminded what it is annually), why can't other parts of the government?

I did RTFA and my comment on need to know was based on comments already made below... I undersand that they are taking some risk, but what is the risk of, for example, not letting a first responder know of imminent danger that the intelligence community could prevent from happening since they have access to the information. How could they even begin to know if the first responder needs access to the information?

To help slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the login info;

username: DCheney

password: ObamaBinLadin

BugMeNot

[pjt33]

Isn't that what BugMeNot's for?

Intellipedia is actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

..a pretty good thing. It was just coming online while I was in Theater and I was really impressed with it.

Excessive secrecy has costs too

[Goonie]

"Need to know" is a rather amphormous concept. Half the time in research (which is what intelligence analysis is - a specialised form of applied research) you don't know you need to know something until after you know it. Ergo, if you keep all your data locked up in vaults, mistakes will be made that could have been avoided if the intelligence agency had been a little less paranoid about secrecy.

Furthermore, a lot of the data that intelligence agencies use for analysis comes from open sources - reading foriegn news sources and the like. Reputedly, much of what the KGB used to send to the Kremlin about American politics was paraphrasings of the Washington Post - but often rewritten in such a way as to look like the information came from a highly secret source because the Kremlin would actually take it seriously then.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[DragonWriter]

9/11 happened because we couldn't get different agencies and intelligence communities to work together.

If by "different intelligence agencies" you mean, for instance, the FBI and the FBI (no, that's not a typo), you are correct.

9/11 happened, despite things that should have been caught by the government, because existing intelligence and law enforcement agencies didn't effectively use the information and legal authority they had. Blaming it on poor coordination is largely a way to avoid any personal accountability and "blame the system", plus an excuse to get a lot of expansive government powers established that otherwise there would be resistance to.

A great idea

[Reidsb]

If they can work around the security risks of that much access, this is a fantastic solution to some of the problems the intelligence community. I would be very concerned however, about who runs it. Will it be headed by an appointee? Would they be able to change data behind the scenes without anyone knowing? This could just make it easier for one political party to manipulate information to fit their policy. I do hope it works however.

Personally, I'd like to see something more ambitious, a larger, Governipedia (Wikiment?), that the public has access to. I'd imagine you could search it for hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage, and it would give an overview of the topic and link to arguments from either side. It could also show congressional votes and measures on the topic, and which congressmen voted for or against them.

Move along...

[ineedbettername]

Nothing to see here.

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[rtb61]

Well 'er' yeah, you want to gaurantee safety, so that nobody ever commits a crime, they already had a solution for that. It was called MAD, mutually assured destruction, nuke the whole world, kill everybody and problem solved. Law has always been and will always be about, catching and prosecuting people who have commited a crime, after is has been proven in court that they commited the crime.

Anything else is just a plot to assume as much power as possible for as few people as possible, and especially taking as much power as possible from those people who can be trsuted the leadt, you, the voter.

They can't seem to get intelligence to work in a modern corporate prison, where everybody knows crimes still occur, seriously do you think, giving a bunch of professionaly paranoid nob heads even more power and less accountability will achieve anything that benefits your freedom and you descendents future democracy (these freaks are already wrapped up in torture, secret prisons, kidnapping etc., hell to them the law already has absolutely no meaning).

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you've set me right. I'll know better than to argue against an American next time - you've got all the facts, and an ability to reason beyond anything anybody else in the world has.

God you're so cool. I wish I was you, so I could be right like that! I'm so jealous of Americans! So much freedom to speak, to protest, and worship YHWH, God, or even Allah and suffer absolutely no negative consequences.

I wish my country could topple a real democracy, and have it replaced with a brutal dictatorship, just because it's the Right Thing to do! I wish we all could force FREEDOM upon others against their will! What is freedom if not involuntary?

Re:This Is A Good Thing

[cptnapalm]

You actually think that you are clever, don't you?