Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

CIA Officers Are Warming To Intellipedia

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'm-warming-a-turkey-sandwich dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The CIA is adopting Web 2.0 tools like collaborative wikis but not without a struggle in an agency with an ingrained culture of secrecy. 'We're still kind of in this early adoptive stage,' says Sean Dennehy, a CIA analyst and self-described 'evangelist' for Intellipedia, the US intelligence community's version of the popular user-curated online encyclopedia Wikipedia adding that 'trying to implement these tools in the intelligence community is basically like telling people that their parents raised them wrong. It is a huge cultural change.' Dennehy says Intellipedia, which runs on secure government intranets and is used by 16 US intelligence agencies, was started as a pilot project in 2005 and now has approximately 100,000 user accounts and gets about 4,000 edits a day. 'Some people have (supported it) but there's still a lot of other folks kind of sitting on the fence.' Dennehy says wikis are 'a challenge to our culture because we grew up in this kind of "need to know" culture and now we need a balance between "need to know" and "need to share."' A desire to compartamentalize information is another problem. 'Inevitably, every person, the first question we were asked is "How do I lock down a page?" or "How do I lock down a page so that just my five colleagues can access that?"' The growth of Intellipedia has so far largely been fueled by early adopters and enthusiasts says Chris Rasmussen, a social-software knowledge manager and trainer at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. 'We are struggling to take it to the next level.'"

10 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Posting by c00rdb · · Score: 2, Funny

    Posting to undo accidental mod

    1. Re:Posting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      > Posting to undo accidental mod
      Let's think about that. You're the first post. Who did you mod?

      This is mysterious. I'm guessing there's some steganographic message here about a sting axe and the Talmud.

  2. Login information by Alystair · · Score: 4, Funny

    Huh, seems I've lost my Intellipedia credentials, anyone feel like sharing their account?

    1. Re:Login information by Alystair · · Score: 2, Funny

      Scratch that, I logged in under Dick Cheney. His password hint was "but I swear it was in self-defense"

  3. I love it by Stormcrow309 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well cited, very informative. I love it. Hey, what is with the helicopter over the hou0u8409ulksfd['OQ#([No Carrier]

    --

    In God we trust, all others require data.

  4. Where do I get the gargoyle kit? by arcsimm · · Score: 2, Funny

    I could make plenty of Kongbucks uploading to the CIC datab-- err, Intellipedia.

  5. Re:Kind of Surprising by Moridineas · · Score: 4, Funny

    And now I'm only semi-AC! :-P

  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. Re:What happens when it's hacked? by TheModelEskimo · · Score: 2, Funny

    Tell me about it. My terminal at Langley doesn't even HAVE a USB port. It's got a 3.5" floppy drive and this old 21" CRT. About the only perk is that I have the room all to myself and I get this cool chair that kind of swings out without touching the floor.

    brb, there's some sort of noise in the a/c duct

  8. Re:What happens when it's hacked? by infolation · · Score: 2, Funny

    Presumably CIA employees know about things like watermarking

    That would be waterboarding