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CIA Officers Are Warming To Intellipedia
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.'"
Posting to undo accidental mod
Huh, seems I've lost my Intellipedia credentials, anyone feel like sharing their account?
CIA is about the last agency I'd suspect of trying this. I use Intellipedia at work, and have been trying to advocate its use more, but like TFS said, most people in the IC talk about "need to know", not "need to share." There's a lot of products that really should just be pages on Intellipedia, like biographies on important people, but instead are powerpoint slides on someone's hard drive. Meanwhile, multiple commands are tracking the same people but aren't sharing info on those bios. I think we'll see more progress on this as senior leadership move out and people who grew up on Web 2.0 move up.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
No, it's for anything up to the classification of the network, and this resides on Secret and Top Secret networks. It's no more dangerous than the terabytes of classified information that already reside on these intranets.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
It's classified information on classified networks. We've been doing this for ages, so it's not like we don't know how to handle it. USB ports are closed off on classified machines, distribution is limited, and the only people how have access are those who go through rigorous background checks. The checks in place to prevent unauthorized disclosure have worked in the past and there's really nothing different about this. What's the problem?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
The way that much of the info is protected is that networked computers containing classified info are encripted which makes hacking them usless, also USB ports are disabled along with all other writing devices. I'm by no means saying that it would be 100% secure but you will always give up security once you start adding users.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
You can't store information on American citizens in that kind of network. It's not a "database on 10's of thousands" of people. Think of it more as short useless summary articles on topics like Iraq, Afganistan, insurgent groups, etc. No domestic info at all, by design.
Additionally, Intellipedia is TS (well, there's a TS version that is used primarily, and a SECRET version that is not used nearly as much), but not SCI (meaning, none of the really high level intelligence. TOP SECRET is _fairly common_ access). If somebody is able to read Intellipedia as a spy, you've got much bigger problems that any information they would get from Intellipedia. A later post whined about compartmented information--there is NO compartmented information on Intellipedia.
Also, Chris Rasmussen is the genius who is trying to introduce twitter to the intelligence analysis community. Apparently he wants to reduce the productivity of intel even further!
I could make plenty of Kongbucks uploading to the CIC datab-- err, Intellipedia.
Thank you (and many others on these boards) for distributing the FUD.
As I hope we all have learned by now, information that is "compartmentalized" is far less valuable. Little bits of data from disparate sources can reveal patterns that those gathering the intelligence would miss.
And IMHO, paranoia about employees "stealing" information should not stand in the way of increasing the efficiency of intelligence gathering and analysis.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Technically precise and totally misses the point. It's not that they can't lock down the information, but rather they want it easily available to everyone on the classified network.
Btw, I hate to be a nazi, but it's fell swoop and not well swoop. Fell as in deadly.
IAAIU - I Am An Intellipedia User.
It's not connected to the Internet, and it handles compartmentalized information quite well, thanks. It's actually been quite incredible watching it "grow up" over the past few years. It's also not plagued by the problems that most people associate with Wikis - astroturfing, self-made experts, anonymous contributions - and sure, you will have people with special "pet" pages, it is because they are, in fact, the acknowledged expert and have a vested interest in making sure that the information on the page is as correct as possible.
Imagine Wikipedia made entirely of subject matter experts who have verified credentials and identities. Yeah. It's rad.
For starters, USB devices are no longer allowed on any DOD networks, due to a worm appearing on unclassified military networks(separate from the classified networks).
Second, Intellipedia is separated by classification of the given network, and is not on a single network. So the data may be important, but does not necessarily constitute "exceptionally grave damage" if leaked.
Third, it's a lot of data so unless a spy or mole was only taking certain entries it would be difficult to take all of it not only in one drive but at once.
Fourth, since the intelligence community is warming to it(yes, sometimes some of them are bumbling idiots), analysts have muddled the concept of Intellepidia, written reports and debated the subject with leadership. If it was such a terrible idea it would have gotten the axe by now.
Fifth, stealing data from outside a classified DOD network is terribly hard. Having a clearance means that the DOD thinks a given person is trustworthy, so unless a person decides to become a spy there is no way it's getting out.
Also, Intellipedia covers a multitude of subjects, not just people.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's classified information on classified networks. We've been doing this for ages,
Sounds like it is classified information from many different programs on a single classified network, in a single database. We definitely have not been doing THAT for years.
Even if you want to sneaker-net information from one program's classified network to another program's classified network it requires a bunch of "security logistics." You might get lucky and after a year or two get all the security officers involved to come up with a plan to connect the networks of a handful of programs, as long as there was still significant access control (like no cross-program accounts without need to know vetting and specific inter-connect points with limited functionality - like file-drops but no end-to-end tcp/ip).
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Sounds like it is classified information from many different programs on a single classified network, in a single database.
No, it's two different wiki pages in two different classified networks that are not connected. Moving info from one to the other is no different than moving it in the past. Just like Wikipedia, it's a website on a network.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, it's two different wiki pages in two different classified networks ... it's a website on a network.
Which is it? Different websites on different networks or a website on a network?
If its the former, then what's the improvement and why the reported worry that the first question from "everyone" is how do they control access?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Its not simply FUD. Increased efficiency for data retrieval rubs both ways. If its easier to get data out of the system for the good guy, its easy to get data out of the system for the turn coat.
Yes, its probably a great idea to make a lot of intelligence data easier to access in general, and I'll assume the system fully logs all dat accesses and makes note of unnecessary information retrievals.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
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
Presumably CIA employees know about things like watermarking
That would be waterboarding