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ISSUE
123 - June 2010
Over 8,000 Total Ads Listed
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Are
Secrets shared, still SECRETS? |
By David Rose,
Contributing Editor
San Diego, California |
Of all the Social Networking Websites,
which one leaves us incredulous that it even exists?
You've
heard of Facebook; and Twitter, and MySpace; maybe you've even
heard of BlackPlanet, Decayenne, Faces, Fotolog, Meetup, Mylife
and possibly Zoo.gr and Zooppa? These are a few of the 200
most popular social networking websites and there are thousands
more to be found enjoying success on one level or another.
There's a site for expectant mothers to hook up, and one for
people with disabilities; of course there's one for electronic
gamers and a few more for book lovers, one for Christian Churches
and a Muslim portal site. There are social networking sites for
dog lovers and dog haters; one for Auteur cinema and lots for
travel and alternative entertainment of all kinds.
There's even aSmallWorld for the European jet set and the socially
elite.
But what do you do with them, and on them, other than
read; and why is that one site in particular is so intriguing
as to make the very fact that it even exists unbelievable?
First
you have to know how you might utilize a Social Networking site.
We can look at MySpace for a good example. Entering the website
at http://myspace.com we find a row of optional activities. We
can 'Browse People', preview 'Events', 'Find Friends', review
'Music', watch 'Videos' even add our own videos, pictures and
blogs. We can play Games', 'Share', 'Search', 'Get Connected'
and send and receive email right on the MySpace website.
By selecting
'Events' we are presented magically with an array of social activities
and events scheduled in our local area. Evidently the site has
already determined where our computer is located and has selected
events occurring there.
Pretty impressive. No wonder the site
is visited by millions.
And all the other social networking sites?
All offer a menu of similar activities, perhaps a little more
focused than is MySpace, but all interesting and useful to their
specific groups. The array and diversity is overwhelming. Any
group, interest or proclivity will find a site suited to themselves.
From 'Advogato' for software developers to 'Zooppa' for creative
talent, everyone has a site.
By saying "everyone",
I'm giving away what it is that makes one site, out of so many,
unique. So unique in fact, so far from anything you could imagine,
that its very existence is difficult to believe.
“ASpace”
Or ‘Analytic
Space’, is a project of the Office of Analytic Transformation
and Technology which operates under the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence. The project is for the use of the entire
United States Intelligence Community; a common collaborative
workspace for all analysts of all branches of the US Intelligence
community. That’s right. A ‘Social Networking Website’ for
spooks. |
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ASpace
is live now on our government’s classified Joint Worldwide
Intelligence Communications System and has been for over a
year. It was born out of an enormous transformation in the
way analysts share data. We’ve all heard too many times
that this or that would not have happened had the known facts
been shared by the various intelligence groups. So, they thought,
we’ll
just put up a website for spys to post and blog on, then we
can all share everything. What better than a “Social
Networking Website” for Spooks and the like ! Great – With
all our secrets on the website we’ll all know everything.
How good can it get?
Basically the idea is as much to promote an attitude of cooperation
as it is to make the latest intelligence information readily
available. Cooperation among partys engaged in similar activities
is what analytical theorists like to refer to as "The Strength
of Weak Ties". Throughout all team endeavors, members tend
to interact infrequently (weak ties). Therefore providing them
with access to common ground, like ASpace, promotes the sense
of belonging to the group, or team. Teams do the best job of
analyzing data.
One
little problem of course is how do you protect all that data
from the nefarious who’s life's ambition is
to “hack in”?
And a problem it is. Of course the
site is already on the secure intelligence Intranet, and as there
are no fewer than 16 intel agencies sharing the site, there are
16 firewalls to cross, all with their own unique configurations.
Yet the idea that so much sensitive data is massed in one place
makes for what security experts refer to simply as a counterintelligence
nightmare.
Elaborate protocols are an essential part of the
site’s architecture. Certainly any one individual would
have access only to specific parts or ‘compartments’ of
the data base, and then only while being monitored. The activities
of all users are chronicled by computer programs, constantly
looking for suspicious activity such as anomalous searching and
entry denials to unauthorized areas based on the users clearance.
Still
in it’s initial iteration, the site is presently
only providing access to the three large databases of current
intelligence and the previously existing online system of collaborative
data sharing which has been in use for the past decade. As the
site moves in to progressively more capable iterations, it is
expected that the Library of National Intelligence ( LNI ) will
be included, giving analysts the ability to search the Library’s
entire electronic card catalog which contains summary information
for every report published in the community. It’s a sort
of ‘index’ of intelligence information and carries
a low classification. The analyst will first be able to find
all that is available on a particular subject, then with the
proper clearance, be able access it.
Social networking is an
integral part of A-Space, putting analysts in contact with counterparts
from other agencies involved in the same area of expertise, or,
as I mentioned before, providing for interaction of weak links.
Much
like MySpace, analysts may 'Share', 'Search' and 'Get Connected'
and A-Space will eventually provide RSS feeds for their blogs.
Planned for the near future is a Web-based word processing tool
such as ‘Office’, an intelligence community encyclopedia
such as is used by Wikipedia and access to the ‘raw’ intel
data bases (that data which has not been analyzed in any way).
Great.
Even Wow! But now if I’m a 007
type, having just parked my Aston Martin at the curb and imbibing
my favorite libation at Rick’s Bar in Casablanca,
I may have pause to wonder about ASpace, and the
fact that I’m in there, naked as it were, to a world full
of adversaries who’s “life ambition is to “hack
in”.
I tell myself not to be concerned. The programmers
surely are providing layer upon layer of security protecting
my identity and my activities from prying eyes. Although… I
wonder to myself… There have been occasional CIA traitors,
Aldrich Ames and Edward Lee Howard as examples. Wouldn’t
they have had access to ASpace before being caught, or defecting?
Might they not have jeopardized covert operatives and their activities?
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Besides, it seems there are endless revelations
of covert operations in the news. Recently we learned of a
secret offer made to Iceland by the UK; the CIA’s report
on increasing troop strength in Afghanistan surfaced in the
news media; The criteria for detaining suspects in the Guantanamo
Bay facility, classified secret, surfaced; and of course there
are many sites like Wikileaks.org and abovetopsecret.com, constantly
supplying the world with information that governments would
rather keep under their hats. |
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But, surely I’ll be safe out here
in the cold. With everything on ASpace heavily encrypted, what
could go wrong? |
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