A-Space for spies: a hacker’s dream?
p2pnet news view | P2P:- Could this be a hacker’s dream come true?
The CIA, the FBI and National Security Agency are only days away from officially going online with A-Space, “designed for the super-secret world of spying,” as CNN puts it.
Definitely not to be confused with the A-Space “anarchist community” site, it’s, “every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more,” the story has Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence, warbling.
It already has a Wikipedia section on which it’s a, “critical piece of ‘Analytic Transformation’,” declares the Director of National Intelligence on the Wikipedia stoutly, also pointing out:
“A-Space is a project from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) Office of Analytic Transformation and Technology to develop a common collaborative workspace for all analysts from the USIC.”
For all you non-spies, that’s short for United States Intelligence Community, a, “cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the United States,” says another Wikipedia post.
A-Space, “is accessible from common workstations and provides unprecedented access to interagency databases, a capability to search classified sources and the Internet simultaneously, web-based email, and collaboration tools accredited to the HUMINT Control System and Gamma Information Handling (HCS/G),” says the first item, noting, “The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is the executive agent for building the first phase of A-Space. Initial operational capability was scheduled for December 2007.”
Woowee!
So will America’s spies be able to play lots of fun games like they can on other social networking sites?
If you’re a member of the US intelligence (ahem) community, you’ll find out on September 22, the date A-Space is slated to go live on the US government’s classified Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.
Meanwhile, here’s part of the Director of National Intelligence’s exciting Vision 2015 »»»
Our leaders will need to transcend the traditional independent, agency-centric orientation, and move toward a leadership style based on cross-agency collaboration and interdisciplinary experience. In particular, this will require leadership that can build coalitions across agencies and cultures, bound by a shared purpose and unity of action to achieve mission objectives. Managers will adopt a new role more focused on professional development and measuring work unit quality, less focused on product oversight and review. We will need leadership development programs, performance evaluation systems, and an incentive structure that span the Intelligence Enterprise. By 2015, the focus should shift from information sharing (e.g., interoperable systems, information discovery and access) to knowledge sharing (e.g., capturing and disseminating both explicit and tacit knowledge). Just as we are dismantling today`s information ’silos,’ we will need to bridge the knowledge ‘archipelagos’ of tomorrow in a systematic way that combines both content and context in an on-demand environment.
So with all of that, “Robust social networking capabilities will be required — expertise location, ubiquitous collaboration services. integrated e-learning solutions, visualization tools, and enterprise content management systems. More importantly, a strategic approach to knowledge sharing and management must be incorporated that includes lessons learned and concept and doctrine development.”
But of course.
So did Rupert Murdoch, the aged media mogul who owns MySpace, or Facebook perpetrator Mark Zuckerberg have a hand in setting up anti-social network MyYouTubeSpySpaceBook, do you think?
One sincerely hopes not, given the records of both on matters of privacy.
Be that as it may, knowing A-Space is slated to go on line towards the end of September will allow us all to sleep more soundly at night.
CNN – CIA, FBI push ‘Facebook for spies’, September 5, 2008
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September 8th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
wonder how long befor ethat site gets royallllly messed with
and they learn to not be soooo brave
September 11th, 2008 at 8:19 am
^ no kidding,
Given they can’t secure there own internal pentagon network computers, this is an utter Snafu waiting to happen.
Will be very entertaining when the exploits come rolling in. (Think half the stuff might get mirrored in wikilinks? or several other sites?)
September 11th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I mean seriously, this sounds like a very bad joke.