CATALYST: A Concept for an Integrated Computing Environment for Analysts

In October of 1989, Dianne Webb created a document called "CATALYST: A Concept for an Integrated Computing Environment for Analysis". This is but one of many interesting documents you can find at Robert Steele's site. If you are thinking about purchasing a new computer or upgrading your old workstation to use Windows Vista (Jan 07) you may want to read this document. Windows Vista's interface is much more visual and leans heavily on icons in a 3D format (rather like a Mac). Now, it is not for the average individual who wants to upgrade their computer. If you want to assemble a PC with a focus on OSINT, I would recommend reading this document. This shows that the problem of information overload for analysts was well understood in 1989. Now if only I could afford a Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP 24-inch (Widescreen Flat Panel LCD) Monitor to view so much visual, open source hypermedia. This document was an interesting "read" because it mentions the term hypermedia. I haven't heard that term in quite a while. At one point, in the late 1980s, I was contemplating attending a university in Europe to study for a masters degree in a new field called hypermedia. No kidding.

James Bond ...blogging on the edge of chaos?

I came across an interesting article by D. Calvin Andrus, Ph.D., of the Office of Application Services (within the CIA). This paper was so well received in 2004, that it won the Intelligence Community's Galileo Award. The paper is titled The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community. This type of thinking means that the stovepipes are starting to come down, albeit rather slowly, and new forms of communication are seriously evaluated. Here is a sample: "Enabling intelligence officers across the community to express and share opinions may be one of the largest paradigm shifts for the Intelligence Community. It will be uncomfortable for some because it will be in the blogosphere where the community will ride the edge of chaos. The blogosphere probably will obey the 99-to-1 Edison rule ("Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration" - from Wikipedia quotes). For every ninety-nine mediocre ideas, there will be likely only be one brilliant idea. The few brilliant ideas, however, are worth the investment of many mediocre (and chaotic) ones. It is these few brilliant ideas that will provide the direction for the community to adapt to the changing national security environment. The few brilliant ideas will survive in the market place of ideas. As individual blogs comment on each other's ideas, the brilliant ideas will spread as feedback throughout the community. Individuals, recognizing the brilliance, will respond. From this self-organized response will emerge the adaptive behavior required of the Intelligence Community. "

Intro to Information Warfare...2 books to examine

If you found the previous posting interesting, you should check out a book titled Information Warfare by Winn Schwartau. One of my former professors (internationally known expert on information protection) Dr. Fred Cohen introduced me to Winn's book through his Information Systems, Threats, Attacks & Defenses course at the University of New Haven (California campus). Dr. Cohen also has a new book out titled World War III: Information Warfare Basics.

Lenovo PCs not welcome on "Classified" networks...

Representative Frank R. Wolf, a Virginia Republican did not like the idea of Lenovo computers installed on classified networks. Lenovo purchased IBM's computer division last year. The State Department, responding to fears that its security might be breached by a secretly placed device or hidden software, agreed to keep personal computers made by Lenovo of China off its networks that handle classified government messages and documents. Actually, this is not as far fetched as it may sound. In my readings I recall that the NSA can intercept a Dell computer shipment destined to a Russian embassy and "modify" the computer before it is delivered. Several years ago a co-worker who used to work for Xerox recounted how one of their photocopy machines would scan and "store" the image onto a concealed hard drive. He wasn't sure where those photocopy machines were installed, but since this was during the Cold War, one could only guess.

Tool Alert:ACH0 (Analysis of Competing Hypotheses)

About a week ago I was pleasantly surprised to come across a Java application that lets a person construct a ACH (Analysis of Competing Hypotheses) matrix. The application is called ACH0. That's actually a zero (0). What is ACH? The CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence describes it as "...a tool to aid judgment on important issues requiring careful weighing of alternative explanations or conclusions. It helps an analyst overcome, or at least minimize, some of the cognitive limitations that make prescient intelligence analysis so difficult to achieve. " A week later the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)posted a PDF document titled: "Assisting People to Become Independent Learners in the Analysis of Intelligence" by Peter L. Pirolli, Palo Alto Research Center, Inc., Final Report to the Office of Naval Research, February 2006. It seems the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is also working on a collaborative version of the same software called CACHE. A NIST study found that "analysts were confident that ACH would help improve the thoroughness of analysis, the method was easy to learn and use, and they were inclined to use the method in future work. I was also suprised to read that "face-to-face interaction frequently yeilds biased information foraging because there is a tendency to focus on evidence and hypotheses held in common". Hmmm. That sounds like OSINT analysts, working remotely/virtually, may well produce better intelligence (or at least intelligence devoid of biased information foraging). Maybe the "first responder" analysts should be of the OSINT variety? Once an understanding or scenario is better developed, the ACH matrix could be passed to the "second responders (all-source analyst?)" who can augment it with secret data.More importantly, what do you think?

Tool Alert: NGA selects Microsoft's Virtual World over Google Maps

This is from the OSS.net people. I need to find out how to become a power user of Microsoft's Virtual World. "Microsoft appears to have scored a major coup over Google as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) adopts Virtual Earth as a foundation for information sharing with coalition and non-governmental organizations. With the move of a very key person from NGA to the DNI CIO staff, we anticipate that OSIS, by quickly adopting NGA's good initiatives, and expanding to the 90 nations supporting CENTCOM, will quickly become the platform for multinational,multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain information sharing (M4IS)." More importantly, what do you think?