Highlights
-New social networking application launches this month, available for all US intelligence agencies to collaborate
-Analysts able to post intelligence information to their profiles and seek analysts with similar projects.
-Application must be secure and used by majority of intelligence community to be a useful and effective
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is set to launch a new online intelligence-sharing platform called “A-Space” (A for analyst) on September 22, 2008. The new online collaborative environment is designed to allow all 16 intelligence agencies to share ideas and information more freely across agency lines. Developed in response to several initiatives outlined by the Director of National Intelligence in what is called “Analytic Transformation,” A-Space is a shift from how the intelligence community has previously approached analysis and the interaction with customers and each other.
In order to facilitate widespread adoption of this new collaborative workspace, A-Space will operate on an inter-agency classified network titled the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, and will be overseen by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
A-Space’s Blueprints Similar to Facebook and Myspace Designs
A-Space is designed to mirror the appearance and capabilities present in online social-networking websites such as Facebook and Myspace. To join the network, analysts must create a personal profile and be listed by their agencies in the government wide intelligence analyst directory. Once logged in, users can see what others are working on and the A-Space workspaces being utilized. Users can also post notes on one another’s profiles much in the same way users post comments on friends’ message boards on Facebook.
Michael Wertheimer, ODNI’s assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analytic transformation and technology, detailed many of the technologies included within the A-space application at an intelligence and national security conference in Orlando, Florida on September 3, 2008. Some of the applications shown in an unclassified version of A-Space included shared and personal workspaces, a community developed encyclopedia titled “Intellipedia,” web blogs, small web based applications called widgets, and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) news feeds. A-Space will also include access to the Library of National Intelligence, an ODNI project to create a repository of all Intelligence Community disseminated intelligence, regardless of classification. The library’s electronic card catalog contains summary information for each official intelligence report included. Summaries are classified at the lowest possible level permitting analysts to determine everything that has been published by the Intelligence Community regardless of the original classification of the document.
One of the most powerful features of A-Space will likely be a search function that lets analysts look for content on other classification domains, including those that allied countries share. In the long-term, A-Space will also have built-in capabilities to recommend related documents to analysts, much like Amazon.com recommends related books a consumer might be interested in purchasing.
A-Space, which has been in development and testing for over one year by a US- based contracting firm, will allow analysts to access data from six data sources from different agencies including the National Security Agency (NSA), US Department of State (DoS) and DIA. Analysts will also be able to access three large databases of current intelligence data. Eventually, A-Space will be certified to carry 95 percent of all intelligence data, including documents several levels above Top Secret.
Security Concerns
According to Wertheimer, the greatest challenge of this project was designing the security access levels needed for users with varying security clearances and a need to know criteria. Some in the intelligence community have raised concerns that A-Space could lead to a counter-intelligence nightmare. Listed as an example is the case of FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen, who sold classified data to the Russian over a 22-year period, and was found to have accessed data for which he had no need-to-know clearance.
Wertheimer says the developers have addressed issues such as this with a mechanism built into the application that alerts auditors of unusual patterns in the way people use A-Space similar to a credit card company who flags a customer’s account due to unusual patterns of purchasing activity.
Interconnected, collaborative intelligence sharing platform is long overdue
The ultimate goal of A-Space is to break the long-standing practice of hoarding information that has existed in the intelligence community. Collaborative environments like “A-space” will allow analysts to share enough intelligence via a central interconnected environment to allow a greater “picture” to develop of terrorist organizational structures, members and possible terrorist plots.
If A-Space is to become a success, it must address the following two areas of concern:
Analyst Participation
-Participation in A-Space will initially be voluntary thereby leaving the project venerable to low participation if the concept doesn’t become popular or is too complicated or inefficient to use.
-Those who decide not to participate could potentially miss receiving valuable information from colleagues who actively share information and analysis on the platform.
-Likewise, A-Space participants will not be able to receive intelligence and feedback from those not participating.
-For widespread use and acceptance, developers will have to ensure the system is easy to learn, user friendly, reliable, and relevant.
Security
-Developers will need to continue to develop techniques to discover if classified information has been compromised by persons outside the network or by employees not authorized to view certain types of classified intelligence.
-A system of checks developed to ensure that an analyst is granted access only to the information they have a security clearance for and have a need to know.
If theses two concerns are properly addressed, this new platform could prove to be a collaborative breakthrough that could accelerate counter-terrorism efforts around the globe.
