You have FaceBook and MySpace and YouTube.....and now...A-Space. Only unless you have top level clearances, you won’t be joining this social networking site. Well, let’s hope that’s how it really goes down. (Kind of scary that the government thinks the internet is secure when you really think about it).
The soon to be launching A-Space program is a site for analysts working within the 16 US intelligence agencies. “It’s every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more,” said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. “It’s a place where not only spies can meet but share data they’ve never been able to share before,” Wertheimer said. “This is going to give them for the first time a chance to think out loud, think in public amongst their peers, under the protection of an A-Space umbrella.” Ummm....an A-Space umbrella? I sure hope it can weather a decent storm.
Obviously, data protection and hackers are a concern. Someone getting in there that isn’t supposed to be in there. What about a double agent? It’s not like this never happened before. (Let’s think Robert Hanssen) They say they are taking measures to prevent this, and going to be watching behavior patterns of the users on the site. “We’re building [a] mechanism to alert that behavior. We call that, for lack of a better term, the MasterCard, where someone is using their credit card in a way they’ve never used it before, and it alerts so that maybe that credit card has been stolen,” Wertheimer said. “Same thing here. We’re going to actually do patterns on the way people use A-Space.”
The IOC is Web based rather than a full desktop client, and with the different involved agencies, has 16 different security waivers that moves across 16 differently-configured firewalls. Even once a user is “cleared” to access the site..that doesn’t mean he or she has full access. There are still all different levels of clearance, or “compartments” different users are permitted to access. Apparently, they plan to eventually make A-Space capable of holding documents which are actually even several levels above Top Secret, and certified at a level that 95% of all intelligence can be stored there. They plan to tag important related words and phrases using a system called TagConnect, labeling them by usefulness. Related documents will be recommended to analysts, kind of like when you shop online, you get recommendations made based on past browsing history. Wow...somehow...this just makes me think, man they’re making it simple for any bad guys to find exactly what they’re looking for.
Yep, they can add friends just like you do on your favorite social networking site. I wonder if they are gonna have all the little smiley faces and “mood right now” thingies too. Current mood....super stealthy.
Read [CNN]
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