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[infowar.de] CIA: Agency's high-tech skills exaggerated
Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol47no1/article07.html
Agency's high-tech skills exaggerated
Joseph Brean
National Post
June 10, 2003
The Central Intelligence Agency is so afraid of losing sensitive
information to hackers that its analysts work on outdated and poorly
integrated computers, according to a newly declassified report.
Today's average CIA spy uses very little fancy gadgetry, the report
suggests, and relies instead on a simple workstation built around two
computers and two telephones -- one each for secure and unsecure
correspondence. But in the agency's deep-rooted culture of suspicion,
even the secure computers are bogged down in security protocol.
Some files cannot be shared, some cannot be updated, and still others
cannot be searched, the report says, and until recently, even Palm
Pilots were banned from CIA facilities.
All of this has left security analysts struggling to cobble together
their reports with incomplete information.
When it comes to computer security, the report reads, "hardly anyone
asks whether a proposed rule will affect the ability of analysts to do
their work."
Bruce Berkowitz, the retired officer turned academic who researched
the CIA's computer systems for an internal journal, said this
institutional paranoia has left CIA analysts five years behind their
peers at other government agencies in terms of tech savvy.
His report chronicles the inability of security analysts to
efficiently share files on ongoing matters or to quickly compile
dossiers on breaking issues, such as missile proliferation in an
unexpected country.
This "technology gap" was brought into stark relief after Sept. 11,
2001, he said, when scores of analysts were re-assigned and "the
process was anything but smooth."
His conclusion, which comes as the CIA is planning sweeping computer
upgrades, is at odds with the widespread, Hollywood-inspired
perception of the Agency as a veritable fortress of the highest
technology.
In reality, the CIA is wary of computers, Mr. Berkowitz writes, and
the strength of its fortress is built on an irrational fear of
"bogey-men" that compromises efficiency.
"Despite what one sees on TV, there is not much 'gee wiz' software at
the typical DI analyst's desk. A few analysts use some specialized
tools for sorting and displaying data [e.g., terrorist networks], and
analysts who cover the more technical accounts use computerized models
[e.g., analyzing the performance of foreign weapons]. But these are
the exceptions," he wrote.
Even the proposed upgrades do not offer much hope, as bureaucratic
hurdles will stretch this process out over at least three years.
Reg Whitaker, a professor at the University of Victoria specializing
in security matters, called the tension between technology and
security a "basic contradiction" of security analysis.
He said the standard response has been a "culture of need to know," a
compartmentalization of information that can be secure but also highly
restrictive for anyone who uses the information.
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