Creating a smart nation: Strategy, policy, intelligence, and information

Government Information Quarterly

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 159-173

  Steele Vivas, Robert David ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0030525304     PISSN: 0740624X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0740-624X(96)90102-1     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. Lee Felsenstein of the Interval Research Corporation is the originator of the term "information commons." He can be reached at (415) 354-0857 or 〈lee@interval.com〉.
2. See Oxelheim Lars. Foreign Direct Investment and the Liberalization of Capital Movements in the Global Race for Foreign Direct Investment. Oxelheim Lars. Prospects for the Future. 1993;Springer-Verlag, Berlin, I am indebted to Ms. Katarina Svensson, Ph.L. of Lund University, who brought to my attention the work on "National Security & National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions." Interestingly, her views are consistent with those of Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who defines "U.S. companies" as those that employ U.S. citizens and pay U.S. taxes.
3. "Hackers" are not the threat. As I have noted on many occasions, hackers are a national resource because they are forcing us to acknowledge that "the emperor is naked." Turkle Sherry. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. 1984;Simon & Schuster, New York. examines the origins of "hacking" at MIT and demonstrates conclusively that the hacker ethic is identical to "the right stuff" associated with the early astronauts - both push the edge of the envelope striving for excellence. The actual "threat" to our national information infrastructure begins with bad engineering and culminates primarily in authorized users doing unauthorized things.
4. Icove David, Seger Karl, Von Storch William. Computer Crime: A Crime Fighter's Handbook. 1995;O'Reilly & Associates; Sebastopol, CA. that economic losses associated with computers are attributed as follows: 55% to human error and 20% to physical disruption such as natural disasters or power failures (one could say, poor computer design); 10% to dishonest employees; 9% to disgruntled employees; 4% to viruses; and only 1-3% to outsider attacks. note in.
5. The seminal work in this area is Schwartau Winn. Information Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway. 1994;Thunder's Mouth Press, New York.
6. Hust Maj Gerald R. Taking Down Telecommunications. Thoughtful papers on the vulnerability of specific networks include:1993.
7. Griffith Maj Thomas E. Jr. Strategic Attack of National Electrical Systems. October 1994.
8. Arnold H.D., Hyukill J., Keeney J., Cameron A. Targeting Financial Systems as Centers of Gravity: `Low Intensity' to `No Intensity' Conflict. Defense Analysis. 10:(2):1994.
9. One major U.S. government agency, extremely competent in computing, intercepted all communications and computing hardware and software reaching its loading docks for a period of one year. It found 500 separate viruses contained in shrink-wrapped products coming straight from the factory.
10. The Director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, Ward Elcock, has stated publicly that 80% of the input for finished intelligence products come from open sources; the Canadian service also makes it a point to publish unclassified intelligence reports. Although the U.S. intelligence community only acknowledges 40% as the official contribution of open sources, the former Director for Science & Technology has stated publicly that the figure is actually 70%; it is possible he misspoke.
11. Although several authors, including Peter Drucker, have addressed reinvention and reengineeering imperatives in relation to the information age, none have done more to help public understanding than Alvin and Heidi Toffler with their books PowerShift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century. 1990;Bantam, New York.
12. Although several authors, including Peter Drucker, have addressed reinvention and reengineeering imperatives in relation to the information age, none have done more to help public understanding than Alvin and Heidi Toffler with their books War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 2lst Century. 1993;Little Brown, Boston, MA.
13. Points of contact are, respectively, Christopher Fitz at (408) 647-4193, Robert Heibel at (814) 824-2117, and Geoffrey Fox at (315) 443-1722.
14. Points of contact are, respectively, Brenda Bailey at (303) 758-3030, David Bender at (202) 234-4700, and Charles Bailey Jr., at (713) 743-9804.
15. During an annual conference of middle-aged hackers, popularly known as the Lake Tahoe Conference, there was a discussion of what return on investment one received from volunteering information into the Internet. The general consensus was that for every piece of information that one contributed to the commons, 100 pieces were received in return, of which 10 were actually useful. Ten-to-one return on investment - this is instructive.
16. Points of contact are: for Oxford Analytica, Robin Porteus at (44 1865) 261-600; for FIND/ SVP, Joseph Cositore at (212) 645-4500; for Kroll Associates, Tom Fedorek at (212) 593-1000; for Burwell Enterprises, Joanne Paolino at (713) 486-3500 ext. 2353; for LEXIS-NEXIS, Jeffrey Krattenmaker at (513) 865- 1877; and for ISI, Frank Spieker at (215) 386-0100, extension 1374.
17. Baker James A. III. The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War & Peace, 1989-1992. 1995;154 G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York.
18. Powell Colin. My American Journey. 1995;293 Random House.
19. This exciting story, by the principal investigator at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is contained in Holden-Rhodes James. Sharing the Secrets: Open Source Intelligence and the War on Drugs. 1994;University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, The various laboratories of the Department of Energy are, in fact, the nation's most important open source intelligence asset, and a very important example of why we can no longer afford to compartment classified intelligence apart from "rest of government" information.
20. NTIS is a self-sustaining organization under the oversight of the Department of Commerce which plays a significant role in helping the Federal government increase the dissemination of unclassified information to the private sector. The existing and easily scalable global multi-media dissemination capability, including an innovative partnership with Kinko's, is the first step in bringing 21st-century standards of accountability and accessibility to government records created at taxpayer expense. NTIS is a critical player in helping all elements of the Federal government, on a voluntary basis, establish accessible and accountable electronic records; embed bibliographic structure in their records; establish an online presence through FedWorld; and dramatically increase public access to useful information.
21. My keynote speech to the Association for Global Strategic Information (AGSI) contained many of these operational concepts and has been reprinted as Access: The Theory and Practice of Competitor Intelligence. Journal of AGSI. July 1994.
22. My most developed work in this area, funded by the French government, is my white paper Access: Theory and Practice of Intelligence in the Age of Information. October 26, 1993.
23. Paul Evan Peters, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, is the originator of this concept. He can be reached at (202) 296-5098.
24. Kelly Kevin. Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization. 1994;Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA. provides a brilliant exposition of why, in a very complex global system driven by information, organic self-healing and relatively autonomous elements must be accepted and nurtured - it is impossible to control complexity in a centralized preplanned fashion.
25. Those concerned about the fragility of our information infrastructure would do well to read Kelly's work, as well as one predating him by 10 years Charles Perrow's Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. 1984;Basic Books, New York. Simple systems have single points of failure easy to diagnose. Complex systems have multiple points of failure difficult to diagnose. Today we have a constellation of very complex information systems.
26. We keep forgetting that books were generally written as dissertations or started roughly 10 years before finally appearing in print; articles are generally 10 months or so old; and even newspaper stories are at least a day if not 3-10 days old. Within academic circles, it is well-known that if one is not receiving the drafts of works in progress and the preprints, it is simply not possible to be a serious competitor in the field.
27. At the strategic level, civil allies, geographic location, and military sustainability are critical. At the operational level, civil instability, geographic resources, and military availability are important. At the tactical level, civil psychology, geographic terrain, and military reliability determine outcomes. At the technical level, civil infrastructure, geographic atmosphere, and military lethality are the foundation for planning and employment. This is an original analysis model developed by the author while serving as the Deputy Director and senior civilian at the new Marine Corps Intelligence Center in Quantico, Virginia. At the time, examining all products from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency then in hand, the author discovered that none of the products supported a specific decision and that none of the products was related to any specific level of analysis. Everything was generic, topical, a "snapshot," virtually useless to a policymaker or commander.
28. This section draws on a full-length article E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, and Intelligence. published in the Whole Earth Review. Fall, 1992.
29. Although Alvin and Heidi Toffler have called me "the greatest enemy of secrecy" in the United States (in their book War and Anti-War), that is not quite correct. I am an enemy of unnecessary secrecy because it costs a great deal - not only in dollars but also in terms of opportunities. My complete views are set forth in my "Testimony and Comments on Executive Order 12356, `National Security Information,'" provided by invitation to the Presidential Inter-Agency Task Force on National Security Information, Department of Justice, June 9, 1993. I believe that we should all be strong advocates of "no classification without justification."
30. 3I: Issues of Command and Control. 1991;68 National Defense University, He was speaking in 1990 to a group of government employees selected for increased responsibility and attending a Harvard Executive Program.
31. Seidman was speaking to the Open Source Lunch Club on January 11, 1994. Her observations were subsequently reported in OSS Notices 94-001 dated February 21, 1994.
32. Among my many speeches and publications in this area, the following are especially pertinent: National Intelligence Strategy - Needed Initiatives. speech to the National Defense University Foundation/ National Industrial Security Association Symposium on The Global Information Explosion: A Threat to National Security? May 16, 1995;. (with Alvin Toffler, Bo Cutter, Emmett Paige, Robert Johnson, and Bill Studeman).
33. Among my many speeches and publications in this area, the following are especially pertinent: National Intelligence - The Community Tomorrow? speech to the Security Affairs Support Association Spring Symposium, National Security Agency. April 20, 1995.
34. Among my many speeches and publications in this area, the following are especially pertinent: Private Enterprise Intelligence: Its Potential Contribution to National Security. paper presented to the Canadian Intelligence Community Conference on Intelligence Analysis and Assessment. October 29, 1994.
35. Among my many speeches and publications in this area, the following are especially pertinent: A Critical Evaluation of U.S. National Intelligence Capabilities. International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. Summer 1993; I have also provided invited testimony to the Commission on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
36. One authority, Paul Strassmann, estimates that in information housekeeping costs alone $22 billion could be saved over seven years. This is apart from policy savings derived from improved intelligence support. Strassmann has been Director of Defense Information and Chief Information Officer of the Xerox Corporation and other major companies. His books, including The Politics of Information Management, The Business Value of Computers, and Information PayOff, are all exceptional.