---------- Begin Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Jan 95 21:03:02 -0500 From: burton@het.brown.edu (Joshua W. Burton) To: silent-tristero@world.std.com Subject: Cone of silence update I haven't been able to turn up the original New York Times article I saw, but our own Providence (RI) Journal today reprinted an article from the Washington Post, no date given, that tells substantially the same story, though without any mention of the cost of Intelink. Since a few people have asked me for details, I thought I'd better post this verbatim. Be sure to save a copy, in case this article disappears the way the first one I saw did.... GOVERNMENT'S SECRETS FLOW THROUGH AN INTERNET CLONE WASHINGTON - When the US intelligence community recently decided to modernize the way it communicates, it did what countless other government agencies, businesses and individuals have done over the last few years: it turned to the Internet. But the regular Internet wouldn't do. For spies and other government officials concerned about secrecy, that very public, very uncontrollable global mesh of computer networks was too risky a place to do business. So the intelligence community created its own Internet. Dubbed Intelink and based on the same technology used to run and navigate the original Internet, this new network for sharing supersecret information---including satellite imagery and video footage---officially began operating just a few weeks ago. When the bugs are worked out and a final system is in place, it will allow analysts, policy-makers, military officials and soldiers in the field to tap quickly and directly into classified information at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon and diverse other parts of the national security bureaucracy. Those familiar with Intelink say it could promote cooperation in a business characterized by internecine rivalry, and that at the very least it will centralize and speed up information retrieval. ``This is a major breakthrough,'' said Barry Horton, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence. ``Intelink for the first time, in a user-friendly environment, allows every element of the intelligence community and every element of the Department of Defense to reach into every other element,'' he said. As one might imagine, it's not for everybody. Horton said the system is now available only to people with ``Top Secret'' or higher security clearances. Moreover, those who run the system eventually will have to confront a major issue of how to make Intelink flexible enough to accommodate users with a variety of clearances. There are many levels of classification higher than Top Secret, and for Intelink to be useful to those working on the most secret programs, the officials responsible would have to be comfortable placing such information on the system. And, while Pentagon and CIA officials spoke of how Intelink promises to improve communication and cooperation among the agencies and reduce duplication of effort, others said there is good reason to be skeptical. The intelligence community has made innumerable attempts to eliminate redundancy and streamline information channels, but there has been little progress. ``It's gone like gangbusters since its inception, but any Internet-like thing grows overnight. The question is, is it going to mature well? And how will it operate in a time of crisis?'' said Ross Stapleton-Gray, who recently left the CIA to start a business providing Internet services to embassies in Washington. In a way it is fitting that what some call an Internet ``clone'' should come out of the national security bureaucracy. Internet itself was started under Department of Defense sponsorship in the 1960s, as an attack-proof communications link among military, corporate and university research centers. ``Remember, Internet is a DoD creation,'' said Neil Munro, a reporter for Washington_Technology, a local business newspaper, who recently broke the story about Intelink's start-up. ``This is the prodigal son....They created it and now it comes back in much stronger fashion.'' All those familiar with the system said it is totally walled off from the Internet, and designed never to be penetrated. But several experts familiar with Intelink noted that no system is ever totally secure. ``This would obviously be a Mount Everest for hackers,'' said John E. Pike of the Federation of American Scientists. But Pike, who said he thinks Intelink has the potential to ``revolutionize'' the intelligence community, added that it would be so difficult to crack he doubts many will try. The network now operates among several dozen intelligence agencies and centers. But it is the talk of the intelligence community, and its reach is expected to grow rapidly. Those who now have regular access to it number in the hundreds, estimated Martin C. Faga, general manager of the Center for Integrated Intelligence Systems at the Mitre Corp., the company that helped the intelligence agencies set up the system. ----------- End Forwarded Message -----------