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GCN Home > 07/10/08 web stories

Defense 2.0 a work in progress

By Wyatt Kash

The vision of adapting next-generation Internet technologies in the Defense Department is gaining new urgency as businesses, and employees, increasingly embrace Web-based social networking applications. But the horizon for what some call the Defense 2.0 era appears a long way off as culture, inertia, and IT security concerns that grow only more complicated in a Web 2.0 world, continue to challenge military IT leaders.

The gap between vision and reality was plainly evident as senior DOD officials and industry experts debated the implications of Web 2.0 technologies yesterday at a conference held by the Information Technology Association of America.

Robert Carey, chief information officer of the Department of the Navy, was among those who have seen Web 2.0 applications making positive contributions to the work of DOD. Carey, who has gained notoriety for being among the highest-ranking CIOs in DOD to author his own blog, also is an active wiki user.

“Wikis offer in my world [a better way] to write policy,” he said. In the old paradigm, it could take 18 months to complete a policy document, with all the comments back and forth, he said. “Now I can have something in 60 days. I tell people, ‘Write the words like you want them, not your comments.’ ”

Carey has also been impressed with how quickly IT solutions have emerged on the fly using mashups of multiple Web-based applications. He cited the Combined Information Data Network Exchange as one example. What began as a do-it-yourself project in the field using Google maps to track battlefield actions, including indirect fires and improvised explosive devices events, quickly gained wider use by battlefield commanders. It might have taken years — and millions of dollars — to build something comparable under traditional IT approaches in DOD.

John Hale, chief of solutions delivery for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which spawned Intellipedia, sees Web 2.0 differently.

“Web 2.0 in my world has nothing to do with technology. It’s all about enabling the end user and the data,” he said. With 78,000 registered users in the intelligence community and 250,000 additional individuals with qualifications to view the data, “Intellipedia has been has been the single most ground-shaking way to share info in the community.”

The challenge of Web 2.0 applications, however, remains how to engineer security safeguards into what amount to ad hoc systems.

The ideal approach is to make security part of system design from the beginning. “The problem is when you cobble things together,” said Brig. Gen Ronnie Hawkins, Deputy Director, Policy and Resources, SAF/XCP-2.

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