While senior Pentagon officials resort to bluster in hopes of preventing the WikiLeaks website from posting any more secret Afghan war documents on the Internet, security experts say there is a lot the U.S. military could have done to prevent the classified documents from being leaked in the first place.
Steps range from the sophisticated — installing automated monitoring systems on classified networks — to the mundane — disabling CD burners and USB ports on network computers.
“The technology is available” to protect highly sensitive information, said Tom Conway, director of federal business development at computer security giant McAfee. “The Defense Department doesn’t have it, but it is commercially available. We’ve got some major commercial clients using it.”
Full Article Below the Line (Not Easily Available on Internet); Lengthy Comment Follows Article
UPDATE of 22 Aug 2010 to add Viral Video (John Pourdehnad) that started the dialog.
Ackoff Virtual Inqiry Center (AVIC)
There is a discussion underway at Systems Community of Inquiry focused on developing the concepts for a network of Ackoff Virtual Inqiry Centers (AVIC) located around the world. Early on, the original vision for AVIC, offered by Dr. John Pourdehnad, was that AVIC serve as a nervous system for the Systems and Design Community in Dr. Russell Ackoff’s name. With this belief, Dr. Pourdehnad also made clear the need for AVIC to be designed Ideally and created by the stakeholders themselves. The concept is being extended by Gene Bellinger and Kent Myers. The work of Clay Shirky is most helpful:
Below is updated information followed by the original response.
With the permission of Robert Horn, a co-founder of Earth Intelligence Network and also the “owner” of the term “information mapping,” we have posted his seminal work in easy to download and exploit segments:
+ Collect information from cell phones, news and the web.
+ Aggregate that information into a single platform.
+ Visualize it on a map and timeline.
Crowdmap is designed and built by the people behind Ushahidi, a platform that was originally built to crowdsource crisis information. As the platform has evolved, so have its uses. Crowdmap allows you to set up your own deployment of Ushahidi without having to install it on your own web server.
I have a confession. I have an ambitious goal for the book: to meet today's needs in the way The Fifth Discipline did 20 years ago. And you can help make that happen.
