Pentagon Sued Over Milblog-Monitoring

The digital rights crusaders over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation are suing the Department of Defense, "demanding expedited information on how the Army monitors soldiers' blogs," according to an EFF statement.

EFF filed its suit after the Department of Defense and Army failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about the blog monitoring program...

According to news reports [ahem, ahem], an Army unit called the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) reviews hundreds of thousands of websites every month, notifying webmasters and bloggers when it sees information it finds inappropriate. Some bloggers have told reporters that they have cut back on their posts or shut down their sites altogether because of the activities of the AWRAC.

Well, not exactly. Most of the bloggers I've talked to dialed back their sites because of a more broad suspicion about blogging within the military community -- and unclear regulations about what can and can not be written online.

Still, the EFF's suit should be useful. Because the AWRAC's blog-eying regimen seemed almost laughably loose, when it was announced in October. The Army team "uses several scanning tools to monitor [these] sites for OPSEC [operational security] violations," the Army notes. "The tools search for such key words as 'for official use only' or 'top secret,' and records the number of times they are used on a site. Analysts review the results to determine which, if any, need further investigation."

The most common OPSEC violations found on official sites are For Official Use Only (FOUO) documents and limited distribution documents, as well as home addresses, birthdates and home phone numbers.

Unofficial blogs often show pictures with sensitive information in the background, including classified documents, entrances to camps or weapons. One Soldier showed his ammo belt, on which the tracer pattern was easily identifiable.

The EFF's suit "demands records on how the AWRAC conducts its monitoring, as well as any orders to soldiers about revision or deletion of web posts. It also demands expedited processing, as the information is urgently needed by the public."

"Of course, a military effort requires some level of secrecy. But the public has a right to know if the Army is silencing soldiers' opinions as well. That's why the Department of Defense must release information on how this program works without delay," EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann said.

ALSO:
* Army "Big Brother" Unit Targets Bloggers
* Another Milblogger Bows Out
* Yet Another Milblogger Forced Out
* Milblogger Clamp Down Blows Up
* Pentagon's Iraq Message: T.B.D.
* Army to Fake the News
* Yon vs. Military Flacks
* Aussie Military Bans Blogs

(Big ups: Ward)

Real Iraq Surge: Electronic Attack?

"Any U.S. military surge in Iraq will be far more than a troop increase," Aviation Week says, in a fascinating new article. "A key element in the deployment will be an accelerated effort to bring more and newer technologies to bear on the foe, in part by targeting insurgent commanders, often through their communication networks."

A third squadron of Prowler electronic attack planes is being equipped with a new, Northrop system "designed to identify and locate enemy emitters and jam signals that can be used to remotely detonate explosive devices. The U.S. Air Force's EC-130 Compass Call electronic attack aircraft are [also] being used in Iraq to detonate explosive devices along convoy routes."

But perhaps the most intriguing family of systems being "readied for operations" is BAE Systems' Suter network exploitation programs, designed to "break into enemy networks to hear communications, see what enemy sensors are seeing and, in some circumstances, become the systems manager with the ability to manipulate enemy sensors."

"Suter finds the doors that have to be opened," an Air Force official tells Aviation Week.

L-3 Communications' Network-Centric Collaborative Targeting tool is considered Suter's "eyes and ears." With the system, three planes can pick up, within seconds, "the location (within a few hundred feet) and identity of enemy emitters -- radios, low-power cell phones and satellite phones, as well as other devices used for command and control and detonation of explosives... Plans are to have UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] or manned aircraft nearby that can deliver weapons or guide ground teams to the emitter's location within minutes."

A series of Suter programs explored the ability to pipe data streams -- embedded with specialized algorithms -- into enemy communications networks without being detected. The portals into the network are found by precisely locating antennas (as aiming points for the data streams) whether they are part of an air defense system or a hand-held communications device linked to others in an ad hoc tactical network for a small insurgent team.

However, there's the possibility that [the new gear] could interfere with [existing] U.S. [military] technology. Baghdad, where the force buildup is expected, is electronically polluted. For example, one smart system that jammed improvised explosive devices locked onto another smart system because of a lack of coordination between electronic warfare systems operated by different services and agencies. Jammers also can conflict with surveillance and communication systems... The problem is so pervasive that antennas have been put on 110-ft.-high poles to get them out of the worst interference.

Google Earth, Insurgents' Friend?

Insurgents in Iraq have been smart extremely smart about using the Net -- from YouTube propaganda to anonymous webmail communications to uploaded training guides to t-shirts sold online. So it's not surprising to hear that that might be using Google Earth for overhead reconnaissance, too.

Still, I have a feeling this story, from the Telegraph, is a little over-blown.

Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra are using aerial footage displayed by the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint their attacks, say Army intelligence sources.

Documents seized during raids on the homes of insurgents last week uncovered print-outs from photographs taken from Google.

The satellite photographs show in detail the buildings inside the bases and vulnerable areas such as tented accommodation, lavatory blocks and where lightly armoured Land Rovers are parked.

Written on the back of one set of photographs taken of the Shatt al Arab Hotel, headquarters for the 1,000 men of the Staffordshire Regiment battle group, officers found the camp's precise longitude and latitude.

"This is evidence as far as we are concerned for planning terrorist attacks," said an intelligence officer with the Royal Green Jackets battle group. "Who would otherwise have Google Earth imagery of one of our bases?... We believe they use Google Earth to identify the most vulnerable areas such as tents."

As the paper notes, "it is unclear how old the maps are." But unless they're very recent, it's hard to believe they'd show today's tents all that accurately.

Anyway, it is amazing the kooky stuff you can find on Google Earth. Last year, Defense Tech readers went buck-wild, discovering everything from Area 51 landing strips to target ranges to a 500-foot-wide Star of David shape, scratched out of the Nevada rock.

Pentagon's Iraq Message: T.B.D.

Newsweek has a must-read story on something we've hammered on again and again here at Defense Tech HQ: the American military's inability to get its message out in any sort of sensible way. Especially through new media.

While the Pentagon clamps down on milbloggers and squeezes embedded reporters, the insurgents are, as Ms. Jardin noted the other day, starting TV stations, training over the Web, and selling t-shirts online. Here's the latest example of the media-savvy inequality:

A draft report recently produced by the Baghdad embassy's director of strategic communications Ginger Cruz... makes the stakes clear: "Without popular support from US population, there is the risk that troops will be pulled back ... " Under the heading DOMESTIC MESSAGES, Cruz goes on to recommend 16 themes to reinforce with the American public, several of which Bush is likely to hit: "vitally important we succeed"; "actively working on new approaches"; "there are no quick or easy answers."

What's even more telling is that the IRAQI MESSAGES�€”the very next section�€”are still "TBD," to be determined. Indeed, the document so much as admits that despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the United States has lost the battle for Iraqi public opinion: "Insurgents, sectarian elements, and others are taking control of the message at the public level." Videos of U.S. soldiers being shot and blown up, and of the bloody work of sectarian death squads, are now pervasive. The images inspire new recruits and intimidate those who might stand against them. "Inadequate message control in Iraq," the draft warns, "is feeding the escalating cycle of violence..."

Sunni insurgents in particular have become expert at using technology to underscore�€”some would say exaggerate�€”their effectiveness. "The sophistication of the way the enemy is using the news media is huge," Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told NEWSWEEK just before he returned to the United States. Most large-scale attacks on U.S. forces are now filmed, often from multiple camera angles, and with high-resolution cameras... In some cases, U.S. officials believe, insurgents attack American forces primarily to generate fresh footage...

What the insurgents understand better than the Americans is how Iraqis consume information. Tapes of beheadings are stored on cell phones along with baby pictures and wedding videos. Popular Arab satellite channels like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya air far more graphic images than are typically seen on U.S. TV�€”leaving the impression, say U.S. military officials, that America is on the run...

The U.S. military's response, on the other hand, usually sticks to traditional channels like press releases. These can take hours to prepare and are often outdated by the time they're issued. Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, director of the military's press operations in Baghdad until this past September, complains that all military-related information has to be processed upward through a laborious and bureaucratic chain of command. "The military wants to control the environment around it, but as we try to [do so], it only slows us down further," he says. "All too often, the easiest decision we made was just not to talk about [the story] at all, and then you absolutely lose your ability to frame what's going on."

Exactly.

Data Diver Disses Terror-Mining

Jeff Jonas is one of the country's leading practitioners of the dark art of data analysis. Casino chiefs and government spooks alike have used his CIA-funded "Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness" software to scour databases for hidden connections.

So you'd think that Jonas would be all into the idea of using these data-mining systems to predict who the next terrorist attacker might be.

Think again. "Though data mining has many valuable uses, it is not well suited to the terrorist discovery problem," he writes in a new study, co-authored with the Cato Institute's Jim Harper. "This use of data mining would waste taxpayer dollars, needlessly infringe on privacy and civil liberties, and misdirect the valuable time and energy of the men and women in the national security community." Are you listening, NSA?

Jonas doesn't have a problem cobbling together information on suspects from various databases. It's using these databases to forecast a terrorist's behavior -- think market research, but for Al-Qaeda -- that Jonas hates. "The possible benefits of predictive data mining for finding planning or preparation for terrorism are minimal. The financial costs, wasted effort, and threats to privacy and civil liberties are potentially vast," he writes.

One of the fundamental underpinnings of predictive data mining in the commercial sector is the use of training patterns. Corporations that study consumer behavior have millions of patterns that they can draw upon to profile their typical or ideal consumer. Even when data mining is used to seek out instances of identity and credit card fraud, this relies on models constructed using many thousands of known examples of fraud per year.

Terrorism has no similar indicia. With a relatively small number of attempts every year and only one or two major terrorist incidents every few years�€”each one distinct in terms of planning and execution�€”there are no meaningful patterns that show what behavior indicates planning or preparation for terrorism. Unlike consumers�€™ shopping habits and financial fraud, terrorism does not occur with enough frequency to enable the creation of valid predictive models. Predictive data mining for the purpose of turning up terrorist planning using all available demographic and transactional data points will produce no better results than the highly sophisticated commercial data mining done today [with results in the low single-digits �€“ ed.]. The one thing predictable about predictive data mining for terrorism is that it would be consistently wrong.

Without patterns to use, one fallback for terrorism data mining is the idea that any anomaly may provide the basis for investigation of terrorism planning. Given a �€œtypical�€ American pattern of Internet use, phone calling, doctor visits, purchases, travel, reading, and so on, perhaps all outliers merit some level of investigation. This theory is offensive to traditional American freedom, because in the United States everyone can and should be an �€œoutlier�€ in some sense. More concretely, though, using data mining in this way could be worse than searching at random; terrorists could defeat it by acting as normally as possible.

Treating �€œanomalous�€ behavior as suspicious may appear scientific, but, without patterns to look for, the design of a search algorithm based on anomaly is no more likely to turn up terrorists than twisting the end of a kaleidoscope is likely to draw an image of the Mona Lisa.

Civil libertarians and bloggers have talked 'til they're blue in the face about how lame this kind of terror-predicting is. But I don't think I've ever heard a giant of the field, like Jonas, come out against the practice -- at least not on-the-record. Let's hope this is one conversation that the feds are monitoring.

(Big ups: Daou)

UPDATE 11:49 AM: Shane Harris here. Die-hard proponents of pattern-based 'data mining' to catch terrorists will remain unconvinced by Jonas' and Harper's argument. While it's true that data mining in the commercial sector is based upon "training patterns," backers of systems such as Total Information Awareness will say, yes, and that's why data mining for terrorists has to start with hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of known or potential terrorist patterns to look for. A major part of TIA research was the creation of terrorist attack templates through red teaming exercises, in which experts were paid to come up with devious and clandestine plots that a terrorist might conceivably attempt. Their various machinations would, presumably, leave a set of digital footprints -- airline tickets purchased, money wired, hotels paid for, and so on -- and THAT data would be mined for clues.

What's also interesting about this paper is the combination of the authors. Jim Harper is a well-known and articulate activist, and has long since staked out central territory in the security vs. privacy debate. But Jonas has stayed out of politics. Indeed, those who've met him will know that he sticks out like a sore West coast thumb among Washington gear heads, being unafraid to use the word "dude" in formal conversation and happily acknowledging his ignorance of most Beltway insider baseball. But those who know Jonas and have heard him speak about electronic terrorist hunting know that, like his co-author Harper, he has a strong libertarian streak. Maybe Jonas wouldn't put it quite that way -- dude -- but it's there.

Aussie Military Bans Blogs

The U.S. military aren't the only ones clamping down on troops who blog.

"The Australian Defence Force has banned soldiers from writing online journals and has deleted blogs from troops serving in Iraq," the Sunday Mail reports. "Critics say the soldiers are being denied the very freedoms they are fighting for."

The blogs were destroyed in September, hours after pictures of Australian soldiers playing with guns surfaced on the internet in the days before the inquiry into Private Jake Kovco's death in Baghdad. [He was the first Australian servicemember killed in Iraq -- ed.]

...A 26-year-old Sunshine Coast soldier serving in Iraq was placed under review and his milblog "Iraqi Letters" was deleted during the ADF's move to silence servicemen online.

The soldier's writing was positive of the army [The blog was an excellent advert for the ADF" one commenter said -- ed.] and at times poetic, detailing the taste of cold water on a dust-parched throat and the friendly ribbing soldiers received after the Socceroos lost to Kuwait.

Minutes after "Iraqi Letters" was destroyed, Brisbane IT consultant and blogging expert Mike Fitzsimons salvaged it for safe-keeping. [Alas, it looks like it was subsequently yanked -- ed.]

"I think it is a valuable piece of Australian history," he said. "Look at how today's historians revere letters from Gallipoli."

...Neil James, the executive director of independent lobby group Australia Defence Association, said milblogs should be allowed provided they were risk-assessed and any potential security violations censored.

"(Blogging) is not going to go away and the Defence Force is going to have to face up to this," he said. "It is not something that can be ignored."

Maybe if everything was going jim-dandy in Iraq, and world opinion was solidly behind the operation, then the western militaries could afford to silence the mission's most vociferous supporters. As we all know, it ain't. The entire operation is teetering on one foot. And short-sighted bureaucrats seem to be doing everything they can to shoot that foot off.

(Big ups: Milblogging.com)

DefenseTech From London

David Hambling here - I�€™m looking after DefenseTech for a few days from London, a city known for its iconic Tower Bridge. The bridge is not named for its own towers, but for the nearby Tower of London .

Now a big tourist attraction, the Tower was started in 1078 by William the Conqueror, the Norman warlord who had invaded and siezed the throne 12 years before. (The legal basis for William�€™s actions is still a matter of debate). Unlike most such castles, the Tower was not entirely for the defense of the city �€“ it was as much to give the invaders a fortified base to protect them from the locals. William faced a major insurgency, and reacted with massive force, especially in the North where he left �€œnot a blade of grass between the Rivers Trent and Tweed.�€

The ringleaders of the insurgency were outlaws like Hereward the Wake, a survivor from the previous regime who was eventually persuaded to switch sides. Some of Hereward�€™s Norman-fighting exploits were later attributed to Robin Hood (who, if he ever existed, was at around least a century later), now reincarnated yet again in a swashbuckling new BBC TV series

Maybe in 900 years the Green Zone will be a must-see for coachloads of visitors - fleeced and thoroughly misinformed by their guides about the history of the place - while popular entertainment will feature bands of colorful Iraqi outlaws outwitting a dastardly Sherif of Baghdad. History may be written by the winners, but it soon gets a makeover from the scriptwriters.

Army to Fake the News

As if gagging milbloggers, posting to its own lame blog, denying embeds and writing silly editorials weren't enough, now the Pentagon is preparing to get into "news" production in a big way, all part of its effort to spin the Iraq War. So says Defense Tech pal Paul McLeary (and former embedded reporter) from the Columbia Journalism Review Daily:

An Associated Press story yesterday discussed a new DoD memo one of its reporters got a hold of that said that "new teams of people" at the Pentagon "will begin working to 'develop messages' for the domestic 24-hour news cycle."

But what might that mean? CNN.com followed up, and reported that the new operation is to have four branches: New Media, Rapid Response, TV and Radio Booking, and Surrogates. The idea is to massage the domestic media coverage of the war and of the Pentagon in general.

For example, the New Media branch will create "products and distribut[e] information" for the Internet, as well as through podcasting, DVDs and Web sites, including YouTube. Rapid Response will "Develop messages and products for the 24/7 media cycle." For example, CNN says that "In recent weeks, there has been an increase in Pentagon-written letters to the editors of dozens of news organizations." The TV and Radio Booking branch will "provide civilian and military guests for cable network and radio programs," while Surrogates will "Provide information and visibility to the surrogate community" -- which presumably means getting analysts to go on TV to express support for Pentagon programs, or for Rummy himself.

Read the whole sordid tale here.

--David Axe

Pentagon Fights Back

The info war over Iraq and Afghanistan is heating up. On one side, the mainstream media is publishing increasingly bleak headlines: Newsweek's "Losing Afghanistan," for instance. Also, Gannett's military-audience newspapers, including Army Times, are calling for SecDef Donald Rumsfeld's termination. On the other side, the military is cracking down on milbloggers, refusing embeds and firing off angry editorials -- all in an effort to tell a consistent story of success in the so-called War on Terror.

The military's latest move is this: a website solely dedicated to rebutting claims made by the mainstream media. Check it out. It's a gas.

On the site, the Pentagon takes critics of the Iraqi Security Forces to task for their dour appraisals of the forces:

CLAIM: �€œFor two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don�€™t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.�€

FACTS: Some 300,000 Iraqi Security Forces are risking their lives for their new country. Polls of Iraqis show consistent support among the populations for members of the Iraqi Security Forces. Iraqi forces are increasingly taking the lead in operations against the enemy.

Actually, both claims are (sorta) right. Iraqi forces have no sense of national identity. And they are increasingly capable -- but only as local security forces. On several occasions I have visited Iraqi Army units that have flatly refused to deploy, or have been besieged in their deployed bases by hostile local residents. And even as Iraqi forces improve in a tactical sense, they remain dependent on coalition forces for logistics and most of their air support. That won't change any time soon.

And don't get me started on the Iraqi police -- technically a security outfit and a mob that the Pentagon always includes in its censuses of Iraqi forces. These guys are actively evil, grossly incompetent and, in most towns, very nearly insurgents themselves. As for the Pentagon's claim that security forces have "consistent support among the populations," I call B.S. The average Iraqi is actually scared of his local police.

--David Axe

U.S. Reveals WMD Secrets

A U.S. government website intended to prove that the preemptive Iraq war was justified published pre-1991 documents from Iraq that weapons experts say are a blueprint for would be atomic bomb makers, according to the New York Times.

According to Times reporter William Broad's story,

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended �€œpending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.�€

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue�€™s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency�€™s technical experts �€œwere shocked�€ at the public disclosures.

Early this morning, a spokesman for Gregory L. Schulte, the American ambassador, denied that anyone from the agency had approached Mr. Schulte about the Web site.

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

�€œFor the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,�€ said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation�€™s nuclear arms program. �€œThere�€™s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.�€

The website, known as the Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal, included documents culled from some 55,000 boxes seized from the offices of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime after the 2003 invasion.

While I hate to criticize the government for opening documents to the public, there's just something deeply ironic about teaching the world how to build the bomb in the process of trying to justify a war that didn't turn up the promised smoking guns.

Also, isn't it the government's job to be investigating the New York Times for publishing sensitive information, not the other way around?

- Ryan Singel

Photo: Life on the edge; Big Ups: RC

Operation Vigilant Correction

The Pentagon's public affairs office admitted to reporters today that it had created the equivalent of a rapid reaction force to strike back at media coverage it considers inaccurate and to harness new technologies like "instant messaging" and "podcasting."

The Pentagon has been punching back at reporters and columnists recently with letters to the editor which have gotten prominent treatment in Early Bird, a daily clipping service intended to keep the military and contractors intended to keep them abreast of military news.

The first item in Monday's edition was an unpublished letter to the Washington Post, which read:

To the Editor:

Your article and the accompanying headline ("Rumsfeld Tells Iraq Critics to 'Back Off,'" October 26, 2006) said incorrectly that the Secretary�€™s comments in his Thursday press conference were aimed at "detractors" and "critics." In fact, the Secretary was referring specifically to journalists seeking to create a perception of major divisions between the positions of the U.S. and Iraqi governments. Secretary Rumsfeld was not referring to critics of the administration's Iraq policy.

Sincerely,

Dorrance Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs

Riiiight. Well, glad that got cleared up. As Sharon Weinberger pointed out last week, this emphasis is becoming a trend.

From Agence France-Presse:

Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press secretary, insisted that the new public affairs program was not prompted by either the elections or polls showing that only about 37 percent believe the war is going well.

"What were looking at doing is, 'How can we get better, how can we get faster, how can we transform public affairs?'," he told reporters.

"And we're looking at being quicker to respond to breaking news. Being quicker to respond, frankly, to inaccurate statements," he said.

"And we're looking at this whole issue of new media -- podcasting, and IM-ing and all those kinds of things, where people are basically running circles inside us," he said.

Ruff disclosed the expanded operations after questions were raised about a wall being built in the Pentagon press operations center that will separate the new unit from Pentagon public affairs officials who deal with the media.

Hunh, and this has nothing to do with low poll numbers at all? Sorry, Ruff's denials don't pass the smell test.

Combine the news of this new nitpicking operation with the Pentagon's crackdown on milbloggers and its continued heavy-handed treatment of reporters embedded in Iraq, a death toll of 101 American soldiers so far this month, deteriorating relations with the Iraqi government, and a CNN poll registering domestic support for the war at 34%, and you have a stew with the rather unpleasant odor of desperation. Is this really what Rummy wanted when he begged public affairs to "adapt to today's media age?"

I expect my first missive from the Delta Force-esque PR flacks will be in my inbox pronto.

- Ryan Singel

Milblogger Clamp Down Blows Up (Updated)

For the last couple of weeks, Defense Tech has been looking into the increasingly hostile atmosphere that soldier- journalists -- milbloggers -- have been facing. Now, a bunch of bigger outlets have picked up on the story -- and advanced it several steps.

Stars & Stripes:

The [Army's] August order [about blogs] specifically states that soldiers may not create or update their blogs during duty hours, and the sites must not 'contain information on military activities that is not available to the general public.'

That includes 'comments on daily military activities and operations, unit morale, results of operations, status of equipment, and other information that may be beneficial to adversaries.'

If soldiers are found violating those rules, both the servicemembers and their commanding officers are notified... leadership can decide what punishment, if any, the soldiers should face...

Noah Shachtman, editor of noahshachtman.com, said... "The fact that soldiers want to write about their experiences is something that should be embraced by the Army... They�€™re not looking to bad-mouth the military. They�€™re looking to talk proudly about their experiences."

AP:

"We are not a law enforcement or intelligence agency. Nor are we political correctness enforcers," Lt. Col. Stephen Warnock, [head of the Virginia National Guard "Big Brother" website-monitoring unit] said. "We are simply trying to identify harmful Internet content and make the authors aware of the possible misuse of the information by groups who may want to damage United States interests."

Some bloggers say the guidelines are too ambiguous - a sentiment that has led others to pre-emptively shut down or alter their blogs.

"It's impossible to determine when something crosses the line from not a violation to a violation. It's like trying to define what pornography is or bad taste in music," said Spc. Jason Hartley, 32, who says he was demoted from sergeant and fined for reposting a blog he created while deployed to Iraq with the New York Army National Guard.

According to Hartley, the Army had forced him to stop the blog even before the oversight operation existed, citing pictures he had posted of Iraqi detainees and discussions of how he loaded a weapon and the route his unit took to get to Iraq.

Wired News' Xeni Jardin (who has the best story of the lot):

Blackfive's [Matt] Burden says soldiers are receiving mixed messages: some receive approval from their immediate commanders, only later to be rebuked by more senior officials. Burden says his site and another milblog, Armor Geddon, were once featured in an internal Army PowerPoint presentation which described both as serious operational security risks.

"That kind of message from the administration of the Army sends a chilling signal to a young soldier who was told by his commander that it was okay to do what he was doing," Burden told Wired News.

He and fellow milbloggers gathered this year in April for a first ever MilBlog Conference in Washington, DC. They plan to reconvene in May, 2007. Debate over how to address authorities' OPSEC concerns without creating a "chilling effect" among bloggers was a heated topic at the 2006 gathering.

"My advice would be to bring together active duty, reserve and veteran bloggers to take a look at this issue in a way that would help the military," Burden says, "There's a lot of positive information coming from these 1,200 or so military blogs, and if it's not positive, it's giving people a better understanding of what it's like to be a soldier or the family of a soldier fighting this war."

Active duty milblogger John Noonan co-edits OPFOR (military slang for "opposing force") and posts on such topics as "foreign policy, wargaming, grand strategy and hippy bashing."

Noonan is among those who believe the current flap is partly the result of a generation gap between younger, tech-savvy recruits for whom life online is second nature and older, more senior military officials who don't get the net and are accustomed to the military's long-established history of carefully monitoring release of information from the battlefield.

"They don't want to lose the traditional control they've had over information released from the battlefield to the American people," Noonan said. "It's counterintuitive for military guys who are used to total control over what information is released and what isn't, to all of a sudden having zero control."

Xeni also filed a story for NPR's Day to Day, which should air this afternoon.

UPDATE 3:01 PM: The NPR segment is up now.

UPDATE 10/31/06 4:20 PM: ABC News weighs in here, with some pretty bruising commentary from Blackfive. Note to self: Do not piss this guy off.

Air Force Electronic Attacks Stymied

The situation isn't too bad right now, fighting a low-tech foe. But Air Force planners are deeply worried about the future, and the service's abilities to take out enemy radars. The flyboys' airborne electronic attack (AEA) efforts -- zapping opponents' air defenses, with big bursts of radar energy -- are in disarray, reports Air Force magazine.

"Last year, the Air Force canceled its central AEA program, the B-52 Standoff Jammer." Then, the Air Force was taken off the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System killer drone project, which the Air Force was planning to use "as a radar jammer loitering directly over enemy air defenses. It is no exaggeration to say that the Air Force AEA roadmap, which was years in the making, virtually collapsed."

The Air Force faces a hard deadline for bringing on new operational AEA capability. Since 1999, it has been sharing the Navy�€™s four-seat EA-6B Prowler escort jammer aircraft, but the Prowler fleet begins retiring in 2009... For some time, plans have called for USAF by then to be out of the Navy�€™s program and fielding its own system.

The airborne electronic attack business comprises five primary disciplines, each taking the action progressively closer to the target... [From long-range, stand-off strikes to point-blank jamming to cyber attacks which] cause an enemy radar to think it�€™s a washing machine and go into the rinse cycle.

The problem is, these are all very different jobs. No single aircraft is going to be able to handle them all. Not a revamped B-52 or F-15E, not the Navy's Prowler $100 million-per-plane replacement, and not even the new F-22 fighters, equipped with next-gen radars.

So now the idea is patch together lots and lots of different types of aircraft, including the Joint Strike Fighter and "the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy... a smallish missile that emulates the radar signatures of other aircraft and, it is hoped, will draw the fire of enemy air defenses."

There are "so many different components and pieces and parts," one Air Force official tells the magazine. "It gets very complex. ... It�€™s just a matter of what we can afford and what kind of risk will we assume if we don�€™t have all the pieces together."

Red Teaming Tomorrow's Radars

Nicholas Weaver is a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in California. This is the first in an occasional series for Defense Tech.

In the past, military technology might have consistently outpaced civilian gear. Not any more.

Civilian electronics, manufacturing, and development cycles have radically shortened and improved. The computer which runs the F-22 is an absolute design marvel for its time, for example: 700 MIPS (Millions of Instructions per Second), approximately 300 Megabytes of memory, and some 20 billion DSP [digital signal processing] style operations.

Yet its time was the late 80s and early 90s, when much of the hardware was finalized. Today, a Playstation 3 meets or exceeds this performance, for $600 instead of perhaps $30,000,000. (Of course, the F22's avionics are considerably more robust and presumably more reliable.)

So the question becomes, what happens if America's opponents start massively adopting commercial technology and commercial design styles? In Iraq, insurgents are already using commercial gear to build and trigger bombs. But it's not hard to imagine absorption on a much broader scale. After all, the weapon business is a business, there are brilliant engineers around the world, and the basic building blocks continue to grow more sophisticated.

This occasional series of speculations will attempt to predict that future, by technological "red-teaming," sketching out what an opponent could do. This first article attempts to postulate what the future of air defense radar will be, and how it will force radical changes in US military operations.

The United States enjoys pure air superiority. No other nation can hope to match the USAF, and no other country will likely try. But an opponent doesn't have to match our fighters, they only need ground based air defenses, which starts with radars.

Today, they don't have much of a hope. Between stealth aircraft and anti-radar missiles, an opponent's air defenses will be destroyed within minutes of a conflict. , or simply remains offline in an attempt to preserve some capabilities. {Which is what the Serbs did in the 90s �€“ keeping their radars off, mostly, and using ballistic firing.)

But there is a technology which might change this balance. And it's got its roots in the commercial world. Multipath radar would provide a defender with a robust radar system, able to detect and track many stealth aircraft, counter anti-radar missiles, and enable the defender to track all radio emitters within the country.

In a conventional radar, a radio signal is broadcast. When a plane or other object is in the path of this beam, it may be reflected back towards the radar station. By using timing, direction, and the size and intensity of the reflected signal, the radar site can track and identify objects. Yet it is this very radar signal which anti-radar missiles target, making the stations vulnerable to attack.

Stealth aircraft avoid radar by being made of materials that are either transparent to, or absorbing of, the radar's signal. Or, the planes scatter the radio signal so that it bounces away from the radar station. That's why stealth aircraft have such unusual shapes.

But there is another way to build a radar. If you scatter a bunch of radio sources around the countryside, each of which are broadcasting, the signals will scatter off any aircraft in the area. With a group of distributed receivers, these scattered signals can be received and analyzed. This is called "multipath radar", as the signals traverse multiple paths to receivers.

There are a few prerequisites for multipath radar. The broadcasters, although simple, need to transmit an identifier as part of their signals, and be at known locations. The receivers, on the other hand, need to be very sophisticated. This requires sophisticated radio antennas and, more importantly, "serious DSP magic," which, when networked together, can compute a cohesive picture of the defender's airspace.

Yet the hardware to perform such DSP operations is becoming commonplace and commercially prevalent. GNU radar and other designs can receive the signals, and conventional computers and DSPs can then process the results, extract the features, and create an overall picture. There have been prototypes built in the United Kingdom, able to track commercial aircraft by observing the reflected signals from cell-phone towers.

Why do I believe multipath radar will be a case where civilian technology may have a huge military impact? Simply because the "serious DSP Magic", the signal processing components and programming skills needed to make everything work, are the same principles behind spread-spectrum cellular basestations, software radios, and even MIMO antennas for 802.11N basestations.

If multipath radar is deployed by adversaries or potential adversaries, it could greatly affect US operations. Stealth aircraft based on scattering the signal are simply not stealthy to multipath radar. Worse, the transmitters are no longer co-located with the receivers and electronics. Thus anti-SAM and anti-radar tactics will need to be restructured, as simply blowing up the transmitters destroys valueless targets and an adversary could simply build more $500 transmitters than the US has anti-radiation missiles.

Finally, the same DSP processing and antenna infrastructure which forms a multipath radar also enables the defender to track radio sources, by detecting unique sources and using timing to triangulate their locations. Simple traffic analysis, knowing where your opponents are, can be invaluable for military strategists. Radio silence protocols would need to be strictly enforced and enhanced, which could also affect proposed "system of systems" technologies.

A new technology can change the world. Multipath radar might change how the US military needs to operate, both in the air and on the ground. And the building blocks are in catalogs, now.

-- Nicholas Weaver

Yet Another Milblogger Forced Out

Tanker Brothers is a blog from a pair of Abrams operators, initially set up to "express their frustration at the lack of American support for the Iraq conflict and to pay tribute to their Military heritage of Patriotism and Honor." The site is one of the featured blogs at Military.com, and is in the top ten at BestMilitarySites.com.

Despite all that, the site is about to go dark, come Veterans' Day.

Make no mistake, it has nothing to do with not wanting to Blog anymore: on the contrary, this has been a labor of love for me. I started this blog with one goal, and only one goal: to let the American Public know what was REALLY going on in Iraq... Unfortunately.... sometimes things don't always work out the way we want them to.

As my readers know, my little brother has already deployed to Iraq, and I'm literally on "the countdown" to when I get on a plane to join him. There was nothing more that I wanted to do than to continue this site, and even "kick it up a notch", since I would once again be on the ground.

With the new OPSEC paranoia, though, I don't think I would have the opportunity. The DoD is cracking down on MilBlogs, and I wouldn't be able to continue Blogging and still be compliant with AR 25-1, the Army's Regulation governing Personal Websites...

Now, unofficially speaking, I think the DoD is making a huge mistake crippling the MilBlog movement. MilBlogs have been instrumental at keeping the American Public informed, and getting the good news of the War on Terror out to people that would otherwise never hear it. And the American public is hungry for news like that. The American public is starving for news like that.

Isn't this exactly the kind of website that the Defense Department ought to be trying to keep online?

UPDATE 4:53 PM: "We're carried on [the official Army website] Stand To! pretty regularly...so we're good enough for the Army's senior leaders, but not good enough to keep blogging? It doesn't make sense," Tanker Brother Mike Gulf tells me.

I would never, ever compromise security, or put even one single Soldier's life in jeopardy. If there [is] even a small chance, I tank the story. Even CENTCOM tells me I'm "good to go", to which my response was: "Then show me how I can [comlly] AR 25-1, and show me a way to post!"

The DoD should be embracing the MilBlog Movement: we're the guys and gals actually getting the TRUTH out about the War, and encouraging support, and the American public to open thier eyes and get the view from guys on the ground.

(Big ups: OPFOR)

Yon vs. Military Flacks

In a counterinsurgency, the media battlespace is critical. When it comes to mustering public opinion, rallying support, and forcing opponents to shift tactics and timetables to better suit the home team, our terrorist enemies are destroying us. Al Qaeda's media arm is called al Sahab: the cloud. It feels more like a hurricane. While our enemies have "journalists" crawling all over battlefields to chronicle their successes and our failures, we have an "embed" media system that is so ineptly managed that earlier this fall there were only 9 reporters embedded with 150,000 American troops in Iraq. There were about 770 during the initial invasion.

Many blame the media for the estrangement, but part of the blame rests squarely on the chip-laden shoulders of key military officers and on the often clueless Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad, which doesn't manage the media so much as manhandle them.

So writes super-blogger Michael Yon in an essay in The Weekly Standard. Yon, a former soldier-turned- journalist who spent nine months embedded with infantry units in Iraq and Afghanistan last year, has fearlessly reported the facts from some of the worst places in the world, including Baqubah in north-central Iraq, where in January 2005 I was on the receiving end of a spectacular suicide bombing. Now Yon writes about a foe nearly as harmful to the U.S. war effort: Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, departing head of the Baghdad Press Information Center. Continues Yon:

Johnson has repeatedly gone on record decrying the lack of press coverage in Iraq, all while alienating the last vestiges of any press willing to spend month after month in combat with American soldiers. Meanwhile, "the most quoted man in Iraq" has become a major media source in his own right. Too bad there is no one else to tell the story of our troops. Too bad the soldiers' families have little idea what they are up to from day to day.

I've had my own run-ins with Johnson. He was instrumental in the abrupt and violent end to my February 2006 embed with the 4th Infantry Division in Balad, which effectively spelled the end of my career as a U.S. military embed. I have since embedded successfully with British forces in Iraq -- a move on my part that, according to British press officers, elicited protests from Johnson's office.

Johnson's out of Iraq now, reportedly on his way to the Pentagon where he will surely make trouble for the Washington defense press, including yours truly, as I'm about to go on staff at Defense Technology International. In Johnson's place is a Colonel Christopher Garver, who you can contact directly here. Let's hope Garver understands the value of the press in fourth-generation warfare.

But even if he does, he'll be in a minority, as the Army has recently taken steps to crack down on our most unfiltered source of information from the front: soldier bloggers. As milblogs get shut down, embeds become even more important. Tragically, recent reports have pinned the number of embeds in Iraq at around ten. That's too few. There would be eleven if Garver would let Yon back in, twelve if he'd let me back too, and many more if he demonstrated a willingness to work with alternative media. There is no shortage of independent journalists eager to risk their lives to report on U.S. troops; there is only a lack of will on the part of the military to grant us access.

-- David Axe

UPDATE 10/24/06 9:28 AM: Jules Crittenden predicts "the death of milblogging."

Another Milblogger Bows Out (Updated Again)

"Dave" has been in and out of the military since 1981. Now, he's getting ready to deploy to Iraq. So he decided to start a blog, as "a place... to share [his] thoughts, feelings, and observations, before, during, and after the Army Reserve is done with [him]." He managed to put up a couple of entries -- and pictures of his cats, Stinky Pooh and Buddy Badger."

But Dave has pulled the plug on his blog, just six weeks after he started it. Why? "Today we had a briefing on Blogs 'do's and don't' for the Army," he writes. "It appears to be very subjective as to what is and isn't allowed, so to keep from violating some Army reg, policy, or wish of the commander, I will have this as my last post." Then Dave linked to Defense Tech's post from last week, on the Army's "Big Brother" unit.

Now, Dave clearly wasn't going to be a model spokesperson for the military. He laughed at the Army's new slogan. And he wrote darkly about how the service "turned me from a career soldier loving the Army to someone that couldn't wait to get out just that quick."

But still. This is someone who plunged back into military life, long after he was out. Someone who wrote of his desire to be "an outstanding soldier, a mentor, a leader, someone who cared enough to make a difference." Isn't that exactly who the Army wants telling its story? And isn't Dave's online retreat exactly what friends of the military, like Andi and Blackfive, have been warning about?

UPDATE 8:18 PM: Speaking of Blackfive, the man isn't amused by the Army's new attitude -- or its blog-hunting squad.

As a former Intel Officer, I agree that there's a need to make sure that blogs aren't violating OPSEC. For instance, if three bloggers are in separate units but witness an event and blog about it, there might not be an OPSEC issue in one blog, BUT if you put the information from all three blogs together, you might be able to piece together Battle Damage Assessment or Order of Battle information. Since the bloggers might be in different chains of command, this might be missed by their 06 commanders who are responsible for blog review. Setting up a group to evaluate this possibility is needed.

However, the watchdog should also realize that coming down on bloggers for some (perceived) OPSEC violations might be a bit ridiculous - especially when there are photos and explicit descriptions of weapon systems and procedures that are publicly available on civilian (ie. FAS) or military/DoD websites.

Warning bloggers of possible violations is a good thing. But mindlessly cracking down on them without considering the consequences to the positive information flow will only create a cadre of negative military bloggers flying under the radar that will become the anti-military poster children for the New York Times and CNN.

And then one of the few alternative sources of information about our military and the war will be gone...

UPDATE 8:23 PM: Milblogger Dadmanly "didn't think this was going to cause problems," originally. Now, his "opinion on this has shifted."

Reminds me of the old MOS, I forget the nomenclature, but they were commonly called BF'ers, or buddy ******s.

I suppose I am too much the optimist not to have acknowledged the probability that DoD (under Rumsfeld) might go too far and weigh the Golden Goose for holiday dinner.

Bad, bad news, if this goes any further than alerting milblogs of slips, unintended exposure, ill-advised details. And alerting to commands if they have been serious vulnerabilities.

Although, as a National Guardsman, I would love to spend my drills scanning MILBLOGS�€�

UPDATE 10/19/06 1:03 PM: "Just as they were years too late discovering blogs, the military also seemingly haven't discovered that blogs represent about one tenth of one percent of the potential threat," milblogging guru Greyhawk writes.

MySpace pages, chatrooms, YouTube, and countless other personal and public web pages are used and read on orders of magnitude above and beyond what weblogs are. I suspect (actually I hope) that the real problem here is that "blogs" is now military shorthand for "anything anyone puts anywhere on the web". (In fact, if you read the sometimes-mentioned-in-this-discussion Army training on blogs****, you'll find that most - perhaps all - of the OPSEC violations cited didn't occur on blogs at all, but on other open web sites.)

In a nutshell, I want the military to ensure information that can get me killed isn't widely available via open sources on the web or elsewhere, but I've seen absolutely nothing to give me confidence that the military is capable of doing so... Damanly says (in somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion) that he'd "love to spend my drills scanning MILBLOGS�€�". But you see, he's one of the military's leading experts on weblogs, so that will never happen in a million years. What they're going to do is get some guys to sit at computers and respond whenever a bell rings because an automated process has detected too many instances of the initials "FOUO" in a web site.

Jeebus.

Army "Big Brother" Unit Targets Bloggers

Bloggers: "Big Brother is not watching you, but 10 members of a Virginia National Guard unit might be," according to the Army. The Manassas-based Guardsmen are on a one-year assignment to clamp down on both "official and unofficial Army Web sites for operational security violations."

The team, working "under the direction of the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell" hunts for "documents, pictures and other items that may compromise security" -- and then orders the parties to take the offensive content offline.

Not that the material is top secret or anything, an Army News Service article notes.

The most common OPSEC [operational security] violations found on official sites are For Official Use Only (FOUO) documents and limited distribution documents, as well as home addresses, birthdates and home phone numbers.

Unofficial blogs often show pictures with sensitive information in the background, including classified documents, entrances to camps or weapons. One Soldier showed his ammo belt, on which the tracer pattern was easily identifiable.

Since the relatively wide-open days following the Iraq invasion in 2003, the Pentagon has been slowly tightening the screws on military bloggers. Officers started busting frontline diarists for their websites. In Iraq, new rules required bloggers to check with their commanders before posting. Then, in August, a message came highest levels of the military that "EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, NO INFORMATION MAY BE PLACED ON WEBSITES THAT ARE READILY ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC UNLESS IT HAS BEEN REVIEWED FOR SECURITY CONCERNS AND APPROVED IN ACCORDANCE WITH DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MEMORANDUM WEB SITE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, DECEMBER 7, 1998."

"So much for military blogging," said one officer, deployed in Iraq, when the ruling came down. Not that the officer -- an active blogger back in the States -- was doing much public writing while on the front lines. "The Army's guidance on OPSEC [operational security] has been broad and ambiguous enough to chill my speech," he wrote to me. "Discretion is clearly the better part of valor where OPSEC rules are concerned, because the sensitivity of any particular detail is in the eye of the beholder."

Other soldiers, even ones stationed back home, took similar measures.

As of today, May 5th, 2006, I am officially shutting down my blog... There are certin [sic] commands out there that do NOT want me to blog... they have been trying very hard to find out who I am and shut me down... I really don't want to end my military career over a blog - it has gotten THAT bad!

Others -- thousands of others -- have continued on, trying to stay within the rules. The Virginia National Guard Web-trolling team "uses several scanning tools to monitor [these] sites for OPSEC violations," the Army notes. "The tools search for such key words as 'for official use only' or 'top secret,' and records the number of times they are used on a site. Analysts review the results to determine which, if any, need further investigation."

"Pictures of [soldiers'] compounds or weapons" are also considered off-limits.

In an age when so many troops have access to the Internet -- and "open source intelligence" is becoming so critical -- it's only natural that military higher-ups have grown concerned about what's posted online. But OPSEC isn't the only dimension to the counter-terror fight. This is, as the cliche goes, a battle of hearts and minds, after all. That battle largely takes place in the press, broadly defined. And, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld observed earlier this year, "our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but... our country has not adapted." Just the other day, the New York Times shrieked about Iraqi insurgents using YouTube to spread fear.

So you would think that the Defense Department would be doing everything it could to encourage positive coverage of the war �€“- to bring stories of brave American troops, risking their lives for Mideast democracy, to the Internet browsers everywhere. But Rumsfeld's penchant for secrecy -- and the military's fear that even the smallest, most innocuous detail about American operations could give insurgents the upper hand �€“- has scuttled this crucial media mission.

Air Force Wants Software Spies

What if you could send a computer program to do the job of a spy, or a bomber, or drone? It sounds like science fiction -- and it'll probably stay that way, for a long, long time. But Air Force researchers think there's enough to the idea to start funding a trio of companies for initial work into these attacking, snooping "Cyber Craft."

"Using the Cyber Domain to conduct military operations... has significant potential," an Air Force paper announces. Examples include long-term intelligence activities, like "being to monitor a military barracks, accumulate financial information on a potentially hostile nation, or provide status on the political climate of a South American country."

Researchers think the programs could answer shorter-term, tactical questions, too. "Like who is in this building across the street, where are the tanks located in a particular town or village that is going to be entered by friendly forces, or what�€™s the latest intelligence regarding adversarial forces in a particular town or village."

Obviously, it would take more than a bulked-up Web crawler to get the job done. Cyber Craft would have to be able to hop from standard computer networks to electrical grids to wireless nets and back, over and over again.

Cyber agents will need to embody the ability to covertly travel across these mediums, constantly assessing the network layout, morphing itself as networks change, and remaining covert while maintaining the integrity of its mission. Increased use of data hiding techniques and data hiding detection techniques add additional complexity to the Cyber craft weapon arsenal... Cyber weapons will need to perform real-time continuous self-assessment of the adversary�€™s detection capability and be able to make instant decisions to morph or self-destruct. Both these functions will be required in covertness and with the decision information sent back to its Cyber Craft home.

"As an example of a Cyber Craft application, consider a squad of marines entering a residential area," the Air Force paper offers.

Current intelligence is about 20-mins old and the squad leader requires updated information. The squad leader finds an electrical outlet and plugs in. This outlet allows access to the power grid of the town and subsequently access to the adversary�€™s computer network. The squad leader injects a Cyber Craft into the system, whose mission is to locate a) any insurgents or b) locate any hidden military facilities... The Cyber Craft detect[s] some activity at a military installation within 1000-ft of the Marines location. The Cyber Craft performs a 'recce mission' to gather intelligence on the insurgents (exact location, number, arms, etc.) and sends back data/information to the marines. However, in the meantime the marines have moved and have located a different means of connecting to the network. The Cyber Craft has 'sensed' this shift so readdresses the feedback information to the marine�€™s new location and port. The 'Cyber Craft' acquires a positive ID, and sends an alert message back to the marines that the insurgents are about to leave and may be heading their way... The Cyber Craft executes its orders (turns power off, locks the doors), sends back an acknowledgement and self destructs.

There's not much of this that today's software can do, the Air Force researchers acknowledge. "Agent development, agent size and complexity, detection technology, realtime agent learning and self morphing technology, RF and network penetration technology are a few of the technological challenges requiring additional investment."

But the Air Force, earlier this year, did hand out contracts to three firms to start working the problem. Assured Information Security of Rome, NY got a $99,170 grant to "research and develop a CyberCraft software tool that will be able to covertly enter a network and move about the network to detect intrusions or other abnormalities." Indialantic, FL outfit 3 Sigma Research is looking to build "Cyber Craft organized in to 'cells' to enhance survivability and increase resiliency to attack." And Solidcore Systems, out of Palo Alto, will try to put together a system that include[s] a harbor (a host), and a dock (a control environment for Cyber Craft execution) and cyber craft themselves (ordinary programs that can get launched to hosts and run there)."

Of course, building the Cyber Craft, hard as it is, may wind up being the project's simplest part. The real questions come if and when fighters start to deploy the things. For instance, "How can we trust the Cyber Craft to 'do the right thing?'"

The goal is to develop a system that follows the 'fire-and-forget' methodology. However, with this philosophy comes the danger of a Cyber Craft morphing into something that performs unintended actions that would be harmful to friendly forces or provide an adversary with information about the sender�€™s intentions, position, etc. One way of controlling a Cyber Craft is have it 'dissolve' after completing its�€™ mission. However, depending on the level of the Cyber Craft (strategic, operational, and tactical) the mission length can go from minutes to years... Thus, the damage that can be inflicted by a rogue Cyber Craft could be significant.

Board Stiff

On Feb. 28, 2005, the Army took the unusual step of announcing in the Federal Register that the Army Science Board, a group of advisers to service leaders on technology and other issues, planned to hold an �€œopen�€ meeting at the Institute for Defense Analyses in northern Virginia.

This step is required under Defense Department and Army regulations. So why was it unusual? Two reasons: First, the ASB rarely holds open meetings, even though such Federal Advisory Committees are by law supposed to do everything possible to ensure public access to their deliberations.

And second: The notice of this particular open meeting was published three days after the meeting ended.

At least they announced that one. According to the Federal Register, the Army hasn�€™t announced a single ASB meeting in 2006, even though the board�€™s Web site �€“ which otherwise is pretty much a wasteland �€“ says it has met three times this year.

What gives? ASB officials told me more than a year ago that they were working on getting more staff and better compliance with the rules. But things haven�€™t changed much; in fact, they might be worse. Take a look at the ASB reports page, which, once upon a time, contained links to all of the board�€™s reports once they were cleared for public release �€“ a long process, to be sure, but one with the right ending.

Now, if you�€™re lucky, you get a number for the report once it�€™s finished. Then it�€™s off to DTIC �€“ the Defense Technical Information Center �€“ to search for the report. But as the reports page shows, there are quite a few reports that haven�€™t yet seen the light of day (I had to file Freedom of Information Act Requests to get two, which were more than two years old by the time I got them).

This isn�€™t the way it�€™s supposed to work, and other Pentagon advisory groups �€“ the Defense Science Board, especially �€“ do a far better job at getting at least their reports out to the public, although they too keep almost everything tightly under wraps until the final report is done.

And the DSB is considered highly influential: In recent years, its recommendations on crucial issues like special operations forces and strategic communications have become Pentagon policy.

What about the Army Science Board? When I covered the Army closely back in the 1990s it seemed a similarly influential group; now, though, it�€™s tough to tell if anyone cares what they do.

There are lots of Army folks out there: What do you think? Does the Army Science Board have any clout? Does it do good work? Do you ever see anything from them?

-- Dan Dupont

Keeping (More) Secrets

Some news on the Pentagon and its penchant for secrecy.

* First up: The Washington Post story referenced earlier today, which addresses the National Security Archive's work on the retroactive classification of U.S. strategic missile totals.

Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department, said the Pentagon excised the missile numbers. Under a 1998 law, Wilkes's agency focuses on scrubbing declassified documents for sensitive U.S. nuclear weapons information that, in the wrong hands, could be used to harm Americans, he said.

"It's not our call to do missile data," Wilkes said. "There's no question that current classified nuclear weapons data was out there that we had to take back," he added. "And in today's environment, where there is a great deal of concern about rogue nations or terrorist groups getting access to nuclear weapons, this makes a lot of sense."

I should stress here that the numbers in total have in some cases been part of the public record for decades.

* Next: A new Defense Department "information security/website alert," issued Aug. 6, as noted by Eric Umansky and others. It restates what can't be posted on .mil sites:

ALTHOUGH NOT A FINITE LIST, SUCH INFORMATION INCLUDES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, TECHNICAL INFORMATION, OPERATIONAL PLANS, TROOP ROTATION SCHEDULES, POSITION AND MOVEMENT OF U.S. NAVAL CRAFT, DESCRIPTIONS OF OVERSEAS MILITARY BASES, VULNERABILITY OF WEAPON SYSTEMS OR DISCUSSION OF AREAS FREQUENTED BY U.S. PERSONNEL OVERSEAS. SPECIAL ATTENTION SHALL BE GIVEN TO IDENTIFICATION OF INFORMATION THAT WOULD FACILITATE CIRCUMVENTION OF DOD, COMPONENT OR COMMAND POLICIES, RULES, REGULATIONS OR OTHER SIGNIFICANT GUIDANCE (E.G., ORDERS, MANUALS, INSTRUCTIONS, SECURITY CLASSIFICATION GUIDES).

A lot of that makes infinite sense, but there's enough generic language there to give anyone, anywhere in the military, the leeway to restrict just about anything. And they do just that.

The new web alert also has this to say on military blogs:

PERSONAL BLOGS (I.E., THOSE NOT HAVING DOD SPONSORSHIP AND PURPOSE) MAY NOT BE CREATED/MAINTAINED