Intellipedia
Encyclopedia
United States Intelligence Community
The United States Intelligence Community is a cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the...
(IC). It was established as a pilot project in late 2005 and formally announced in April 2006 and consists of three wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
s running on JWICS
Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System
The Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System , is a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Department of State to transmit classified information by packet switching over TCP/IP in a secure environment.It is cleared...
, SIPRNet
SIPRNet
The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network is "a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information by packet switching over the TCP/IP protocols in a 'completely secure' environment"...
, and Intelink-U. The levels of classification
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
allowed for information on the three wikis are Top Secret
Top Secret
Top Secret generally refers to the highest acknowledged level of classified information.Top Secret may also refer to:- Film and television :* Top Secret , a British comedy directed by Mario Zampi...
, Secret, and Sensitive But Unclassified
Sensitive but unclassified
Sensitive But Unclassified is a designation of information in the United States federal government that, though unclassified, often requires strict controls over its distribution...
/FOUO information, respectively. They are used by individuals with appropriate clearances
Security clearance
A security clearance is a status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information, i.e., state secrets, or to restricted areas after completion of a thorough background check. The term "security clearance" is also sometimes used in private organizations that have a formal...
from the 16 agencies of the IC and other national-security related organizations, including Combatant Commands
Unified Combatant Command
A Unified Combatant Command is a United States Department of Defense command that is composed of forces from at least two Military Departments and has a broad and continuing mission. These commands are established to provide effective command and control of U.S. military forces, regardless of...
and other federal departments. The wikis are not open to the public.
Intellipedia is a project of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Intelligence Community Enterprise Services
Intelink
Intelink is a group of secure intranets used by the United States Intelligence Community. The first Intelink network was established in 1994 to take advantage of Internet capabilities and services to promote intelligence dissemination and business workflow...
(ICES) office headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. It includes information on the regions, people, and issues of interest to the communities using its host networks. Intellipedia uses MediaWiki
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
, the same software used by the Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
free-content encyclopedia project. ODNI officials say that the project will change the culture of the U.S. intelligence community, widely blamed for failing to "connect the dots" before the September 11 attacks.
The Secret version connected to SIPRNet predominantly serves Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
and the Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
personnel, many of whom do not use the Top Secret JWICS network on a day-to-day basis. Users on unclassified networks can access Intellipedia from remote terminals outside their workspaces via a VPN, in addition to their normal workstations. Open Source Intelligence
Open source intelligence
Open-source intelligence is a form of intelligence collection management that involves finding, selecting, and acquiring information from publicly available sources and analyzing it to produce actionable intelligence...
(OSINT) users share information on the unclassified network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
.
Creation
Intellipedia was created to share information on some of the most difficult subjects facing U.S. intelligence and to bring cutting-edge technology into its ever-more-youthful workforce. It also allows information to be assembled and reviewed by a wide variety of sources and agencies, to address concerns that pre-war intelligence did not include robust dissenting opinions on Iraq's alleged weapons programs. A number of projects are under way to explore the use of the Intellipedia for the creation of traditional Intelligence Community products. In the summer of 2006, Intellipedia was the main collaboration tool in constructing a National Intelligence EstimateNational Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimates are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence on intelligence related to a particular national security issue...
on Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
.
Intellipedia was at least partially inspired by a paper written for the Galileo Award
Galileo Award
The Galileo Award recognizes innovative and creative solutions to the United States future intelligence challenges. It is normally granted on the basis of competitively judged papers submitted annually by individuals for juried review and is open to all eligible USG civilian and military...
(an essay competition set up by the CIA - later taken over by the DNI) - which encouraged any employee at any intelligence agency to submit new ideas to improve information sharing. The first essay selected was by Calvin Andrus, chief technology officer of the Center for Mission Innovation at the CIA, entitled "The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community". Andrus' essay argued that the real power of the Internet had come from the boom in self-publishing, and noted how the open-door policy of Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
allowed it to cover new subjects quickly.
Richard A. Russell
Richard A. Russell
Richard A. Russell is currently the Deputy Associate Director of National Intelligence for Intelligence Community Enterprise Solutions in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence...
, Deputy Assistant Director of National Intelligence for Information Sharing Customer Outreach (ISCO) said it was created so "analysts in different agencies that work X or Y can go in and see what other people are doing on subject X or Y and actually add in their two cents worth ... or documents that they have." "What we're after here is 'decision superiority', not 'information superiority'," he said. "We have to get inside the decision cycle of the enemy. We have to be able to discover what they're doing and respond to it effectively."
In September 2007, sixteen months after its creation, officials noted that the top-secret version of Intellipedia alone (hosted on JWICS
Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System
The Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System , is a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Department of State to transmit classified information by packet switching over TCP/IP in a secure environment.It is cleared...
) has 29,255 articles, with an average of 114 new articles and more than 6,000 edits to articles added each workday.
As of April 2009, the overall Intellipedia project hosts 900,000 pages edited by 100,000 users, with 5,000 page edits per day.
Technical support
GoogleGoogle
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
was contracted by the government to provide servers to support Intellipedia. Google also provides the software to search Intellipedia, which ranks results based on user created tags.
Potential problems
Some are concerned that individual intelligence agencies will create their own wikis, draining ideas and input from Intellipedia. Sean Dennehy, a CIA official involved in integrating the system into the intelligence fabric, said disseminating material to the widest possible audience of analysts is key to avoiding mistakes. He said analysts from multiple agencies had used the network to post frequent updates on recent events, including the crash of a small plane into a New York City apartment building in October 2006 and North Korea's test of a missile in July 2006.Some view it as risky because it allows more information to be viewed and shared; but according to Michael Wertheimer
Michael Wertheimer
Dr. Michael Wertheimer is a cryptologic mathematician. From October 31, 2005 until June 2009, he was the Assistant Deputy Director and Chief Technology Officer of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for Analysis...
, McConnell's assistant deputy director for analysis, it is worth the risk. The project was greeted initially with "a lot of resistance," said Wertheimer, because it runs counter to past practice which sought to limit the pooling of information. He said there are risks in everything everyone does: "the key is risk management, not risk avoidance." Some encouragement has been necessary to spur contributions from the traditional intelligence community. However, he said the system appeals to the new generation of intelligence analysts because "this is how they like to work" and "it's a new way of thinking."
Successes
Thomas FingarThomas Fingar
Charles Thomas Fingar is a professor at Stanford University. In 1986 Fingar left Stanford to join the State Department. In 2005, he moved to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and concurrently served as the Chairman of...
, Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis (DDNI/A), cited the successful use of Intellipedia to develop an article on how Iraqi insurgents were using chlorine
Chlorine
Chlorine is the chemical element with atomic number 17 and symbol Cl. It is the second lightest halogen, found in the periodic table in group 17. The element forms diatomic molecules under standard conditions, called dichlorine...
in improvised explosive devices saying, "They developed it in a couple of days interacting in Intellipedia," ... "No bureaucracy, no mother-may-I, no convening meetings. They did it and it came out pretty good. That's going to continue to grow."
In a September 10, 2007 testimony before the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
, Michael McConnell
Michael McConnell
Mike or Michael McConnell is the name of:*Michael W. McConnell , American appellate judge and constitutional law scholar*John Michael McConnell , American naval officer and Director of National Intelligence of the United States...
, Director of National Intelligence, cited the increasing use of Intellipedia among analysts and its ability to help experts pool their knowledge, form virtual teams, and make quick assessments.