The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known for its openness is key to the future of American espionage.
The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia, which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively add and edit content on the government’s classified Intelink Web much like its more famous namesake on the World Wide Web.
A “top secret” Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000 pages and 3,600 registered users since its introduction on April 17. Less restrictive versions exist for “secret” and “sensitive but unclassified” material.
But the system, which makes data available to thousands of users who would not see it otherwise, has also stirred qualms about potential security lapses following the recent media leak of a national intelligence estimate that caused a political uproar by identifying Iraq as a contributor to the growth of global terrorism.
“We’re taking a risk,” acknowledged Michael Wertheimer, the intelligence community’s chief technical officer. “There’s a risk it’s going to show up in the media, that it’ll be leaked.”
Of course, the evocative remark is Wertheimer worrying about American citizens learning what intelligence [sic] experts really tell the hacks in the White House and Congress. No fear — otherwise!
On the other hand, this could be the biggest honeypot ever constructed.
To answer the headline…. No.
Will Osama be allowed to edit or update the information on his own page?
A better question would be “for how long will they be kept out”?
I suspect that the classified net isn’t connected at all with the Internet, either directly or indirectly. If so, that would make it hard to hack into.
the biggest problem with Intellipedia is the same a with Wikipedia: who double checks entries and edits for correctness? Along this line, an entry that’s correct now, might not be correct in six months or three years.
This really depends on whether it is connected to the public internet. If so, it’s very possible that it may be cracked. However, I would hope that these people wouldn’t be that stupid (but then, I’m usually proven wrong when I say that). If it’s kept separate fom the public internet, it would be nearly impossible to crack except from within.
Yes.
Considering how often the government seems to lose laptops, its only a matter of time before a hacker finds one that CAN access the private net, if there is one. Then it just takes one guy to download anything and everything in sight and either 1. send it to EVERYONE in the name of whistle-blowing or 2. sell it to the highest bidder.
At least with #1, yes, the bad guys no our secrets, but we can ruin a few politicians and high ranking bureaucrats while we’re at it.
Most practical hacking involves an insider. Given the paranoia of the dweebs in charge, releasing info about the Intellipedia tells me (1) the Creep-in-Chief was worried that knowledge about it was already being leaked or (2) this really is a shot at using it for a honeypot. And they’re not only looking for outsiders who may try to hack in — but, insiders who are leak sources.
In most FBI labs their Internet, LAN, and FBI nets are not connected to each other anywhere. Each user has three separate computers (at least) and the machines do not cross any boundaries with cables. So a portable laptop would be for one of the three, most likely the public Internet, and it likely cannot connect to the fiber-based LAN or FBI net in any way.
I highly doubt it, as there are too many kids, with too much time on their hands, and the curiosity and patience to hack/crack just about ANYTHING!
You can’t break into a private fiber network without being detected…
The data all travels through the internet using layers of end-to-end hardware encryption devices. The secret network, SIPRNET, is tunneled through the open internet, then the TS network is tunneled through the SIPRNET.