October 31, 2003
Volume 1, Number 6
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Read What DoD
Information Assurance
Experts Said At
2003
Transforming Information Assurance: DoD's Roadmap for the Future
Robert F. Lentz
Director of Information Assurance
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense Networks
and Information Integration/CIO
Click Here To View Presentation
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FIAC 2003 SPECIAL COVERAGE
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Expert Views from FIAC 2003
NSA’s Wolf Touts Innovation and “Need to Share”
Calling the formation of DHS part of the “most extensive government transformation in the last 50 years,” a high ranking national security official urged both defense and homeland officials to exploit emerging “market convergence” as they shed “need to know” security practices in favor of today’s “need to share” imperative.
Daniel G. Wolf, information assurance director at the National Security Agency, called market convergence a process whereby commercial industry merges its products and services to equally meet the needs of traditional defense issues and emerging homeland security.
Market Convergence Payoff
“The payoff to the customers is lower costs and increased assurance. The payoff to the provider is increased market and the ability to maximize profits,” Wolfe told the recent Federal Information Assurance Conference.
Convergence will lead agencies into strong partnerships with leading players and smaller providers of innovative technologies, Wolf said.
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"I recently was in Annapolis [Maryland] where the venture capitalists have started an incubator, the Chesapeake Innovation Center, which I find very interesting. One of the reasons NSA is partnering with groups like this is to look for unique solutions, new ideas, and out of the box thinking.” |
The Chesapeake Innovation Center (CIC)
The 7-company CIC includes innovators in wireless and first responder technologies, emerging Internet services, anti-biological warfare vaccines, and new authentication and in-house security systems.
From the government’s standpoint, innovation might begin with a look at how investment dollars are spent, Wolf said, noting that a review of his own budget at NSA revealed that “confidentiality” has traditionally been where most spending has gone.
“The need now is to shift some of that investment into authentication, information integrity and some of the other areas that support greater information sharing,” Wolf said.
As innovation occurs, look for overall IA spending to soar from the $17 billion worldwide this year to about $45 billion in 2006, he told the conference. Wolf said that innovators need to look at basic modes of technology and re-think them. He envisioned the example of a single phone that defaults to the correct encryption standard based simply on the number dialed or the incoming caller’s security requirement.
Such innovation, he said, will be easier when security interests in defense, homeland, law enforcement and even the private sector are using more “shared equipment.”
For more information about the Chesapeake Innovation Center, visit www.cic-tech.org.
This article was written by Robert Green, Public Sector Institute senior editor. Green covered FIAC and can be reached at RobertGreen@PubSector.net.
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