AFCEA SOLUTIONS

Additional headlines, bullet points, and takeaways from the AFCEA "Solutions" series conference, "Critical Issues in C⁴I", sponsored by AFCEA International and the George Mason University C⁴I conference, held May 24th-25th at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.:

In his talk regarding the G-6's strategic vision for managing IT resources ""from the Pentagon to the warfighter in theater," Col. Michael Jones, USA (Ret.), noted the most recent challenge to the U.S. Army: the explosive growth of mobile devices, such as iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android tablets.

Accreditation and certification of software is a vital, but time consuming process. On Tuesday afternoon, panelists at the AFCEA SOLUTIONS symposium discussed the challenge and ongoing attempts to streamline the process.

The ultimate goal is to create an overarching framework that standardized CUI infomation to promote the sharing of data.

When the Internet was originally created for Defense Department use, Cerf says that it was not designed to perform any particular operation besides moving bits from point to point. Because the requirements were so broad that it allowed the system to be tremendously flexible and scalable. "What is amazing is that the protocols have actually scaled [over the last 40 years]," he shared.

"If you imagine Second Life is just a game, you're missing the point."--David Wennergren, Defense Department Chief Information Officer

Experts pondered the implications and challenges for sharing data between military and civilian organizations within the U.S. government.

"At the end of the day, it's about the warfighter."--Lt. Gen. Dennis Vis, USA, director, C4 systems, Joint Staff

This is my take on the AFCEA, Northcom and George Mason University conference on "Inter-agency, Allied and Coalition Information Sharing," which was covered on SIGNAL Scape last week. No, we still can't connect the dots as well as hoped and never will, but conferees agreed that what matters most is the thoughtful and trusting use that humans could make of what information manages to flow through IT systems, however improperly they may be connected.

The Obama administration can take certain key steps to improve the ability to recognize and deal with national security threats, according to recommendations in "Nation at Risk," a report issued by the The Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. Jeff Smith of Arnold & Porter LLP, a steering committee member for the report, presented it yesterday at the AFCEA SOLUTIONS conference on information sharing.