Joe Mazzafro, writing over at the MAZZ-INT blog for the AFCEA Intelligence community, explores the difficulty in finding a person who is both qualified and willing to be the new “Cyber Czar” :

To develop and implement an effective cyber security policy, common “DC wisdom” is that the Cyber Coordinator will need direct Presidential cover (i.e. access) and not report via the Deputy National Security Advisor for Terrorism with a dotted line to a counterpart on the Council of Economic Advisers. Of course, anybody qualified to be the nation’s first “Cyber Czar” will know they are only a pretender to the government’s real Cyber Czar – - – the Director of NSA (DIRNSA). NSA stands alone in understanding cyber space better than any organization on the planet and only it has the technical throw weight needed to immediately shore up America’s cyber defenses. When DIRNSA is dual hated as the Commander of US Cyber Command in October the position will gain even more influence and authority related to US interests in cyber space.

Given these circumstances I just don’t see many high profile personalities attracted to being the third or fourth choice for a position that lacks authority, reports to a Deputy National Security Adviser and must operate in the shadow of DIRNSA. What I do see, however, is an opportunity for a solid cyber professional who knows how to plan and get things done in government without being ego driven.

Read it all–and comment–here.

AFCEA Intelligence and the Naval Intelligence Professionals/Naval Intelligence Foundation (NIP/NIF) have joined forces to sponsor two annual writing contests.

The contests provide intelligence professionals with opportunities to express themselves on topics of importance to the Intelligence Community and national security.

In the AFCEA 2009 Essay Contest, on “Safety, Security, and Privacy, respondents are asked to address the following problem statement:

As the internal threat from terrorism has increased, the U.S. government has employed new and different methods to collect intelligence to forestall future attacks on U.S. soil. Discuss the implications of these actions on Constitutional guarantees of privacy for U.S. citizens versus the government’s imperative to provide safety and security. Include recommendations as to how this balance can be better maintained.

Top prize is $2,000 and a two-year AFCEA membership. More information on the contest, including deadline and eligibility, is available here.

The Naval Intelligence 2009 Essay Contest is sponsored by the Naval Intelligence Foundation, Naval Intelligence Professionals, and AFCEA, and underwritten in part by the Inman Foundation. Entrants can write about any subject pertaining to Naval Intelligence or intelligence support to naval forces.

Top prize includes $1,000, a five year membership in the Naval Intelligence and a two-year membership in AFCEA. More information on the contest, including deadline and eligibility, is available here.

The value of the virtual realm for training has been recognized for some time, but now artificial reality is being exploited for many other applications. Web 2.0 capabilities have opened new doors in cyberspace, and people and organizations are embracing the new world of virtual collaboration. The only limits to using this make-believe realm may be those of human imagination. SIGNAL’s May issue looks at ongoing efforts to explore collaboration in the virtual world.

One picture may tell a thousand words, but sometimes it takes more than that to generate a particular image. That was the case with the cover of this month’s SIGNAL Magazine. Anyone familiar with Second Life may recognize the venue, but very few could know the picture’s circumstances—until now.

The image well suited one of this month’s focus themes, virtual collaboration, and its lead article. SIGNAL Executive Editor Maryann Lawlor wrote that article, which is about a group of U.S. military veterans who generated a Second Life site dedicated to helping veterans. Veterans Collaborate in Virtual World explores how this small group has created the U.S. Military Veterans Center in Second Life, which is a virtual oasis that is providing myriad benefits—both figuratively and literally—to its visiting veterans.

And that type of effort is what virtual collaboration is all about. However, generating a cover about it was logistically more challenging than reporting on the site. Lawlor asked her contacts at the veterans’ organization to provide SIGNAL with a high-resolution image of avatars meeting in that Second Life site. Of course, no one can predict just what they’ll find at any given moment in that virtual realm.

Enter Asdzaa Oh, which is the name of an avatar representing a former U.S. Army wife. Oh sent out the call to other avatars from each of the services, asking them to meet at a specific moment in the site. Several volunteers answered the call, and the image of their meeting now is recorded permanently on the May 2009 cover of SIGNAL Magazine. So, this cover both describes and literally represents an example of virtual collaboration.

One sector that is seeing significant changes from virtual collaboration is the intelligence community. Sharing information in cyberspace is changing every aspect of intelligence collection, processing and dissemination. Intelligence Community Embraces Virtual Collaboration describes how the community is using virtual collaboration and the innovations it has in store for the future.

The future is now for the U.S. Navy as it brings its personnel fully into the cyberspace realm. News Editor Rita Boland describes in School Has the MOVES for Cyberspace Collaboration how the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, has the Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation Institute, known as MOVES, that both teaches and researches the fine art of virtual collaboration.