On Sunday, France became the fifth nation to officially join the Afghan Mission Network, the system used by NATO nations and coalition forces to conduct warfighting operations in Afghanistan. France now will be able to fully share information with other nations, including such data as human intelligence and full-motion video.

As more and more federal agencies rely upon mobile devices, cloud computing and social media, their need for well-trained cybersecurity professionals can be expected to increase. That’s according to the latest survey of 145 C-level Federal managers polled by the cybersecurity education and certification organization.

Near the close of this spring's AFCEA Intelligence Symposium, I noted that we were marking a shift in the national security environment. From September 2001, that environment had been marked by three characteristics: a focus on counterterrorism, sharp increases in spending, and an information environment marked by rapid - Moore's Law or better - change.

Anti-submarine warfare tactics developed by anonymous gamers today could be part of the “brains” of an unmanned, autonomous enemy sub tracker now under development for the U.S. Navy.

I am always thrilled when I can come back from an intelligence community (IC) event with leads... and the best kind come from simply showing up, paying attention and thinking on my feet. I can definitely get better, but if I have a good day generating leads, it's because I applied these rules.

Future aircraft that break into several pieces mid-flight may represent a technological advantage rather than a catastrophic incident. The U.S. Air Force is looking to develop unmanned aircraft that introduce a new set of capabilities not available with humans in the cockpit. Among these many future possibilities are transformer-type vehicles that split into separate flying segments and then reattach when their mission is completed.

One would not transport a tribe from the Amazon jungle to an apartment house in Chicago and expect life to continue as before. One also would not lift thousands of applications that populate the U.S. Defense Department’s network and place them into clouds and expect no operations to be interrupted during the transition.

Faced with budget restrictions amid broadening mission requirements, the Netherlands military is adopting new tacks as it sets sail into a strong network-centric future. Its already sophisticated systems are being modernized to meet a growing international mission set that relies heavily on interoperability in joint and coalition operations.

Joint and coalition relationships that begin long before forces meet on the field have become a cornerstone of defense policies and officials in the military’s cybersecurity training arena are working to make sure the same holds true in the newest battlespace domain as well. Troops from the various armed forces branches already are attending education courses together, no matter which service sponsors the class, and in some cases coalition partners also are participating.

The Conficker computer virus, which was first detected in 2008, reared its ugly head last week in Afghanistan, where it was detected on the Afghan Mission Network—the network NATO and coalition forces use to fight the war. (This is the first in a series of online and print reports by SIGNAL Magazine Technology Editor George I. Seffers while embedded with NATO forces in Afghanistan.)