Well, how did you do this fiscal year? The intell budgets have not really been cut, as much as they've been adjusted away from Cold War programs towards counterinsurgency and modern tools that more directly support the global war on terror (GWOT). Fred Kaplan, in a recent Foreign Policy Online Magazine article, points out that SECDEF Robert Gates "favors spending tens of billions of dollars to maintain, and somewhat upgrade, the nuclear arsenal. He opposes any slacking off in America's global military presence." And the NRO is preparing for "the most aggressive launch campaign we've had in 20 years." Gates has seen that the transformation from a Cold War machine is by no means complete and we don't need to shrink budgets, but adjust priorities within budget. These couple of examples are typical to the current environment as FY10 closes.

At a recent event sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center on domestic intelligence reform, the keynote speaker was Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. At the conclusion of his remarks, the floor was opened to the audience and the first question suggested that – the 9/11 Commission, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, and the passage of nine years notwithstanding - American intelligence remained imperfect. That is my characterization of the question, but you get the point. (As an aside, AFCEANs who are not familiar with the Bipartisan Policy Center and its activities should take a look at its website.)

When a U.S. federal jury convicted Noshir Gowadia of spying for the People's Republic of China in August, it marked a victory for several U.S. investigative agencies. But the verdict might never have arrived without three years of assistance from another organization-the Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3). Comprising five different entities, the military center has a special focus on computer forensics to assist its various customers and clients.

DARPA's Transformative Apps program is taking the Android to new places and will help keep warfighters out of harm's way. Much like its commercial counterparts, these apps will provide capabilities that the users didn't even realize they needed until they were in the palms of their hands. And best of all, new apps can be suggested, created and delivered in days rather than months because of an innovative production process.

The C4ISR community's clamor for a reduction of under-the-desk hardware should soon be answered. AFRL officials are working on a secure access to multiple networks, and an application to enable data sharing across those networks is close behind.

Great minds will converge in one laboratory to create platforms with minds of their own. After decades as the birthplace of unmanned systems, the Naval Research Laboratory is building a new facility where researchers from many disciplines can collaborate. Their focus will be on building, testing and evaluating autonomous machines that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with warfighters.

With the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and I was both sobered and renewed by the way the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) remembered the eight people it lost during the attack on the Pentagon in a simple but eloquent ceremony at the National Maritime Intelligence Center (NMIC). What impressed me was the palpable sense of mission at ONI driven by personal loses that is motivating my shipmates at Naval Intelligence to both punish those who attacked us on 9/11 and to protect our nation's flank from a deadly disruptive maritime attack. Given what I know about the rest of the IC I don't believe that ONI is unique in the IC with its sense of mission for protecting our security, but rather emblematic of a community that is doing a difficult job as best it can. Having been a part Naval Intelligence that wore down and wore out the Soviet naval strategic threat to the free world, I drove away from Suitland feeling not just connected to this current generation of intelligence professionals, but confident that that the security of our nation is in good hands.

I know some guys who are really good at external validation of enterprise security posture. There are some folks so good that nothing will totally stop them. The history of computer science makes me think world-class-best folks like that will always be with us and there will never be a system that is perfectly defendable. But still, there are steps you can take to dramatically enhance the security of your enterprise. I've reviewed some of these before, like ensuring endpoints are protected from malware, using defense in depth to enhance your security posture, mitigating IPv6 security threats, and studying the threat. With this post I'd like to mention another capability that belongs in your defense in depth tool suite: the Microsoft Security news, products, updates and tools site at http://microsoft.com/security The security site at Microsoft is a way for enterprise and home users to tap into three key security centers: The Microsoft Security Engineering Center, The Microsoft Security Response Center, and The Microsoft Malware Protection Center. It is good to know all three of those, but the best way to interface with them, in my opinion, is through the security site...