New software would unite Defense networks

New software being tested by U.S. Central Command would enable military computers for the first time ever to be connected at the same time to both classified and unclassified networks — including the public Internet.

Officials say the technology, if it proves secure, could save more than $200 million for CENTCOM and eliminate the need to use work-arounds like thumb drives to move data between networks containing different levels of classified information.

“It has been called the Holy Grail,” Elwood “Bud” Jones, a program manager for multinational information sharing at CENTCOM told United Press International.

Mr. Jones said CENTCOM was engaged in a piloting and testing process called a Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration Project, code-named “One Box, One Wire,” or OB1, which would end after three years with the rollout of the software throughout CENTCOM.

Currently, the 14 different computer networks that CENTCOM uses in its operations have to be physically separate, said Michael Liacko, executive vice president for business strategy at Integrity Global Security, the company that makes the new software.

“The way they are separating different networks [with different levels of classified information] … is to literally have a physically separate connection, a separate wire and a separate computer,” Mr. Liacko said.

“We have many networks that we operate on,” Mr. Jones said, including U.S. networks at various levels of classification, secret, top-secret and so on, and separate networks for each of the coalitions that CENTCOM is part of in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“As result, you can have a lot of computers sitting around your desk, and it’s not very efficient for sharing information,” he said, adding, “A lot of users have two, three, four, even five computers sitting around their desk, and we have to use a switch box to switch from network to network, and we can’t use multiple networks at a single time.”

“OB1 allows us to reduce that infrastructure to one box, one wire; hence the name.”

Eliminating the requirement for physical separation will “give us the ability to reduce our desktop infrastructure,” Mr. Jones said. It “will be more efficient, it will save us money.”

“Instead of having four computers for a user, you only need one, you only need one wire,” he continued, “When we are deploying forward, it reduces our [air-]lift [requirements], it reduces our power requirements, it reduces our staff costs.”

Mr. Jones said a “back-of-the-envelope business case analysis” he developed showed that the new technology could save “potentially in excess of $230 million” over a three-year rollout period.

In addition to being expensive, Mr. Jones said, the requirement for physical separation was inefficient and encouraged the use of potentially dangerous work-arounds. Military officials would develop plans or information on the U.S.-only networks, “but if they want to share it [with foreign partners] … they have to use a thumb drive or flash drive to move it over to the coalition networks,” he said.

“Likewise, if information comes in on [one of] the coalition network* and they want to share it with people who don’t have access to those networks, they have to move it up to the classified network,” Mr. Jones said.

With access to multiple networks from a single box, “They can create information where it needs to be shared, rather than creating it someplace and then trying to move it.”

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