Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Intellipedia --- cool idea with many applications?
The intelligence community has come up with another interesting way to use a communication technology, as reported in a number of media outlets yesterday (here I'm drawing upon the story in the LA Times). The idea is to use something like Wikipedia to aggregate information from the CIA and U.S. intelligence community to develop intelligence estimates:
In some ways, this sounds like a cool idea, and an idea that could have a lot of potential uses.
One potential use that is near and dear to things I've written about in my other blog, Election Updates, is that this technology could be used for any type of risk or threat assessment, in particular, threat assessment by election administrators. Here's more from the LA Times that describes the system:
Imagine such a system set up for election officials, academics, and knowledgeable policymakers. They could access the system and update it with news and information about election problems and threats, and thus aggregate information effectively about different types of threats and problems. Might be an interesting idea for development!
The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have created a computer system that uses software from a popular Internet encyclopedia site to gather content on sensitive topics from analysts across the spy community, part of an effort to fix problems that plagued prewar estimates on Iraq.
The system, dubbed Intellipedia because it is built on open-source software from Wikipedia, was launched earlier this year. It already is being used to assemble intelligence reports on Nigeria and other subjects, according to U.S. intelligence officials who on Tuesday discussed the initiative in detail for the first time.
In some ways, this sounds like a cool idea, and an idea that could have a lot of potential uses.
One potential use that is near and dear to things I've written about in my other blog, Election Updates, is that this technology could be used for any type of risk or threat assessment, in particular, threat assessment by election administrators. Here's more from the LA Times that describes the system:
The system allows analysts from all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to weigh in on debates on North Korea's nuclear program and other sensitive topics, creating internal websites that are constantly updated with new information and analysis, officials said.
The system, which the public cannot access, is divided into classification categories starting with "sensitive but unclassified" and ending at "top secret." The program is still being developed, officials said, and has not replaced procedures used to create intelligence reports for President Bush and other policymakers. But it is being used to assemble preliminary judgments for a National Intelligence Estimate on Nigeria and may replace unwieldy methods for creating such reports.
Imagine such a system set up for election officials, academics, and knowledgeable policymakers. They could access the system and update it with news and information about election problems and threats, and thus aggregate information effectively about different types of threats and problems. Might be an interesting idea for development!
// posted by Michael Alvarez @ 9:52 AM 
