Info warfare aweigh. Look for Vice Adm. Walter Davis, currently director of the Navy Space and Electronic Warfare Command (N6), to take on a new information warfare role within the month. To reflect this new mission and the importance of IW the command will be renamed Space, Command and Contr
Info warfare aweigh. Look for Vice Adm. Walter Davis, currently director of the Navy Space and Electronic Warfare Command (N6), to take on a new information warfare role within the month. To reflect this new mission—and the importance of IW—the command will be renamed Space, Command and Control, and Information Warfare. Now, if the Interceptor could only get someone over there to provide details on the key role played by the Naval Security Group in nailing the Argentine hacker.
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Grudge match? They really know how to have fun down at the Standard Systems Group in Montgomery, Ala. Today SSG will host its annual industry "Partners Day" golf tournament. It's possible the tournament could take place just one business day after the award of the Desktop V contract if the Air Force sticks with its current schedule.
How'd you like to be ahead of a foursome filled with Desktop V losers?
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New Bosnia net. Interstate Electronics turned on yet another commercial satellite net in Bosnia last month, this one serving six locations in-country. Farris Gaffney, an Interstate veep, said the new NATO net uses the Orion bird, also used by DARPA/DISA, but features 2.6-meter downlinks. Gaffney said the small dish size allowed for direct installation at the IFOR headquarters of Adm. Leighton Smith in Sarajevo, making it the first commercial service directly into that compound.
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New DISA sat nets. DISA has a request for information on the street looking to acquire commercial satellite surge capacity, from T-1 rates up to full transponders as well as transportable terminals. Hopefully, DISA has applied the hard lesson learned by Marine Capt. Dave Rowe—its representative in Sarajevo—that it needs to buy ground stations with pintle hooks.
Sounds obscure, but it's necessary when trying to pull a dish package and generator off a C-17 at a primitive airfield.
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Still doin' the DISN on the Hill. What's an Intercepts column without a mention of DISN—and the multiple-pronged battles surrounding it? I hear AT&T has managed to get language in the 1997 Senate DOD authorization bill requiring DISA to review its multiple-acquisition strategy.
Meanwhile, other folks have convinced the House to put language into its bill endorsing the DISA strategy. Looks like the two will cancel each other out in conference.
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No DISN delays. DISA director Lt. Gen. Al Edmonds told Rep. Cardiss Collins (D-Ill.) that the agency has no plans to delay source selection on any of the DISN contracts—a request made in a letter sent by Collins and Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Calif.). The Dellums/Collins letter raised issues quite similar to those repeatedly raised by AT&T. Hmmm, wonder how that happened.
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Suspicions confirmed. George Carlson, the Pentagon building manager, recently confirmed my hunch about the primary work product of that building: waste paper. Carlson reports that in fiscal 1995 the Pentagon generated 803 tons of recyclable, white, waste paper. I figure about half of that must come from congressional correspondence.