Intercepts

World War III

Montgomery, Ala. — James Adams, chief executive officer of iDefense

Inc., a network and computer security consulting firm, last week told a

crowd of Air Force communicators at the Air Force Information Technology

Conference here that Russian officials recently confided to him that they

consider World War III to be taking place right now with the United States.

Most top Russian officials apparently believe every software application

and desktop computer they buy from the U.S. is infected with either a monitoring

device or surveillance software provided by none other than the good old

National Security Agency.

However, Russia is not the only country taking part in this digital

world war, according to Adams. "Any hardware or software produced in Russia,

China, France or India," said Adams, "carries with it a very high risk of

transmitting all the data it contains back to its maker."

The Big Yankowski

Carl Yankowski, CEO of Palm Inc., maker of the popular Palm line of

handheld computers, said that one of the company's pilot projects with the

Navy depends heavily on what he called a group of military "screenagers."

Palm's handheld devices are being used aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation,

where a group of younger officers who grew up looking at a screen (i.e.,

a computer screen) are finding an endless array of new uses for the handheld

computers. Although that sounds about right, Yankowski could just as easily

have been talking about the boob tube.

Luv Ya!

Ever wonder just what it took for some federal agencies to combat the

"ILOVE YOU" e-mail virus? According to iDefense's Adams, who sits on one

of NSA's strategic advisory committees, the Labor Department expended 1,600

employee hours and 1,200 contractor hours trying to recover from the kiss

of near death. He also said that the Veterans Health Administration received

as many as 7 million of the little buggers.

Spare Tire

No Intercepts column from a DOD-sponsored IT conference is complete

without a few words from Air Force Lt. Gen. John Woodward, the Joint Chiefs

of Staff J-6 and the Air Force director of communications. Woodward, who

is always good for a few jokes (desperately needed in Montgomery, Ala.,

in August), implored Montgomery officials to keep up support for the AFITC

show in the future. "Free coffee and doughnuts is a good deal for communications

warriors," Woodward said, referring to the standard Air Force breakfast

at the Montgomery Civic Center.

MyAirForce.com

Woodward also said the Air Force will launch an enterprisewide portal

this fall, where contractors and airmen alike will be able to get the most

out of their Air Force experience. "We're looking at an Air Force portal

and we're serious about it," Woodward said. But wait: Notice what he didn't

say? "I didn't say [Air Combat Command] portal or [Electronic Systems Center

or Standard Systems Group] portal," Woodward said.

Apparently, the three-star meeting that took place a few months ago

to hash out which contracting organization in the service will provide the

"standard" contracting mechanism for the Air Force resulted in a movement

away from consolidation. Now the pieces of the puzzle are beginning to come

together. Remember Lt. Col. Glenn Taylor, the former director of the Commercial

Information Technology Product Area Directorate at SSG? You'll recall that

when he retired a few months ago, ESC, the parent command of SSG, replaced

him with a full bird colonel, Col. Neal Fox. More political pull in the

tug of war between SSG and ACC?

Intercept something? Send it to antenna@fcw.com.