$400 million network upgrade for the Pentagon

Tue Aug 13 20:19:30 UTC 2002

At 6:21 PM -0500 2002/08/12, gg wrote:

>  The Department of Defense does posses allot of "network disorganization"
>  mostly on the NIPERNET side.

	You mean NIPRnet, right?

>       Allot of the NIPERNET "unclassified" network is just plain unruly at
>  it's best (I left the military in 2000, so maybe things have changed).

	I was the DISA.MIL Technical POC until I left in 1995, and I am 
the guy who convinced the SIPRnet and NIPRnet administrators to go 
with DNS for doing hostname resolution (instead of HOSTS.TXT files), 
as well as using real IP address space issued by ARIN, instead of 
just randomly fabricating some network space (in the event that the 
networks were ever connected to the live Internet, some point in the 
distant future).  I'm also the guy who turned back to ARIN a few 
Class A, B, and a number of Class C network ranges that we were no 
longer using.

>                                                                          Any
>  shop with their ADP or IT staff can practically get a server up and running,
>  build intranets, databases, etc.  without practically anyone raising an
>  eyebrow, this is at the command level.

	Yup.

>       Allot of these systems are non-redundant, and pose single points of
>  failures, etc, but again this is at the command level.

	True enough.  But then these aren't mission-critical systems like 
WWMCCS or GCCS.

>       After moving along the ranks, from a lowly seaman recruit running AUI,
>  cat V, and fiber cabling on an aircraft carrier, to a Third Class Petty
>  Officer stationed at The Unified Atlantic Region Network Operations Center
>  in Norfolk, VA.  I learned that this is not the case for Mission Critical
>  systems, or for the SIPERNET "classified network".

	Yup.

>        As Brad also stated the same.
>        All I can say is this, and any ex-RM can say the same (Well RM's are
>  extint now they are IT), I never worked in a building that had any windows,
>  and that could not stand a very good shaking, that is, if it wasnt
>  underground in the first place.

	The Pentagon has windows.  It also has an ancient system of air 
pipes aimed at all of the windows, where at a central location they 
play a radio or otherwise generate sound waves that are then 
distributed via the air pipes, thus preventing anyone from aiming a 
laser at the window and being able to bug the office.

	Of course, if you're not a flag officer (or equivalent), or you 
don't work for a flag officer (or equivalent), you won't get any 
windows.  Myself, I worked in the basement, and I walked over a mile 
each way to go from where I got off the metro, past the concourse 
between corridors 1 & 10, down to my office on the mezzanine level, 
on the F ring, between corridors 6 & 7.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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