Preparing for Networks of the Future

THE CHANGING NATURE OF THE NETWORK

In the TV show Battlestar Galactica, Admiral Adama strictly forbids the networking of computer devices on the Galactica because he's so concerned about the security threat. In the show, Adama's paranoia pays off; the Galactica evades a network intrusion that cripples the rest of the fleet. I sometimes wonder if the US military is headed this direction.

The military (I'm assuming like most corporations) seems to view its network as a fixed collection of PCs, running standardized configurations and fixed lists of major software applications that are approved by higher headquarters. At McChord, this meant hundreds of similar desktops running Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Internet Explorer, etc. Some commanders had BlackBerries, and some people had laptops that could log into the network. If you wanted to tinker with anything or install a new program, you had to consult a large IT bureaucracy. Again, while I have no experience in the business world, I imagine a lot of this is fairly standard.

The problem is that I don't think this paradigm will be useful much longer. Read Nova Spivack's article The Future of the Desktop.

First, hardware. The network is no longer just PCs; it's everything. Today mobile phones, video game consoles, home entertainment systems, security and traffic cameras, and other consumer electronics can access the Internet. I fully expect to see household appliances, vehicles, and a greater variety of consumer electronics integrated into networks in the near future. At the military level, virtually any piece of hardware could conceivably be networked. It doesn't make sense to continue defining a network primarily as a collection of PCs.

Second, the client-server relationship. Data is migrating off of personal computers and into the "cloud." Vista was probably the last operating system as we know it. In the future our data will likely be stored on networks instead of local hard drives, and we will tend to use web services rather than locally installed software.

Third, software. The software industry is no longer dominated by a handful of monolithic companies who release a fixed list of products that are installed on your local desktop (i.e. Office, PhotoShop, etc.). Yes, we still rely on these titans, but we also have hundreds of software applications written by smaller companies, open source software like FireFox and OpenOffice, and online applications like Google Docs. The variety of software applications is staggering, and development is only accelerating. A centralized IT bureaucracy cannot possibly keep up, reviewing and authorizing which programs to allow.

THE GROWING CAPABILITIES GAP

The result of these three trends is that a gap is growing between network capabilities and the network the military is actually using. Writing solely from my experience as a user, I can cite a number of personal examples where the old paradigm is showing its age.

- Military members must take a large volume of Computer Based Training lessons each year, which are delivered over the web. A number of our computers couldn't use the web services to access the training, because the most recent version of Flash or Shockwave wasn't installed, and it was a hassle to track down IT folks with priviliges to install software.

- When I wrote my program interfacing DOD mission planning software with Google Earth, there was no realistic way to get the program approved by the IT bureaucracy. Furthermore, our IT office could not install Google Earth because it was not on the MAJCOM approved software list. We got around this by running both programs from a thumb drive, instead of installing them. In other words, productivity and innovation required breaking rules.

- Using FireFox language translation plugins I can read Arabic news probably 5 times faster than I can in Internet Explorer, because I can look up words on the fly without shuffling through a dictionary. I use FireFox extensively at home, so I'm learning media arabic much quicker than my classmates. I would love to bring FireFox into the classroom to make our class hours more productive, but getting FireFox installed on the DLI network (let alone the plugins) would be an enormous bureaucratic battle I don't have time for, and I would probably lose.

- My school at DLI has tried mandating that we use Tablet PCs that they issue, and forbidding the use of personal PCs in the classroom. The problem is that the tablets fall under the same IT rules as the government network; they're older and slower than my computer and are pre-installed with outdated software. When one of my classmates approached the IT office about installing the most recent version of our Arabic flashcard software (which is vital!), he was told that wasn't possible.

Enough ranting. My point is that a highly regulated, centralized IT bureaucracy has created a vast gap between military networks and the network capabilities you find in the civilian world. I prefer to do all possible work on my personal computer now. It's simply much more powerful. And with the military's thumb drive ban, it's so difficult to pass information that I prefer to avoid the government network altogether.

WAYS FORWARD?

Military networks need security. I understand that. The statistics about hacking attempts in DOD computers are really astonishing, and the virus that prompted the thumb drive ban sounded severe. Our networks need strict security controls, which will always be at odds with the spirit of openness that makes the Internet so powerful. How do we strike a balance? I wish I knew. I'm sure a lot of people way smarter than me are debating that.

My one feeble suggestion is that our computer networks might reflect the duality that I wrote about yesterday: top-down centralized control in places, and bottom-up decentralized openness in others. The secure, protected military network could coexist side-by-side with a more open network. It would be somewhat analogous to SIPRNET and NIPRNET. We could have SIPRNET for classified government business, NIPRNET for unclassified but sensitive government business, and a public network you can hook up to with your laptop, iPhone, or PSP and use however you wish.

I can't think of any reason why every military base in the country should not have public Wi-Fi access, identical to what you'd find at home or at Starbucks. It's absurd how slow Wi-Fi implementation has been. With $1000, a trip to BestBuy, and a phone call to AT&T, I could put Wi-Fi in every classroom in my Arabic school. That would unlock a world of Arabic resources. When I spent time at Manas AB in Kyrgyzstan and Ali Al Salem AB in Kuwait, the base networks were so heavily firewalled that they were almost useless. At Ali, most reputable news sources were blocked. Predictably, the base coffee shops--which had their private, unfiltered Internet access--swelled with airmen and soldiers who were willing to pay. There's no reason the military shouldn't provide this service on its own dime. This public, open access to the Internet could exist side-by-side with a secure, centrally-controlled network for government business.

One last analogy. When I flew C-17s, I had every state-of-the-art radio available that you could imagine. Multiple UHF and VHF radios, long-range HF, SATCOM, secure, anti-jamming, even text messaging. Those radios all had their uses. All were important. But one of the most important resources in my possession was my personal cell phone. At least in the US, my ancient $50 Sprint phone gave me more networking capability than my $200 million aircraft. C-17 crewmembers, who have to network with more agencies than you realize--command & control, passenger terminals, flight planners, maintenance, flight kitchen, customs, billeting, etc.--use cell phones so often that it's hard to imagine life without them. There is nothing secure about them, and we were always careful not to violate OPSEC, but they coexisted with our expensive secure communications equipment. Both had their place.