There’s an article in today’s evil librul rag the Washington Post about the trials and tribulations of the infamous and much maligned FBI computer systems upgrade which never was; vaporware for the agency protecting our homeland. The failed upgrades, which have cost taxpayers some $600M in the last five years, have lead to nothing. It’s scary to know what the FBI was working with and currently is working with to fight crime here in America. From the article…
The FBI wanted its agents to work in a largely paperless environment, able to search files, pull up photos and scan for information at their own PCs. The old system was based on fusty mainframe technology, with a text-only “green screen” that had to be searched by keywords and could not store or display graphics, photos or scanned copies of reports.
What’s more, most employees had no PCs. They relied instead on shared computers for access to the Internet and e-mail. A type of memo called an electronic communication had to be printed out on paper and signed by a supervisor before it was sent. Uploading a single document took 12 steps.
Most employees had no PCs, now that is just insane. And shared terminals just to access the internet and e-mail?! Uploading documents to the system taking 12 steps?! Was it drunk? At a time when high-end processing behemoths can be purchased for a few hundred bucks, coupled with the purchasing power of an agency the size and power of the FBI, you’d think that they could spring for a CPU for each employee who needed one. And has the FBI never heard of drag-and-drop? I think it took two hours for me to teach my in their 60s parents how to do certain functions having to do with email, certainly the best and brightest this country has to offer can figure a way to upload a .pdf quicker than a 12 step program.
I was familiar with some of the things brought up in this article as I’ve read several articles dealing with this bungled non-upgrade through the last few years, I’m a wannabe techie at heart, but seeing it all in one pretty well put together article at once, ugh.
The problems continued to hamper the bureau after the attacks as well: To transmit photographs of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers and other suspects to field offices, headquarters had to fax copies or send compact discs by mail, because the system would not allow them to e-mail a photo securely.
Can you imagine this? What could the actual conversations between the White House, the FBI and FBI field offices all over the country and the world have been during all this:
White House: We have the names and photographs of all 19 9/11 hijackers.
FBI: Whoa! Awesome! Email them to me. Oh wait. Never mind. Errrr… Errr…. FedEx them to me!
[the next day]
FBI agent1: I got them! Can I use your computer to open up these very important documents?
FBI agent2: Sorry, I’m in the middle of something here, try the other side of the floor.
FBI agen1: Hey can I use your computer to open up these very important documents?
FBI agent3: Sure thing. Oh wait, is that one of them fan-cay CD-ROMs? Never seen one of those before. All I got is a 5.25″ floppy drive. Each disk holds 1.2MB!
FBI agent1: [punches self in the face]
Now, of course that isn’t what actually happened, but can you imagine the calamity it would cause if you couldn’t securely email things as simple as digital photos and have to find a terminal to open said terminals once they made it, via hand delivery, to you? So, the FBI went about trying to upgrade their system. The same system where they couldn’t do a two-word search, like, say “Osama+bin+Laden” oh wait, that’s three words, forget that too. That same search via Google turns up 28M hits. Yes, most are probably useless, but jeez, it took 0.09 seconds to come up with that result.
So the FBI hired Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) to do the $170M job. And after many months, in 2003, it was finally ready to be looked at by Zalmai Azmi, then an advisor to Director Robert Mueller and currently the technology chief of the FBI. And it was bad. Azmi had Aerospace Corp. have a look at it and see if it could be saved.
After the disappointing preview of VCF in late 2003 by Azmi, who was then an adviser to Mueller tasked with reviewing the system, the FBI scrambled to rescue the project. The Aerospace Corp., a federally funded research-and-development firm in El Segundo, Calif., was hired for $2 million in June 2004 to review the program and come up with a “corrective action plan.”
The conclusion: SAIC had so badly bungled the project that it should be abandoned.
In a 318-page report, completed in January 2005 and obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act, Aerospace said the SAIC software was incomplete, inadequate and so poorly designed that it would be essentially unusable under real-world conditions. Even in rudimentary tests, the system did not comply with basic requirements, the report said. It did not include network-management or archiving systems — a failing that would put crucial law enforcement and national security data at risk, according to the report.
“From the documents that define the system at the highest level, down through the software design and into the source code itself, Aerospace discovered evidence of incompleteness, lack of follow-through, failure to optimize and missing documentation,” the report said.
I can still hear the echo of the jaws hitting the plush red-leather topped tables within executive offices inside the Hoover Building in downtown D.C. If you listen closely, you can hear them too.
So where in the hell does that leave the FBI now? Well, with new computers [yay!] but no new system. With the death of Trilogy [the name of the SAIC system], the FBI commissioned Lockheed Martin Corp. to create a new system by 2009. The new system, Sentinel, will cost $425M.
2009. That’s two full election cycles of false terror alerts.
It’s not surprising. I bet if you dig around a little you’ll find another cigar-smoke filled poker game where this contract was ironed out. It’s systemic corruption that best explains results like these.
This is also a major issue that Lamont should use against Lieberman.
Maybe one with high priced hookers and Congressional monies.
That is absolutely insane. And that is one place that I guess you can blame Clinton, as well as the Republican Congress. I guess if you have idiots running the government like Ted Stevens, they wouldn’t see the need for computer upgrades. All you need to do is put an address on the picture you’re sending and stick it in the right tube.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually had those old air-vaccuum mail tubes running through the building. Ted Stevens would shed a tear to watch his old internets work like it used to in the good ol’ days.
Yeah, that was the image that immediately came to mind when I first heard Stevens talking about tubes, his staffers type out e-mails in MS word and toss them in the tube to where they need to go. The problem with spam is that it clogs the tubes up, especially in the corners. Then they need to send in the little Cockney chimney-sweeps with a tube-cleaner brush to force all the e-mail through the tube. That’s why we need more corporate control over the internet, these big communications companies will build BIGGER TUBES with even BIGGER VACUUM PUMPS!
The Daily Show’s graphic example of the Ted Stevens tube-based internets was awesome. Did you catch that? I’d provide a youtube or google video link, but I can’t get to either site from work.
does the FBI need a custom-built computer system anyway?
Hundreds of thousands of small, medium, and large businesses the world over use a compendium of standard operating systems (windows, unix, and mac os x), networking systems (of which windows active directory is one of the easiest, and very scaleable), more or less standard email systems (Can anyone say Outlook?), various database systems (from FileMaker, my specialty, currently more powerful than ever, on up), large back-up servers, and a small army of on-site tech guys to keep it all working.
We run a multi-million dollar multi-location shipping company on this hodgepodge of software supported by a handful of IT workers, and while it’s not as pretty as anyone would like, it works, and pretty efficiently, too. You can pass insecure documents over email; you can store secure documents in a secured database or shared directory system with any of a number of forms of access control; you can email or store pdf or other image copies of any necessary documents; and you can scan any paper documents into the system in pdf form; you can grant access to any directory to any individual or group; and deny access to the same.
I know the FBI’s security requirements are going to be intense, and well beyond anything in my experience, but that doesn’t change one simple thing:
It is stupid to try to build a complex networked shared document system from scratch when the basic components already exist.
But why not when you have a few hundred million taxpayer dollars at your expense! Woohoo! Free money!
Idiots.
I’d say this is systematic of the public sector in general. I’ve worked on several projects there and it seems like nothing ever ends up really getting done due to all of the red tape involved, the quality of the people involved and because the smallest thing turns into a huge political issue.
And I must note that lack of funding was not an issue for this system in particular, which is something that can hold up projects.
Poor communication and a poor product is what seems like caused this stupidity.
Hehehehehe………….
Having done my 20 + years in parts of the Federal system, I will have to say that I enjoyed the laugh your obviously reasoned comment brought me.
Here is how it works. We (govt agency) need our parking lot repaved and the big old clunky holes in it fixed. Paving company, “Sure we can do that. Let us take some measurements and get back to you.” Joe businessman next door with same size parking lot and clunky holes ask the same paving company for estimate and hires them. Job completed quickly and beautifully for $10,000. Govt agency hires the same company and gets it done quickly and beautifully for $75,000. There’s your reality check. Doesn’t matter what it is you need done, new carpet, new furniture, remodeling, fix and repair. . .if you are the government or an agency thereof, it cost 7 to 10 times, sometimes 100 times more to do the same job. Those $200 computers are $2500 each to the government. Local or national companies feel it is their duty to bilk the tax payers, and so they do.
And the contracts are not given fairly or equally or to the lowest bidder either, if even offered for bids. That is a total myth these days, if it ever did work that way.
These decision come down from “on High” regardless of what the local management feels would be best or most economical. And if you aren’t a “team player” as a manager, you aren’t a manger very long.
There’s your system and why it is so frickin hard to get anything done and get it done reasonably. There are layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of management. The Government is so top heavy it is a wonder it can stand at all. It equals out to something like a ratio of 1 manager to every 2 employees. WTF?
We need to throw out the current system and start over again.
That much?! I expected the gov’t to be taken for a ride a bit [I’m sure for favors down the line or whatever], but chroist, 75x?! Michael Dell is so buddy buddy with W, you’d think something could be worked out.
That’s not as bad as the 1:1 ratio the horrible transit system [SEPTA] we Philly people enjoy everyday. Let me tell you how smoothly that 1:1 ratio plays out. Good god.
Ain’t it the truth! Every once in a while we get to hear about the $600 hammers and the $11,000 toilets. . .but NOTHING ever gets done about it beyond the speechifying about what an outrage it is.
One on one = receipe for insanity! My condolences.
Cannot they just get every one of their employees a Dell laptop?
The problem is, when you are in contract in a government agency you are usually pay after 12 or 18 month, and that is a huge problem because during this time you have to pay your employees and supplier.
Doesn’t justify a rip-off!
After reading this, we’re supposed to “trust” the elections to Diebold?
Of course! It’s not like we need paper receipts and it’s not like Diebold has the technology to make machines which can spit out simple paper receipts, say, like an ATM. Oh wait. That’s right, they do.
What’s really missing is the fact that most FBI agents are too stupid to figure out emails, computers and password-protected databases.
Pax