How the distribution system of documents works for the US Troops?

I would like to know if there are someone that used the system, that allowed Manning to access those documents, could explain to us how it works, if you need to identify yourself, if you need to download from a network ...

About the system ...

Well, for all the media reports and statements from the US government, this system would be locate in specific computers available to soldiers and other type of contractors

The purpose of the system is to provide intelligence for US troops on the field, so they can easily access reports from anyone to know whats happening in their region

Manning had access to and download it all

Ok, they say Manning had access to all these files. They say he needed to use a blank CD-DVD, so he could burn the files on it.

So, we need to assume that the files were available like a compressed file with all the documents, right? Since its impossible for Manning to had copied every single page manually, he would have to request every single page and copy every single content. 90,000 pages!

So, if the file was available in compressed files, with everything inside, thats a serious security risk, since if you wanted to access one file, you would need to download EVERYTHING, and this way you wouldnt have control over it

And by this way, it doesnt make sense that is easy for soldiers to access,it would have been hard to search, so you expect that the files probably werent all together, they were in some kind of database and you would need to request access to every single file one by one (just like the wikileaks database [ wardiary....__._/ ] but more sophisticated off course)

My problem with the security ...

I really have a problem with this, since I work with technology, you dont expect that the us army wouldnt have some kind of security system to detect requests from thousands of documents by the same person, simply because the documents in question are very specific and there is not a single person that would want to read them all

even if they did want to download it all, for what I could understand, they accessed computers specific to that, so they would need to read that at their location, so it would be impossible to read thousands of documents in the same day, so NOBODY would OPEN thousands of documents

how can the us government not control the access to these files? its just IMPOSSIBLE to believe that they let anyone download whatever they want, without any kind of logging to identify the ones doing it

besides, if I did a system like that, the files would be available like pages(like the wikileaks system), you would not be able to download them all, since no soldier would use them all; by doing that, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to open every single single page and copy it, since the person would need to open one by one and it would take eternity

plus, for what I understood, Manning was caught because of a hacker, not because of the Army system that identified an UNUSUAL usage of their system

Speculating about the system ...

(this is my speculation, I never used, so it may be wrong, but it is based on what makes sense based on what I heard from the media)

if nobody knows how this system works, we need to speculate that it would be probably a system that supports searches by any type of tag and by a lot of classifications, it would need to use some SQL, to automatize the process of new additions and requests of the documents; you dont expect that they need to add one by one, manually, soldiers would login into the system and write(or scan) their reports, and it would be available to everyone;

Assuming that soldiers need to generate new documents and post into this system, they would need to identify themselves to the system, since it would be hard to imagine that its available to anyone to post whatever they want;

And if you assume that they need to identify themselves to post this new files (reports), they probably need to identify themselves to read these too, so there is no way that a log doesnt exist


So, the questions are ...

so, this raises the question, was the leak intentional? was really Manning? how their system really works, do the system let soldiers download all files at the same time? do the system not control the accesses?


plus: there are already systems in the works that support tags about the War Logs, but since twitter is offline, I cant get the link ... I may post later; there are people working of tools to research it (warlogs), just like you would expect it to be available to a soldier(less complex off course)

He probably access SIPRNET (as opposed to NIPRNET).

Burning things off of SIPRNET isn't uncommon in the very least. But the burned media is supposed labeled with its classification and you are supposed to have someone verify this (the other person in the room).

It is apparent that PFC. Manning accessed this system routinely and I find that it is probable that there were a few SIPRNET terminals with at least a few people around. Nobody paid attention to what he was doing, because he was there all of the time.

Also, the government is partial to LiveLink for sorting documents and such. Well for that matter a lot of companies seem to love LiveLink as well. But it could be anything.

Anyway, that's pretty much how it works.

Edit: Removed stuff.

[edit on 5-8-2010 by Zaxxon]

reply to post by Zaxxon


well, you didnt say much

the files are in the terminal or they are located in a remote location

so, if they are in a remote location, isnt there some kind of login requirement to access those files?

how can a soldier read the reports about his area if he needs to download it manually, it would be a very tough job

so thats why I am speculating that its probably na automatized system that generates the pages with content based on a database or something like that

dont u have any insight in that?

I removed some stuff that I'd rather not go in detail about. SIPRNET terminals are very secure as well as where they are placed, but no matter what kind of security you have it doesn't stop complacency.

As far as documents, its probably organized in LiveLink or something like it. He probably saw sections ("folders") and when in there and just downloaded everything from it. Burned it to a CD and walked out. If he was routinely in there, then chances are nobody was really paying attention to what he was doing.

Originally posted by Faiol
well, you didnt say much

Well, he pretty much summed it up without getting into too much sensitive info and whatnot.

Sorry it doesn't have as much "classified bling" that you hoped for.