November 20, 2004 is the when NSA's new public key infrastructure system comes to HIGHTIDE, a reporting tool that will use the new system for end-to-end encrypted email. Thanks to this new system, NSA "will have achieved an unprecedented level of information security."

(Repost) After realizing that their technologies for collecting high frequency signals were obsolete, the NSA and GCHQ established the Joint Strategic Off-Air Programme, which jointly manages all HF/VHF/UHF collection as well as updates to legacy systems.

The authors of a book entitled "Strategic Asia 2004-2005: Confronting Terrorism In the Pursuit of Power" gave a presentation about a number of issues affecting Asia, including terrorism and nuclear weapons, and how these questions will affect U.S. interests and policies.

The senior representative of the NSA in Baghdad reported on his tour, describing “a great experience” despite damage from mortar attacks on the NSA site. He explains that the actual handover to the Iraq Transitional Government secretly took place two days before the announced transition to disrupt any terrorist plots.

A conference will be held for SIGINT collection managers across the intelligence community aimed at "enhancing the utility of SIGINT by bringing together the producers and users of SIGINT."

A list of specialized terms used in the NSA mailroom.

(Repost) A staffer who returned from a tour in Baghdad describes how conditions have changed in the former palace where he worked inside the green zone.

Although NSA's mission is foreign intelligence, the agency supported both 2004 political party conventions in Boston and New York City, which were declared as National Special Security Events by the secretary for homeland security and the attorney general. Six SID staffers were deployed for duty, and sanitized information could be shared with non-cleared personnel.

(Repost) The first in a series of articles on Digital Network Intelligence by "Raul," a fictional DNI analyst. This article explains the difference between fonts and encodings.

Customer Service Managers are responsible for coordinating the Information Needs process, managing over 3,200 active INs and interacting with analysts, collection managers, and other customers from the entire intelligence community.

Mid-level managers and executives are invited to a seminar on maintaining high levels of energy.

Announcement for an unclassified seminar that the OPSEC program is hosting about identity theft: how identities are stolen and used, what to do if your identity is stolen, and how to prevent it.

Take a quick survey about how you would prefer to receive information from SID leadership.

The use of public GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks by insurgents in Iraq are a challenge for SIGINT collectors and analysts serving coalition forces.

At the end of 2004, the way most external customers read SIGINT is on paper. An NSA representative selects and prints out SIGINT, then hand delivers it to the customer. This is labor-intensive and "precludes the use of computer-based tools to sort or analyze the information." To solve this problem, the Tools and Techniques department has been designing a tablet PC that customers can use to view classified SIGINT. The prototype requires that an NSA representative deliver a USB stick with documents on it, but in the future "it may be possible to disseminate SIGINT reporting wirelessly."

Announcing weekly Research Associate Directorate events for the month of August so people can "talk directly with NSA researchers and have a say in the future direction of RAD tools and products."

The SID Distinguished Service Award is a new award for great contributions to SID and its mission. The award is a gold metal clock with the SID logo.

A call for SID employees to write SIDtoday articles.

The Joint Information Operations Program Office is a team comprised of NSA, CIA, and DIA staff aimed at addressing cyber threats, and is looking for additional NSA staff to join.

The Workforce Outreach program allows employees to engage with senior SID leaders.

Data Acquisition will be bringing in experts from across the SIGINT system to think creatively about areas that the NSA does not currently have the capacity to exploit and how to address these challenges. The pilot project for this small-group planning effort will address Pick-Your-Own-Number VOIP services.

At the time of writing, Multimedia Messaging Service, was a new technology that allowed cell phone users to send text, sound, pictures, and videos. "No doubt you've seen advertisements of MMS-capable phones, some of which are called camera phones." Because the technology is so new, SID is not yet able to collect SIGINT from MMS. But not for long. They're taking steps to build automated systems to spy on MMS.

The changes to Issue Management Teams announced in July have been implemented and the teams, including the Iraq and Near East/South Asia teams and the Combating Proliferation team, have begun to coordinate cross-NSA updates and efforts.

The sixth Korea rock drill raised the issue of information sharing on Korea issues to second parties and beyond. The scenarios addressed non-combatant evacuation operations, SIGINT in a counteroffensive to a North Korean attack, and operations in a newly unified Korea.

A reader comments on an article about the National Virtual Translation Center.

SID continues to support the new Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (formerly U.S. Customs Service) and Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (former Immigration and Naturalization Service) with any issues that relate to border security.

Learn about geospatial analysis and geographic information systems at the NSA.

Apparently, Raul received several angry emails in response to his previous about PDFs, in which he stated that Osama bin Laden could use PDFs written in Arabic and NSA would never discover those PDFs by searching for Arabic words. Raul responds to the criticism with a list of requirements for how to solve the foreign language PDF problem.

All SID employees are invited to the holiday party.

Announcement of a seminar about the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, a rubric that determines the allocation of resources within the intelligence community.