[iwar] [fc:IBM.building.emergency.IM.network]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-24 07:49:17

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 07:49:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:IBM.building.emergency.IM.network]
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IBM building emergency IM network

By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 21, 2002, 9:00 PM PT

Instant messaging is going to the scene of the crime.

IBM and a consortium of government agencies in the Washington, D.C.,
area are creating a wireless emergency network that will allow
approximately 40 police, fire and safety agencies to communicate in real
time via instant messaging and access one another's databases. 

The Capital Wireless Integrated Network (CapWIN) will be the first of
its kind in the nation and eliminate many of the communications
bottlenecks that now hamper coordinating responses to an emergency such
as the Sept.  11 disaster, supporters say. 

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"All these places have different systems from different vendors that are
wonderful, but they can't talk to one another," said George Ake, the
project manager for CapWIN. 

Just as important, CapWIN will fit on top of existing communications and
computer systems, which will make it easier to implement and expand into
other jurisdictions.  Baltimore is already considering joining the
network, according to Kent Blossom, director of safety and security
systems for IBM. 

The instant message application will come from Jabber, while Informant
Software will provide the database access system, Blossom added. 

"They did not want to be hooked into any proprietary system," Blossom
said.  "The purpose of CapWIN is to enable these functions by leveraging
existing networks and systems...The hard part is going to be to make
sure that we get the user requirements defined correctly the first
time."

Congress has authorized a $20 million budget for the project. 

Communicating and coordinating The CapWIN network will let law
enforcement agencies and others do three things: communicate with one
another over a secure instant messaging network; search multiple
databases; and permit better coordination between different agencies or
officers responding to an emergency. 

A police officer arriving at an emergency, for example, could enter a
chat area to get a current summary of the situation while others at
distant locations could run license plate checks with different state
and federal agencies on vehicles leaving the scene. 

The network will run on standard PCs, handhelds and cell phones.  On the
back end, it will run on clustered IBM eServers that will link to
installed servers and databases.  The first stage in the project, which
will be complete in a year, will revolve around creating and testing the
basic network, said Blossom.  Later, functions like voice may be added,
said Ake. 

While the World Trade Center attacks intensified the need for
cross-agency and cross-jurisdiction communication, the project actually
goes back to 1999.  That year, a man threatened to jump off the Woodrow
Wilson Bridge, which connects Virginia and Maryland. 

The standoff lasted seven hours.  "He stopped traffic on the whole East
Coast," Ake said.  The police officers at opposite ends of the bridge
couldn't speak directly to each other during the crisis because they
came from different agencies and ran independent networks. 

Ake created a similar network connecting law enforcement agencies within
the state of North Carolina and came out of retirement to run CapWIN, he
said.  "This is a lot more complicated because you have three
jurisdictions (Washington, Virginia and Maryland) and the federal
government," he said. 

Participating agencies include the Maryland Highway Administration, the
U.S.  Department of Justice's Office of Domestic Preparedness, and
police and fire units in Alexandria, Va.; Arlington, Va.; and other
regional cities. 

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