COINS LOG

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01139A000100020006-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2005
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: May 7, 1969
• Content Type: MIN

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7 May 1969
A meeting of the COINS Committee was held in the Director's
Briefing Room at NSA at 1300 on Thursday, 1 May 1969. I did
not discover this until 1230, so the meeting had started by the
time I arrived. There was a full complement of subsystem managers,
thought I did not know the State Department representative who
sat in for Charles Stein.
Since the last meeting the managers haed sent their idea
of COINS objectives to George, his staff had glued them together
into the objectives which are attachment A, and this set of
objectives had been returned to the managers to circulate around
their shops -'or comments. When I arrived
had just
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finished DIA's comments on the original set (A), and had sub-
stituted a new set (which I hand copied due to a lack of copies):
1. Design, develop, and implement i3n experimental inter-
agency, interconnected, computer-based, on-line intelligence
information system with remote access capability, which will
operate at a TS SI security level.
2. To provide practical training and actual experience for
intelligence analysts in the use of an inter-agency on-line
information system..
3. To collect the necessary data on system usage, efficiency
and reliability, and user reaction to permit an evaluation of the
feasibility and utility of the operational implementation of a
follow-on COINS-like system.
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4. To ascertain the essential characteristics of files
which make them suitable for inclusion in an inter-agency on-line
intelligence information system.
5. To determine those elements of the system design which
encourage and facilitate analyst usage, and those elements which
discourage or hinder usage.
6. To determine the elements and attributes which would
be critical to the success of a full system for continuing
community operations, and develop objectives and specifications
for an operational system.
7. To gain insights into the capability of a COINS-like
system to:
a. improve utilization of resources of the participating
agencies by the centralization of selected information files at
one agency for access by all, and
b. enhance the value of intelligence information
data files.
Continuing the discussion on the original set of objectives
(Attachment A) the NSA manager said that some NSA people objected
to training as an objective (#3), and also felt that the objective
should be stated by themselves with the back-up ("How is the
achievement of the objective to be identified and measured?" and
TTwhat constitutes success or failure of this objective?") relegated
to a position behind the eight objectives (e.g., as an appendix).
Most managers thought the objectives were too long and wordy -
one stated 75% of the verbage should be out out. Because there
were sAppi dd1 - Jeer ~O@ O~v~f A RIB $1 I~~ 1@0~ ~~A vn
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as primary and secondary (or TTsub-objectives'?) .
During these discussions it was emphasized that IHC would
use these objectives as evaluation criteria and they did not
want to use any words in the objectives that would lead the IHC
off on a tangent.
at CIA over objective 8
stated that he got a lot of flack
so i any such generalized objectives are selected by the
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committee. Those to whom Bob feels he is most responsible f-L-~
that such an objective is properly the job of the IHC, not
COINS. Bob also felt that the most important objective of all
hand been left out, to wit: "To test COINS capability to make
data bases in one agency more readily accessible to analysts in
other agencies." There will probably be an attempt to insert
something like that as an objective, probably as a new number 2.
(DIA) rather supported this by saying he felt the real
objective of COINS is to share files, not design a system. In
any event George is going to give objectives one more go-around,
shortening, accenting, and redoing them in the light of the meeting.
The managers will get one more look at the draft of the repackaged
objectives, then he'll add the caveat "may not be able to achieve
all these objectives in the course of the experiment, etc.", have
DIRNSA sign and then send it to the DCI.
In the course of discussions stated that after
numerous delays, the NIC terminal to the DIA system has at last
been installed and is operational at NIC - training on that
terminal was supposed to start Monday. (Does that mean the first
training of NIC operators began then - or that previous training
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