PROPOSED BRIEFING OF YOUR SUBCOMMITTEE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82M00591R000200120060-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2003
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: January 11, 1980
• Content Type: MF

Approved For R se 2003/06/26: CIA-RDP82M00591 RO90200120060-2
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
Security Committee SECOM-D-015
11 January 1980
MEMORANDUM FOR: Chairman, Computer Security Subcommittee
Executive Secretary
SUBJECT: Proposed Briefing of Your Subcommittee
STATINTL
Cecil,
Within the CIA, an Information Task Force has been
working for sometime to review and recommend Information
Handling Goals. Attached is a copy of a list of such goals.
It came to mind that you and members of your Subcommittee
might have shared interest with this Agency Task Force, might
have mutually reinforcing goals and may, during discussions,
identify issues or aspects that could beneficially serve
the common needs of the Agency and Community.
If you agree let me know about a time and I'll put you
STATINTL in touch with Chairman, IHTF, who has agreed
to address the Subcommittee i you are interested.
STATINTL
Attachment
Orig - Addressee w/att
SECOM Chrono w/att
1 - SECOM Subject w/att
STATINTL SECOM/
fh (1/11/80)
Approved For Release 2003/06/26 : CIA-RDP82M00591 R000200120060-2
 nformation Handlin Goals
Approved For Ref e-2DO31U6T26 -CTA-~RII0821111M91 RU 200120060-2
Resources continue to be tight while
technoloUical opportunity grows. Under these
conditions wise investment can proceed only if the
goals we are trying to achieve are understood and
there is agreement on relative priorities.
Presented are a set of interlocking goals for
Information Handling. Goals are understood to be
ideals toward which we strive. There is no
guarantee that goals are achievable, but there is
the sense that the future will be better if we
work collectively toward common ends, even when
those ends are not completely achieved. Conflicts
between some of the goals are recognized.
Information Handling Goals:
1. Increase the productivity and efficiency of our people
components;
2. Improve the quality of the Agency's products;
3. Improve the timeliness of decisions and the responsiveness of
our products;
Improve the security of our activities;
Extend the sense of Headquarters community to all Agency
6. Make information handling tools a natural, well--integrated
part of the office work pattern;
7. Eliminate information handling activities of.marginal value
vis-a-vis their cost;
Reduce the life-cycle costs of existing and planned
information systems;
25X1-
Approved For Release 2003/06/26 : CIA-RDP82M00591 R000200120060-2
 Ensure, in the face of competing demans, that information
A services a r- 'er t d/ :tC1~-821 8 e and
10. Improve the accessibility of data bases and their quality with
regard to consistency and completeness;
11. Shorten the coordination, approval, and release cycle of both
intelligence and administrative actions;
(112. Provide better control over access to classified information
including provision of individual accountability;
1 Provide more secure. storage for sensitive material; _
14. Improve maintainability of information handling systems, both
existing and planned. The means must be found to stabilize the
cost of keeping production systems working effectively.
15. Shorten information system development time. Information
systems must take into account a rapidly changing technology
in meeting evolving needs. We cannot tolerate a 7-12 year
development cycle with the attendant risks of having unwanted
or outmoded systems when they go into operation.
16. Maintain a cadre of information handling professionals with
the requisite skills to meet the needs over the next decade.
Our focus must be on finding and keeping people who can reduce
the life-cycle information systems costs through goals 14 and
?15.
17. Establish system management standards. We must codify our
collective experience in developing and operating systems into
an agreed upon and enforced set of management procedures.-
This is vital to the attainment of goals 14, 15, and 16 above.
18. Communicate most information electrically between people,
wherever they may be. This includes Headquarters-field
communication, sending products to consumers, etc. This goal
is central to the achievement of several others: achieving a
sense of community (5), integrating information tools into
office work patterns (6), improving data base accessibility
(10), and shortening the coordination cycle (11). "TIfe
m emj1t + to , z?z *,,' .paper is slow-,
a eff$~ 1 ~. d., resents nn I ue securit risks.
__ y Mill r paper
has s ug la virtkes as ii:medi m for the reader, so electrical
d stributxo, , .m lies the availibil ty of conveniently
positionet x ;icinting and facsimile devices.
Approved For Release 2003/06/26 : CIA-RDP82M00591 R000200120060-2
 App[oved Fpr Release 2003/06/26 : CIA-RDP2M00591 R000200120060-2
19.' Provide a sing: universal network a user t.? nals. The
information user should have one and only one terminal at
his/her desk.
20. Provide the means to capture keystrokes. Frequently,
information is retyped, rekeyed, or "repoked" to make minor
changes or to convert it to another format for distribution,
reproduction, or filing. We must eliminate this tedious and
error-prone activity.
21. Achieve a consistent and natural Agency-wide standard for
access to information services. Access mechanisms should be
tailored to the needs of the person, not to the peculiarities
of the system.- Consistency is needed to reduce'training-time
and achieve other information handling goals (18, 19, and 20).
22. Store information more efficiently. Improved data base
quality and access depend on inexpensive, fast file
organization techniques. Both the technology and theory show
that multiply-accessed, single-copy file storage can improve
accuracy, consistency, and economy.
23. Aggregate information for managers and analysts. Most
information systems are built for specialist users, with
products tailored to needs which are known beforehand.
Analysts and managers often do not, or cannot predict their
information needs. In the absence of this apriori knowledge,
they must resort to looking at much raw data. Better means
must be found to meet their information needs with the
available data by processing stored data into higher-level
forms on an ad hoc basis.
data compartmentatiou should be employed only where
sensitivity and cost warrant. Considerable technological
progress has been made toward achieving secure access to
multilevel security files by users cleared at different
levels. We must accelerate this effort. Multilevel security
capabilities are essential to achieving better access control
for those systems that are not single-level and compartmented.
25. 'Develop Cryptographic devices for user terminals and storage
devices. The microelectronics revolution permits compact,
inexpensive cryptographic devices that can be used not only
for end-to-end secure electrical transmission (essential for
goal 18), but also for additional information storage security
(goal 13).
24. Provide multilevel security access to data bases. Physical
Approved For Release 2003/06/26 : CIA-RDP82M00591 R000200120060-2
 26. Develop effe-'ive top-level coordination am managers of
Ap1iAC4t~E~20~ ~f9xQaP~R~4o464 vital
if we are to proceed in step on several of the goals listed
here: establishing management standards (17), maintaining a
professional cadre (16), providing a universal terminal net
(19), developing a sense of community (5), and developing a
standard, natural means for user access to information
services (21).
27. Develop effective top-level coordination among managers of
com.ponenets that use information services. Continuing
management attention from an Agency perspective is needed to
ferret: out marginal, activities (7) and' to sort out priorities
(10). Without a mechanisms to make hard decisions on
resources, we will not have the means to achieve the basic
goals for improving performance.
28. Establish the means to accelerate the integration of
communications and centralized information services,
particularly ADP services.
Agency systems should be developed with consideration for
community cotrpati ii~.rty. As requirements for inter-Agency
connections arise, future systems should be capable of
efficient and cost-effective Interconnection.
30. Develop overall investment and resource guidance for Agency
information handling. This is needed for two reasons.
,Pursuit of some of the developmental goals involves large up-
front costs. For example, the general goal to reduce life-
cycle system costs (8) in some cases may require volume
equipment buys or initial investments in backbone
communication facilities with capacities that far exceed
initial needs. Secondly, many of the listed 'information
handling goals atre,in,conflict because of their resource
implicat oas: improving security'vs: improving access to
iuformatio, reducing life-cycle system costs vs. improved
quality and timeliness of our product. Priority attention
must be given to resource guidance early in the planning
period, but the means must be found to adjust it continually
as conditions change. Resource decisions will require changes
to action programs directed to these goals; indeed, they may
produce major adjustments in the goals themselves.
Approved For Release 2003/06/26 : CIA-RDP82M00591 R000200120060-2