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Wartime Wireless Worries Pentagon

he rapid proliferation of digital cameras, phonecams and wireless gadgets among soldiers and military contractors is giving senior military officials concern, in the wake of images that showed abuse in an Iraqi prison and snapshots that showed rows of coffins of American soldiers.

The Defense Department said it hasn't banned the devices and doesn't plan to -- as the Business Times of London and two wire services have reported. But the Pentagon is telling commanders in the field to strictly monitor the use of consumer wireless technology through Directive 8100.2 -- Use of Commercial Wireless Devices, Services and Technologies in the Department of Defense Global Information Grid -- issued last month.

"We're in the situation today where everyone is using a cell phone, BlackBerry or some sort of wireless device that can be carrying voice, imagery or text -- and we either need that to be highly encrypted, or off of DOD systems altogether," said Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Ken McClellan. "We don't want to be in a situation where anyone with a scanner can figure what we're about to do."

In a nutshell, the directive tells all soldiers, contractors and visitors to Defense Department facilities that they can only carry wireless devices that conform to the military's security standards. These specify that the devices use strong authentication and encryption technologies whenever possible. In addition, the devices cannot be used for storing or transmitting classified information. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz signed it in April after two years of internal debate.

McClellan said commanders in the field haven't been told to use the directive to stamp out the use of the gadgets in Iraq. Instead, the directive is "general guidance" passed "along to the theater commanders, and they decide how to implement it in their own commands."

While Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may not have signed a ban on new consumer digital-imaging technologies, he did express clear concern about the unforeseen impact of such technologies during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on May 7.

"People are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon," Rumsfeld said.

Full story at Wired.com

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