NSA Communicator III 47

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DC I 0 @pRta:a;SW3H3dease by NSA on 04-07-2008, FOIA Case # 10369

Vol III, No. 47 27 November 1995

BACK INBUSINESS

(U)

MANAGEMENTINITIATIVES: A

QUALITYREVIEW

(U)

(U) In the unlikely event you've missed media coverage of the eventswhich led to the end o f t he furlough, here's a brief but official description.

(U) Following a major compromise worked out between the White Housand Congressional leaders on Sunday, 19 November, two ContinuingResolutions (CRs) were proposed and subsequently s igned into law by thePresident. The first was a one-day measure that allowed the federalgovernment to re-open on 20 November. Under th e terms of th e second. whcontains the major points of compromise, government programs for which anappropriations bill has not yet been passed (e.g. DoD programs) are fundeduntil midnight 15 December. This CR also contains a provision of immediateconcern to the work force, specifically, an authorization to fully compensateany federal employees who were furloughed since the expiration of th e CR on13 November.

(U) The compromise involved the President and Congress agreeing tobalance the budget within seven years, and that the "balanced budget mustprotect future generations, ensure Medicare solvency, reform welfare, andprovide adequate funding for MediCaid. education. agriculture. nationaldefense, veterans, and th e environment." Additionally. the President agreedCongressional Budget Office scoring of t he budget numbers. followingconsultation with outside experts and the Office ofManagement and Budget

(U) The compromise CR provides a framework for budget talks but theReconciliation Bill remains th e principal focus of negotiation. Talks are likelto continue right up to the 15 December deadline. In short. th e federalgovernment is back to work and retroactive pay i s approved, but toughnegotiations remain before the crisis will be finally resolved!

(U ) Many of you have probably not iced a host of new terms andacronyms making their way into Agency publications, meetings. anddiscussions these days. Baldr ige Assessment. Core Process Teams. andStrategic Planning and Corporate Plans are just a few of the examples. TheINFOSEC Communications Council thought i t might be a good idea to brieflydescribe th e linkage between these ongoing Agency initiatives. Although theterms have been addressed in previous issues and should be familiar to mosof you, these descriptions are designed to provide a baseline understandingtheir origin and role as the Agency continues to review and modify the way i tdoes business.

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3839363 UNCLASSIFIED

Baldrige Assessment (U)(V ) The Senior Agency Leadership Team (SALT) has decided that NSA w

be managed in accordance with the Malcohn Baldrige National Quality Awar(MBNQA) Criteria. Recognized as the U.S. national standard for qualitymanagement, the MBNQA criteria capture core quality values and conceptsseven categories. The criteria are nonprescriptive, however, stating whatshould be done but no t how to do it! The categories are:

o Leadershipo Information and Analysiso Strategic Planningo Human Resource Development and Managemento Process Managemento Business Resultso Customer Focus and Satisfaction(V ) The criteria are part of a diagnostic system. NSA used this feature

when conducting a Self-Assessment in 1993. and will take advantage of it asthe current assessment effort is completed.

Core Process Teams (U)(V ) One of th e outcomes of the first Assessment effort was a SALT

decision to address process management at NSA. This led to the Core ProceTeams which looked at the Agency's Provide Information and ProtectInformation lines of business. These efforts, in turn, led to the processreengineering efforts now underway in the DI and DO. The work of the Teamdirectly relates to Baldrige criteria categories of Leadership, Information andAnalysis, Strategic Planning. Process Management, and Customer Focus andSatisfaction.

Strategic Planning and Corporate Plans (UJ(V) Another resul t of the fIrst Assessment effort was a SALT decision to

improve NSA's strategic planning process. This led to th e development of thU.S. Cryptologic Strategy for the 21s t Century and the various NSA corporatplans which support it. These efforts directly relate to th e Baldrige categorieof Strategic Planning, Leadership. and Process Management.

(V ) Having a "scorecard" describing these terms is a first s tep inunderstanding the relationships among the various initiatives in the changeprocess. Hopefully. you are now better equipped to ask questions, engage indialogue. and make suggestions to Agency leaders and participants in theseefforts.

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II LETTER TO THE EDITORAccessing the World Wide Web (U)

(FOUO) I am delighted to read in The Communicator that NSA will soonhave a Home Page on the World Wide Web. However, isn't i t ironic that someNSA employees will be among the very few who cannot see the Home Page duto our outmoded SLIP and PPP policies which prevent us from runningMOSAIC on the Internet ROMULUS machine? Since this machine isunclassified, when will security policies be changed to allow us access tomodern Internet tools and information which will help us stay up with themodern changes in technology?

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DDT Response (U)(V ) For those of you who are unfamiliar with the World Wide Web (WWW

i t is a collec tion of electronic documents that are linked together for easybrowsing. The documents themselves are called Home Pages. NSA doesindeed have a Home Page which is accessible to anyone who has access to thInternet and web browsing software.

(FQYO) You point out that some Agency employees may not be able to stheir own organization's Home Page using the NSA-supplied Internet accessservice, which has levels not unlike cable TV service. At the basic level, youare absolutely correct . The unclassified host systems such a s ROMULUS,ZOMBIE, AFTERLIFE, DOCKMASTER, and others provide this basic service.Users with authorized accounts on these systems enjoy the use of electronicmail, network information searching, access to the Internet UseNet newsgroups (our internal version of this is called ENLIGHTEN), and access to theWWW. What is bas ic about this service is that i t is all in character mode.While i t is true that the above services are usable in this mode, the multimednature of the available information cannot be fully appreciated or utilized. I tshould also be noted that for the most part the only way to access these hostservices is via a modem and phone line connected to an unclassified terminaThese host services are accessible both from work and from home.

(I"OtfO) Still using the cable analogy, some Agency organiZations offerpremium service. This involves having an unclassified LAN and workstationswithin the organization's spaces. The LAN is connected to the unclassifiedcommunications infrastructure called BRAZEN. Each one of the workstationsuch as , PC, Mac, HPW, etc., on the LAN would have networking servicessoftware which would allow access to the Internet and the multimedia aspecof the information available on the Internet. If this sounds somewhat familiait's because that is what you are already using on our internal networks. Thepremium service is expensive and is no t offered by every organization. I t isavailable only from within Agency spaces, not from home.

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DOClD: 3839363

---he CommunicatorPublisher M09Design E23Printing & Distro Y19

Distribution VSend rommenWsuggestions aswell as Letters to the Editor to:M09, Room 287M2. 963-59015E-mail =

lh : Coffimuojcator is availableon the J,iSS (topic #1247)as well its ENUGHrEN(Pubs.r+a-newsletter newsgroup)

(b)(3)-P" L. 86-36

(FOUO) What is missing from the service aspect is th e equivalent of cabenhanced basic. This level should allow authorized users th e ability to accethe Internet and the multimedia information, but not at the same level ofservice or cost as th e premium level. To fill th e service gap an enhancementthe BRAZEN infrastructure has been designed. As you point out , thetechnology for this level exists. Communications rules or protocols whichallow and support full networking services across a serial (phone) line havebeen in use in the private sector for years. Two examples of this a re the SerLine Internet Protocol (SLIP) and the Point to Point Protocol (PPP). Theproposed enhancement to BRAZEN makes use of devices calledcommunications servers which use PPP over phone lines. Users would contthe servers similarly to th e way they dial into the host systems now, and aftelogin and authentication takes place, they would have full service access to tInternet, including the use of tools like Mosaic and Netscape. This service,like basic cable. would be available from both work and home.

(FOtTO) The Operational Computer Security Staff, g06, agrees that arobust solut ion is needed for general access to unclassified multimediainformation. Because the Agency must take extraordinary securityprecautions even on ou r unclassified networks, extensive testing and reviewmust be done to ensure tha t the configurations we use do not put theAgency's people or information at undue risk. The architecture enhancemedescribed above is currently undergoing" testing to determine the proceduresrequired to manage the risks associated with PPP. This testing will continuethrough November 1995, to be followed by a security review. We'll keep youposted as to the results of that review.

Robert D. Mueller, Deputy Directorfo r Technology and Syste

Postscript FUe (V)(U) VADM McConnell is scheduled to return to TALK NSA on Wednesda6 December . The program will a ir from 0930-1030 hours on Channel 35 (OPand Channel 21 (FANX). Call in your questions for th e Director by dialing96B-TALK.

NSA Communicator III 47

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