Note: This is a brief presentation, not a full formal paper.
A written presentation in word processing format and slides in web format are also available.
To Book: See the conference brochure at http://www.adfa.oz.au/ADSC/Brochure.html,
or e-mail: s-brown@adfa.oz.au
In previous talks I have discussed the use of Internet e-mail and web servers for military command and control (Worthington 1997). The Internet also has the potential to provide unclassified, non-sensitive information to the general public. However, three years of experience with the Internet in Defence shows that this requires rethinking some processes. Even something as simple as putting publicly distributed media releases on-line creates some public information issues. Placing reports of a military exercise on the web creates some more complex issues.
The main message of this presentation is that it is only through experience and practice that issues of use of the Internet for distribution of information to the public can be addressed. The web is not just an extension of other public information provision and information management processes. Procedures from paper information distribution need to be adapted and tested. Information flows on the Internet are different, in important ways from previous communications. Applicable law needs to be confirmed and some new case law made. Those who have pioneered this can teach others. However, there is still no substitute for experience.
The Defence Home Page is intended to provide unclassified, non-sensitive information to the general public. It contains information about Defence's structure, military and civilian recruitment, industry policy (particularly IT policy) and general public relations information, such as media releases.
There are also home pages for the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Defence Industry, Science and Personnel. These contain photos and biographies of the ministers, media releases and speeches.
At the time these documents were released there was no formal policy for the distribution of information on-line. The policy was developed by analogy to existing paper-based procedures, using experience from the academic and research community and from overseas organisations.
In addition to guidelines on web content, there are more detailed instructions on access to and use of the Internet, by Defence personnel (Defence 1996). The guidelines attempt to balance the need for flexible and interesting information delivery as against the need for authority and security of Defence information.
The initial Internet and web guidelines were deliberately made very general and liberal. As experience is gained, more specific and, in some cases, more restrictive procedures are being put in place. The organisation is learning how best to use the technology and as Internet facilities become available from central support elements of Defence.
Example of a more restrictive approach is the area of domain names. Defence's first official web site was provided by the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) from 1995 until 1998. This used ADFA's slightly quirky domain name ( http://www.adfa.oz.au/ ). Some components of Defence acquired their own domain names and used separate in-house or outsourced servers. The current policy is to bring the sites under the one domain name and limit separate names to elements which have a separate public identity, such as the Defence Signals Directorate ( http://www.dsd.gov.au/ ).
The assumption was that whatever was in a media release had been approved for release and was therefore "public" and could be put on a web page for general use. However, there are some exceptions to this. Problems are caused by the wide distribution of web documents, their long term storage and a non-specialist audience.
Media Releases can include details, such as mobile and home telephone numbers for media contact. Some of these may not be suitable for public release, particularly as media releases will be available over a long period. The more general issue of archiving electronic documents (which are specalised form of electronic document) was addressed by an interdepartmental committe, which I chaired (OGIT 1995). However, pratice has yet to catch up with the theory.
On occasions the media are given alerts of upcoming events under embargo. There is little logic if the an embargoed document is freely available to the general public.
The issues with media releases on-line have largely been resolved. The Australian Commonwealth Government Entry Point now provides a central index of federal agency media releases with a search engine and e-mail advice service (NLAc 1998).
At the CIRG meeting I proposed to have a co-operative approach, with one agency providing a central index to agency material. This would allow the budget page and links to be provided and tested in advance. The content would then be added by the individual agencies on budget night.
The National Library of Australia and the Department of Administrative Services provided the central index (Finance 1995). This approach lessened the risk of a single point of failure, with all material on one central site and allowed each agency to have control of their own budget material. The practice has been followed for subsequent budgets.
This system relies on the links from a known and trusted web site to authenticate the content on related sites. More secure systems are feasible, but require a system of digital certificates and public keys (SA 1996).
As part of the Kangaroo series the Directorate of Public Relations placed personnel in the field to prepare public information on the exercise. For 1995 Defence provided reports from the exercise via the Internet. Robert Lester, Information Systems Manager for DR, transmitted reports and photographs from the exercise area via the Defence data network (K95a 1995).
Reports were received at Defence headquarters in Canberra and up-loaded by the author, as (then) Defence Web Master, to a publicly accessible Internet server at ADFA.
The first report confirming the sighting of Orange force was issued 29 July. The first photo, of the 16th Air Defence Regiment deploying Rapier Surface to Air Missiles, was sent 1 August. The last report Incidents in the Joint Force Area of Operations, was issued 24 August. In all, ten reports were issued.
This may be the first time a military exercise has been reported direct via the Internet. It raises issues as to how much information should be released on-line, how soon and what use will be made of that information.
The initial K95 reports contained little factual information and resembled media releases. Readers reacted against this and requested more factual information. Later reports resembled military situation reports. This created problems of its own, due to the problem of the readers not recognising that reports of damage and casualties were fictional.
During the exercise I received several reports from participants indicating that they received more timely information on the exercise from the public web server than from internal channels. This raised the issue of the amount of detail which could be provided to the enemy in non-exercise conditions and also that our own personnel might start to rely less on official channels of information.
One, not entirely serious, complaint was received from the opposing Orange forces to say that the reporting was biased against them.
Public web pages were created for the exercise by US and Australia personnel. The web page presentations were coordinated via the Internet by Australian personnel located in Canberra, North Queensland and US personnel in the Pacific at shore bases and at sea in the exercise task force.
Defence (1998) Australian Defence Home Page, Department of Defence, 25 May 1998, URL: http://www.defence.gov.au/
DoD (1995) Interim Guidelines for Establishing a WEB Information Service, Department of Defence, URL: http://www.defence.gov.au/aboutgd1.html
DoD (1997) Exercise Tandem Thrust 97 Home Page, Department of Defence 1997, URL: http://www.defence.gov.au/tt97/bckgrnd.htm
Finance (1995) Commonwealth of Australia Budget 1995-96, Department of Finance, 1995, URL: http://www.dofa.gov.au/budget/budget95/budget95.html (Original address in 1995 was: http://www.nla.gov.au/finance/budget95/budget95.html )
K95 (1995) Exercise Kangaroo 95 Home Page, Department of Defence 1995, URL: http://www.defence.gov.au/k95.html
K95a (1995) Exercise Kangaroo 95 - Post Exercise Report, Department of Defence, 13 September 1995: http://www.defence.gov.au/k95r12.html
NLA (1998) Australian Commonwealth Government Entry Point, National Library of Australia, URL: http://fed.gov.au/t_index.htm
NLAb (1998) Australian Government Search Engine, URL: http://search.fed.gov.au/search/
NLAc (1998) Australian Government Media Releases, National Library of Australia, 1998, URL: http://media.fed.gov.au/
OGIT (1995) Improving Electronic Document Management: Guidelines for Australian Government Agencies, Office of Government Information Technology, 1995, URL: http://www.defence.gov.au/imsc/edmsc/iedmtc.htm
SA (1996) Strategies for the Implementation of a Public Key Authentication Framework (PKAF) in Australia, Standards Australia , 1996, URL: http://www.acs.org.au/president/1996/epubs/pkaf.htm
Swan M. A. (1998) Regional Co-operation in Defence IT, Department of Defence, for SEARCC98, 8 July 1998, URL: http://www.defence.gov.au/dcip/document/regit.htm
Telstra (1998) Telstra Transigo (TM) - Home Page, URL: http://www.transigo.net.au
US DoD (1995) Guidelines for Establishing and Maintaining a Department of Defense Web Information Service, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), URL: http://www.defenselink.mil/webguide.html
US DoD (1997) Policy for Establishing And Maintaining A Publicly Accessible Department Of Defense Web Information Service, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense, United States of America: URL: http://resnavy.spawar.navy.mil/dod.html
Worthington T. (1995) Internet in Government - for IT Practitioners, AUUG Sixth Annual Canberra Conference,15 February 1995 URL: http://www.tomw.net.au/auugpa.htm
Worthington
T. (1997) Internet for C3I at Exercise Tandem Thrust 97 - ADFA Computer
Science School Seminar, 10 April 1997, URL: http://www.acs.org.au/president/1997/travel/tt97/adfasem.htm