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Security Privacy United States IT

FBI Boosts Servers For Faster Criminal Searches 90

Posted by Zonk from the we're-all-thrilled-for-them dept.
coondoggie writes "The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division has awarded Lockheed Martin a $16 million contract to upgrade its central repository for criminal justice information services. 'The CJIS division operates national-level crime data systems that furnish name checks, fingerprints, criminal history data and other information to law enforcement officials. Keeping its systems on the leading edge should help CJIS with its goal of delivering getting timely and relevant criminal justice information to the FBI and all others in the law enforcement community. The new and upgraded servers will be part of the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.'"
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FBI Boosts Servers For Faster Criminal Searches More

FBI Boosts Servers For Faster Criminal Searches

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  • 16 million here, 100 million there... (Score:5, Informative)

    by absoluteflatness ( 913952 ) <.absoluteflatness. .at. .gmail.com.> on Saturday September 22, 2007 @06:39PM (#20714661)
    Well, the FBI wasted over $100 million on the Virtual Case File project, so I'm okay to let them play around with a mere $16 million however they want.

    In seriousness, speeding the results of criminal checks is a useful goal. Now all we need to do is make sure that the databases are filled with the correct information, and we'll be all set.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday September 22, 2007 @08:16PM (#20715417)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 )
        The FBI is an agency that desperately needs to have a president come in and clean house

        I don't know why this guy got modded Troll ... what he's saying is largely correct (I know some FBI types who would agree with him), although realistically you can apply that principle to virtually any major Federal agency.
    • FBI management (I think) is now on Rev5 in 7 years or less,
      FBI management as good as most (thank god not all) management
      in most governments.

      National Whitehouse to local doghouse DemRep... management
      can spend money and make stupid and irresponsible decisions.
      Elected or appointed the bosses are vindictive losers and
      petty fools. The pack-mules and worker-bees in the field
      and cubical are the sources of all performance and success
      from which the show-dogs take credit.

      I remember reading about many different big mu

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by akasch ( 1159557 )
      I agree - good for them - they have as much right as we do to do whatever they want, the internet is free - and that includes them
    • yay...finally osama can be caught

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thegnu ( 557446 )
      The FBI seems pretty goddamn cheap for the kind of work they do. Considering how much we spend on the Pentagon and the prison system. And the Senate, which doesn't seem to be doing us much good, anyway.

      Plus, who doesn't love those MIB suits? And their stylish, matching pistols?

  • News? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by moehoward ( 668736 ) on Saturday September 22, 2007 @06:39PM (#20714667)

    Is a lousy $16 million contract news? Give me a break. Most big companies sneeze $16 million in IT expenses every day.

    Cut the political and "big-brother-gonna-get-ya" crap, editors. This is a complete non-story. They are upgrading. Gosh. Nobody ever does that. And how many Slashdot stories ridiculed the FBI for spending billions on their failed IT re-alignment?

    Stop the Boogey-Man stories and let's talk Nerd.

    Moe

    • Most big companies sneeze $16 million in IT expenses every day. Cut the political and "big-brother-gonna-get-ya" crap, editors. This is a complete non-story.

      Excuse me Moe, but what the fuck are you talking about? What "political crap"? I've read the summary twice (just the summary, mind, I can't be bothered to actually read the article), and I didn't see any sort of political content at all.

      And just out of curiosity, how many million $ do you think it should take for a story like this to make the front page?

      • You are absolutely correct but I also agree with the GP.

        The "political crap" is directly under the summary, ie: in the tags and replies.
      • I agree the GP has the wrong end of the stick but his post is factual (see my reply to it above), and contains no ad-homs that I can see. Modding it flaimbait just adds to the "political crap".
    • My friends cat sneezed 400 dollars in IT the other day. He just put the sucker together, booted it up, cat looked over the edge, sneezed... and the spark was fantastic. Managed to kill the Mobo and the CPU.
    • You don't think the Government is evil? Well one night, when you're asleep, the government is gonna get ya. They're gonna get ya!

  • Lockheed Martin? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Saturday September 22, 2007 @06:41PM (#20714677) Homepage Journal
    Not the people I normally associate with this type of application. Makes me wonder if they will deliver a flight control system adapted to work as a criminal justice information service.

    But then, perhaps they are more diverse than I thought.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by bombastinator ( 812664 )
      Nope. Not really.

      Furthermore they specialize in hand building purposed hardware. This is not at all what the FBI needs.

      If they said sun took the contract I wouldn't be surprised, but Lockheed? I suspect their getting this contract had more to do with their experience with acquiring government contracts than it does with them actually being the right people for the job.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by verucabong ( 1008319 )
        Actually Lockheed Martin has a new, growing, IT support services division called Global Services and Information Services. In 2006, it made up 12% of its revenue and is one of its quickly growing segments. With government agencies looking to cut costs, sometimes it's cheaper to outsource their IT to an outside company. The hitch is that they need to be able to trust the company with some of the nation's most important data. That's where Lockheed Martin comes it - they've been a defense contractor for ju
        • Well, since the airplane market is shrinking and has very low margins, spreading their income is probably a good idea as well. And when can we buy servers from them? Of course it will be overpriced and all, but really, who doesn't want a server with a 'lockheed martin' logo :)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by CoonAss56 ( 927862 )
      I work for the Army Corps of Engineers in NOLA and Lockheed just got a contract for the entire Corps IT system. The government IT people can't even get Lockheed to talk to them on an on-going basis. I think they are more interested in sub-contracting most if not all of the work to other people and just collecting the money as the prime contractor and not getting their hands dirty with the real work. They are proposing a seat-management type of system but have done no planning for such a complete reversal of

  • by providing HP Uplift Kits for 15 Superdome servers and 1 Flatsdome server.
    Sweet. I'd love to see a CRAY riding on just two.

  • Not a bad thing ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Saturday September 22, 2007 @06:53PM (#20714763)
    Not everyone can access FBI records directly, so this won't increase non-governmental background checks (which typically use data collected by private sources). But it WILL cause innocent people being held under suspicion of being a fugitive to be released faster. The data is being accessed anyway -- may as well do it quickly to minimally inconvenience those who shouldn't be inconvenienced.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )
      Do people get released because of clean background checks? Truly?

      And what do you bet that having a background check done won't lower your FBI "credit rating", and make the agents go "Hah, this guy has been background checked twice before -- where there's smoke, there's fire!"?

      Besides, background checks is based on the view that people are inherently evil or good, and that someone's past can be reliably used to predict the future. This is complete bullshit, of course, but self-propagating bullshit. In cou
      • Do people get released because of clean background checks? Truly?

        Well, if you happen to look like a certain felon, and your fingerprints don't match those at any of the crime scenes ... You'd want to be exonerated as quickly as possible, no?

        -b.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by arth1 ( 260657 )

          You'd want to be exonerated as quickly as possible, no?


          No, I much prefer not to be apprehended in the first place, and that the feds arrest more perpetrators and fewer suspects.

          Regards,
          --
          *Art
          • No, I much prefer not to be apprehended in the first place, and that the feds arrest more perpetrators and fewer suspects.

            Mistakes happen -- not all incorrect arrests are malicious. It would be good if mistakes are able to be cleared as early as possible. Remember, being arrested and charged doesn't presuppose guilt.

            -b.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 )

        But even in the US, the majority of severe crimes are done by people without records. The solution isn't to expand the records until they include everyone.

        AFIS, at least, isn't about expanding at all. As far as I know, there hasn't been a significant expansion of finger-print collecting practices other than the aliens-entering-the-us BS, which in terms of raw numbers, hasn't been that big of a deal.

        This contract announcement is really a non-event. This AFIS system has been running for 10 years now and has had one round of hardware upgrades in that time. This is the second round because, in part, the hardware they are running on is going to move off HP's s

      • "Do people get released because of clean background checks? Truly?"

        Yes, you may look like Charles Manson but if you have the fingerprints of someone else you are free to go.

        "Besides, background checks is based on the view that people are inherently evil or good"

        No, it's based on the fact the authorities "do not know you from Adam" and the observation that ordinary people who actually do "have something to hide" become expert liars when dealing with the authorities.

        Part of "the solution" is: STOP
  • <hat type="tinfoil">The NSA already has all of this information stored and indexed anyways.</hat> Why not just partner up with them? Shouldn't be too hard to integrate since the NSA will already have their hands in the FBI network to police it (according to http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/22/0340219).

    (it's funny... laugh)

  • Chump change (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MeditationSensation ( 1121241 ) on Saturday September 22, 2007 @07:03PM (#20714829) Homepage
    They got nothin' on the NSA: "NSA's budget for electricity exceeds US$31 million per year, making it the second largest electricity consumer in the entire state of Maryland."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsa [wikipedia.org]

    • They got nothin' on the NSA: "NSA's budget for electricity exceeds US$31 million per year, making it the second largest electricity consumer in the entire state of Maryland."
      (emphasis mine)

      Why did I just Guybrush Threepwood's voice in my head just then?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If the NSA is number two who the hell is number one?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • FBI Boosts Servers

    anyone else see the word 'boost' as 'steal' ?

    maybe a better subject line could have been chosen.

    (or, well, maybe you did mean that?)

    • Yes, it immediately made me think of what happened to ThePirateBay.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kent_eh ( 543303 )
      anyone else see the word 'boost' as 'steal' ?

      Nope.

      'round here the most common use of the word boost is in reference to jump starting a car, as in:

      "Hey, can ya give me a boost, my battery is dead"

  • (CJIS) Division today awarded Lockheed Martin a $16 million contract to upgrade its Hewlett Packard Superdome Unix servers.

    That ensures that FEMA will never find them w/o help from Anderson Cooper.

  • When someone discusses the local police department personnel, I think of people trying to protect me and fight crime. When they upgraded their radio system to communicate better I considered that a good thing.

    But when I think of the FBI, I don't see them that way. I see an orgnization that appears to be a threat to my privacy and basic rights and fredoms. I don't think this is how it should be, but there it is. So things like this just worry me more.

    I don't see the FBI getting better at what they do as

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by budword ( 680846 )
      I haven't meet any local cops trying to fight crime. They wait until a crime has been commited and then they show up and do paperwork. In between paperwork they try hard to prop up their egos. That, I have seen plenty of. Local cops in larger cities have police work to do. In smaller towns, they try hard to find something to do. THOSE cops are a larger threat to your wellbeing than the FBI.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by meburke ( 736645 )
      Interesting viewpoint. We may lack some hard statistics that would clarify the actual effectiveness and integrity of the FBI. I worked as a bail bondsman for a while in Houston. I would MUCH prefer to be investigated by the Feds than the locals. Houston is not as close to being a police state as it was 10 years ago, but that may be due to problems recruiting and keeping good cops, and they are undermanned. On the other hand, the Feds will investigate local police corruption or police abuse of authority in a
    • The FBI has a pretty good image in my part of the country. It's main activity here seems to be rooting out corruption at a municipal and state level. Almost every day there is a headline detailing a bribery sting operation that caught some local politician trying to make money on the side accepting money to fix contracts or grease the wheels for some no-bid purchase.

      Compared to local police I think I trust them more, not less.

  • "The killer's calling you from inside the (white) house!"
  • And here, for all these years, we here at /. always claimed those stupid "Turbo" buttons on the front of our PC's were meaningless. Leave it to the FBI to prove us all wrong!
  • I know they do, I know someone who works for them.

    Since when do they do IT?

  • Lookup versus search (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )
    There is a difference between a lookup database and an open-ended search database. It is relatively easy to save and retrieve data based on an individual using say a social security number or drivers license. However, it is a much bigger problem to do things such as list all crime cases where a thief with a green dragon tattoo drove off in a white Chevy Impala.

    The first can use regular indexes, while the second requires high-end hardware and probably mass sequential searches for nation-wide searches. Plus,
  • "Do no evil", and all that ...
  • if this thing going to make the world is safe enough because the damn grading technologies? how they gonna be if in the reality they cant catch a thief, how this thing going to happen

  • Probably Java's Fault (Score:3, Informative)

    by magma ( 649021 ) on Sunday September 23, 2007 @01:24AM (#20716961)
    I have heard the FBI presentations where they talk about using libXML + C to handle data on the network but in most states IT departments are moving to Java + XML for messaging (even if the fingerprints arn't XML the bulk of the data on the network now is). This is not just a 5x hit on speed because Java is "kind of interpreted" or "not really compiled" but more like a 20x or more hit because XML is just so verbose, it eats 20x or more bandwidth AND Java is slow at processing it compared to the messaging it replaced. The smallest possible tag set is

    <a>A</a>
    , that's 8 chars compared to the 1 char it used to be.

    Everywhere the police complain about the speed and most likely blame the FBI. Too bad they can't see the slow software running in their own state IT departments. Speed and storage (3 years of transactions need to be on file and searchable) are what are suffering now - even if the FBI did all libXML + C for everything they still have a bunch of Java clients connecting and taking their sweet old time downloading data.
  • 5 words: Take them off the net.

    Do not allow these servers to be in contact with any computers on the net. Install updates and software manually. Withdraw information via hardcopies (portable harddrives, flashdrives, etc...) if you need them on computers also connected to the tubes. In the meantime, get your important data off the web.
    • get your important data off the web.

      Never happen. The Internet is just too damned convenient, not to mention cheap. The fact that everything you send over it is vulnerable to one degree or another doesn't seem to matter to some people.

      From a security perspective, they'd be better off on dial-up.
  • After the government has turned the entire USA population and all tourists into virtual suspects, it now needs more computing power to churn through all the garbage data it's producing.

    Government and good IT spending just doesn't happen.

  • Not expected to be complete until 2001, The FBI says Sentinel will deliver an electronic information management system...

  • Why would they want criminals to be able to search their servers faster?

  • Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kilodelta ( 843627 ) on Sunday September 23, 2007 @02:17PM (#20720701) Homepage
    From 2001 to 2003 I worked for the Rhode Island Department of Attorney General as the Director of I.T.

    At that time there were two things going on. First was the box that sat in the back of the computer room with all sorts of encryption hardware and it's own frame-relay connection. This was to allow us to connect to the CJIS network. The second part was the Interstate Identification Index.

    In the past the FBI used to hold all fingerprint records. What they did with the advent of Automated Fingerprinted Identification Systems (AFIS) is push the burden onto the states. Rhode Island uses Connecticuts AFIS. But the criminal history dips hit that CJIS network to see if an active record in any state exists and then returns the information. This is also based on positive matches on a ten-print scan.

    But here is where it gets interesting. The criminal history database was housed on an IBM RS/6000 under Oracle. To get our III data to the FBI we had to do an export. Well, the tapes and tape drives we had were of the Metal-Oxide variety and the FBI couldn't read the tapes. We ended up burning a set of 6 CD's with all the data they'd requested.

    But we've long been told of the charlie-foxtrot that FBI and IRS systems became, but I've worked with many CJIS folks and they were competent people.

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