http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0730/web-ako-07-31-01.asp [Somehow, mark my words, defacing army.mil servers will be passe, but compromising AKO accounts will be the new pastime for crackers. Send porn sites to General Shelton, or gripe at General Shinseki on how harebrained it was to give black Ranger berets to everyone in the Army whether they are airborne qualified, or not. :) - WK] By George I. Seffers July 31, 2001 The U.S. Army will use Bantu Inc.s Instant Messaging for its Army Knowledge Online Web portal, which is expected to draw 3 million users by 2003. Army Knowledge Online (AKO) (www.us.army.mil) enables soldiers anywhere in the world to access Army information, news, education and training opportunities, knowledge centers and e-mail. "Presence and [instant messaging] will be integral components of the Armys online knowledge-management initiative," said Col. Robert Coxe, Army chief technology officer, in a statement. "Bantus highly secure tools will enable AKO users worldwide to share enterprise information instantly and easily in a fully encrypted environment." Through Bantus Presence Platform, icons will show portal members which colleagues are online and available to communicate. The AKO portal is described as one piece of the Armys effort to use information technology to spur innovation in services, processes and knowledge creation. The service and Bantu announced the instant messaging deal in a written statement July 30 but declined to disclose the value of the contract. Bantus contract with the Army includes installation of instant messaging and the Presence Platform in the Armys secure environment to be accessed by both classified and unclassified personnel. Bantu will provide the same instant messaging services within the Army White Pages, a worldwide locator service providing contact information for anyone with an AKO account. Bantu is based in Washington, D.C. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Aug 01 2001 - 04:44:36 PDT