CIA 'launches Facebook for spies'

CIA 'launches Facebook for spies'




The CIA is to open a communications tool for its staff, modelled on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, the Financial Times reports.

The project, known as A-Space, aims to improve the way that intelligence agents communicate, it said.

Officials believe that the online workplace will allow staff to better analyse information together.

However to ease fears of undercover workers having their cover blown, participation will be voluntary.

Reticent users

A-Space, due to launch in December, will feature web-based email and software recommending issues of interest to the user said Mike Wertheimer, a senior official at the Department for National Intelligence (DNI).

We are willing to experiment in ways that we have never experimented before Mike Wertheimer Department of National Intelligence

He told the FT that the new infrastructures would help break down some of the physical communications problems in the intelligence community.

"I am unable to send email, and even make secure phone calls, to a good portion of the community from my desktop because of firewalls," he said.

He added that while it was understandable that some operatives were reticent about sharing information which could pose a risk, the 9/11 attacks had showed that not pooling data could also cost lives.

"We are willing to experiment in ways that we have never experimented before," he said.

Mr Wertheimer added that while it had looked for collaboration from overseas, foreign intelligence agencies had been "the folks most virulently against" sharing information through an "intelligence library".

The DNI already operates a collaborative online encyclopaedia - or wiki - for members of the US intelligence community.

And earlier this year the CIA used Facebook to advertise job opportunities within the organisation.

YouTube introduces video adverts

YouTube introduces video adverts




Video advertising has started on the YouTube website, its owner - internet giant Google - has confirmed.

Google said it had designed the way the adverts work on the video-sharing website to be as unobtrusive and undisruptive as possible.

The adverts will begin 15 seconds after a user has started to watch a video, but only on 20% of the screen window.

Google said the advert would then disappear within 10 seconds if the user had not clicked to watch it.

'Providing value'

While YouTube already carries advertising banners, the introduction of video adverts is Google's first big push to increase revenues on the video-sharing website, which it bought for $1.65bn (£831m) last November.

"The philosophy at YouTube is pretty much core to what we at Google do generally, which is that all the ads we serve need to provide value to the end user," said Eileen Naughton, Google's director of media platforms.

The first video advertisers keen to tap into YouTube's more-than-130 million unique monthly visitors include Warner Music, News Corporation, 20th Century Fox and New Line Cinema.

The adverts will be connected to music videos and other selecting postings.

According to market expectations, the value of video advertisements on websites will soar to $4.3bn a year in the US alone by 2011.

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http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RgWRmRtUc

The Tech Lab: Lesley Gavin

Social networking sites are essentially communication spaces where you can see and talk to friends, but in a slightly different way than you would face to face, or by email or text.