Google Search Appliance helps US Intelligence Agencies

Google is helping the Government Intelligence Agencies with their Search appliance. Instead of wading through hundreds and thousands of documents manually, Google Search Appliance will help them pinpoint the results.

San Francisco Chronicle is reporting this news. Google Search Appliance is a server like device provides a secure search across different file types stored in multiple places and delivers fast, relevant and secure access to information for the companies.

Just like the regular Google Search, this appliance will search the documents and provides results in a timely manner. The video explains the main functions of the Google Search Appliance.

Google provides this search appliance to Federal, state and local agencies, along with corporations and schools. Besides the intelligence agencies, Google’s customers include the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the state of Alabama and Washington, D.C.

The agencies can use the Search Appliance devices to create their own mini-Googles on intranets (within the company) made up entirely of government data. It will help the government workers to get the answers quickly and thus work efficiently.

The Google Search Appliance provides universal search across variety of internal and external sources – including file shares, intranets, databases, applications, hosted services and content management systems. The Google Search Appliance makes all of the information that employees need to be productive accessible through a single easy-to-use search box.

The intelligence agencies with Google equipment will form Intellipedia, a network aimed at helping agents share intelligence. The spies and analysts will post all the information in a secure environment instead of having it in forms and papers, so everyone can access it easily.

Sean Dennehy, chief of Intellipedia development for the CIA told SF Chronicle:

Each analyst, for lack of a better term, has a shoe box with their knowledge…They maintained it in a shared drive or a Word document, but we're encouraging them to move those platforms so that everyone can benefit."

According to Dennehy, the Intellipedia is modeled after Wikipedia. The data however will be accessible only to the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.

Agents can log in, depending on their clearance, to Intellipedia's three tiers of service: top secret, secret and sensitive but unclassified. So far, 37,000 users have established accounts on the network, which contain 35,000 articles encompassing 200,000 pages, according to Dennehy.

Google will supply the computer servers that support the network, as well as the search software that allows users to sift through messages and data. But it will not be involved in their day to day operations.

In Google search, it ranks results based on popularity and links to the site, but in Intellipedia since the number of documents will be limited, it will give the results based on tags and keywords.

The Google Search Appliance works with over 220 different file formats and its integration with existing security systems ensures that employees can only access information they are supposed to view.

The appliance is used by many businesses besides the government, the pricing for it starts at $2,990 and will search up to 50,000 documents. Additional documents are searched for slightly higher prices. According to Google, upgrading is easy for growing organizations.