Jeff Carr, a Cyber Security Guru and author of “Inside Cyber Warfare,” has put out a call for Intelligence professionals willing to volunteer portions of their time to support the US Intel Community.   I have reposted Jeff’s message below.  I have worked with Jeff and he is legitimate.  I recommend you check it out.  You can follow his Twitter or email him if interested.

Links are below.

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

What if DARPA’s Red Balloons Were Dots That Needed Connecting?

Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 January 2010 05:53 Written by Jeffreycarr Sunday, 10 January 2010 11:04

“Our goal in entering this (DARPA) challenge is to understand how to mobilize the vast resources of the human network to face challenges and explore the opportunities that come with living in such a connected world.”

- Riley Crane, Post-doctorate Fellow, MIT Media Lab team

In sum, the U.S. government had the information — scattered throughout the system — to potentially uncover this plot and disrupt the attack.  Rather than a failure to collect or share intelligence, this was a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that we already had.

- Barack H. Obama, President, United States of America

I know that a lot of you feel the same way I do. You’re thinking how can I help fix this problem? And, let’s face it, it’s a pretty big friggin’ problem; not only in terms of what’s at stake but also in its longevity as a thorn in the side of intelligence analysts since…, well, forever. I’ve been thinking about this off and on ever since the President’s remarks and today, on my way home from seeing a movie with my wife, I thought about those red balloons and what might be possible if we leveraged Twitter to harness some of the best creative minds in the country to volunteer their particular skill set to help solve this problem on an as-needed basis.

Just from my work with Project Grey Goose, I’ve come to know lots of talented individuals in varying disciplines who I’m sure would be happy to join an on-call list to volunteer at least some of their work week if their specialty was needed. Perhaps their employers would even agree to pay them for the effort, similar to what Microsoft does for its annual Day of Caring.

I don’t think there’s a larger pool of intellectual talent anywhere in the world than in the United States. Let’s follow MIT’s lead and mobilize via the Social Web, organize it via a wiki, sketch out possibilities on a virtual white board, bring in talent as-needed, and come up with some solutions for the ODNI to apply. Let’s make it a permanent revolving resource so support is always available. And best of all, there are no budgetary issues, no bureaucratic obstacles, no BAAs that take two years to go from white paper to Phase II trials, etc. Just the work, and the best people in the country to do it – now, and for free.

Follow @greyballoons on Twitter to show your willingness to participate, and spread the word. If the idea catches on (let’s say a minimum of 1000 follows), then perhaps DNI Blair will give his endorsement and a new resource will become available to the hard-working individuals inside the IC that are tasked with the day-to-day challenge of meeting the President’s order to fix what has contributed to this intelligence failure.

Update: 11 Jan 2010 - As of 1026 Pacific time, over 50 exceptionally talented individuals have signed on via Twitter and e-mail. If you aren’t on Twitter but want to offer your services to the @greyballoons project, feel free to use email instead.

Update: 12 Jan 2010; 0400 Pacific: 101 participants and counting. 86 from Twitter and 15 via email. Thanks everybody. Please keep spreading the word.

Update: 13 Jan 2010; 0452 Pacific: 146 participants and counting. 103 from Twitter and 43 via email.