Can Trust Clouds Be Trusted With Government Information?Can Trust Clouds Be Trusted With Government Information?

Vivek Kundra, an early adopter of cloud computing, has an interesting, but potentially risky, proposal to consider as he steps into his new job as federal CIO. Cisco and Swan Island Networks are promoting the idea of "trust clouds" as a way of sharing sensitive information among government agencies.Just one day before Kundra's appointment was announced last week, Cisco and Swan Island published a white paper that makes the case for so-called trust clouds. Swan Island CEO Charles Jennings expects the Obama administration to be receptive to the concept of using collaborative computing clouds as an alternative to government IT silos. "A lot of people get it, particularly in the new administration," Jennings told me in an interview yesterday.

The idea is sure to raise eyebrows, if not howls of protest. The proposal is aimed specifically at sensitive government information that falls under a federal policy, enacted by presidential order last May, known as "controlled unclassified information." Pointing to the effectiveness of ant colonies and flocks of birds, Jennings and co-author Jeff Frazier of Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group argue that government users could more effectively share sensitive information using computing clouds that have some degree of access control, but not the full-blown security of firewalled internal systems.

The problem, of course, is that many IT professionals and users alike doubt the inherent security of cloud computing environments. In one example, Google recently notified users that a small percentage of Google Docs documents may have been inadvertently exposed to unintended users. In survey after survey, security tops of the list of IT concerns around cloud computing.

Cisco and Swan Island anticipated resistance to their proposal. The authors attempt to assuage concerns by proposing that "open, nonsensitive" information be used as a starting point and by making participation optional. And Jennings says the cloud wouldn't be used to actually store data, but rather for "stateless" applications that involve real-time information sharing among authorized experts.

That's where trust clouds may have some potential. Consider emergency situations involving hurricanes, floods, transportation, or the electric grid, where inter-agency coordination comes into play. "The goal is to create the best real-time picture of what's going on for real-time decision making," says Jennings. In one real-world example, Swan Island's service was used in February to support security efforts around the Super Bowl in Tampa. In another, it was used to create information mash-ups in an exercise for the Department of Homeland Security.

As the white paper authors point out, Twitter and Second Life have been used in innovative ways to deal with a variety of crises, albeit by teenagers and other local citizens. A trust cloud would fit somewhere between such wide open social networks and closed classified systems.

Will trust clouds fly? The usage scenarios are compelling, but the security concerns are real. The federal CIO must proceed with caution.

information has published an in-depth report detailing the views of more than two dozen industry leaders on what should be top of mind for President Obama's CTO. Download the report here (registration required).