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Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of
Justice
Special Court Task Force
Planning Mission
7-18 January 2002
Information Technology and Telecommunications Requirements
of the Special Court
Guidelines and recommendations of the
Task Force to the Planning Mission
for the Special Court
This report was prepared with the generous pro bono assistance of Sensible Data. Sensible Data is a IT company that specialises in information technology, data processing and secure communications for emergency and humanitarian operations. http://www.sensible.it
1. Purpose of the document
2. Report structure
3. Basic technological infrastructure
3.1 The context
3.2 Definition of characteristics
and specifications
3.3 Sizing and cost of the structure
4. Special requirements of the
Court
4.1 Separation of networks and
systems
4.2 Cryptography and communications
4.3 Mobile workstations and videoconferencing
4.4 Application software: knowledge
management
5. Conclusion
APPENDIX A: Videoconferencing
for Special Court
APPENDIX B: A Knowledge
Management System for the Special Court
APPENDIX C: IT and Telecommunications
infrastructure currently in place in Sierra Leone
Glossary
1. Purpose of the document
The purpose of this document is to provide the
Planning Mission for the Special Court with a set of guidelines to be followed
in the design of Special Court information systems, highlighting the primary
areas for which strategic decisions will need to be made, starting in the
planning phase. These guidelines, and the recommendations they contain,
may be used as a “backbone” for the development of a feasibility study
and plan for implementing the Court's information systems.
2. Report structure
This report consists of two sections and three
appendices. The first section, “Basic Technological Infrastructure”, concerns
itself with the essential components of the IT infrastructure, such as
network, telecommunications and client/server architecture. The second
section, “Specific Requirements of the Court”, provides some additional
recommendations that take into account the particular nature of the Court.
Appendix A, “Videoconferencing”, contains a discussion concerning the potential
use of videoconferencing systems for Court activities. Appendix B, “Knowledge
Management Software”, outlines the general characteristics of the knowledge
management system that the Court should have at its disposal. Appendix
C contains brief remarks regarding the local availability of IT and telecommunications
systems in Sierra Leone. This report concludes with a glossary of
some of the technical terms used throughout the report.
3. Basic technological infrastructure
3.1 The context
In and of themselves, the information systems of
a law court are not problematic, nor do they require the adoption of special
computer or telecommunications technologies (with the notable exception
of knowledge management systems, see paragraph 4.4). However, in the case
of a Special Court with headquarters in Freetown, Sierra Leone, it is necessary
that various local environmental factors be taken into due consideration.
Specifically, the information system as a whole (both its physical and logical components), will need to feature particularly tight security characteristics, with the objective of not only preserving the integrity of the data collected and managed, but also of guaranteeing its confidentiality and, where necessary, the anonymity and privacy of witnesses. In addition, workflow will need to be organised in such a way that alteration of the data, whether accidental or intentional, is prevented during the normal performance of Court activities.
Some environmental characteristics of the location
in which the Court will be constructed also make necessary certain expedients
that elsewhere might not be necessary. For example, power supply,
external links (both for data, as well as for voice), security and so on
will need to be supplied autonomously by the organisation itself, so as
to guarantee the functioning of all sections of this court under any circumstances.
In order to render the Court autonomous and separate
(at least potentially) from the external environment as regards its information
systems as a whole, the implementation plan will need to consider and assess,
at a minimum, the following:
In light of these factors, in our opinion it
is absolutely essential that both an expert in information and communications
technology and an expert in industrial construction are part of the team
that will design and build the structures that will house the activities
of the Special Court. Indeed, without their input, errors could be incorporated
into the design that would be very difficult or costly to correct during
construction. In addition, during the building design phase, the following
points should be considered:
3.2 Definition of
characteristics and specifications
Once the contextual parameters outlines in paragraph
3.1 have been defined, the team that will draw up the implementation plan
will need to proceed with an assessment of the characteristics and the
specifications that the information system should have. Careful attention
should be paid to the study and design of LANs (or MANs, if the Court will
eventually occupy various non-contiguous buildings): redundant backbones,
separation of segments, design of a secure area network for critical subsystems,
definition of access points and so on. The network protocol to be used
should in any case be TCP/IP, for obvious reasons.
On the application level, the software solutions chosen should wherever possible be compatible with client/server architecture, in order to minimise the burden of application maintenance, while at the same time making it possible to adopt a policy of centralised backup, information access, user management and so on. In particular, the specifications will need to determine the following:
3.3 Sizing and cost
of the structure
It will be possible to size the entire information
system only when all the infrastructure parameters listed in paragraphs
3.1 and 3.2 have been defined. In particular, the feasibility study must
present to the policy maker various alternatives and related trade-offs,
particularly regarding minimum/recommended degree of redundancy, minimum/recommended
levels of security (physical and logical) and the size of the support personnel
organisation.
Particular attention will need to be paid to the analysis of information systems capital and operating costs, especially given possible difficulties in obtaining material and human resources in the local market. For example, regarding the choice of user workstation hardware, it could be advisable to select brands that are commonly imported into Sierra Leone, even if they are, technically-speaking, less than optimal.
It is our opinion, however, that at least all the critical systems (voice/data network, power supply, cooling equipment and servers) should feature a degree of redundancy of n+1, that the system adopted for user authentication and authorisation not be inferior to a smart-card and that network/systems administrator authentication and authorisation include checking of biometric parameters.
4. Special requirements of
the Court
The information currently available regarding the
actual future composition of the Court and our direct experience in Sierra
Leone make it possible to provide some additional suggestions for the structure
and capabilities of Court information systems.
4.1 Separation of networks
and systems
The Court will consist of three distinct macro-areas:
the Trial Chambers, the Office of the Prosecutor and the Registry. It is
our opinion that, consistent with the choices made among the trade-offs
detailed in paragraph 3.2, the networks relating to each of these three
macro-areas should be kept entirely separate: separate wiring/cabling,
separate server areas, separate user databases. Exchanges of information
and data among subsectors of different areas (which, due to the nature
of the Court itself, are anticipated to be potentially quite significant
in number and intensity) should be brokered by high-level applications
systems (with the possible exception of electronic mail). Therefore,
there should be no shared files or database servers, but instead there
should be a set of applications that are capable of exchanging necessary
information among themselves, ensuring that the various policies governing
access and information exchange are properly applied and then making it
available to the respective users if authorised. A total physical separation
of the networks and a proper design of monitoring and auditing systems
will ensure that the vulnerability of the system to classic computer attacks
can be kept to a minimum.
4.2 Cryptography and
communications
In addition, the use of wireless standards for
local networks should be kept to a minimum. The standards currently used
most widely for local wireless communications (IEEE 802.11b and Bluetooth)
are, in fact, not able to guarantee levels of security considered to be
acceptable. Where it is absolutely essential to include these solutions,
it will in any case be necessary to install on remote workstations programs
which are capable of ensuring encryption of data/documents prior to their
transfer or, preferably, to put in place IPSec data tunnelling encrypted
with 3DES algorithms or better (NB the more widely-used simple-DES standard
is thoroughly compromised).
4.3 Mobile workstations
and videoconferencing
The feasibility study will need to assess whether
the Court is to be provided with mobile workstations to enable, for example,
the Prosecutor or the investigators to perform their tasks outside of the
Court buildings as well.
The limited coverage and the poor reliability of
telecoms land lines in Sierra Leone (especially outside of Freetown – please
see Appendix C for a brief description of the telecommunications infrastructure
currently in place in Sierra Leone), makes the use of wireless communications
over long distances indispensable. In any case, and whatever the system
of wired or wireless communications selected, IPSec data tunnelling
with 3DES encryption algorithms will need to be
used.
In addition, the technology currently available for videoconferencing makes long-distance participation possible in all phases of a criminal trial, even under difficult conditions such as can be found in Sierra Leone. For the examination of witnesses, for example, reasons of expedience or security could make it necessary for them to participate in the trial “virtually”.
The videoconferencing equipment should be used to produce digital reports of the proceedings of the Court even if remote videoconferencing is not feasible or necessary. The reports, if appropriately stored and indexed, can then be used to recall any portion of the proceedings.
The potential to use videoconferencing is discussed in greater detail in Appendix A.
4.4 Application software:
knowledge management
It is easy to predict that the Court will generate
or will manage a great volume of documentation, including decisions and
sentences, testimony, press reports and documents produced by other entities
or other courts. In our opinion, it is essential that the Court employs
a knowledge management system that, while complying with all the parameters
of security, confidentiality and redundancy detailed above, is capable
of providing users with the precise information they require, minimising
search response times and thereby maximising productivity, efficiency and
accessibility of the information.
New applications technologies are now available
that -- combining the normal capabilities of a tight integration between
different networks and innovative statistical techniques for analysis of
content -- are capable of automatically and systematically classifying
and managing documents of various types (text, photographs, video and audio
tapes). In the Court, such systems would find a potential general application
(such as the creation of a global knowledge base for all Court operations)
or application restricted to specific user groups (such as the classification
of physical evidence and testimony by the Office of the Prosecutor). A
basic requirement for this kind of system to work properly would be the
implementation of appropriate transcription, scanning and OCR mechanisms.
Technologies currently available may provide for partially automated transcription
during court proceedings, or from digitally recorded audio or video files.
Appendix B addresses this topic in more detail.
5. Conclusion
This report sets out to provide the Planning Mission
with guidelines for correctly evaluating what will be the IT and telecommunications
requirements for the Special Court for Sierra Leone. It is intended to
aid the Planning Mission in taking certain strategic decisions regarding
the design of the Court's information systems.
Where possible, drawing on our reserve of experience gained during past projects in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, some suggestions have been made regarding the minimum standards to be considered as points of reference.
In Chapter 3, we have highlighted the requirements of the basic information management structure, as well as the principal issues that need to be resolved on the specific characteristics of the information system.
In Chapter 4, we have considered some possible solutions to specific needs of the Court.
In the Appendixes, two possible applications solutions have been presented that, in our opinion, would enable the Court to work at much higher levels of efficiency.
Currently available information regarding what the actual design of the Court will be (in all respects) is insufficient at this stage to provide detailed recommendations for all that will be required for the correct and secure operation of the Court's information systems. The identification of all necessary details, the choice among many technological trade-offs and the actual sizing of the structure should be the objective of an appropriate feasibility study and implementation plan, which can only be developed when the Planning Mission has reached its decisions regarding the constitution of the Court. In particular, this report provides no estimates of capital and operating costs: no costs could in fact be determined until detailed information becomes available on the size of the final structure.
The Task Force of the Government of Sierra Leone
would like to thank Sensible Data srl (http://www.sensible.it)
for having developed this document free of charge.
Thanks to these systems, the participation of defendants or key witnesses would be extremely simplified, for example, avoiding all the security issues related to transferring those who have agreed to testify for the court or individuals at risk for examination, with the presence of the two legal representatives, the first physically with the witness, the second in video link with the court. In addition, the contemporaneous integration of audio and video permits the management and verification of the evidence to be presented in court, and an appropriate indexing mechanisms would allow authorised users to recall any sections of a trial.
A system of this kind is combined with a device
for the codification and transmission of information consisting of portable
mobile units that can be installed and transported easily from one location
to another.
Each Codec unit is integrated with the audio/video
systems used in the Court, amplifiers, microphones, speakers, video cameras,
video monitors and/or projectors, already used for the on-site recording
of audio and video images.
In the USA, something of this kind has already been tried. In May 1996, 50 experts decided as an experiment to establish a court specialised in cyberspace, able to resolve disputes concerning irregularities committed online within 72 hours (three business days) of acceptance of a filing. The initiative, called “The Virtual Magistrate Project”, has created an online global arbitration procedure that is simple, fast and – at very low cost -- accessible to anyone.1
The new digital technologies can be introduced immediately for use in traditional trials, for example: 1) electronic archives (of summons and sentences) in place of (or in addition to) paper; 2) online access to databases for magistrates and lawyers; 3) provision of modems and Internet connections to all magistrates to enable legal research, electronic mail and workgroups; 4) dissemination of information to the public via Internet.
Where the presence of the parties is nevertheless required, use could be made of what is termed “telepresence”: technology makes it possible today to equip mobile units with videoconferencing equipment. This innovation would make unnecessary the transfer of the witness to the courtroom. In these cases, the problem necessarily arises of identifying those cooperating with the court. The technology also has the capability to resolve this problem using biometric identification technologies. Fingerprints, voice, signature, the iris of the eye are all identifiers that cannot be counterfeited or modified and permit a more reliable identification than that possible today with the subject's physical presence in the courtroom. It is almost unnecessary to add that, for this type of hearing, the courtroom could also be replaced easily by properly equipped judge's chambers.
However, it is difficult to contemplate an entirely virtual trial at present, with the elimination from the courtroom of the judges and lawyers, but their physical presence could certainly be reduced, as well as that of witnesses, defendants and experts, extending a “virtual participation” to judiciary police officers called to testify, as well as to expert witnesses. At present, to be able to introduce in a trial--that is, transform into evidence—investigators’ written records and expert reports, it is necessary that the agents and experts take part in the trial. By making the same kind of virtual participation possible for them as for those in custody, both physical transfers and time spent could be reduced. Judiciary police records could be transmitted to the trial and introduced as evidence without requiring the agents, often more than one, to spend an entire morning in the courtroom. Should the need arise to interrogate an agent, it should be possible to establish an audio-video link with the police station to have his/her “virtual presence”. It is quite clear that in this way, agents could save time better used for investigations and experts could reaffirm their examinations and respond to questions related to them.
A problem that makes conducting criminal trials slow and costly is that related to the production and consultation of trial-related documents. The record of hearings are transcribed by typists and this operation, which has a high cost in economic terms, produces texts which are often imprecise and, in many cases, only in paper form. The new speech-recognition technologies, “automatic dictation” systems, allow for the efficient transformation of recordings, producing documents much more quickly and at lower cost than is possible with today's methods. The electronic documents produced, as we have already mentioned, may be archived and retrieved more efficiently.
Technically, to implement the above, either as a whole or in part, certain infrastructure becomes necessary. The headquarters of the Special Court will need to be equipped with a digital telephone exchange, with adequate wiring throughout the building, with mobile units, which make it possible to “take the Court” to witnesses, and, probably, already-equipped courtrooms in peripheral locations. It is essential that the Court have access to the Internet or, even better, access via a dedicated satellite line with secure encryption protocols, also including if possible mobile units with send-and-receive satellite systems. This solution enables Court personnel to have access to online resources, as well to make trial documents available in real time and to store copies of data and video recordings from the trial in physically separate locations not at risk of destruction by armed attack, fire or other means.
Videoconferencing is the transmission of that which is happening in one place to others with which it is linked. This takes place in one or more locations with video cameras and their operators to do the filming. Then, using specific equipment, this is transmitted to rooms equipped for reception.
Videoconferencing is the optimal system for communicating efficiently, eliminating travel time and costs for the individuals involved. Maximum advantage can be achieved with the use of one or more specific technologies (satellite links, ISDN, streaming/webcasting). The most appropriate technology is determined by the degree of interactivity required, by the quality of the video image desired and by the number and possibility of bringing together audiences for whom the communication is intended. In our case, it will be necessary to use a videoconferencing system with bi-directional transmission. Bi-directional transmission of an event foresees that receivers, gathered together in groups, in addition to seeing and hearing what is being transmitted, may also in turn interact with the first location via both audio and video communications.
In the case of a videoconference via satellite, that is, a conference using satellite as its means of transmission, it usually takes place at a site termed the primary, or master, location, where the event is held, and is directed towards the reception sites, called secondary locations (or slave locations).
The primary location
The primary location is equipped with:
From production, the signal is sent to the parabolic transmission dish that sends the signal to the satellite (up-link). The satellite relays it over the entire coverage area.
Secondary locations
Secondary locations must be equipped with special
parabolic dishes capable of receiving the satellite signal (down-link).
The signal received is decoded and transmitted to the video projection system and to the room's audio system.
Interactive audio-video videoconferencing
Interactive videoconferences (with different locations
that are able to interact audio-visually) require more complex technology.
Each interactive site must be supplied with:
Where there are only a few interactive locations
(up to 2 or 3 locations at one time), satellite can be used. For more interactive
locations, it is preferable to manage interactivity via ISDN line.
The standard on which the videoconferencing system
should be based is H.323, which has become the standard for Internet videoconferencing.
For mobile units, for example, there exist very practical systems such
as the Sony travelling videoconference system (compatible with H.320 and
H3.323), which makes it possible via an ISDN line to hold videoconferences
using a standard notebook computer.
In our case, if ISDN lines are not available, it will be necessary to resort to more complex systems that use satellite connections in parallel.
Finally, videoconferences may be recorded and then archived with other case material, just as can be all the sessions that take place in the primary location, and, taking advantage of modern speech-recognition systems, indexed and filed for improved accessibility by the Special Court.
Footnote
1. The Virtual Magistrate Project
is an experimental service developed by the Cyberspace Law Institute, and
funded by the National Center for Automated Information Research. Operational
elements of the Project are provided by the American Arbitration Association
and the Villanova Center for Information Law and Policy. Documents explaining
the rules, procedures, and purpose of the Project are available on the
Virtual Magistrate Home Page. [Return
to text]
APPENDIX B: A Knowledge Management System for the Special Court
i. The Application
Our concept is to provide the Special Court with
a tool that supports the carrying out of its mission with the maximum possible
efficiency at the lowest cost, increasing and improving productivity, reducing
the time required to collect information, preventing duplication of information
and work groups, automatically generating user profiles and creating communities
based on these user profiles.
The technology we plan to use aggregates structured, semi-structured and non-structured data. This makes it possible within a very short period of time to put in place a system capable of indexing and retrieving documents--by means of natural language or keyword query--without needing to organise them in advance.
Documents are aggregated based on the concepts expressed within them and, because the technology is language independent, they are stored and retrievable irrespective of language. Some 20 languages are currently supported, including Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and double byte languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
The software manages the classification of documents automatically, generating abstracts and creating links to previously classified documents. It is also possible, again automatically, to analyse, classify and retrieve, according to subject heading, images and video files.
Using special “fetchers”, it is possible to obtain information from sources external to the Special Court's Intranet or Extranet, such as press agencies or remote data bases, and to share information resident in e-mail system shared folders. In combination with tools such as active knowledge, users have at their disposal a utility that, by analysing the information they are accessing or writing, continually proposes conceptually correlated documents.
Where similar tools are already in use, this indexing system integrates perfectly with pre-existing search and indexing systems by enhancing and increasing their performance.
We propose to create a working tool for the Special
Court that:
1) Optimises and accelerates the classification
of information;
2) Makes subsequent classification and storage
of information and evidence unnecessary, since this is done at the time
of collection;
3) Makes all information available immediately
to the work groups responsible for preparing documentation;
4) Precludes overlaps between work groups by bringing
them to the attention of the user;
5) Proposes information sources and documents to
those drafting reports via real-time prompts, precluding information loss
through incorrect storage;
6) Enables the acquisition, storage and classification
of a larger volume of information within a given period of time relative
to traditional systems;
7) Enables the contemporaneous handling and association
of a greater amount of information;
8) Handles and makes available in like manner documents,
images, film and audio recordings;
9) Lays the foundations for the creation of a worldwide
database of war crimes and suitable for use by future missions.
ii. Technological Background
The proposed software's strength lies in a combination
of technologies that employs advanced pattern matching techniques (non-linear
adaptive digital signal processing), utilising Bayesian Inference and Claude
Shannon's principles of information theory.
This software identifies the patterns that naturally occur in text, based on the usage and frequency of words or terms that correspond to specific ideas or concepts. Based on the preponderance of one pattern over another in a piece of unstructured information, this software enables computers to understand that there is an X% probability that a document in question is about a specific subject. In this way, the software is able to extract a document's digital essence, encode the unique "signature" of the key concepts, then enable a host of operations to be performed on that text, automatically.
The pattern-matching algorithms that provide the contextual analysis and concept extraction automate the categorisation and cross-referencing of information.
Bayesian Inference
The theoretical underpinnings of the software's
approach can be traced back to Thomas Bayes, an 18th century English cleric
whose work on mathematical probability was not published until after his
death ("Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" 1763).
Bayes' work centred on calculating the probabilistic relationship between
multiple variables and determining the extent to which one variable impacts
on another.
Extensions of the theory go further than relevance information for a given query against a text. Adaptive probabilistic concept modelling (APCM) analyses correlation between features found in documents relevant to an agent profile, finding new concepts and documents. Concepts important to sets of documents can be determined, allowing new documents to be accurately classified.
Shannon's Information Theory
Information Theory is the mathematical foundation
for all digital communications systems. Claude Shannon's innovation as
described in his "Mathematical Theory of Communication" (1949) was to discover
that "information" could be treated as a quantifiable value in communications.
Natural languages contain a high degree of redundancy. A conversation in a noisy room can be understood even when some of the words cannot be heard; the essence of a news article can be obtained by skimming over the text. Information theory provides a framework for extracting the concepts from the redundancy.
The software's approach to concept modelling relies on Shannon's theory that the less frequently a unit of communication occurs, the more information it conveys. Therefore ideas which are more rare within the context of a communication, tend to be more indicative of its meaning. It is this theory which enables the software to determine the most important (or informative) concepts within a document.
To use software based on this technology, which has the capability to teach itself and to revise dynamically the logical correlations that underlie classification, the initial phase is of key importance. It is in this phase that the general rules are defined which govern--and if necessary modify--the conceptual relationships to be established between documents.
The client must participate actively in this phase, furnishing a sufficient quantity of documents to begin "teaching" the software how documents should be classified and what kinds of relationships should and should not be established between them.
Regarding the issue of a local cache, document indexation is done irrespective of the computer on which the documents are stored. In the specific case of the Special Court, if it were necessary for reasons of security, it is possible to store documents on a server located outside of Sierra Leone or, at a minimum, to duplicate the data on a server in another country for backup purposes.
The “context sensitive” software module, which we
mentioned in the general description document, employs client/server technology--that
is to say the use of resources of a remote server by means of client software
installed on local PCs. More specifically, this is the module that proactively
proposes to users, lawyers and/or investigators, those documents that are
related to what the user is in the process of writing or reading via word
processor or Web browser.
APPENDIX C: IT and Telecommunications infrastructure currently in place in Sierra Leone
The following are some brief remarks on the local availability of IT and telecommunications systems in Sierra Leone.
i. SierraTel
SierraTel is the national telephone company and
landline provider. It is the only telephone operator to have voice and
data international connectivity: other GSM or Internet Service Providers
use SierraTel as a carrier for all international connections. The overseas
link is a Global One satellite connection with a single antenna.
SierraTel also provides leased lines for data communications within Freetown, using the existing copper wires normally used for voice communications. No more than 64 Kbps can be achieved on such lines (sometimes less, depending on the conditions of the wires). This service may not be available in all areas of Freetown. In theory, it could be possible to establish private microwave connections between the Court site and SierraTel main building, allowing for a much greater speed rate and reliability.
Some areas outside Freetown are served by microwave links designed to carry voice communication (and may also be enough for a standard dial-up Internet connection).
Although SierraTel has very good expansion plans, especially in the field of Internet communications, no forecasts are currently available on their implementation.
ii. UNAMSIL
UNAMSIL connection to the outside world is made
by a satellite link to the UN hub in Brindisi, Italy, to which many UN
Missions are connected. From the hub, voice traffic is routed to the UN
main switchboard in New York, while data connections to the Internet are
achieved via an ISP in Brindisi.
UNAMSIL’s infrastructure is more than sufficient to accommodate all voice communication needs for the Court; the bandwidth available for data connections, however, may not be sufficient, especially for videoconferencing and remote backup purposes. UNAMSIL may also be able to provide installation, support and procurement services to the Special Court.
iii. UNOPS
UNOPS uses SierraTel services for all their international
communication needs. For communications within Sierra Leone, they use an
HF radio network with base stations in many villages outside Freetown.
The same network could be used for data communications, although with an
extremely limited bandwidth (2,4 Kbps). UNOPS technical staff can provide
installation, support and procurement services to the Special Court, as
well as logistics and door-to-door shipping services.
iv. GSM availability
In Freetown, GSM coverage has been available from
two providers for many months. SMS services are gradually becoming available:
at the moment, only SMS traffic within the same provider is allowed. GSM
can be used for data communications as well as voice, but at a very low
speed (9,6 Kbps). At least one of the GSM providers (CellTel) is in the
process of reaching roaming agreements with other international providers,
but there is no known timetable of implementation.
v. Other Internet Service Providers
All Sierra Leone ISPs currently use SierraTel services
for their international communications needs. Unfortunately, no low-cost
two-way satellite carrier has coverage in Sierra Leone: the only alternative
to SierraTel or UNAMSIL connectivity, though, would be a commercial high
performance carrier.
Glossary
3DES: Short for Triple Data Encryption Standard,
a standard cryptographic algorithm applies the DES three times with three
different keys.
Backbone: The main wire that connects network
nodes. The term is often used to describe the main network connections
composing the Internet.
Backup: (v) To copy files to a second medium
(such as a disk or tape) as a precaution in case the first medium fails.
Biometrics: Generally, the study of measurable
biological characteristics. In computer security, biometrics refers to
authentication techniques that rely on measurable physical characteristics
that can be automatically checked. Examples include computer analysis of
fingerprints or speech patterns.
Bluetooth: A short-range radio technology
aimed at simplifying communications among devices and between devices and
the Internet.
Client/server architecture: A network architecture
in which each computer or process on the network is either a client or
a server. Servers are powerful computers or processes dedicated to managing
disk drives (file servers), printers (print servers), or network traffic
(network servers). Clients are PCs or workstations on which users run applications.
Clients rely on servers for resources, such as files, devices, and even
processing power.
Codec: Short for compressor/decompressor.
A codec is any technology for compressing and decompressing data. Codecs
can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of both. Some
popular codecs for computer video include MPEG, Indeo and Cinepak.
Data tunnelling: A technology that enables
one network to send its data via another network's connections. Tunnelling
works by encapsulating a network protocol within packets carried by one
of more different networks.
DES: Short for Data Encryption Standard,
a standard cryptographic algorithm developed by the U.S. National Bureau
of Standards.
Encryption: The translation of data into
a secret code. Encryption is the most effective way to achieve data security
and authenticity. To read an encrypted file, users must have access to
a secret key or password that enables the file to be decrypted. Unencrypted
data is called plain text; encrypted data is referred to as cipher text.
Fault tolerance: The ability of a system
to respond gracefully to an unexpected hardware or software failure. There
are many levels of fault tolerance, the lowest being the ability to continue
operation in the event of a power failure. Many fault-tolerant computer
systems mirror all operations; namely every operation is performed on two
or more duplicate systems, so if one fails the other can take over.
IEEE 802.11: A family of specifications
developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for
wireless LAN technology. 802.11 specifies an over-the-air interface between
a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients.
IPSec: Short for IP Security, a set of protocols
developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force to support secure exchange
of packets using TCP/IP. IPsec supports two encryption modes: Transport
and Tunnel. Transport mode encrypts only the data portion (payload) of
each packet, but leaves the header untouched. The more secure Tunnel mode
encrypts both the header and the payload. On the receiving side, an IPSec-compliant
device decrypts each packet.
LAN: Short for Local-Area Network, a computer
network that spans a relatively small area, such as a single building
MAN: Short for Metropolitan-Area Network,
a data network designed for a town or city. In terms of geographic breadth,
MANs are larger than local-area networks (LANs), but smaller than wide-area
networks (WANs). MANs are usually characterised by very high-speed connections
using fibre-optical cable or other digital media.
n+k redundancy: Having k extra network or
piece of equipment to ensure fault tolerance in case one fails.
TCP/IP: Abbreviation for Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol, the suite of communications protocols used
to connect hosts on the Internet. TCP/IP uses several protocols, the two
main ones being TCP and IP. TCP/IP is used by the Internet, making it the
de facto standard for transmitting data over networks.
UPS: Abbreviation of uninterruptible power
supply, a power supply that includes a battery to maintain power in the
event of a power outage. Typically, a UPS keeps a computer running for
several minutes after a power outage, enabling users to save data that
is in RAM and shut down the computer gracefully, or to wait for a generator
to start.
WAN: Short for Wide-Area Network, a computer
network that spans a relatively large geographical area. Typically, a WAN
consists of two or more local-area networks (LANs). Computers connected
to a wide-area network are often connected through public networks, such
as the telephone system. They can also be connected through leased lines
or satellites. The largest WAN in existence is the Internet.
This report was prepared by
the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice of Sierra Leone
for the Special Court Task Force with the technical cooperation of No Peace
Without Justice and the generous pro bono assistance of Sensible Data.