The ability to share information between organizations in an ad-hoc, networked environment frequently found in humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HADR) operations, remains a challenge today. For example, US Armed Forces participating in HADR operations do not have an organic ability to share information bi-directionally with Non-Government Agencies (NGO) such as Doctors-Without-Borders. It such cases, communications are normally accomplished outside existing military networks.There are several factors that contribute to these communication barriers. Information systems often do not respect the diversity of data that needs to be shared. Security protocols enforced between organizations are also a common challenge as trust policies do not support any ad-hoc 'extension' of an organization's network based on a "need to share" condition.We present a solution that addresses these challenges. The Flowing Valued Information (FVI) Need-To-Share (NTS) architecture is designed specifically for organizations that need to share information with others in an ad-hoc environment. FVI-NTS supports a cloud computing architecture and provides an alternative approach to the end node problem in cloud computing. The design addresses authentication, authorization, integrity, confidentiality and non-repudiation-all within an adhoc environment and is based on open source code that has been FIPS-140-2 certified.
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