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these conditions. Why do we need
international staff? We do have na-
tional staff working for us; however,
as a result of the economic situation
in which these peacekeeping mis-
sions take place, we usually find that
qualified people have already fled.
I may quote my recent experience
in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan
-- it was extremely difficult to find
high-level staff simply as a result of
conflict or war. Those who had suf-
ficient education and higher level
jobs, such as in communications
and IT, have already left the country
and are not prepared to come back.

I can give you an example of a re-
cruitment exercise that we carried
out about a year ago. We asked one and now also in Valencia -- those right on the leading edge of proven
candidate how we could extend our hubs are the main collection points technology with virtualized servers
network to a team-site, bearing in for the communications of the that have more efficient data-
mind that it was in a very remote, missions to the outside world for storage capacity. We are moving to
harsh desert location, with sparse telephony and data. virtual desk interface -- VDI.
local population and no infrastruc-
ture. The answers surprised us be- Q: It seems to be highly specia- Q: What about Internet
cause this person already had job lized as well? security?
experience with the UN and under-
stood the nature of the work, but It is becoming extremely specified We run an enclosed network. We
the answers he gave were simply and to walk into either of these data have our own security experts co-
amazing. "Simply go out and plug centres or satellite hubs, either in ming from New York on an annual
into an Internet connection from Brindisi or in Valencia, you will be basis. It has been shown that if there
the street." When we said there is amazed at the level of technology is going to be a security issue with
no street, no service provider, how that the UN has purchased to reach data, the leakage is most probably
are you going to bring a wide-area this level. You have to remember going to take place on somebody's
network basically here to Laayoune that today people automatically desk where a random paper memo
500km away? How will you do that? expect to be able to send an e-mail has been left for all to see. A visitor
He answered: "By building a fibre message. People do expect to be able or a cleaner may intercept that in-
network..." to get on to the Internet to look at formation.
the news for example, or to do some
Q: So finally what do you use? Internet banking. We supply that We have firewalls, security of the
kind of service to our staff working computers -- we know when you
We use satellite communications. out in the field, so that the military have logged in, used your password
That is the reason why the peace- observers arriving at the team sites (we enforce password changing)
keeping missions have to rely are still able to communicate with In this way, we do try to maintain a
so heavily on satellite networks. their families and friends, and carry high level of security within the sys-
That's the reason why we have this on with their private business. tem. We have virus protections. The
satellite infrastructure (the Com- worst thing that can happen is that
munications and Information Tech- Q: When you see the buildings you use an infected USB key. Such
nology Service (CITS) as we call it). here you do not expect to find devices have crippled IT systems
such a high level of technology. throughout the world. For this rea-
Q: It must be quite expensive? son, many organizations do not al-
We are suffering a little at the mo- low the use of USB keys. You should
It is quite expensive. We lease what ment because of the slow-down of buy a bigger device -- an external
we call transpondent space on satel- investments caused by the budge- hard disk and keep it in a safe place
lites to build a centralized hub. You tary situation. We are running re- if you want to back-up files. That is
may have heard about the United latively old versions of Windows for what we recommend to our people.
Nations Logistics Base in Brindisi, instance. We are nevertheless still

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