Lack of interoperability worse than cyberattacks, says Army general

http://www.c4isrnet.com/story/military-tech/cyber/2015/11/25/lack-interoperability-worse-than-cyberattacks-says-army-general/76334032/ 

Michael Peck, Contributing Writer, November 25, 2015 

Lack of technological interoperability between American forces, and between American and foreign forces, is more damaging than enemy cyberattacks, said a U.S. Army general.

"Before we have any contact with an enemy, we'll find we have degraded communication," U.S. Army Pacific commander GEN Vincent Brooks said during a speech at the TechNet Asia-Pacific 2015 conference.

For example, "the Republic of Korea must use two different mounted displays in a command vehicle, one for its own situational awareness data and another for the U.S. Blue Force Tracker system," said an Army news release on the conference "The two systems are incompatible, so they can't share data. As a result, war fighters must blend and sort information even while on the move."

During training exercises, "U.S. and British ships can effectively share data through the CENTRIXS network, but if war breaks out, the U.S. ships will immediately revert to using the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network," Royal Navy Captain Nicolas Tindal told the conference. "As a result, neither fleet can alert the other to threats or communicate situational awareness changes."