1. A GJXDM-Based Approach for Federated Information Sharing
The CISAnet IEM:
A GJXDM-Based Approach for
Federated Information Sharing
Jack Wallace
Debby Park
Susan Liebeskind
Georgia Tech Research Institute

2. What is CISAnet? Secure information sharing network with 10 states:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, and Texas
Administered by the Criminal Information Sharing Alliance (CISA)
Partnerships extend information sharing:
RISS projects
Federal agencies

3. CISAnet Information Sharing
Two mechanisms for sharing information
Sharing of applications
Sharing and collation of data
Information sharing is read-only, no data updates
Current data sharing infrastructure uses proprietary messages and protocol originally deployed mid-90’s

4. Program Starting Points
Each CISAnet member is unique
Local databases and applications
Local business rules
Multiple database vendors
Database structure and data elements unique to each data source
Multiple user interfaces

5. Program Starting Points
Two-step query/response paradigm
Search query
Uses search terms
Results in picklist
Retrieve query
One or more items from picklist
Results in additional details on each selection plus pointer info

6. Program Starting Points
Support for additional data sources
Currently one logical data source per member
Need to support multiple sources per member
Support for different categories of data
Person, Location, Conveyance, Organization, Contact Information

7. Program Goals Add more categories of data
Weapon, Other Property, Activity, Document and Multimedia
Support for multiple data classifications
Provide user-based security
Utilize existing identity infrastructure
Users have explicit permissions
Support submitters and requesters
Support for partner agencies

8. Program Goals Standards based Reduce development and expansion costs
XML
Web Services
J2EE Application Servers
Reduce development and expansion costs
Easy access to new data sources
Intelligent query direction
Reduce coding required for identity management

9. CISAnet Information Exchange Model (IEM)
Uses standards
XML for data exchange
Specifically GJXDM 3
Supports all desired data categories
Web services based infrastructure
J2EE application servers

10. Web Services is a standard, right?
If everyone defines their own web services, consuming applications get complicated

11. GJXDM Solves All Data Needs, Right?
Over inclusive by design
Lots and lots of elements
Multiple relationship mechanisms
Multiple code tables
No way to package picklists
No query/response metadata
No query mechanism

12. IEM Defines Middleware Layer
Well-defined Web Services
GJXDM subset
Query/Response wrapper schema
Query mechanism

13. Well-defined Web Services
Client applications invoke one web service

14. IEM Uses Subset of GJXDM
Selected one relationship mechanism
Defined CISAnet objects and removed recursion from subset
Person, Location, Contact Info, Org, Activity, Conveyance, Weapon, Document, Other Prop.
Pruned elements
Not needed by CISAnet participants
Not needed by relationship mechanism
Roughly 1,000 elements in subset

15. IEM Wrapper Schema QueryResponse schema
Metadata for queries and responses
Supports collation of data from multiple data sources
Defines set of data classifications
criminal history, criminal intelligence, criminal investigative, criminal justice, government, commercial, public, and support

16. IEM Query Metadata How to handle query Where to send query
How many hits to return
Multiple assertions
Submitter
Requester
Proxy
Type of match (exact or best)

17. IEM Response Metadata How query was handled Where responses came from
How many hits were returned
How many hits there were
Advisories
Data source description

18. IEM Query Mechanism Evaluated query mechanisms/languages
Selected XQuery, specifically XQueryX
Uses query templates so implementers don’t have to support full language
Implementers can convert query into native query or use XQuery engine

19. Intelligent Direction of Queries
Query can specify data source(s)
Query can specify participant(s)
Query can specify data classification(s)
Query be sent to “all”
Infrastructure only sends query to those sources that can answer the question
Immediate access to new data sources

20. User-based Security CISAnet submitters must have CISAnet ID
Partner query submitters supported
Every query has at least one CISAnet ID
Permissions and classifications validated
Users only get data for which they have permission
Infrastructure can “fill-in” information

21. CISAnet IEM Summary Non-recursive, simplified subset of GJXDM
Standard relationship mechanism
Standard query mechanism and language
Organizational query/response schema
Intelligent direction of queries
Security based on user permissions and data classifications