CPI Hosts Second User Conference

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1 COMPUTER PROJECTS OF ILLINOIS, INC. Volume 3 Issue 1 SPRING 2004 Special Interest Articles: August User Conference OpenFox Sex Offender Registry NCIC Validations Installation of Vermont OpenFox Message Switch and Hot Files Installation of Ohio OpenFox Hot Files and Volumes CPI Encryption Certification Coming Soon: Idaho State Police Installation 6416 S. Cass Avenue Westmont, IL (630) CPI Hosts Second User Conference The 2 nd Annual CPI User Conference has been scheduled for August 9-11, 2004 and will again be held at the Holiday Inn Conference Center in Willowbrook, IL. Last year s User Conference was unanimously agreed to have been a success by the attendees, and this year s conference will endeavor to build on that success. Last year, representatives from South Dakota, Virginia, Wisconsin, Iowa, Arkansas, Homeland Security, DOJ, Navy, Rhode Island, Vermont and Hawaii were in attendance. Delton Tipton was elected as the user representative at the last NLETS conference and he has been working hard as your chairman to get information out to all the users. The agenda and the costs for the conference are still being developed. CPI is very interested in knowing what the user base would like to have presented. There will be an extended session this year for the OpenFox customers to speak one-on-one with company personnel. This was very successful last year and therefore, CPI will allocate a large block of time for customer and CPI interaction. Additional information should be available in the next few weeks, so watch your for coming attractions. Delton and CPI encourage customers to submit suggestions for the topics that would be of interest, and we will make every effort to provide presenters for those topics. Additionally, if there are customers that would like to provide presentations, just let either Delton Tipton or Thom Mitney know so that time can be allotted on the agenda. The conference is for the benefit of our users, so that CPI can develop or enhance our products to help meet their present as well as their future needs. Delton Tipton - mailto:delton.tipton@state.sd.us Thom Mitney - mailto:tmitney@openfox.com

2 OpenFox Sex Offender Registry The OpenFox Sex Offender Registry Application is designed to allow easy maintenance of a sex offender registry. The system will forward transactions to NCIC, eliminating any duplication of effort in maintaining the local and national files. This keeps the in-state and NCIC files synchronized. The system can produce a wide range of documents and reports, such as: Initial Registration Letters. The document with the offender s registration information is created and a copy is automatically printed for each law enforcement agency and victim. Address Verification Letter. This document is produced annually or on demand and is sent to the offender so that they can verify their current address. Verification Letter Not Returned Affidavit. This document is produced to charge the offender with not verifying their address as required by law. Verification Letter Returned By Post Office. This document is produced when an Address Verification Letter has been returned by the post office as undeliverable. It charges the offender with failing to verify their address in accordance with the law. Failure to Verify Letter. This document is sent to law enforcement agencies to notify them that an offender has failed to verify their address and that their whereabouts are considered unknown. Registry Update Letter. This document notifies law enforcement that an offender who is late in verifying has updated their address information after being reported as failing to verify. Late Verification Report. This report lists all offenders who were more that 10 days late in verifying their addresses. This application has a powerful search screen which allows users to search the database for offenders based on name, DOB, city, county, state and even physical characteristics, such as hair and eye color or height. Wildcards are available for use in the name field. Other features include an address archive (all previous residential addresses), offense archive, and screens for supplementals and victims. OpenFox Sex Offender Registry Application NCIC Local Agency Local Agency OpenFox Message Switch REGISTRATION UPDATES LETTERS OF CONFIRMATION AND AFFIDAVITS DATABASE SOR ADMINISTRATION Vol. 3 Issue 1 Page 2

3 NCIC Validations The OpenFox system provides a robust and complete functionality for the validation of NCIC and In-State Hot File records through the use of the OpenFox Validation Application. This application automates and organizes control and data flow to assist the Validation Administrator and the users in managing and implementing the monthly NCIC 2000 on-line record validation process. Key features of the OpenFox Validation Application are: The application integrates with the standard facilities within the OpenFox system, providing a seamless installation. The users access reports and accomplish validations from standard user workstations, thus requiring very little, if any, training. There is no need for another standalone system thus significantly reducing the installation risk, as well as and the ongoing operation and maintenance. The Validation Application is implemented using RDBMS tools to collect, organize, and execute the data, transactions, and reports that comprise the application functionality. The application provides the following organization and management controls to automate the monthly validation cycle. Process Initiation The process design allows initiation of a validation cycle in two ways. The first is driven by the receipt of the NCIC $C file and the records to be validated are taken from the $C file from NCIC. The process can alternatively be initiated on a schedule, with records to be validated selected from the instate Hot File NCIC mirrored records set. Validation Record Source The Validation Application executes on a periodic cycle with the records to be validated optionally selected from different sources. The application provides the capability to validate NCIC records, NCIC mirror records, and in-state records. The records selected for validation in a particular validation cycle can be sourced from NCIC in the $C file; by selecting records from in-state NCIC mirror files; from in-state only files; or combinations of these record sources. Database Structure In order to organize the validation record set, the validation records are stored in a schema called Validations which resides in the same Oracle instance as the Hot File database. The Validations schema includes a series of database objects and programs to support the validation processes and transactions. Selecting Records For Validation Records are selected for validation using the same selection criteria as is used by NCIC. The basic requirement is that records validated in any particular cycle are those records entered 3 months prior to the current month; and records entered in that month for each prior year. Loading the Validation Record Database Scripts, preprocessing routines, and the Oracle loader are utilized to process and load the records selected for validation into support tables. In order to Vol. 3 Issue 1 Page 3

4 provide synchronization the records held in NCIC are compared to the copy in the local database and any differences are noted in the resulting database. User Notifications After loading the records during the cycle preparation phase, the application generates and sends the first in a series of user notification messages to inform the user that there are records requiring validation and that those records are ready to be accessed. The initial notification is the first of three possible unsolicited messages to record owners. As the validation window for the current cycle proceeds, the application will send notifications to a record owner at 20 days and 10 days as a reminder that there are records requiring validation. All of the validation notifications are delivered through the standard OpenFox message switching network. Retrieving Validation Record Set Details The Message switch supports standard transactions that provide detail on the records that require validation during the current cycle. The query validation transaction retrieves summary information that describes the type and number of records requiring validation for an ORI. In addition, other transactions are used to retrieve detailed information describing the records requiring validation. Validation and Modification Transactions Record maintenance and the actual validation are implemented using transactions from the standard OpenFox Message Switch transaction set. The user utilizes the standard transactions, appropriate for the record type, to perform any required maintenance on a record to validate the data, and also to update the VLN field using the standard modify transaction to indicate that the record has been validated. The records are modified in both the in-state database as well as the NCIC Hot Files. Reports The administrator has the option to generate a report of the validation record set for an ORI that can be delivered electronically, printed, or mailed to the the agency for processing if the agency does not utilize the OpenFox Message Switch network and workstations to perform the validation function. Purging Records The validation cycle process includes a purge at the end of the cycle that will delete records that have not been validated. The purge function consists of two steps. The first step is the creation of a purge audit report for the administrator. The purge report provides the administrator with the details of the proposed purge actions for review showing the details of the records selected for deletion because they have not been validated within the validation cycle window. The administrator and the owner can then determine whether the record should be validated or purged. The second step in the process is to execute the actual record purge. Security The application will insure that only an agency authorized can validate records belonging to that agency. In addition, each of the transactions specified above will be assigned the appropriate transaction authority, which will always be checked when being processed through the message switching application. For additional information on any of the topics in this newsletter, please contact: Thom Mitney, Computer Projects of Illinois, Inc (630) tmitney@openfox.com. Vol. 3 Issue 1 Page 4

5 The Last Old Gray Fox Harken back to yesteryear at the NLETS conference in Hawaii during the Datamaxx / CPI User Breakfast do you remember the presentation which showed the new Red Fox chasing the Old Gray Fox out of States? The presentation and graphics made a quite a hit at the breakfast primarily because of the animation! Well, in any event, the last of the Gray Fox systems was successfully replaced by an OpenFox system last December. On December 8 th, the FOX V message switching system for the Vermont State Police was replaced by the OpenFox system. This means that we, at CPI, can remove the last remnants of the assembler language system, for some of us a melancholy moment. CPI was awarded the VSP contract through a competitive bid issued in February of 2003 and signed in July. The system includes a statewide completely TCP/IP based network with interfaces to user workstations (Glink), network printers, remote agencies (CAD and MDT), NCIC, NLETS, Vermont Criminal History Information program (VCHIP) and Motor Vehicle. There are three separate interfaces to DMV: the normal in-state transactions, an interface for NLETS transactions, and an interface for users located behind the DMV system. In addition, the system supports an interface to the national weather service. The system features a great deal of message spawning, as well as derivative spawning based on responses. From a database perspective, the system supports Vermont only Warrants, a complete Sex Offender Registry application (see write-up in this newsletter), and an NCIC Mirror Hot File system with full record synchronization for most of the NCIC files. The implementation is powered by redundant IBM pseries systems running AIX 5.2 and utilizes Oracle version 9i for the database components. The VSP system utilizes the latest copy of OpenFox Operator Aid and High Availability for OpenFox with automatic detection and system swap for Goodbye hardware and operating system problems. In addition, VSP has chosen the popular Archive and Retrieval system which will operate on the backup system. This was a totally turnkey implementation. The design specifications were built, the hardware was procured, staged and installed, the software was implemented and all of the databases were converted in the July to December time frame. This project would not have been a success without the help and direction of the staff at VSP, including most notably, Phil Colby, Max Schlueter, Chris Fuhrmeister and John Scott. CPI would like to thank the VSP and staff for helping to make this project a success. The VSP implementation brings the total number of States in which the OpenFox system is implemented as an enterprise wide message switch or an IP Connection Manager to twenty one (21). In addition, the OpenFox system is installed and operational in six Federal Agencies, as well as NYPD. Vol. 3 Issue 1 Page 5

6 Ohio Hot Files Go Into Production On January 18, 2003, the new Ohio OpenFox HotFiles System (HFS), went into production. On that day, through a series of predetermined and planned steps, approximately 178,000 Wanted Person records; 1,400 Missing Person Records; 22,300 Stolen Vehicles; 11,900 stolen License Plates; 7,600 Towed Vehicles and 16 Ohio COP Alert records were placed online for the entire state. The OpenFox HFS is operating on a Unisys ES7000 partition with 4-CPU s and 4GB of memory. Disk storage is provided by an EMC SAN storage array connected to geographically dispersed systems via the EMC Connectrix system. The operating system is Windows 2000 Advanced Server running Oracle 8i. During a typical day in which the total volume for the Ohio system is approximately 1.8 to 1.9 million messages, the HFS will handle over 355,000 messages (in and out) during the day. Average response time for a negative response to a query from input by station to response is less than 1/5 th of a second. (18/100). Random response time for a positive response to a query input by station is slightly longer than 1/5 th of a second (22/100). During an extended test period, the single interface processed over 750,000 messages, without problems or backlogs, during a single day. The OpenFox Message switch went into production on April 4 th, 2003 assuming the role as a super server to the legacy Mainframe. During the next 6 weeks following cutover, 565 legacy workstations, for direct connect users, were converted to the Omnixx workstation software connecting directly to the OpenFox system. Following the workstation conversion, approximately 82 remote interface agencies (remote systems supporting their own workstations) as well as several hundred more secondary workstations were converted and put on line, communicating directly to the OpenFox. During this time training sessions were held to introduce and provide initial instruction in use of the new system. The final phase of the project was to convert the Hot Files from the Unisys mainframe system and implement the application in the OpenFox system environment. This project began in July and was culminated when the Hot Files were placed online on January 18 th. Following is a statement from the Ohio State Police project leader Rob West: "Ohio has just finished the final cut-over to the NCIC 2000 compliant CPI OpenFox Message Switch, Hot File System, and Archive Retrieval System. We have been very impressed by the performance we are getting from the new system. Coupled with the workstation application provided by Datamaxx, we are getting sub-second response times while processing nearly 2 million messages per day. Recently, we were bombarded with messages from a customer interface that pushed our daily message count well over 3 million messages and the response times never changed. We continue to be impressed by the ease in which we can add interfaces and change configurations to accommodate changes in our environment. The tools provided by CPI for monitoring the health of the system make system administration a breeze. CPI has proven to be hyper-responsive to Ohio's unique requirements and that is a quality that is not lost on us." CPI salutes the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the LEADS Staff who worked closely with us to make this a very successful project Vol. 3 Issue 1 Page 6

7 CPI Encryption Certification On February 4 th, 2004, Computer Projects of Illinois, Inc. was issued an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) compliance certificate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This certificate was issued as validation that CPI s OpenFox Encryption Libraries correctly conform to the AES algorithm as specified in the Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 197 (FIPS-197). The current list of certificates issued by NIST for AES compliance can be viewed at the Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithm Validation List: ( CPI s OpenFox Encryption Libraries are listed with Certificate #122. This site contains links to documents describing the FIPS-197 standard and the test procedures performed to validate a vendor s implementation. The OpenFox Encryption Libraries are used in the OpenFox Message Switching System and supporting client software to encrypt sensitive configuration elements, such as user passwords, and to support application layer encryption on TCP communications such as DMPP-2020 and FoxTalk. Installation of Idaho State Police System The Datamaxx (prime) / CPI (subcontractor) team has been awarded the contract for the installation of a statewide deployment of Omnixx Force Browser based workstations and the OpenFox message switching system for the Idaho State Police. This contract was awarded through the competitive bid process and work has just begun on the implementation. The design specification has been completed, the remote system interface documentation has been completed and the interface agencies have been briefed on the new system and interface. CPI is very excited about this system which features an all TCP/IP implementation and CPI core software functionality such as the OpenFox Message Switching system, High Availability for OpenFox, OpenFox Operator Aid as well as the Archival and Retrieval system. We will provide more details about this system later when it goes into production. CPI would like to thank the Idaho State Police and CISA Inc. for selecting the A Team. Vol. 3 Issue 1 Page 7