NIPRNet

networkingsecurity

The unclassified but sensitive network of the US Department of Defense, and the one with controlled connections to the public internet.

The first of three tiers, and the reason to understand the set rather than any single member. Defence networks are separated by classification level onto physically distinct infrastructure: unclassified-but-sensitive here, secret on SIPRNet, top secret and compartmented on JWICS. The separation is not a firewall rule or a VLAN. It is different cable, different equipment, different rooms, and a user who needs two levels sits at two terminals. This is the strongest form of the principle every enterprise network implements weakly: that the cheapest way to stop traffic crossing a boundary is not to build the boundary at all. Where information genuinely must cross, it goes through a cross-domain solution - a deliberately narrow, heavily inspected, usually one-directional gateway that exists precisely because the alternative is connecting the networks. Enterprise architects meet the same problem at smaller scale whenever a production network must accept something from a development one, and generally solve it with a rule where the defence answer would be a wire that is not there.

Also known as: nipr, non-classified internet protocol router network

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