Arms Control in the Information Age: World-Wide Data Acquisition, Analysis, Storage and Access in Near-Realtime

The verification system being established to monitor the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test- Ban Treaty (CTBT) will include a network of 337 seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide facilities, transmitting digital data to the International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna, Austria over a global satellite communications system. The mission of the IDC is to process and analyze these data, and to provide equitable, timely and convenient access to the data, products and services to all Member States so as to support their compliance assessments under the Treaty. In effect, the Treaty defines a new brand of arms control verification for the information age. Enabling technologies include nearrealtime global acquisition of data, public key cryptography, automated knowledge-based data fusion and decision support, mass storage systems, and user interfaces based on Internet and Web technologies.