Virtual Case File (or VCF) was a software application developed by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) between 2000 and 2005.
It did not include network-management or archiving systems—a failing that would put crucial law enforcement and national security data at risk"[1] In September 2000, the FBI announced the "Trilogy" program, intended to modernize the bureau's outdated Information Technology (IT) infrastructure.
ACS was built on top of many obsolete 1970s-era software tools, including the programming language Natural, the ADABAS database management system, and IBM 3270 green screen terminals.
Bob E. Dies, then the bureau's assistant director of information resources and head of the Trilogy project, prepared initial plans in 2000 for a replacement to ACS and several other outdated software applications.
In December 2001, the scope of VCF was changed with the goal being complete replacement of all previous applications and migration of the existing data into an Oracle database.
One SAIC security engineer, Matthew Patton, used VCF as an example in an October 24, 2002 post on the InfoSec News mailing list regarding the state of federal information system projects in response to a Senator's public statements a few days earlier about the importance of doing such projects well.
His post was regarded by FBI and SAIC management as attempting to "blow the whistle" on what he saw as crippling mismanagement of a national security-critical project.
In March 2005, the bureau announced it was beginning a new, more ambitious software project code-named Sentinel to replace ACS.