In-Q-Tel
CIA: Investing in The Technologies of Containment
One distinctive characteristic of America’s urban landscape is the ubiquitous surveillance cameras located at nearly every traffic light, commercial building and many residential households. A digitized panoptic; that electronic eye that watches remotely at predetermined points for intruders, suspicious, or criminal behavior, foreigners and much more. This phenomenon however is just a microcosm of a global strategy that was initiated in the 1960s with the placement of surveillance satellites in orbital space. Those satellites were intended observe foreign military installations and potential missile launches by adversarial governments. Yet that initial strategy of surveillance has been reconfigured and extended in the domestic realm to include dissent groups, journalists, or politically motivated individually who engender concern within the framework of law enforcement. While those stationary cameras observe the external, wireless eavesdropping by intelligence agencies and law enforcement invade our intercommunicative transmissions thought to be otherwise private and sacred. Those much herald allegations of NSA wiretapping are somehow considered shocking to the general public, however the technology to obtain private communications has been available to government agencies for decades and allegations of their use or misuse come to no surprise to those of us who realize that this is just another facet of the constant surveillance of an increasing totalitarian state.
Now it is known that with little acknowledgement to the public, the US government has initiated a program to encourage technological innovation in areas intelligence data gathering and dissemination. In 1999 the CIA started its’ own venture capital entity called “In-Q-Tel”, that invests taxpayers monies into private held companies. It’s widely acknowledged that the US military expends billions of dollars annually on exotic weaponry that ultimately is deployed to numerous bases of operation throughout the globe. Beginning with the “Manhattan Project”, our military has funded secret projects through an undisclosed and highly secretive “Black Operations Fund” specifically designed to allow billions of dollars to be allocated to selected operations/projects desired by the military-intelligence community. However, another method of funding research into select technologies has arisen that threatens to create a new class of high tech innovations that can be utilized by the military-intelligence complex for objectives not fully acknowledged to the public.
In-Q-Tel,was created by the CIA to fund companies while in partnership with privately held venture capital funds. Since its’ inception, IQT has accumulated an interesting portfolio of investments, a mosaic of companies, who need to be examined individually and as groups with complementary research or specializations in order to penetrate the hidden ambitions of the intelligence community and to insure transparency and illuminate future trends in CIA/NSA operations. A wide spectrum of projects which encompass a variety of technological concepts, including optical engineering, data dimensional analysis, and cloud computing are underway at In-Q-Tel funded companies. The extant of which suggests not only a continuation of the existing modes of information interception, metadata storage with instantaneous retrieval for scenario projection, but an enhancement of those capabilities with an objective to penetrate (and subvert) proactive entities. Several companies being funded have developed intricate data base algorithms that can analyze huge volumes of information for specialized data sets, behavioral patterns, or linkages for intelligence interpretation and scenario projection.
At one such company, StreamBase Systems, of Lexington, Massachusetts the developers there have created a platform called, “Live View”, it’s a real-time analytics solutions that enables users to analyze, anticipate and maintain alertness on important events in real-time and enable selected personnel to act on opportunities or threats as they occur. The software is scalable to allow multiple streams of data to be analyzed simultaneously and then automatically creates streaming table that can be queried by end users. The data is subsequently warehoused for client query requests and indexed according to queries. Streambase’s software can detect “aggregation operation” for data situation evaluation as the situation occurs, with constant streaming of data to be monitored by law enforcement agencies in continuous real-time mode. This technology enhances the ability of governmental agencies to monitor select targets and prevent hostile activities before they occur. Combining this innovation with other CIA funded technologies presents a significant advance in surveillance capabilities. Ironically, the same private equity group, Accel Partners, that help fund StreamBase is also partnered with In-Q-Tel in providing startup capital for Tenable Network Security which produces a complementary security intelligence platform that’s capable of enterprise vulnerability scanning for active security monitoring of IT assets. It’s a unique compliance monitoring platform that detects security intrusions while monitoring enterprise wide computer systems in real-time. Note, Tenable Network’s President is Ron Gula, a former NSA staffer. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, there are numerous cases of cross-positioning between these companies and venture capital firms whose board members act as “Advisors” to many of IQTs companies. The configurations are astonishing and must be revealed as our analysis of IQT graduates from casual to intense.
While the constant monitoring of potential security threats created by existence of terrorist groups is necessary, anticipating violent acts by such parties becomes a highly contentious activity, wrought with potential miscalculations, faulty information and imperfect analysis. Predictive analysis becomes a necessary component when attempting to forecast a potential hazardous situation. Recorded Future, a Cambridge Massachusetts company funded by In-Q-Tel since January 2010, has developed an algorithm that can extract temporal and predictive signals from unstructured text. This information is then organized and the results are delineated over interactive timelines, the software visualizes past trends, and maps future events – all while providing traceability back to sources. Recorded Future offers to extract temporal signals from internal documents, third-party content, or sensitive data sources. With over 250 thousand open sources the company enables intelligence assets the ability to analyze past, present, and future trends for predictive interpretation of events in potential areas of hostility. Moreover,similar efforts to recognize patterns of behavior are being enhanced by Quantum 4D in San Francisco, CA. Their behavioral modeling platform extracts real visual representations of data sets from spreadsheets. Data emerges from the flat one dimensional spreadsheet into a visually enhanced graphical representation of parameters created by the dynamics of numbers and textual information. Quantum 4d maintains that intelligence pattern recognition becomes possible by the interaction of data sets deployed in abstractions obtained via quantitative analysis.
These technological trends aren’t the subject of Edward Snowden’s highly explosive NSA revelations nor were they spoken of in the exposes’ of Wiki leaks, however they indicate a quantum leap in the ability of government agencies to manipulate and interpret data once its’ been obtained, however surreptitiously. Creating for the intelligence elite an ability to forecast (and manufacture thru simulation) events based on quantitative analysis from information interpolated from computer generated scenarios. Also, the CIA hasn’t refrained itself to just digital analysis either, nearly 40 companies receiving In-Q-Tel’s venture funds are listed as being primarily involved in biological sciences. Currently, several of these companies listed on In-Q-Tel’s website are producers of DNA analyzing equipment, localizing a vital technology previously under the control of federal agencies. One company in particular, Bio-NEMS, a Menlo Park, CA based company, has accelerated the development of a handheld testing device which has the capability to conduct non invasive DNA analysis and sequencing on site. The concept is based on the replacement of electrophoresis-based analysis with semiconductor-based analysis. This enables low cost, digital accurate analysis for even the most challenging DNA/RNA applications such as human identification, oncology, non-invasive prenatal diagnostics and epigenetic,” quoted the company’s president David Medin. He further stated that, “This technology has the potential to revolutionize law enforcement, security and medical diagnostics. The In-Q-Tel investment will help us to accelerate the commercialization of this much needed technology.”
And across the bay in Pleasanton, CA, another company, IntegenX, provides DNA identification equipment for speedy sequencing, enabling the creation of vast DNA libraries for law enforcement agencies by using simple standardized DNA swaps. In a statement they’ve issued on their website on June 6, “IntegenX Inc., the leading developer of rapid DNA human identification technology, commends the US Supreme Court for its June 3rd ruling in Maryland v. King, upholding the constitutional validity of a Maryland law for collecting DNA samples from an arrestee for identification purposes. This ruling should clear the way for more state to enact arrestee DNA identification legislation, which will help prevent crime and make our communities safer...Rapid DNA technology allows police to generate a DNA profile from a cheek swab in just 90 minutes from the time of collection…” Their product the RapidHIT 200 Human DNA Identification system produces DNA profiles from mouth swabs and other human samples in less than 90 minutes. Promising to transform how DNA is used in the security arena locally and globally. On the board of directors of IntegenX sits a former FBI special agent Louis Grever (pictured) who was appointed as Executive Assistance Director of the FBI Science and Technology Branch (STB), where he became accountable for all forensic, biometric and applied technology support to the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities delivered by the FBI Laboratory, Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) and Operational Technology Divisions, ultimately receiving from the Obama Administration the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award in 2011 and the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Metal in 2012. Its president Robert Schueren has had a variety of executive positions in bioscience in companies from Genentech to Molecular Medicine Labs. The company’s cofounder and chief technology officer Stevan Jovanovich, Ph.D. has been the Principal Investigator on over $ 10 million worth of grants and contracts focused on DNA sequencing, biodefense and forensics. A former staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Jovanovich is recognized internationally as an expert in microfluidics. He teamed with the company’s cofounder, Dr. Dennis Harris at Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, who also has an extensive background in DNA sequencing and laboratory automation systems.
While further down south in Upland, CA, Claremont BioSolutions produces “Pure Lyse”, DNA extraction kits that can be used in Forensics Testing, Cell Development Research or any protocol that requires Nucleic Acid Extraction, allowing a 90% DNA recovery rate in less than 2 minutes. The Southern California biosciences company is a new addition to In-Q-Tel’s investment portfolio. Only 6 years old they’ve emerged as intricate component in the quest for simplification of DNA testing and purification.
Law enforcement has always been an indispensable component of the containment apparatus since the passage of the 1917 Espionage Act and the 1918 Sedition Act which saw many hundreds of people prosecuted for the peaceful expressions of opinion about World War I and the newly created military conscription [draft]. While millions of Americans took part in antiwar demonstrations during the Vietnam War, conversely, the antiwar sentiment of the past decade is almost nonexistent. During those protests, there was a systematic effort by various agencies, including the United States Army, to gather information on those involved in anti-war agitations. Protecting the country from subversion became the justification for domestic surveillance of dissent groups. The net of surveillance has since been expanded to ensnare potential subversive groups, independent journalists, musicians…etc.
The expansion of the prison system nationwide in the 1980s coincided with stark reduction in real wages and an outsourcing of America’s industrial manufacturing capacity. Actually, the only “blue collar” job that saw growth during that period was in the security profession such as prison guards, police officers, and private security guards. This created a huge population of underemployed workers, discarded from new highly specialized high tech job market, their ambitions has gone unmet and with nowhere to vend their frustrations the potential for hostilities exists. Both America’s ruling oligarchy and the Pentagon command recognize that profound social polarization and deepening economic crisis can give rise to social upheavals. With working class Americans unable to adjust to decreasing wages and opportunities, hoards of disenchanted workers have grouped together resulting in agitations that culminated in the recent Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Containment of potential social agitation has become very necessary. The usually diversions created by media spectacles like the SuperBowl, Academy Awards, Music Videos…etc. no longer distract the enraged. Direct confrontation with hostile masses is eminent. The militarization of urban police units has expanded to counter potential upheavals. According to Mara Verheyden-Hillard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, “treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity.” Using the Freedom of Information Act, PCJF obtained documents that federal authorities were in Verheyden-Hilliard’s words, “functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.” A private entity called the Domestic Security alliance Council (DSAC), “a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the private sector,” sent around information regarding Occupy protects at West Coast ports [on Nov. 2 2011] to “raise awareness concerning this type of criminal activity.” The DSAC report contained “a handling notice” that the information is ‘means for use primarily within the corporate security community. Such messages shall not be released in either written or oral form to the media, the general public or other personnel…’ Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) reported to DSAC on the relationship between OWS and organized labor.”
Containment of that volatile potential is being engaged as the capabilities of domestic surveillance are being upgraded with the addition of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (pictured) into the urban areas of the United States. Over 70 municipal governments have indicated plans to invest in the robotic flying machines. In a July 23rd blog on Global Research, Thomas Gaist reported that, “The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), for instance, has purchased Puma Drones used by the Navy, which are slated for deployment off the coast of Los Angeles.” He added that “ONMS is currently preparing to expand drone flights in other states, including Hawaii, Florida, and Washington. A new $100 million drone hangar is currently planned for Fort Riley, Kansas, along with a new hangar and airfield at Fort Hood, Texas.” In a July 29th, 2013 blog on Global Research’s website the federal government admitted to introducing UAV’s domestically. “The FBI says it has used drones for domestic surveillance purposed in the United States at least ten times without obtaining warrants. In three additional cases, drones were authorized but “not actually used,” revealed the report. Furthermore, FBI Assistant Director Stephen D. Kelly revealed in a letter published by Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) that the agency used unmanned aerial vehicles domestically, without gathering any warrants. He stated that, “The FBI uses UAVs in very limited circumstances to conduct surveillance when there is a specific, operational need. Since late 2006, the FBI has conducted surveillance using UAVs in eight criminal cases and two national security cases.”
Equipped with high precision optical cameras, UAVs can enable full scale panoramic view of city streets from elevated positions. It was stated by well respected defense and aerospace magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology in an interesting tidbit that , “The Air Force wants to equip a number of Air National Guard units with Predator and Global Hawks for the war on terrorism, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency wants to buy Predators to begin high-resolution mapping of most of the nation.” One CIA funded company in Durham, NC., The Signal Innovations Group (SIG), provides Airborne SIR for full-scene awareness of high-priority events and real-time cueing. SIG’s exploitation solution enables accurate real-time detection and tracking of thousands of vehicles and people through challenging lighting conditions, dense traffic regions and kinematic dynamics. They’ve developed a probabilistic framework that sifts the relevant datafrom the overwhelming volume of raw pixels and sensor data. These data products include stabilized and geo-registered imagery, vehicle and dismount tracks, traffic and behavior models, and analysis-aided-cueing for improved accuracy. Those fragmented images streamed from the thousands of video surveillance cameras throughout the city are rearranged into a sequence of relevance according to mathematical probabilities to create a coherent picture of possible threats to security (or stability). SIGs’ President and cofounder Dr. Paul Runkle has an interesting history in algorithm design for decision systems and signal analysis for sensors and imaging, including applications in wide area persistent surveillance (WAPS), airborne and ground-based video and radar processing. Considered a leading expert in the field of signals processing he has authored over 35 refereed journal and conference publications in the fields of signal and image processing and communications. And that’s not all, another staff executive at SIG, Pr. Lawrence Carin (Duke University) was the Principal Investigator on numerous large DoD projects a DARPA/ARO MURI (2001-2006) dedicated to adaptive multimodal sensing. He has himself authored over 120 papers published in peer-review journals. While yet another staff member and partner Jonathan Woodworth once served as a radar systems engineer at Northrop Grumman where he was responsible for the development of advanced signal processing modes and algorithms for next generation surveillance radar systems.
Adding to the panoptic visual observation apparatus being put into service as a global network envisioned by the Pentagon as a component of a worldwide communications network for the miltiary, intelligence and space agencies based on a single architecture. With space electronic systems being critical to precision targeting, weather prediction and communications among US forces there is another surveillance platform being nurtured by In-Q-Tel at Motion DSP of Burlingame, CA. Used mostly in Iraq, “Ikena” is MotionDSP’s forensic video enhancement software designed to accelerate image processing for law enforcement. It’s an automated video forensic application for capturing, enhancing and presenting video evidence. Images taken from public transportation vehicles, UAV’s, and traffic lights, can be visually enhanced for forensics evidence. However, it’s Ikena ISR ‘change detection’ algorithm that can detect moving objects on the ground and from a moving aerial platform (UAV) that’s interesting. While in real-time taking live streaming video, Ikena ISR stitches a mosaic together on-the-fly into a Google Earth-like image. This is the software platform resident on General Atomics MQ-9A Reaper and Predator-A Unmanned Aerial Vehicles enabling tracking technology to locate Iraqis on the ground in Bagdad, Fallujah, and elsewhere. The warfighter (and now the policeman) are able to access real-time video of terrestrial events as they occur through a vertical communications network reaching from the ground based smartphones to satellites in low orbital space. This constitutes a visual information internet exclusively for combat operations where real-time data is streamed symmetrically to and from ground based assets (i.e. soldiers, spys..etc.) to hovering UAVs for distribution to field operatives and command centers who make the decision to strike based on minute observations.
Now once a hostile target is located, a software platform created by piXlogic can query a visual database to identify images of potential enemies. Its’ pioneering software automatically analyzes and searches images and video based on their visual content. In real-time mode it can automatically tag images of interest with keyword metadata describing their contents. And without losing any momentum it monitors video feeds for targets of interest while finding objects of interest within archived video. Segmentation of images in a way that much resembles what a person would do and creates a mathematical description of segmented objects “on the fly” and stores these descriptions as a searchable index. The user has the ability to carry out momentary complex and multi-modal search criteria. With this application computer generated criminal profiling becomes a routine technicality where the coded preset parameters based on the prejudices of the executives and programmers at IQT funded companies create the motivation for surveillance (or even murder).
In the content of participatory interaction, the CIA is investigating an emerging concept where Seattle based Adapx has developed a device that enables on-site data collection by field agents in on-going situations where data retention would be difficult and accuracy problematic. This is where Adapx’s “Capturx” platform confronts many of those issues with its’ digital pen that allows handwritten data to be automatically converted into digitalized text to be uploaded to a spreadsheet formal for Microsoft Excel at a remote computation data center. Field teams can collect data using paper forms, GIS maps and notebooks in handwritten forms for intelligence gathering or tactical planning, the results are automatically integrated in something referred to as “ArcGIS.” Subsequently, intelligence teams can share and decide on courses of action via shared field data with Capturx Speech and Sketch program, a copywritten software application by Adapx. The Board of Directors of Adapx has an interesting character, a Chad Waite, of capital investment firm OVP Venture Partners whose investments include the DNA Sequencer-Complete Genomics. A company that does research into nano DNA particles referred to as DNA nanoball arrays (DNB) arrays. That’s where genomic DNA is fragmented and each fragment is then copied in a manner that results in long single molecule containing hundreds of copies of the same fragment. This methodology can be applied to gene manipulation and cloning, furthering the suspicious nature of IQT’s bioscience alliances. Also, he is formerly a General Partner at another IQT related capital investment fund, Hambrecht and Quist Venture Partners, where Chad Waite focused on investments in IT and life sciences, overseeing biotech related ventures. Notice that the whole of CIA investment strategy is becoming symmetrical, spiraling from complex data algorithms and real time visual technologies to biological reengineering platforms, enabling an encapsulation of Americans from birth to development as potential free thinkers.
Data derived either from tissue in living organism or as abstractions of metadata rendered in digitalized formats can remain undecipherable until structured for coherency. Palantir Technologies patented data technology “Synchronizes multi-INT data for analysis across staff functions and across continents, from reachback facilities to the tactical edge of the battlefield.” It’s structured as a real-time data reporting tool that “Equips [law enforcement] agencies with the intelligence, investigations, case management, and reporting tools they need to respond to crime as it happens.” The platform combines fragmented data into a cohesive model for interpretation by analyst. Tidbits of information, elements derived from disparage sources, (e.g. informants, Google maps, torture victims) can be configured into a coherent picture and made useful for decision making. Ultimately, putting together [reliable] information from a data puzzle, then, presenting the final analysis, however prejudicial, as factual evidence worthy of submission to judicial panels for wiretap surveillance warrants, drone strikes or unofficial kidnappings.
Along the same trajectories in dealing with unstructured data sets is Sqrrl, a company with an interesting beginning. Their software offering, “Apache Accumlo,” was originally developed by the NSA in 2008 to strengthen the attributes of Google’s Big Table and Yahoo’s Hadoop data processing platforms. Both of those complex programs were designed for massive data manipulation, real time cloud storage and instantaneous retrieval. However the NSA was cautious of the security inadequacies of Hadoop and Big Table which according to Ars Technica “lacked compartmentalized security” at the cellular level. Accumulo, while maintaining the dimensions of Hadoop and Big Table as metadata processors was fine tuned to the cellular level enabling micro controls over individual elements within a data framework of humongous proportions. Eventually in 2011 NSA made Accumulo available through open source and is currently being used throughout the DoD and the Intelligence Community. The internet tech site Gigaom stated that Accumulo is the “technological linchpin to everything the NSA is doing from a data-analysis perspective,” enabling agency analysts to “generate near real-time reports from specific patterns in data.” For example “the system could look for specific words or addressees in e-mail messages that come from a range of IP addresses; or, it could look for phone numbers that are two degrees of separation from a target’s phone number. Then it can spit those chosen e-mails or phone numbers into another database, where NSA workers could peruse it at their leisure.”
(Since the Ars piece appeared, it has since been reported that NSA is now conducting what is described as “three-hop analysis,” that is, three degrees of separation from a target’s email or phone number. This data dragnet “could allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist,” AP observed).
Accumulo is now in commercial form as a Sqrrl product, its co-founder Adam Fuchs is a 9 year NSA veteran and has his firm in partnership with Northrop Grumman, Dell and MapR. He revealed to Gigaom that his program operates “at thousands-of-nodes scale” within NSA data centers.
“There are multiple instances each storing tens of petabytes of data and it’s the backend of the agency’s most widely used analytical capabilities.”
Praised for its’ ability to perform lightning-quick searches call “graph analysis,” a method for uncovering unique relationships between people hidden within vast oceans of data. Thus, the commercialization of Accumulo will allow private entities to enhance their ability to intrude into the privacy of American citizens.
IQT remains strongly committed to the conceptualization of scenario driven forecast by the interpolation information from data expropriated, however surreptitiously. In the renowned university town, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the location of several CIA funded entities, is a company called ReversingLabs that elevates data ‘surfing’ to an entirely new level. This [commercial] firm does analysis by penetrating individual files for hidden information or select strings of words or phrases that have been identified as indicators of potential “go phrases.
”A “Cyber Intelligence Application,” Record Future maintains that it will “improve your cyber threat assessment and response with our newest monitoring application.” Promoting it as the most “comprehensive threat intelligence database,” their product, TitaniumCloud – is an installable rack mountable hardware appliance that attaches to an onsite data clusterand coupled with their propitiatory software can access ReversingLabs data center for packets of relevant information scanned from thousands of web sources. Subsequent, their customized decomposition engine extracts all contained objects [useful information] and with the internal metadata. The information is recomposed – the data is decrypted, repaired and de-obfuscated. Security professionals can then analyze high volume of files to detect malicious code, research attacks and hidden content in unknown files from computers and mobile devices. Convinced of its’ ability to forecast future events, Recorded Future to monitors the internet constantly for thousands of minute bits of data to be reconstituted for analysis by intelligence experts.
SitScape a Vienna Virginia company that has received praise from William Strecker, Executive Vice President and CTO at IQT, in an interview he stated that, “SitScape’s software will offer our customers in the U.S. Intelligence Community the powerful capabilities they have been looking for in the visualization and contextual collaboration space.” Touted as a “Situational Awareness and Information Sharing” platform it’s a mission critical solution that enables users to gain an “at-a-glance view of real-time live information and content from disparate applications…” Similar to Accumulo, it performs a scenario engineered visual based on data aggregations projected onto multiple screens for operations technicians to render decisions. It’s called “Collaborative User-Defined-Operating-Picture (UDOP) Situational Awareness Software.” Kevin Yin, the company’s CEO has performed research in two Ph.D. Programs – Computer Sciences as well as Biophysics/DNA Sequencing. He’s also, a contributor to the Human Genome Project. On the Board of Director is Gary Winkler (pictured) former Program Executive Officer of US Army PEO EIS, there he commanded a $ 4 billion per year budget and is acknowledged as the US Army’s first Chief Knowledge Officer. In even more crisscrossing with military-intelligence-complex,the company’s CTO Kelley Hu, a former director of technology at Northrop Grumman, also a senior consultant with NASA, Raytheon, and Booz Allen Hamilton. More still is Bob Flores, a company Advisor, he is listed as the former CTO of CIA—a 31 year veteran of the agency. While yet, another Advisor Bob Gourley is the Former CTO of Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA and a former naval intelligence officer, he was the first Director of Intelligence (J2) at DoD’s cyber defense organization JTF-CND. Being selected as one of the top “25 most influential CTOs in the globe” by InfoWorld in 2007 he’s received numerous awards for intelligence work. The staff at SitScape blurts the distinction between private commercial and military firms, as it is as fully stocked with former military brass as a “brick and mortar” defensive contractor. However, opaque as hamburger stand on a rural road. There lays part of the controversy of IQT, the ability to provide funds for intelligence research, but maintain a legitimacy and secrecy desired by the intelligence elite who don’t have to acknowledge the on-going research done by privately held companies, nor be accountable their intrusion oriented technologies. Research funds funneled through private venture groups don’t incur the legions of possible government oversight, congressional scrutiny nor GAO audits that direct funding would entail. These venture capital firms effectively “launder” money for the CIA. The birth of exotic technologies are hidden within a labyrinth of startup companies with interlocking directorships that conduct complementary research into highly intricate technologies desired by law enforcement, the various branches of the US military and intelligence community.
As increasing numbers of people using the internet to communicate through social networks, emails, and chat rooms, more surreptitious means of surveillance are being employed to sniff information from data exchanged thru the web pipeline. One new surveillance technology is ‘StingRay’ (also marketed as Triggerfish, IMSI Catcher, Cell-Site Simulator or Digital Analyzer), a sophisticated, portable spy device able to track cell phone signals inside vehicles, homes and insulated buildings. StingRay trackers act as fake cell towers, allowing police investigators to pinpoint location of a targeted wireless mobile by sucking up phone data such as text messages, emails and cell-site information. When a suspect [activist] makes a phone call, the StingRay tricks the cell into sending its signal back to the police, thus preventing the signal from traveling back to the suspect’s wireless carrier. But not only does StingRay track the targeted cell phone, it also extracts data off potentially thousands of other cell phone users in the area. Although manufactured by a Germany and Britain-based firm, the StingRay devices are sold in the US by the Harris Corporation, an int’l telecommunications equipment company. It gets between $60,000 and $ 175,000 for each Stingray it sells to US law enforcement agencies. Paradoxically the Harris Corporation is headed by William Brown a former executive with military contractor United Technologies Corporation a company that sold napalm canisters to the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. The Harris Company has a full complement of products for military-intelligence community. Their C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) systems are especially configured for intelligence gathering. Harris, being a provider of network-centric communications for the digital warfighter with security and encryption intended for high level intelligence dissemination. The Harris Corporation elevates the level of domestic surveillance by employing tactics field tested on the battle field.
StingRay technologies have been a replicated at FMS where they’ve developed Sentinel Visualizer, a platform that combines data analysis with a complex information manipulation algorithm where streams of textual phases are queried from social networks. Starting in one dimensional spreadsheets form the data is then exploded into 3d visual data sets allowing an enhanced graphical representation of collated data.
Bob Batty, President of Forensic Logic which manages the data for the Texas law enforcement community stated that, “Sentinel Visualizer enables state and local government agencies, police departments, and fusion centers to better analyze data. This in turn leads to high-quality, actionable intelligence.” Providing in this case, anecdotal analysis for integration with information accumulated from queries. FMS’s platform examines evidence to be collated for insights into patterns. Stratifications are created to segment behavioral types under surveillance. The platform is innovative, designed to monitor gang activity, enhance border security, and conduct drug investigations, the dimensions of Sentinel Visualizer are frightening when one considers the vast permutations of individual cells being researched then elevated into groups [criminal gangs], finally aggregated into syndicates or [terrorist] organizations.
Now, just consider a hypothetical situation where an activist is canvassing a mass protest movement with flyers about a new government agency or pending adverse legislation that needs grass roots debate. So as he’s organizing potential allies on an ad hoc basis, unbeknown to himself, he’s being tracked, his location is desired by law enforcement to photograph his associates, note meeting times and vehicles. SpotterRF, an Orem, Utah based company funded by the CIA thru In-Q-Tel, has created for the military and commercial security industrial a miniature surveillance radar system, designed to monitor multiple targets in large areas, with the ability to precisely place the target through snow fall, fog, dust and darkness. This platform offers to give law enforcement real-time assessment of provocative group formations even where the alliances are being conducted within the boundaries of the constitution. However the containment of fostering rebellious sentiment is desired. The company’s president, Logan Harris, founded SpotterRF to provide wide area surveillance radar to whole new group of security professionals and warfighters. SpotterRF was built on his earlier work at ImSAR, the creator of the world’s smallest SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), where Harris is the CTO and Co-founder. The cumulative effect of this is that more military style technologies are being transferred for use in the civilian sector. Taking into account that nearly 70% of law enforcement professionals have military backgrounds, these fulminations of more privacy penetrating technologies being developed, maintained and controlled by an essentially insular group of intelligence characters is even more frightening given the recent allegations of NSA domestic spying on American citizens.
With the emergence of recent terrorist activity, the intelligence community now can present itself as the ultimate protector of America, while at the same time delimiting the boundaries of freedom thru the retrenchment of civil liberties. The saber rattling of terrorism by the mention of the magic words of “Al Qaeda,” automatically heightens levels of security and spawns additional formations to contain legitimate protest. In-Q-Tel is becoming an essential clog in a multi-level structure that delegates power to law enforcement and corporate security thru an expanding network of technicians, former intelligence officers, and corporate venture capitalist. Participation in this network via IQT varies depending on the necessities of intelligence gathering. One important figure is Keith Crandell who sits on the board of directors of four different IQT funded companies. As a cofounder of venture capital firm Arch Venture, he’s in position to delegate responsibility, nurture ideals, recruit personnel, and other essential factors in directing the trajectory of future technological innovations. Arch Ventures has provided seed capital for, among other things, the development of laser enhanced electro-optical systems manufacturer Alfalight. Its’ technology is a key component in UAV surveillance. Nano particles used in display technology and energy storage is being advanced by Crandell’s Nanosys, while simultaneously, more molecular research at Quanterix and Boreal Genomics will assist law enforcement in an unique “on-targeting platform” destined for eventual combat operations. Accel Partners plays a similar role as a co-funder with IQT on numerous projects. Palo Alto based Cloudera’s, Geospatial Imaging and video processing services complement the products offered by Tenable Networks and StreamBase Systems that have received seed capital from Accel Partners. Ping Li, an executive at Cloudera, is currently a general partner at Accel Partners and a former director with Juniper Networks and Singapore Telecommunications. The Venture Group, Harris and Harris specializes in nanotechnologies along with other several firms in their portfolio who are focused on the development of microbiology related sciences. In addition to biotech, Harris and Harris is harvesting the laws of physics by nurturing the first “Quantum” computer by providing funds to D-Wave of Burnaby, Canada. It’s a computational device capable of massive data manipulation on a scale of petabytes. Harris and Harris diversifies their investments in consumer products while remaining focused on technologies for military/intelligence community by co-funding Contour Energy Systems [with IQT] spawning the development of miniaturized battery back packs which are enabling US ground forces to lengthen their combat operations. The variable energy producing devices also enable UAV’s to stay aloof for extended periods, hovering above the battle field relating real-time video images to ground bases units.
“The integration of space in battle is now complete and is not consciously considered by war fighters,” said Gen. Thomas Moorman, retired vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and now a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc, in an article reported by EEE Times in April of 2004. The concept of ‘total situational awareness’ initially created for the benefit of war fighters being transformed to domestic law enforcement agencies, border security operations, and even private security firms by virtue of IQT initiatives with their private sector investments. A full spectrum governance emanating from a hierarchical structure where the power structure has been fused together by an alignment of capital and military intelligence to control the populous of North America and beyond. That once disparage group of corporations and intelligence officials are being intertwined in a network of government control agencies that now contain our lives in a structure so transparent it seems almost natural. Their agenda is dominance, exclusion, and prevention. The select few who are allowed entry into that exclusive closed circuit have been prescreened and ideologically validated to prevent errors of leakage and intrusive. Those sensational media scandals of Edward Snowden are [authorized] slippages revealing just scant details of intelligence operations and don’t really threaten the evolving panoptic containment structure. The 100 or so firms receiving funding from the CIA are a group of diverse technological orientated companies sinewed into a composite network to extract precision analytical talent that could be put to better use solving social problems or creating products to alleviate medical conditions or resolve biological problems that have plagued human for ages. In-Q-Tel however is doing just the opposite, thus an on-going analysis is necessary. – To be continued –
Cleveland Beasley
www.infinite-quest.weebly.com
[email protected]
CIA: Investing in The Technologies of Containment
One distinctive characteristic of America’s urban landscape is the ubiquitous surveillance cameras located at nearly every traffic light, commercial building and many residential households. A digitized panoptic; that electronic eye that watches remotely at predetermined points for intruders, suspicious, or criminal behavior, foreigners and much more. This phenomenon however is just a microcosm of a global strategy that was initiated in the 1960s with the placement of surveillance satellites in orbital space. Those satellites were intended observe foreign military installations and potential missile launches by adversarial governments. Yet that initial strategy of surveillance has been reconfigured and extended in the domestic realm to include dissent groups, journalists, or politically motivated individually who engender concern within the framework of law enforcement. While those stationary cameras observe the external, wireless eavesdropping by intelligence agencies and law enforcement invade our intercommunicative transmissions thought to be otherwise private and sacred. Those much herald allegations of NSA wiretapping are somehow considered shocking to the general public, however the technology to obtain private communications has been available to government agencies for decades and allegations of their use or misuse come to no surprise to those of us who realize that this is just another facet of the constant surveillance of an increasing totalitarian state.
Now it is known that with little acknowledgement to the public, the US government has initiated a program to encourage technological innovation in areas intelligence data gathering and dissemination. In 1999 the CIA started its’ own venture capital entity called “In-Q-Tel”, that invests taxpayers monies into private held companies. It’s widely acknowledged that the US military expends billions of dollars annually on exotic weaponry that ultimately is deployed to numerous bases of operation throughout the globe. Beginning with the “Manhattan Project”, our military has funded secret projects through an undisclosed and highly secretive “Black Operations Fund” specifically designed to allow billions of dollars to be allocated to selected operations/projects desired by the military-intelligence community. However, another method of funding research into select technologies has arisen that threatens to create a new class of high tech innovations that can be utilized by the military-intelligence complex for objectives not fully acknowledged to the public.
In-Q-Tel,was created by the CIA to fund companies while in partnership with privately held venture capital funds. Since its’ inception, IQT has accumulated an interesting portfolio of investments, a mosaic of companies, who need to be examined individually and as groups with complementary research or specializations in order to penetrate the hidden ambitions of the intelligence community and to insure transparency and illuminate future trends in CIA/NSA operations. A wide spectrum of projects which encompass a variety of technological concepts, including optical engineering, data dimensional analysis, and cloud computing are underway at In-Q-Tel funded companies. The extant of which suggests not only a continuation of the existing modes of information interception, metadata storage with instantaneous retrieval for scenario projection, but an enhancement of those capabilities with an objective to penetrate (and subvert) proactive entities. Several companies being funded have developed intricate data base algorithms that can analyze huge volumes of information for specialized data sets, behavioral patterns, or linkages for intelligence interpretation and scenario projection.
At one such company, StreamBase Systems, of Lexington, Massachusetts the developers there have created a platform called, “Live View”, it’s a real-time analytics solutions that enables users to analyze, anticipate and maintain alertness on important events in real-time and enable selected personnel to act on opportunities or threats as they occur. The software is scalable to allow multiple streams of data to be analyzed simultaneously and then automatically creates streaming table that can be queried by end users. The data is subsequently warehoused for client query requests and indexed according to queries. Streambase’s software can detect “aggregation operation” for data situation evaluation as the situation occurs, with constant streaming of data to be monitored by law enforcement agencies in continuous real-time mode. This technology enhances the ability of governmental agencies to monitor select targets and prevent hostile activities before they occur. Combining this innovation with other CIA funded technologies presents a significant advance in surveillance capabilities. Ironically, the same private equity group, Accel Partners, that help fund StreamBase is also partnered with In-Q-Tel in providing startup capital for Tenable Network Security which produces a complementary security intelligence platform that’s capable of enterprise vulnerability scanning for active security monitoring of IT assets. It’s a unique compliance monitoring platform that detects security intrusions while monitoring enterprise wide computer systems in real-time. Note, Tenable Network’s President is Ron Gula, a former NSA staffer. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, there are numerous cases of cross-positioning between these companies and venture capital firms whose board members act as “Advisors” to many of IQTs companies. The configurations are astonishing and must be revealed as our analysis of IQT graduates from casual to intense.
While the constant monitoring of potential security threats created by existence of terrorist groups is necessary, anticipating violent acts by such parties becomes a highly contentious activity, wrought with potential miscalculations, faulty information and imperfect analysis. Predictive analysis becomes a necessary component when attempting to forecast a potential hazardous situation. Recorded Future, a Cambridge Massachusetts company funded by In-Q-Tel since January 2010, has developed an algorithm that can extract temporal and predictive signals from unstructured text. This information is then organized and the results are delineated over interactive timelines, the software visualizes past trends, and maps future events – all while providing traceability back to sources. Recorded Future offers to extract temporal signals from internal documents, third-party content, or sensitive data sources. With over 250 thousand open sources the company enables intelligence assets the ability to analyze past, present, and future trends for predictive interpretation of events in potential areas of hostility. Moreover,similar efforts to recognize patterns of behavior are being enhanced by Quantum 4D in San Francisco, CA. Their behavioral modeling platform extracts real visual representations of data sets from spreadsheets. Data emerges from the flat one dimensional spreadsheet into a visually enhanced graphical representation of parameters created by the dynamics of numbers and textual information. Quantum 4d maintains that intelligence pattern recognition becomes possible by the interaction of data sets deployed in abstractions obtained via quantitative analysis.
These technological trends aren’t the subject of Edward Snowden’s highly explosive NSA revelations nor were they spoken of in the exposes’ of Wiki leaks, however they indicate a quantum leap in the ability of government agencies to manipulate and interpret data once its’ been obtained, however surreptitiously. Creating for the intelligence elite an ability to forecast (and manufacture thru simulation) events based on quantitative analysis from information interpolated from computer generated scenarios. Also, the CIA hasn’t refrained itself to just digital analysis either, nearly 40 companies receiving In-Q-Tel’s venture funds are listed as being primarily involved in biological sciences. Currently, several of these companies listed on In-Q-Tel’s website are producers of DNA analyzing equipment, localizing a vital technology previously under the control of federal agencies. One company in particular, Bio-NEMS, a Menlo Park, CA based company, has accelerated the development of a handheld testing device which has the capability to conduct non invasive DNA analysis and sequencing on site. The concept is based on the replacement of electrophoresis-based analysis with semiconductor-based analysis. This enables low cost, digital accurate analysis for even the most challenging DNA/RNA applications such as human identification, oncology, non-invasive prenatal diagnostics and epigenetic,” quoted the company’s president David Medin. He further stated that, “This technology has the potential to revolutionize law enforcement, security and medical diagnostics. The In-Q-Tel investment will help us to accelerate the commercialization of this much needed technology.”
And across the bay in Pleasanton, CA, another company, IntegenX, provides DNA identification equipment for speedy sequencing, enabling the creation of vast DNA libraries for law enforcement agencies by using simple standardized DNA swaps. In a statement they’ve issued on their website on June 6, “IntegenX Inc., the leading developer of rapid DNA human identification technology, commends the US Supreme Court for its June 3rd ruling in Maryland v. King, upholding the constitutional validity of a Maryland law for collecting DNA samples from an arrestee for identification purposes. This ruling should clear the way for more state to enact arrestee DNA identification legislation, which will help prevent crime and make our communities safer...Rapid DNA technology allows police to generate a DNA profile from a cheek swab in just 90 minutes from the time of collection…” Their product the RapidHIT 200 Human DNA Identification system produces DNA profiles from mouth swabs and other human samples in less than 90 minutes. Promising to transform how DNA is used in the security arena locally and globally. On the board of directors of IntegenX sits a former FBI special agent Louis Grever (pictured) who was appointed as Executive Assistance Director of the FBI Science and Technology Branch (STB), where he became accountable for all forensic, biometric and applied technology support to the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities delivered by the FBI Laboratory, Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) and Operational Technology Divisions, ultimately receiving from the Obama Administration the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award in 2011 and the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Metal in 2012. Its president Robert Schueren has had a variety of executive positions in bioscience in companies from Genentech to Molecular Medicine Labs. The company’s cofounder and chief technology officer Stevan Jovanovich, Ph.D. has been the Principal Investigator on over $ 10 million worth of grants and contracts focused on DNA sequencing, biodefense and forensics. A former staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Jovanovich is recognized internationally as an expert in microfluidics. He teamed with the company’s cofounder, Dr. Dennis Harris at Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, who also has an extensive background in DNA sequencing and laboratory automation systems.
While further down south in Upland, CA, Claremont BioSolutions produces “Pure Lyse”, DNA extraction kits that can be used in Forensics Testing, Cell Development Research or any protocol that requires Nucleic Acid Extraction, allowing a 90% DNA recovery rate in less than 2 minutes. The Southern California biosciences company is a new addition to In-Q-Tel’s investment portfolio. Only 6 years old they’ve emerged as intricate component in the quest for simplification of DNA testing and purification.
Law enforcement has always been an indispensable component of the containment apparatus since the passage of the 1917 Espionage Act and the 1918 Sedition Act which saw many hundreds of people prosecuted for the peaceful expressions of opinion about World War I and the newly created military conscription [draft]. While millions of Americans took part in antiwar demonstrations during the Vietnam War, conversely, the antiwar sentiment of the past decade is almost nonexistent. During those protests, there was a systematic effort by various agencies, including the United States Army, to gather information on those involved in anti-war agitations. Protecting the country from subversion became the justification for domestic surveillance of dissent groups. The net of surveillance has since been expanded to ensnare potential subversive groups, independent journalists, musicians…etc.
The expansion of the prison system nationwide in the 1980s coincided with stark reduction in real wages and an outsourcing of America’s industrial manufacturing capacity. Actually, the only “blue collar” job that saw growth during that period was in the security profession such as prison guards, police officers, and private security guards. This created a huge population of underemployed workers, discarded from new highly specialized high tech job market, their ambitions has gone unmet and with nowhere to vend their frustrations the potential for hostilities exists. Both America’s ruling oligarchy and the Pentagon command recognize that profound social polarization and deepening economic crisis can give rise to social upheavals. With working class Americans unable to adjust to decreasing wages and opportunities, hoards of disenchanted workers have grouped together resulting in agitations that culminated in the recent Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Containment of potential social agitation has become very necessary. The usually diversions created by media spectacles like the SuperBowl, Academy Awards, Music Videos…etc. no longer distract the enraged. Direct confrontation with hostile masses is eminent. The militarization of urban police units has expanded to counter potential upheavals. According to Mara Verheyden-Hillard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, “treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity.” Using the Freedom of Information Act, PCJF obtained documents that federal authorities were in Verheyden-Hilliard’s words, “functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.” A private entity called the Domestic Security alliance Council (DSAC), “a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the private sector,” sent around information regarding Occupy protects at West Coast ports [on Nov. 2 2011] to “raise awareness concerning this type of criminal activity.” The DSAC report contained “a handling notice” that the information is ‘means for use primarily within the corporate security community. Such messages shall not be released in either written or oral form to the media, the general public or other personnel…’ Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) reported to DSAC on the relationship between OWS and organized labor.”
Containment of that volatile potential is being engaged as the capabilities of domestic surveillance are being upgraded with the addition of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (pictured) into the urban areas of the United States. Over 70 municipal governments have indicated plans to invest in the robotic flying machines. In a July 23rd blog on Global Research, Thomas Gaist reported that, “The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), for instance, has purchased Puma Drones used by the Navy, which are slated for deployment off the coast of Los Angeles.” He added that “ONMS is currently preparing to expand drone flights in other states, including Hawaii, Florida, and Washington. A new $100 million drone hangar is currently planned for Fort Riley, Kansas, along with a new hangar and airfield at Fort Hood, Texas.” In a July 29th, 2013 blog on Global Research’s website the federal government admitted to introducing UAV’s domestically. “The FBI says it has used drones for domestic surveillance purposed in the United States at least ten times without obtaining warrants. In three additional cases, drones were authorized but “not actually used,” revealed the report. Furthermore, FBI Assistant Director Stephen D. Kelly revealed in a letter published by Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) that the agency used unmanned aerial vehicles domestically, without gathering any warrants. He stated that, “The FBI uses UAVs in very limited circumstances to conduct surveillance when there is a specific, operational need. Since late 2006, the FBI has conducted surveillance using UAVs in eight criminal cases and two national security cases.”
Equipped with high precision optical cameras, UAVs can enable full scale panoramic view of city streets from elevated positions. It was stated by well respected defense and aerospace magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology in an interesting tidbit that , “The Air Force wants to equip a number of Air National Guard units with Predator and Global Hawks for the war on terrorism, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency wants to buy Predators to begin high-resolution mapping of most of the nation.” One CIA funded company in Durham, NC., The Signal Innovations Group (SIG), provides Airborne SIR for full-scene awareness of high-priority events and real-time cueing. SIG’s exploitation solution enables accurate real-time detection and tracking of thousands of vehicles and people through challenging lighting conditions, dense traffic regions and kinematic dynamics. They’ve developed a probabilistic framework that sifts the relevant datafrom the overwhelming volume of raw pixels and sensor data. These data products include stabilized and geo-registered imagery, vehicle and dismount tracks, traffic and behavior models, and analysis-aided-cueing for improved accuracy. Those fragmented images streamed from the thousands of video surveillance cameras throughout the city are rearranged into a sequence of relevance according to mathematical probabilities to create a coherent picture of possible threats to security (or stability). SIGs’ President and cofounder Dr. Paul Runkle has an interesting history in algorithm design for decision systems and signal analysis for sensors and imaging, including applications in wide area persistent surveillance (WAPS), airborne and ground-based video and radar processing. Considered a leading expert in the field of signals processing he has authored over 35 refereed journal and conference publications in the fields of signal and image processing and communications. And that’s not all, another staff executive at SIG, Pr. Lawrence Carin (Duke University) was the Principal Investigator on numerous large DoD projects a DARPA/ARO MURI (2001-2006) dedicated to adaptive multimodal sensing. He has himself authored over 120 papers published in peer-review journals. While yet another staff member and partner Jonathan Woodworth once served as a radar systems engineer at Northrop Grumman where he was responsible for the development of advanced signal processing modes and algorithms for next generation surveillance radar systems.
Adding to the panoptic visual observation apparatus being put into service as a global network envisioned by the Pentagon as a component of a worldwide communications network for the miltiary, intelligence and space agencies based on a single architecture. With space electronic systems being critical to precision targeting, weather prediction and communications among US forces there is another surveillance platform being nurtured by In-Q-Tel at Motion DSP of Burlingame, CA. Used mostly in Iraq, “Ikena” is MotionDSP’s forensic video enhancement software designed to accelerate image processing for law enforcement. It’s an automated video forensic application for capturing, enhancing and presenting video evidence. Images taken from public transportation vehicles, UAV’s, and traffic lights, can be visually enhanced for forensics evidence. However, it’s Ikena ISR ‘change detection’ algorithm that can detect moving objects on the ground and from a moving aerial platform (UAV) that’s interesting. While in real-time taking live streaming video, Ikena ISR stitches a mosaic together on-the-fly into a Google Earth-like image. This is the software platform resident on General Atomics MQ-9A Reaper and Predator-A Unmanned Aerial Vehicles enabling tracking technology to locate Iraqis on the ground in Bagdad, Fallujah, and elsewhere. The warfighter (and now the policeman) are able to access real-time video of terrestrial events as they occur through a vertical communications network reaching from the ground based smartphones to satellites in low orbital space. This constitutes a visual information internet exclusively for combat operations where real-time data is streamed symmetrically to and from ground based assets (i.e. soldiers, spys..etc.) to hovering UAVs for distribution to field operatives and command centers who make the decision to strike based on minute observations.
Now once a hostile target is located, a software platform created by piXlogic can query a visual database to identify images of potential enemies. Its’ pioneering software automatically analyzes and searches images and video based on their visual content. In real-time mode it can automatically tag images of interest with keyword metadata describing their contents. And without losing any momentum it monitors video feeds for targets of interest while finding objects of interest within archived video. Segmentation of images in a way that much resembles what a person would do and creates a mathematical description of segmented objects “on the fly” and stores these descriptions as a searchable index. The user has the ability to carry out momentary complex and multi-modal search criteria. With this application computer generated criminal profiling becomes a routine technicality where the coded preset parameters based on the prejudices of the executives and programmers at IQT funded companies create the motivation for surveillance (or even murder).
In the content of participatory interaction, the CIA is investigating an emerging concept where Seattle based Adapx has developed a device that enables on-site data collection by field agents in on-going situations where data retention would be difficult and accuracy problematic. This is where Adapx’s “Capturx” platform confronts many of those issues with its’ digital pen that allows handwritten data to be automatically converted into digitalized text to be uploaded to a spreadsheet formal for Microsoft Excel at a remote computation data center. Field teams can collect data using paper forms, GIS maps and notebooks in handwritten forms for intelligence gathering or tactical planning, the results are automatically integrated in something referred to as “ArcGIS.” Subsequently, intelligence teams can share and decide on courses of action via shared field data with Capturx Speech and Sketch program, a copywritten software application by Adapx. The Board of Directors of Adapx has an interesting character, a Chad Waite, of capital investment firm OVP Venture Partners whose investments include the DNA Sequencer-Complete Genomics. A company that does research into nano DNA particles referred to as DNA nanoball arrays (DNB) arrays. That’s where genomic DNA is fragmented and each fragment is then copied in a manner that results in long single molecule containing hundreds of copies of the same fragment. This methodology can be applied to gene manipulation and cloning, furthering the suspicious nature of IQT’s bioscience alliances. Also, he is formerly a General Partner at another IQT related capital investment fund, Hambrecht and Quist Venture Partners, where Chad Waite focused on investments in IT and life sciences, overseeing biotech related ventures. Notice that the whole of CIA investment strategy is becoming symmetrical, spiraling from complex data algorithms and real time visual technologies to biological reengineering platforms, enabling an encapsulation of Americans from birth to development as potential free thinkers.
Data derived either from tissue in living organism or as abstractions of metadata rendered in digitalized formats can remain undecipherable until structured for coherency. Palantir Technologies patented data technology “Synchronizes multi-INT data for analysis across staff functions and across continents, from reachback facilities to the tactical edge of the battlefield.” It’s structured as a real-time data reporting tool that “Equips [law enforcement] agencies with the intelligence, investigations, case management, and reporting tools they need to respond to crime as it happens.” The platform combines fragmented data into a cohesive model for interpretation by analyst. Tidbits of information, elements derived from disparage sources, (e.g. informants, Google maps, torture victims) can be configured into a coherent picture and made useful for decision making. Ultimately, putting together [reliable] information from a data puzzle, then, presenting the final analysis, however prejudicial, as factual evidence worthy of submission to judicial panels for wiretap surveillance warrants, drone strikes or unofficial kidnappings.
Along the same trajectories in dealing with unstructured data sets is Sqrrl, a company with an interesting beginning. Their software offering, “Apache Accumlo,” was originally developed by the NSA in 2008 to strengthen the attributes of Google’s Big Table and Yahoo’s Hadoop data processing platforms. Both of those complex programs were designed for massive data manipulation, real time cloud storage and instantaneous retrieval. However the NSA was cautious of the security inadequacies of Hadoop and Big Table which according to Ars Technica “lacked compartmentalized security” at the cellular level. Accumulo, while maintaining the dimensions of Hadoop and Big Table as metadata processors was fine tuned to the cellular level enabling micro controls over individual elements within a data framework of humongous proportions. Eventually in 2011 NSA made Accumulo available through open source and is currently being used throughout the DoD and the Intelligence Community. The internet tech site Gigaom stated that Accumulo is the “technological linchpin to everything the NSA is doing from a data-analysis perspective,” enabling agency analysts to “generate near real-time reports from specific patterns in data.” For example “the system could look for specific words or addressees in e-mail messages that come from a range of IP addresses; or, it could look for phone numbers that are two degrees of separation from a target’s phone number. Then it can spit those chosen e-mails or phone numbers into another database, where NSA workers could peruse it at their leisure.”
(Since the Ars piece appeared, it has since been reported that NSA is now conducting what is described as “three-hop analysis,” that is, three degrees of separation from a target’s email or phone number. This data dragnet “could allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist,” AP observed).
Accumulo is now in commercial form as a Sqrrl product, its co-founder Adam Fuchs is a 9 year NSA veteran and has his firm in partnership with Northrop Grumman, Dell and MapR. He revealed to Gigaom that his program operates “at thousands-of-nodes scale” within NSA data centers.
“There are multiple instances each storing tens of petabytes of data and it’s the backend of the agency’s most widely used analytical capabilities.”
Praised for its’ ability to perform lightning-quick searches call “graph analysis,” a method for uncovering unique relationships between people hidden within vast oceans of data. Thus, the commercialization of Accumulo will allow private entities to enhance their ability to intrude into the privacy of American citizens.
IQT remains strongly committed to the conceptualization of scenario driven forecast by the interpolation information from data expropriated, however surreptitiously. In the renowned university town, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the location of several CIA funded entities, is a company called ReversingLabs that elevates data ‘surfing’ to an entirely new level. This [commercial] firm does analysis by penetrating individual files for hidden information or select strings of words or phrases that have been identified as indicators of potential “go phrases.
”A “Cyber Intelligence Application,” Record Future maintains that it will “improve your cyber threat assessment and response with our newest monitoring application.” Promoting it as the most “comprehensive threat intelligence database,” their product, TitaniumCloud – is an installable rack mountable hardware appliance that attaches to an onsite data clusterand coupled with their propitiatory software can access ReversingLabs data center for packets of relevant information scanned from thousands of web sources. Subsequent, their customized decomposition engine extracts all contained objects [useful information] and with the internal metadata. The information is recomposed – the data is decrypted, repaired and de-obfuscated. Security professionals can then analyze high volume of files to detect malicious code, research attacks and hidden content in unknown files from computers and mobile devices. Convinced of its’ ability to forecast future events, Recorded Future to monitors the internet constantly for thousands of minute bits of data to be reconstituted for analysis by intelligence experts.
SitScape a Vienna Virginia company that has received praise from William Strecker, Executive Vice President and CTO at IQT, in an interview he stated that, “SitScape’s software will offer our customers in the U.S. Intelligence Community the powerful capabilities they have been looking for in the visualization and contextual collaboration space.” Touted as a “Situational Awareness and Information Sharing” platform it’s a mission critical solution that enables users to gain an “at-a-glance view of real-time live information and content from disparate applications…” Similar to Accumulo, it performs a scenario engineered visual based on data aggregations projected onto multiple screens for operations technicians to render decisions. It’s called “Collaborative User-Defined-Operating-Picture (UDOP) Situational Awareness Software.” Kevin Yin, the company’s CEO has performed research in two Ph.D. Programs – Computer Sciences as well as Biophysics/DNA Sequencing. He’s also, a contributor to the Human Genome Project. On the Board of Director is Gary Winkler (pictured) former Program Executive Officer of US Army PEO EIS, there he commanded a $ 4 billion per year budget and is acknowledged as the US Army’s first Chief Knowledge Officer. In even more crisscrossing with military-intelligence-complex,the company’s CTO Kelley Hu, a former director of technology at Northrop Grumman, also a senior consultant with NASA, Raytheon, and Booz Allen Hamilton. More still is Bob Flores, a company Advisor, he is listed as the former CTO of CIA—a 31 year veteran of the agency. While yet, another Advisor Bob Gourley is the Former CTO of Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA and a former naval intelligence officer, he was the first Director of Intelligence (J2) at DoD’s cyber defense organization JTF-CND. Being selected as one of the top “25 most influential CTOs in the globe” by InfoWorld in 2007 he’s received numerous awards for intelligence work. The staff at SitScape blurts the distinction between private commercial and military firms, as it is as fully stocked with former military brass as a “brick and mortar” defensive contractor. However, opaque as hamburger stand on a rural road. There lays part of the controversy of IQT, the ability to provide funds for intelligence research, but maintain a legitimacy and secrecy desired by the intelligence elite who don’t have to acknowledge the on-going research done by privately held companies, nor be accountable their intrusion oriented technologies. Research funds funneled through private venture groups don’t incur the legions of possible government oversight, congressional scrutiny nor GAO audits that direct funding would entail. These venture capital firms effectively “launder” money for the CIA. The birth of exotic technologies are hidden within a labyrinth of startup companies with interlocking directorships that conduct complementary research into highly intricate technologies desired by law enforcement, the various branches of the US military and intelligence community.
As increasing numbers of people using the internet to communicate through social networks, emails, and chat rooms, more surreptitious means of surveillance are being employed to sniff information from data exchanged thru the web pipeline. One new surveillance technology is ‘StingRay’ (also marketed as Triggerfish, IMSI Catcher, Cell-Site Simulator or Digital Analyzer), a sophisticated, portable spy device able to track cell phone signals inside vehicles, homes and insulated buildings. StingRay trackers act as fake cell towers, allowing police investigators to pinpoint location of a targeted wireless mobile by sucking up phone data such as text messages, emails and cell-site information. When a suspect [activist] makes a phone call, the StingRay tricks the cell into sending its signal back to the police, thus preventing the signal from traveling back to the suspect’s wireless carrier. But not only does StingRay track the targeted cell phone, it also extracts data off potentially thousands of other cell phone users in the area. Although manufactured by a Germany and Britain-based firm, the StingRay devices are sold in the US by the Harris Corporation, an int’l telecommunications equipment company. It gets between $60,000 and $ 175,000 for each Stingray it sells to US law enforcement agencies. Paradoxically the Harris Corporation is headed by William Brown a former executive with military contractor United Technologies Corporation a company that sold napalm canisters to the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. The Harris Company has a full complement of products for military-intelligence community. Their C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) systems are especially configured for intelligence gathering. Harris, being a provider of network-centric communications for the digital warfighter with security and encryption intended for high level intelligence dissemination. The Harris Corporation elevates the level of domestic surveillance by employing tactics field tested on the battle field.
StingRay technologies have been a replicated at FMS where they’ve developed Sentinel Visualizer, a platform that combines data analysis with a complex information manipulation algorithm where streams of textual phases are queried from social networks. Starting in one dimensional spreadsheets form the data is then exploded into 3d visual data sets allowing an enhanced graphical representation of collated data.
Bob Batty, President of Forensic Logic which manages the data for the Texas law enforcement community stated that, “Sentinel Visualizer enables state and local government agencies, police departments, and fusion centers to better analyze data. This in turn leads to high-quality, actionable intelligence.” Providing in this case, anecdotal analysis for integration with information accumulated from queries. FMS’s platform examines evidence to be collated for insights into patterns. Stratifications are created to segment behavioral types under surveillance. The platform is innovative, designed to monitor gang activity, enhance border security, and conduct drug investigations, the dimensions of Sentinel Visualizer are frightening when one considers the vast permutations of individual cells being researched then elevated into groups [criminal gangs], finally aggregated into syndicates or [terrorist] organizations.
Now, just consider a hypothetical situation where an activist is canvassing a mass protest movement with flyers about a new government agency or pending adverse legislation that needs grass roots debate. So as he’s organizing potential allies on an ad hoc basis, unbeknown to himself, he’s being tracked, his location is desired by law enforcement to photograph his associates, note meeting times and vehicles. SpotterRF, an Orem, Utah based company funded by the CIA thru In-Q-Tel, has created for the military and commercial security industrial a miniature surveillance radar system, designed to monitor multiple targets in large areas, with the ability to precisely place the target through snow fall, fog, dust and darkness. This platform offers to give law enforcement real-time assessment of provocative group formations even where the alliances are being conducted within the boundaries of the constitution. However the containment of fostering rebellious sentiment is desired. The company’s president, Logan Harris, founded SpotterRF to provide wide area surveillance radar to whole new group of security professionals and warfighters. SpotterRF was built on his earlier work at ImSAR, the creator of the world’s smallest SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), where Harris is the CTO and Co-founder. The cumulative effect of this is that more military style technologies are being transferred for use in the civilian sector. Taking into account that nearly 70% of law enforcement professionals have military backgrounds, these fulminations of more privacy penetrating technologies being developed, maintained and controlled by an essentially insular group of intelligence characters is even more frightening given the recent allegations of NSA domestic spying on American citizens.
With the emergence of recent terrorist activity, the intelligence community now can present itself as the ultimate protector of America, while at the same time delimiting the boundaries of freedom thru the retrenchment of civil liberties. The saber rattling of terrorism by the mention of the magic words of “Al Qaeda,” automatically heightens levels of security and spawns additional formations to contain legitimate protest. In-Q-Tel is becoming an essential clog in a multi-level structure that delegates power to law enforcement and corporate security thru an expanding network of technicians, former intelligence officers, and corporate venture capitalist. Participation in this network via IQT varies depending on the necessities of intelligence gathering. One important figure is Keith Crandell who sits on the board of directors of four different IQT funded companies. As a cofounder of venture capital firm Arch Venture, he’s in position to delegate responsibility, nurture ideals, recruit personnel, and other essential factors in directing the trajectory of future technological innovations. Arch Ventures has provided seed capital for, among other things, the development of laser enhanced electro-optical systems manufacturer Alfalight. Its’ technology is a key component in UAV surveillance. Nano particles used in display technology and energy storage is being advanced by Crandell’s Nanosys, while simultaneously, more molecular research at Quanterix and Boreal Genomics will assist law enforcement in an unique “on-targeting platform” destined for eventual combat operations. Accel Partners plays a similar role as a co-funder with IQT on numerous projects. Palo Alto based Cloudera’s, Geospatial Imaging and video processing services complement the products offered by Tenable Networks and StreamBase Systems that have received seed capital from Accel Partners. Ping Li, an executive at Cloudera, is currently a general partner at Accel Partners and a former director with Juniper Networks and Singapore Telecommunications. The Venture Group, Harris and Harris specializes in nanotechnologies along with other several firms in their portfolio who are focused on the development of microbiology related sciences. In addition to biotech, Harris and Harris is harvesting the laws of physics by nurturing the first “Quantum” computer by providing funds to D-Wave of Burnaby, Canada. It’s a computational device capable of massive data manipulation on a scale of petabytes. Harris and Harris diversifies their investments in consumer products while remaining focused on technologies for military/intelligence community by co-funding Contour Energy Systems [with IQT] spawning the development of miniaturized battery back packs which are enabling US ground forces to lengthen their combat operations. The variable energy producing devices also enable UAV’s to stay aloof for extended periods, hovering above the battle field relating real-time video images to ground bases units.
“The integration of space in battle is now complete and is not consciously considered by war fighters,” said Gen. Thomas Moorman, retired vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and now a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc, in an article reported by EEE Times in April of 2004. The concept of ‘total situational awareness’ initially created for the benefit of war fighters being transformed to domestic law enforcement agencies, border security operations, and even private security firms by virtue of IQT initiatives with their private sector investments. A full spectrum governance emanating from a hierarchical structure where the power structure has been fused together by an alignment of capital and military intelligence to control the populous of North America and beyond. That once disparage group of corporations and intelligence officials are being intertwined in a network of government control agencies that now contain our lives in a structure so transparent it seems almost natural. Their agenda is dominance, exclusion, and prevention. The select few who are allowed entry into that exclusive closed circuit have been prescreened and ideologically validated to prevent errors of leakage and intrusive. Those sensational media scandals of Edward Snowden are [authorized] slippages revealing just scant details of intelligence operations and don’t really threaten the evolving panoptic containment structure. The 100 or so firms receiving funding from the CIA are a group of diverse technological orientated companies sinewed into a composite network to extract precision analytical talent that could be put to better use solving social problems or creating products to alleviate medical conditions or resolve biological problems that have plagued human for ages. In-Q-Tel however is doing just the opposite, thus an on-going analysis is necessary. – To be continued –
Cleveland Beasley
www.infinite-quest.weebly.com
[email protected]