Title: Intelligence and Security in the Digital Age
1Intelligence and Security in the Digital Age
- Sir David Omand GCB
- Visiting Professor, Department of War Studies,
Kings College London - Cambridge, Computing Society, 1 Mar 2012
2- The further back you look, the further ahead
you can see Winston Churchill - Offence/defence race
- Technology drivers
- Demand modern national security?
- Supply new means
- Cyber security
- An additional factor individual rights and
social attitudes
3Role of Intelligence
- Intelligence enables action to be optimised by
reducing ignorance and secret intelligence
achieves this objective in respect of information
that others wish to remain hidden. - Continuous offence/defence competition for
- Situational awareness
- Explanation
- Prediction and modelling
- Strategic notice of possible futures
44 revolutions in intelligence
- The legacy of Maxwell, Herz and Marconi The
discovery and exploitation of the electromagnetic
spectrum radio, direction finding, traffic
analysis, agent communications, radio deception - The legacy of Turing and Shockley process
engineering, The first quantum revolution radar,
programmable computers, transistors,
minaturisation, into Space - The legacy of Feynman and Moore The second
quantum revolution electro-optics, lasers,
micro-electronics, packet switching, mobile
communications, - The legacy of Berners-Lee the internet and web,
electronic exhaust, Intelligence Agencies
become knowledge industries, massive data
storage
5 Balancing three sets of pressures
Demand new strategic requirements
Supply new technological possibilities
6 Balancing three sets of pressures
Demand new strategic requirements
Supply new technological possibilities
Social attitudes and ethical issues
7Demand ModernNational Security
National security more than territorial
defence, important as this remains Includes
modern threats, terrorism, cyber, WMD, narcotics
and major hazards such as pandemics Security as a
state of normality, people being able to make the
most of their lives, freely and with confidence.
Citizen centered with a psychological component
to security
8Demand ModernNational Security
- Understanding risk and uncertainty. No
guarantees - Help frustrate threats and identify
opportunities - Work upstream to reduce likelihood of future
trouble - Reduce vulnerability
- Increase resilience
- Using intelligence consistently will improve the
odds
Risk management
Citizen centered a psychological component to
security
9Risk management as the driving logic
Example CONTEST Counter-Terrorism
Strategy Risk likelihood x vulnerability x
(impact x duration) ??
Prepare
Pursue
Protect
Prevent
10Demand Modern National Security
- Requires pre-emptive intelligence, of both States
and Non-State Actors terrorists, criminals,
proliferators - Situational awareness
- Explanation
- Prediction
- Strategic notice for longer term
Risk management
Anticipation
Citizen centered a psychological component to
security
11Accessing relevant information
- Sources
- Classic ints HUMINT, SIGINT (including network
exploitation), IMINT etc - Open source information, OSINT, including
analysis of social networking - Developing a new int PROTINT or data protected
personal information
12Examples of PROTINT in the UK
- E-Borders, Registrar General, social security,
HMRC, electoral - Advance passenger information
- CCTV and ANPR (Automatic number plate readers)
- Communications meta-data
- Credit, debit and loyalty cards
- Financial transactions including SWIFT
- Social networking sites
- Data matching and mining
13New technical possibilities
- Network and cyber attack
- Facilitated access using insiders
- Fused multi-source operational intelligence using
advanced visualisation techniques - Social networking and RSS feeds
- DIGINT techniques digitally manipulating data
sets - Information retrieval latent semantic search
14UK cyber strategy depends upon intelligence
- Ends
- Supporting economic prosperity, protecting
national security and safeguarding the public - Ways
- Drivers are in the private not public sectors
- Has to be international
- Means role of intelligence central 80/20 rule
15Operating in the Intelligence Space
- The top 20 of Cold War threat
- penetration agents (Cambridge ring Enormoz
Portland ring) - technical attacks (bugs, implants, microwave
resonating cavities) - Counter-measures
- 24/7 observation of KGB and GRU agents
- Agent comms interception (Venona decrypts)
- Double agents (Gordievsky - exposing Bettany)
- RD into novel attack methods
16Current developments in ST
- Cyber Network attack and defence
- PROTINT and data mining
- Stand-off range allied with precision (60,00ft to
1 m2) - Remote surveillance streaming rates
- Detectors at 1 or 2 parts/billion rapid field
results - Millimetric wave technology
- Nano-engineering
- Neuropharmacology and neuroscience
- Quantum computing?
17But also building public trust that we are not
heading for the Panoptic State, or the tyranny of
absolute knowledge
18With the end of the Cold War came a change of
intelligence paradigm for the UK
- The Secret State of the Cold War
- Supporting nuclear deterrence and NATO, all kept
secret from the public - Secret status of intelligence agencies
- Domestic policing and external intelligence kept
separate - The Protecting State of modern national
security - Intelligence Agencies are avowed and regulated
- Use of intelligence for security of the public,
who demand to know more about what is being done
in their name - Cooperation in policing and intelligence
19Public attitudes and ethical issues
- The active use of secret intelligence for
public protection - puts secret world under unwelcome media
spotlight - generates demands for accountability and
oversight - increases importance of public (and staff)
confidence - Issues arise for the security and intelligence
community - over privacy and the use of technology and
PROTINT - over the ethics of human intelligence work
- in using intelligence as evidence in court
- in justifying continuing secrecy over sources
and methods
20A grand bargain between Government and the public
- The security and intelligence community accepts
- Terrorists get prosecuted under the law
- Ethics matter some opportunities have to be
passed - Oversight by Parliament and judges
- The public has to accept
- Security of public is first responsibility of
government - Managing the risks requires secret intelligence
- Some loss of privacy has to be accepted to get it
- Secret intelligence needs secrecy of
sources/methods
21Discussion
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