The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced it is stepping up efforts to combat the risks of adversarial influence campaigns against American democracy. Together with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI, the ODNI will give a classified briefing to election officials in every U.S. state on February 16 and 18.
Intelligence
February 13, 2018
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has established a multiyear research plan to build 3-D models that leverage satellite imagery to support the nation’s military, humanitarian and intelligence missions. The Creation of Operationally Realistic 3-D Environment (CORE3D) program is intended to significantly reduce the time it takes to build 3-D models.
February 1, 2018
No longer can the U.S. military bank on ensured victories. The battlefield is more lethal and disruptive, is conducted at breakneck speeds and reaches further around the globe. And although fighting terrorism has gripped the military’s focus for the last 16 years, it is the rise of so-called inter-state strategic competition against nations such as China and Russia that will now be the primary concern for U.S. national security.
December 13, 2017
The U.S. Air Force is shifting its emphasis in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) away from platforms and toward data as it develops a new ISR strategy. Planners are aiming at a new approach that changes how ISR is undertaken and how it benefits decision makers and warfighters alike.
The new strategy is being built around a core philosophy: “We cannot continue to conduct ISR in the same old ways using the same old methods,” states Col. Johnson Rossow, USAF, Air Force A-2 chief of capabilities-based planning under the Future Warfare Directorate. “We need to be looking at … using old tools in new ways, or new tools in new ways.”
February 1, 2018
In today’s world, the most valuable resource is information. The fastest-growing companies are data companies. Firms that can apply decision-quality information in time to affect critical business decisions are reaping the greatest success. Just as in warfare, the force that can bring intelligence to the battle edge in near real time will have a tremendous advantage in any engagement.
December 1, 2017
As the need for new analysts continues to grow, the intelligence community is looking to add millennials, the largest generation in the U.S. work force. These young people—born between about 1980 and 2000—bring a new perspective, but teaching them the necessary skills for analysis must be done differently than it was in even the recent past. Their attitudes and thought processes are vastly different from their predecessors, requiring a new approach to intelligence training and education to make the best use of their abundant skills.
November 1, 2017
In today’s big data environments, it is not that “we don’t know what we don’t know.” It is actually “we don’t know what we do know,” according to Col. Pete Don, USA, deputy senior intelligence officer for intelligence operations, U.S. Army Pacific. “We are being dazzled with so much data that it is hard to focus and find the needle in the haystack." The net seizes our attention only to scatter it, he contends. Col. Don joined three other colleagues as part of a panel on cybersecurity intelligence at TechNet Asia-Pacific.
November 1, 2017
The U.S. Navy has outsourced geospatial intelligence at sea, delaying its investment in a solution to this core intelligence competency for the afloat commander. The service needs to train its analysts to produce geospatial intelligence and acquire software and hardware for them. A cost-effective systems solution exists, but the lack of commitment to geospatial intelligence holds the Navy back.
November 1, 2017
Global changes are sparking a rash of new threats and challenges for intelligence agencies in the United States and abroad.
Terrorist groups continually innovate and adapt. In some ways, their tools and tactics are more sophisticated than ever—using social media to inspire violence, for example. In other ways, their methods are more rudimentary. They have simplified their efforts to include running over people in crowds with cars and slashing bystanders with knives.
U.S. and international intelligence officials described a variety of fresh risks and complications at September’s Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington, D.C.
October 17, 2017
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) engineers have embarked on a new miniature version of the AgilePod in an effort to increase the platform’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, according to an AFRL announcement.
September 7, 2017
Officials from across the U.S. intelligence community are calling for reauthorization of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to collect data on non-U.S. citizens on foreign soil, as Congress debates whether to reauthorize, reform or outright reject it.
Multiple officials from multiple agencies touted the benefits of Section 702 during the 2017 Intelligence and National Security Summit, which was held Sept. 6-7 in Washington, D.C.
September 7, 2017
The U.S. federal government has not yet told state-level election officials whether their election systems were hacked by the Russians.
@RepAdamSchiff States still do not know if their voting machines were hacked by Russia. We have not shared that info.#Intelligence2017
— George Seffers (@gseffers) September 7, 2017
September 6, 2017
While space has always been an important domain for military intelligence, the intelligence community is renewing its emphasis on the stars, according to officials speaking at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington, D.C.
“One of the reasons this conversation is taking place is because of the evolving threat environment. We realize, as much as we thought we appreciated the role of space historically, it’s become even more critical, both from a warfighting perspective and from an economic perspective,” said Maj. Gen. James Marrs, USAF, Air Force assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
September 1, 2017
Geospatial imagery as well as facial recognition and other biometrics are driving the intelligence community’s research into artificial intelligence. Other intelligence activities, such as human language translation and event warning and forecasting, also stand to gain from advances being pursued in government, academic and industry research programs funded by the community’s research arm.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is working toward breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, or AI, through a number of research programs. All these AI programs tap expertise in government, industry or academia.
September 1, 2017
A new approach to identifying key research targets could help bring nontraditional partners into the realm of developing advanced intelligence technologies and capabilities. It builds on the Intelligence Science and Technology Partnership, or In-STeP, which lays out road maps of key capabilities that can be exploited by government, industry and academia.
September 1, 2017
Commercial satellite companies are giving rise to a new space revolution, launching hundreds of small satellites into orbit to do what the U.S. military cannot or at least will not do: photograph practically every inch of the Earth every day. The result is an explosion of geo-enabled unclassified information that has turned the imagery-based discipline of geointelligence on its head.
This change could even produce a new breed of intelligence analyst that exploits imagery and geospatial data from the unprecedented fount of unclassified information.
September 1, 2017
The challenges facing the intelligence community (IC) have never been greater in both degree and diversity. New threats are emerging constantly, old threats are becoming more serious, and capabilities menacing national security are increasingly innovative. The greatest impediment to addressing these dynamic challenges may be internal rather than external: insufficient resources.
September 1, 2017
Superman might have beaten bullets with his speed, but the U.S. Defense Department intends to do better. It has its sights set on developing cognitive technologies—computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, for example—that are faster than the speed of human thought.
The military plans to tap machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, to enhance decision making.
August 21, 2017
Geospatial imagery as well as facial recognition and other biometrics are driving the intelligence community’s research into artificial intelligence. Other intelligence activities, such as human language translation and event warning and forecasting, also stand to gain from advances being pursued in government, academic and industry research programs funded by the community’s research arm.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is working toward breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, or AI, through a number of research programs. All these AI programs tap expertise in government, industry or academia.
August 18, 2017
The governments of Iran, North Korea, Russia and China are responsible for 90 percent of attacks on U.S. government agencies and private companies, said a leading cybersecurity expert at a recent conference. Most attacks come in the form of spear-phishing or email-related breaches.
