Amy Zegart has a new book: Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. Wired has an excerpt:
In short, data volume and accessibility are revolutionizing sensemaking. The intelligence playing field is leveling — and not in a good way. Intelligence collectors are everywhere, and government spy agencies are drowning in data. This is a radical new world and intelligence agencies are struggling to adapt to it. While secrets once conferred a huge advantage, today open source information increasingly does. Intelligence used to be a race for insight where great powers were the only ones with the capabilities to access secrets. Now everyone is racing for insight and the internet gives them tools to do it. Secrets still matter, but whoever can harness all this data better and faster will win.
The third challenge posed by emerging technologies strikes at the heart of espionage: secrecy. Until now, American spy agencies didn’t have to interact much with outsiders, and they didn’t want to. The intelligence mission meant gathering secrets so we knew more about adversaries than they knew about us, and keeping how we gathered secrets a secret too.
[…]
In the digital age, however, secrecy is bringing greater risk because emerging technologies are blurring nearly all the old boundaries of geopolitics. Increasingly, national security requires intelligence agencies to engage the outside world, not stand apart from it.
I have not yet read the book.
More Stories
Thread Hijacking: Phishes That Prey on Your Curiosity
Thread hijacking attacks. They happen when someone you know has their email account compromised, and you are suddenly dropped into...
US Treasury Urges Financial Sector to Address AI Cybersecurity Threats
The US Treasury report sets out recommendations for financial institutions on addressing immediate AI-related operational risk, cybersecurity and fraud challenges...
Sellafield nuclear waste dump faces prosecution over cybersecurity failures
The UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has started legal action against the controversial Sellafield nuclear waste facility due to...
NIST Unveils New Consortium to Operate its National Vulnerability Database
After weeks of speculation, NIST has finally confirmed its intention to establish an industry consortium to develop the NVD in...
Teen Slang – What You Need To Know To Understand Your Teen
Got any ‘rizz’? Did you ‘slay’ that dinner? Is the ‘cozzie livs’ stressing you out? If you do not comprehendo,...
17 Billion Personal Records Exposed in Data Breaches in 2023
Flashpoint recorded a 34.5% rise in reported data breaches in 2023, with ransomware a major driver of this increase Read...