July 12, 2016
There is no doubt technology has aided intelligence collection and military operations in the post-9/11 years. However, many of these commercial and open-source technologies and capabilities can be used to potentially stymie military or intelligence operations, according to a Rand Corporation report.
These technologies, the report notes, “are persistent and are dual-use, which means that they can benefit society or harm it. Although they are intended for commercial purposes, such as learning about shoppers’ preferences and finding new markets, they can easily be used by police and security services to identify and track criminals, terrorists, insurgents and spies.”
Technologies including mobile communication devices, commercial GPS and commercial unmanned aircraft have the potential to “disrupt military intelligence operations and to jeopardize the plans, actions, and security of the war fighter. In turn, the intelligence officer, the war fighter, and others who often live and work on the margins and in the gaps of society can use many of these same technologies to skirt government control, as well as to enhance the effectiveness of their operations,” the report states. These technologies are utilized best in urban environments with the primary purpose of tracking individuals and patterns of behavior.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has explained in the past that his department is no longer a primary innovator of technologies as it was with the creations such as internet and GPS. Technologies today “live out there as we do in a world where a lot of technology doesn’t come from us. It comes from the commercial world and we need to feed upon that,” he said at a March Politico breakfast.
Carter’s comments parallel the competition the U.S. faces against other developed nations within the guise of the third offset strategy – an initiative that seeks to leverage manned-unmanned teaming to counteract adversarial capabilities. Things are much like the interwar period in which everyone had access to radios, airplanes and other technologies, “but only the Germans put everything together into an operational concept called Blitzkrieg,” Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work explained at the Atlantic Council in May. “Now we were all fast followers. As soon as we saw it we all said ‘God, why didn’t we think of that!’ By 1944 we were out Blitzdrieging the Germans.”
Smartphones today are extremely powerful miniature computers with a raft of capabilities including access to video, internet and GPS tracking. This means anyone with a smartphone – such as a military or an intelligence officer – can be tracked. Rand’s report states that the ubiquitous nature of these phones requires officers to understand how the technology can be used against them. Various obfuscation techniques, such as a virtual private network, or VPN, can mask personal traits and provide some level of security.
Radio-frequency identification devices, used in the retail industry to accurately tack inventory, can be used by foreign security services to determine vehicle ownership of potential undercover agents. While this technology can provide war fighters data that was previously unavailable, adversaries can simultaneously take advantage of it.
Big data analytics, similarly, can enable users to analyze a large set of data to discern patterns of life or better correlate information. Commander of Cyber Command and NSA chief Adm. Michael Rogers has noted how the immense computing capability available commercially today has turned data into a commodity. He said the Office of Personnel Management database breach demonstrates that “data is increasingly a commodity of value all on its own. If you go back five, 10 years ago I remember discussions where we thought there’s just so much data here no one could put it all together.” Previously, prior to the power of big data analytics, sheer size of the data found in large databases such as OPM rendered it useless to adversaries, he added at the Atlantic Council in January.
Cheap, commercial-off-the-shelf unmanned aircraft have become a headache for militaries and domestic law enforcement agencies. As evidenced by the device that landed on the Japanese prime minister’s roof containing radioactive material, these devices are an inexpensive way to conduct malicious activity such as turning UAVs into flying improvised explosive devices or through their surveillance capability. In addition to several U.S. government agencies requesting counter-UAS systems, DoD recently requested more money to help counter these devices from ISIS. Moreover, a report published by the British-based Remote Control Project explained these inexpensive aircraft have been used for malicious purposes by lone actors, terrorists, insurgents and corporate actors seeking to gain a competitive edge.
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