CIA Starts Hi-Tech Venture Capital Firm

Your Mama writes "Hoping to insure that the nation's spies have the latest information technology in the rapidly changing Internet age, the Central Intelligence Agency has established a venture capital company to nurture high-tech companies..." The NY Times has the story. The reference to Major Boothryod alone makes it worthwhile to get your free NYT registration if you don't already have one. Isn't that right, Mr. Bond?

Comments

Re:How will they handle immigrants/security/profit

[The Dodger]

I don't think you've grasped this concept. The CIA is going to be investing (indirectly) in hi-tech companies, not actually starting companies itself. What they want is to form relationships with Silicon Valley, so they can gain access to new technologies.

I'd say it's unlikely that they'll get the companies they invest in to do work directly for the CIA. It's more likely that they'll work out special deals whereby the CIA take the source code, chip designs, blueprints, whitepapers, etc. and hand them over to someone like MITRE, to product the actual stuff that CIA wants.

I'm not sure how the secret service can use a product that is freely available to the entire world. This is a direct contradiction.

No it's not, you twonk. The CIA has two sides - Operations (i.e. gathering the intelligence) and Intelligence (i.e. collating and analysing the information gathered). Intelligence officers use a lot of communications and encryption technology. So do a lot of other people. It's just the application that's different.

The Intelligence Directorate uses computers to store and analyse information. Private companies do the same thing. One of the systems I've set up is a library system which stores and indexes 4 million news stories and up to 70 people can search through the entire 4m. stories via a webpage. You don't think the CIA would have a uses for that sort of technology? You don't think they're interested in the technologies being developed by companies like Inktomi and Verity?

Come on! Use your head!

D.
..is for Dangerous

Login/Password for NYT

[Dilbert_]

Try using slashdot_effect/slashdot... I've been using it for months.

What the F*ck?

[Black_Macrame]

Ok, most of us are comp nerds with little knowledge of what the CIA actually does.

Well, I do. I have been a political activist almost as long as I have been a computer nerd. I've chatted with ex-CIA guys over beers, including a few that have left the 'Company' to renegade against them.

All I really have to say is, isn't this a wonderful chance for them to insert backdoors into every product hard and soft? Full access to all company data, schematics, code, and so on. It is a BAD idea to do business with the CIA (jezuz, they specialize in destabilizing other countries' goverments). I'm sure some slimey individuals and companies will do business with them, but I hope the marketplace shows that they have no place in the private sector, and they shrivel up and die.

I will boycott any product produced in conjunction with them, but I fear, what if they strike a deal with chip manufacturers or OS producers?

Does anyone know any way we can stop this? Is it legal for the govt. to start a private enterprise like this? They are unrestricted in the private sector...

Venture capital with strings/chains attached?

[RNG]

I'm not sure how this will play out, but I would be weary to let an organization like the CIA own part of my business. It seems that in the current climate, if you have a decent idea/product, you can get venture capital anyways (at least in Silicon Valley that theory seems to hold). So why turn to the CIA?

Sure the CIA will give you money to fund research/development, but they will also own part of your company for it. Looking at the mess the US government made (and is making) with crypto legislation, I sincerely doubt that the CIA will simply sit on the sidelines. Government institutions often seem rather paranoid and don't want to relinquish control of any worthwhile technologies. I'd rather have to report to venture capitalists who want to spread/sell the technology (or products) then government institutions who classify anything moderateley modern/interesting as a national secret.

Is this even constitutional?

[ajs]

Here's a few points on which this bothers me:

1. VC is not like SBIR grants. We're talking about the Federal Government *owning* a piece of some of the best and brightest technology firms in the country (if they invest correctly, which may or my not happen).
2. VC is notorious for having too much of a hand in company growth. What happens if the CIA decides that companies that they own a stake in should not be "wasting" their money lobbying for pro-crypto laws? Is that even constitutional? Does the spirit of the Consititution even concieve of such a thing? Love the checks-and-balances here.
3. What happens when the "right thing" for a company to do financially, is open a semi-indepencant European branch in order to interact with their laws (e.g. crypto, patents, etc) which differ from ours? Will this be used as a way to curtail such action?

This is just off the top of my head. Longer thought will amost certainly yeild further problems with the scheme. Oh my head.

Why the surprise and fear?

[Stonehand]

The Federal Government has been subsidizing tech for many, many years; for instance, (D)ARPA funds vast amounts of research at universities and other institutions, and a lot of that is for developing technology that is useful for both civillian and military usage. Mobile computing, overhead imagery databases, autonomous highway-capable cars...

There are just two twists here. One is that it's the CIA (and behaving unusually openly for them, but perhaps there are regulations about companies revealing investors?). The other is that they've picked up on venture capital as a method of funding, in constrast to the old ways of research subsidies, specific contracts and so forth. This means that they can indirectly fund different companies, but not lock either themselves or their beneficiaries into a specific system.

This means that Joe, Angie and Fred, Inc., a hypothetical new startup, could -- even before having a clear application that's ready to ship and fulfills a specific niche -- be eligible to receive seed money, presumably in exchange for a stake in the company. Then, this stake can be later sold and re-invested elsewhere, if they (the CIA's VC firm) hold to the idea of their being non-profit and self-sustaining. That's the theory, anyway.

In that regards, the CIA's interests are multiple. One, it gets an idea of who's around. No doubt they're always interested in getting people who can help them analyze the information they bring in, and they get enough that they need automation. Two, it lets them boost domestic tech, which is a Good Thing to stay competitive with other nations that do the same, only often moreso. The CIA would rather not depend upon the graces of foreign governments to import superior tech. Three, it's cleaner-looking than direct contracts and subsidies, and lets people realize that not everybody at the CIA is a spook trying to latch on to informed Muscovites or find-and-forward Saddam's current whereabouts to the Mossad.

The obvious downsides? One is that they might, if they find particularly nifty tech, try to appropriate it or at least make it non-exportable. It also does raise conflicts of interest questions, but these could be resolved if the VC firm is set up intelligently (read: if it's managed anything like a blind trust. Difficult, 'tho.).