Cooperations with tech companies are necessary

 

The NSA is considered the most secret intelligence agency in the USA. The National Security Agency, which, among other things, monitors electronic communications, was therefore nicknamed the “No Such Agency”. Translated accordingly: “There is no such authority”.

But those days are over, because the NSA is now looking for the public. A few weeks ago she even launched a podcast in which NSA employees talk about their work under their real names. In reference to the nickname, it is called “No Such Podcast”.

The discussions are about how electronic intelligence (Sigint) helped the NSA find the terrorist Usama bin Laden. Or why IT security is a question of national security. At the end of the episode there is a hint on how to apply for a job with the secret service.

It quickly becomes clear that the NSA also wants to address specialists with its podcast and motivate them to apply. Many episodes also deal with the human side of intelligence work. For example, when two women describe how they came to work at the NSA, or when a former cadre employee describes how he burst into tears the evening after Usama bin Laden was shot in 2011.

The undertone of the podcast: The NSA is a unique employer with a meaningful mission, a great team spirit and an attractive working environment. The “No Such Agency” should become an approachable authority.

Working for the secret service has disadvantages

The new openness should help to find the necessary skilled workers. Many intelligence services find it difficult to recruit suitable applicants. The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Germany is said to be missing hundreds of employees. As a result, he launched a high-profile campaign in the spring with slogans such as “We are looking for terrorists (m/f/d) – find them with us”. At the same time, employees gave anonymous insight into their work in the media.

 

In the USA, secret services are struggling to recruit enough specialists from the so-called Mint subjects, i.e. mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology. The comparatively low wages are just one factor that deters potential applicants. In 2022, a study by the National Science Academies also listed the lengthy employment process, the restrictions on travel and contacts abroad and the restrictions on activities on the Internet.

In order to attract more applicants, secret services could be less strict with security checks in the future. The American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) made a corresponding proposal in 2021 in a report that includes 103 recommendations on how the secret services should be reformed in view of technological upheavals.

The CSIS advises the American intelligence services to create more positions, for example in technical areas, that require no or less security clearance. Not all job applicants could or wanted to go through the complex process to be approved for top secret matters.

AI experts and nuclear physicists are in demand

The fact that intelligence services are looking to the public to find skilled workers is just part of a larger development. A radical change has occurred over the past thirty years. The secret services have lost their leading position in technological development. In addition, they no longer have dominance in the area of ​​“intelligence”, i.e. collecting and evaluating information. Private companies and organizations are competing with them.

The NSA continued to develop the best computers until the 1980s. Those times are over. Advances in artificial intelligence or quantum computing today come from the private sector. The exciting research also takes place there.

The latest technologies are no longer exclusively available to security services. The private companies market them worldwide. Virtually anyone can access it, whether an enemy state, criminals or a terrorist organization.

The global competition between China, Russia and the USA is increasingly taking place in the area of ​​research and development of new technologies. Whoever is ahead has a strategic advantage. This also applies to the secret services of these countries, which can use new technology to spy more efficiently or to better protect themselves from enemy espionage.

The intelligence services must try to keep up with technological developments. To do this, they need employees with the appropriate knowledge. For years, these were, for example, physicists who were able to analyze Iran’s nuclear weapons program or engineers who understood North Korea’s missile program.

Today additional skills are required. Western intelligence analysts also need to be able to understand what China is currently building in the field of artificial intelligence or quantum computers. These experts are also in demand in the private sector.

“This means a fundamental change in culture”

Technological change requires opening up to external partners. The secret services can no longer meet the challenge alone. You need cooperation with the civil sector. These can be universities and research laboratories that share their technological developments, or startups and tech companies that make their applications available.

Such collaborations represent a paradigm shift for intelligence services. The head of the British foreign intelligence service MI6, Richard Moore, said it this way in a speech in 2021: “I cannot emphasize enough what a fundamental change this means for the culture, ethos and way of working of MI6.”

 

Traditionally, people have relied on their own skills to develop the cutting-edge technology needed for the secret missions, Moore said. That doesn’t work anymore. MI6 cannot keep up with the global tech industry. “We should enlist their help instead.”

As a result of technological developments, the secret services have lost their unique position in the information field. Today there is a wealth of information and data sets that are also available to private individuals and organizations. That’s why the so-called Open Source Intelligence (Osint) is experiencing such a surge.

At Osint, for example, journalists use publicly available data such as information from social networks or GPS data from aircraft to conduct analysis or research. This enables insights that would have been possible only for secret services or law enforcement agencies a few years ago.

The balance of power is shifting as a result of public data – away from state authorities and towards smaller players. The authorities are now also recognizing the potential of Osint. In March, the US published an Osint strategy for its intelligence services for the first time.

One area in which private actors already know more than intelligence services is their activities in cyberspace. The infrastructure used for cyberattacks or influence operations is largely in private hands. IT security companies in particular, which use their software at authorities and companies worldwide, see certain covert government activities on the Internet better than a single intelligence service.

Companies like Mandiant from Google, Crowdstrike, Sentinel One or Microsoft can therefore detect cyber operations early and often attribute them to a foreign secret service. The German political scientist Thomas Rid summed it up in an interview with the NZZ: “The intelligence services have lost the monopoly on counterintelligence.”

The networked world forces us to be more open to new things

Secret services will continue to work secretly in the future. But they can no longer fulfill their mission alone – because information is widely available, private companies are driving technological development and the world is digitally networked. The intelligence services have faced competition.

The challenge is particularly great for western countries. An autocratic regime like China can oblige its research institutes and companies to cooperate. This is hardly possible in democratic countries.

The way out is flexibility. Just as technological change changes society or the economy, it also forces intelligence services to adapt. This may be difficult in a culture based on clear norms and strict rules. But the alternative for the intelligence services is to increasingly lose capabilities. At a time of increased confrontation between the major powers, these are bad prospects.