CIA + Google: Invest in Web-Monitoring Company

With countries like Dubai and Saudi Arabia banning Blackberry's within their nations since the Blackberry encryption cannot be monitored, web-monitoring has become an international topic. Critics of Blackberry argue that their encryption "... hinders efforts to fight terrorism and criminal activity." [BBC]


The United States is very invested in web-monitoring. The company called Recorded Future is a new company that focuses on searching the internet and coming up with all the invisible connections between people and creating information timelines to predict the future. The company works by:

1. Scouring the Internet

Scan thousands [closer to millions most likely] of news publications, blogs, nich sources, trade publications, government websites, financial databases, and more..."

2. Extracts, ranks, and organizes

Extract information from text and html to develop accurate timelines of information that is measured against "momentum for each item in [the] index.

3. Organize the information

Using "powerful visualization tools" allows the user to see "temporal patterns" and links between multiple networks while exploring the past and present to predict the future.

Other companies such as Visible Technologies provide similar search capabilities, as they search 500,000 web 2.0 sites per day. But Recorded Future is gaining the most hype and both the CIA and Google are investing in the company.

CIA Director General Michael Hayden said in 2008 that, "in fact, there's a real satisfication in solving a problem or answering a tough question with infomration that somone was dumb enough to leave out in the open. [Danger Room]

"Recorded Future certainly has the potential to spot events and trends early. Take the case of Hezbollah’s long-range missiles. On March 21, Israeli President Shimon Peres leveled the allegation that the terror group had Scud-like weapons. Scouring Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s past statements, Recorded Future found corroborating evidence from a month prior that appeared to back up Peres’ accusations."

A few things that seem somewhat obvious that no one has talked about. First, the NSA clearly has the capabilities to not only crack the Blackberry encryption, but perform the same services as Recorded Futures. Second, Americans looking to not have their freedom of speech and privacy violated should not worry as under Obama, none of the information obtained via illegal wiretaps or electronic communications is admissible in court.

Sources: [Danger Room] [BBC] [Recorded Futures]