The Growing Market For Spy Software

Photograph: Alex Segre/Alamy

British Firm Offered Spy Software To Egypt -- Washington Times

Activists say they were the targets.

Egyptian anti-regime activists found a startling document last month during a raid inside the headquarters of the country’s state security service: A British company offered to sell a program that security experts say could infect dissidents’ computers and gain access to their email and other communications.

The discovery highlights the emerging market of Western companies that sell software to security services from the Middle East to China to spy on the kinds of social media activists who recently toppled regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.

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My Comment: Weapon systems, ammunition, communications and other electronic equipment .... there are bans in place to insure that such cargo does not go to certain governments and their security agencies. But should software also be banned?

What is my position .... good luck on trying to enforce such a ban.

Faster And More Efficient Software For The US Air Force

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 12, 2010) — Researchers at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln have addressed the issue of faulty software by developing an algorithm and open source tool that is 300 times faster at generating tests and also reduces current software testing time.

The new algorithm has potential to increase the efficiency of the software testing process across systems.

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My Comment: An interesting question .... how big a deal are software problems in battlefield conditions and war zones. My gut tells me that the answer is probably a closely guarded secret.

As the Air Force becomes more dependent on technology to gain that extra edge, any improvements in software will impact the battlefield.

Investigating Terrorist Networks Through Software

Palantir CEO Alexander Karp. Bloomberg News

How Team of Geeks Cracked Spy Trade -- Wall Street Journal

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- From a Silicon Valley office strewn with bean-bag chairs, a group of twenty-something software engineers is building an unlikely following of terrorist hunters at U.S. spy agencies.

One of the latest entrants into the government spy-services marketplace, Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks. The software's main advance is a user-friendly search tool that can scan multiple data sources at once, something previous search tools couldn't do. That means an analyst who is following a tip about a planned terror attack, for example, can more quickly and easily unearth connections among suspects, money transfers, phone calls and previous attacks around the globe.

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My Comment: This reminds me of the Pentagon's Able Danger Program .... but more sophisticated.

Software Is Becoming More Important For Military Production Projects

F-35: A Software Heavy Aircraft

Sharpen Yourself: A Kanban System for Software Engineering -- Defense Industry Daily

Software is a growing slice of military production budgets, and it isn’t always found in obvious places. On the ground, BAE Systems’ FMTV medium trucks seem prosaic, but a look under the hood reveals an astonishing level of software code in each vehicle. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, a big winner in the Pentagon’s FY 2010 budget recommendations, considers the aircraft’s code to be one of its most important – and most secret – aspects. In the Navy, a movement toward open electronic architectures is culminating in the DDG-1000 “destroyer” and its Total Ship Computing Environment – an area recently identified by the US GAO audit office as a significant program risk.

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My Comment: With trends towards robotic systems increasing, one can only expect software to follow and assume an equivalent and important role.