Quantum Computing and Counterintelligence
The United States intelligence community has four strategic functions. The first is collection, or the gathering of raw data through a whole host of means. The second is analysis, or providing policy makers with interpretations and estimations regarding this data. The third is covert action, or espionage — the James Bond-stuff midway between diplomacy and war. The fourth function is counterintelligence: efforts to protect data, information, and U.S. intelligence from foreign adversaries and intelligence services. Since the CIA’s formation in 1947, each function has gradually obtained more tools, more methods, and thus more responsibilities. The satellite changed the nature of collection. Surveillance systems changed the nature of espionage. And so forth.
At the beginning of 2011, the intelligence community may have bitten off more than it ought to chew. It is unfair and unwise to task an overwhelmed bureaucracy to keep up with the exponential pace of technology. This trend is occurring most haphazardly within the realm of counterintelligence.
Technology is a fine servant but a dangerous master. It changes in unpredictable ways. It redefines the boundaries of human potential. It compels us to reevaluate the nature of secrecy and our notions of privacy. The recent WikiLeaks controversy is small potatoes, the tip of the iceberg. The Stuxnet computer worm, though mysteriously advantageous in our efforts against the Iranian nuclear program, is the most advanced piece of malware ever discovered. It could turn its sights elsewhere. It could change everything.
Then there’s quantum computing. Moore’s Law states the capabilities of microprocessors double every 18 months. In ten to twenty years, this law will likely collapse. Silicon Valley will go quantum. Circuits will be measured on a molecular and atomic scale. Computers will be infinitely more powerful than they are today. According to Michio Kaku, quantum physicists today can conduct simple multiplication problems with just seven atoms. In the near future, when millions of atoms are able to be utilized, no CIA code will be safe.
This is the technological trajectory of the world. There is a great debate as to whether or not cyber-warfare is the fifth domain of war (along with land, sea, air, and space). Some believe cyber-warfare is merely a tactic within the framework of the preexisting domains of war, much like terrorism. Others believe it is a new dimension altogether, requiring our attention and unwavering vigilance. Former DNI Mike McConnell wants to go so far as to “reengineer the Internet.”
Though much of this is turf-battle infighting, it is a fact that the Chinese have conducted cyber-operations against the United States. In a bipolar context like the Cold War, U.S. counterintelligence would be tasked with keeping pace. But the twenty-first century will be very unlike the twentieth-century. Our enemies, whether big powers like China or networks like al-Qaeda, will always undertake that metamorphosis which best exposes our soft underbelly. The underlying premise of counterintelligence this century, therefore, is not who we shall encounter but rather what we shall encounter.
Couple of points on this…
Quantum computers will not be “infinitely” more powerful than classical computers. Orders of magnitude more powerful, exponentially more powerful, yes, but infinitely more powerful is completely false.
Second, quantum encryption is NOT breakable even by quantum computers, so obviously data in the future will be stored with quantum encryption, and old classically encrypted data will be destroyed, so comparing quantum decryption with current classical encryption is silly hyperbole.
With truly dramatic points around every turn, why resort to making false points to drum up drama? There is plenty to be very excited about quantum computing, but sounding the trumpet that classical encryption will be defeated is assuredly not one of them. Is it that the factual points are overwhelmingly positive but the writer wishes to draw negative conclusions, that they are overlooked? That would be disappointing but not too surprising I guess either.
“The United States intelligence community has four strategic functions. The first is collection, or the gathering of raw data through a whole host of means. The second is analysis, or providing policy makers with interpretations and estimations regarding this data.”
I guess the first two didn’t work out too well for us when predicting Mubarak’s fall in Egypt. So let’s see now, the CIA failed to predict something small like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union, it failed to predict 9/11, and it failed to predict how many weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein really had. Maybe, just maybe, the CIA should work on its “data gathering” and “analysis interpretations” functions first before worrying too much about technology?
But maybe we shouldn’t worry about technology too much, anyway. After all, just last week Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA, said that he got most of his information from the main stream media and CNN. Now THAT should really worry the country.
When my car breaks all the time, I get a new one.
But than, I’m not a Harvard graduate.
” . . . when secrets weren’t encrypted or coded, but were kept in their most pure form — in the mind and conscience of a loyal individual. . . ”
Until mind-mapping inference begins to unearth the secrets in there, as well!
But I expect the whole context of life will have changed. It may become far more pro-active, which is the current trend, with the machines acting before events rather than after?
In light of the writer’s thesis, one surely should expect that the heads of western counter intelligence will cherry pick the best minds in computer/engineering sciences and physics.
Therefore, I urge them to recruit from two of the best talent pools in the world, bar none-Caltech(California Institute of Technology and MIT.
While there are other adequate venues to choose from, common sense suggests that you first go to the top of the talent pool, and you work your way down.
I challenge anyone, who knows anything about what it takes to get the job done, to argue with the above.
Unfortunately, Adina, China and others are sending *their* best minds to those same two universities, then bringing them back to work on *their* agendas. It’s not Americans that often constitute the majority of certain graduate departments.
Raymond, you are correct. At my son’s Caltech graduation I joked-I guess I shouldn’t have ! -that he was more like the token White & token Jew in his class, than a part of the majority.While there were MANY Asian students I was assuming that they were American Asians, not foreigners.
At MIT, my other son was not as much in the minority, but definitely not in the majority.Holy smokes….
I wonder from which ‘talent pool’ Clapper and Panetta came?
Ok I will bite. but first:
What schools did Stroustrop and Gosling go to?
Linus Torvalds? Where did Berkeley Unix come from?
The world moved to punch cards because filing cabinets were inadequate to store information. Then they moved to magnetic tape. Now we use magnetic disks. Information has progressed to the point where if the CIA were to switch from magnetic disks to filing cabinets, they would likely need the entire land mass of the United States to do it. Your suggestion to use file cabinets is infeasible.
I have a Computer Science background and I can propose far more practical ways of dealing with these issues than your filing cabinet suggestion. The CIA needs to (and likely does) have sensitive systems physically isolated from others. If networking is required, then they need to have the network physically isolated. Wireless should be banned. The interconnects between the private network and the public network should be physically incompatible (e.g. coax versus rj-45). All of their systems, both sensitive and insensitive should run OpenBSD. Proper administration of OpenBSD would ensure that their systems are virtually inhackable.
Your filing cabinet idea could be applied to this (and would theoretically improve security) if computer networks containing sensitive information were not allowed extend beyond a physical building, with data transmission between buildings being done by people carrying storage devices that are physically incompatible with public computers.
Applying your filing cabinet idea in that way is likely overkill and could prevent the CIA from operating effectively. Implementing the measures I suggested is probably good enough. Just migrating from Windows to UNIX-class operating systems (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X) would yield a massive improvement in security.
“Suppose a quantum computer in 2025 can break every CIA code.”
No, quantum computing is only a threat to current asymmetric (public key) cryptosystems, used for key distribution. Symmetric (secret key)systems such as AES, are not vulnerable to known quantum algorithms, and there are various fundamental reasons to conclude that they never will be. There is a good deal of work underway to build key distribution systems that are quantum resistant.
In addition, quantum systems can be used to implement, not just break, cryptography, and the resultant systems are theoretically unbreakable. Of course that’s if all assumptions are met, and it can be very difficult to engineer them, but progress is being made there also. Quantum crypto is actually advancing much faster than quantum computing, with commercial implementations already available.
BTW, cryptography is under the purview of NSA, not CIA.
If you don’t want your data accessed by others, keep it on a system that is not connected to the internet. Hacking assumes digital data connected in some way to the hacker, so break the connection.
Are libertarians now hostile to technological innovation and science as well?
Have libertarians now become, just like the radical left, alarmists?
Is PJM becoming the new “New Scientist” ?
Quantum computers are not ultracomputers. They’re good at solving a very narrow class of problems. Outside of that, they’re useless. Among these narrow problems are code breaking, but there are encryption methods that are immune to cracking even by quantum computers.
So no, Moore’s law isn’t going to put a quantum computer in every pocket.
A little visit to wikipedia could have told you that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer#Relation_to_computational_complexity_theory
Intelligence gathering and analysis is only cover for the CIA’s real mission, which is to draw fire on itself from Congress, and unwelcome attention in general, to keep such bad things away from other intelligence organizations which do the real work. Its secondary mission is to provide plausible deniability for foreign governments which want to work with us covertly. Predator UAV operations in Pakistan are an example of the latter. The CIA nominally operates, and provides targeting information for, Predator attacks on terrorists there, so the Pakistani government can pretend that American military forces aren’t operating on its territory.
The nation’s principal intelligence gathering and analysis organizations are the Drug Enforcement Administration, National Security Agency, and various entities in the Defense Department. The CIA has no meaningful role in foreign intelligence gathering and intelligence.
The chief mission of the CIA Director is damage control, specifically to protect the incumbent Presidential administration from political problems created in, or arising from, the CIA. The Bush II administration is the leading example of what happens when a President does not make this the CIA Director’s prime mission. The CIA must be thoroughly repressed at all times to keep it from causing political problems for whoever is President at the moment.
The chief, and overwhelming, mission of the Director of National Intelligence is to minimize the accountabilty and responsibility of anyone and everyone in the Executive Branch for intelligence failures.
The mark of a great forum is the quality of the articles, and the responses. Yeah pajamas. This is one of the most important issues facing America, infinitely more important than global warming, but only geeks know about the coming, now present, electronic revolution. Quantum computing is one aspect, computing, analyzing input, but data gathering is equally important to society. Both have dual use (good or evil) capabilities, of not infinite, but enormous, not well understood ramifications. Whoever screws up will not live well.
I look at the technical competency, and ethics, of our leaders and can dip into despair. The end result of the above technologies is that privacy no longer exists or will vanish soon. Today, a van can park in front of your home, and “see” every activity inside. Every. What are the rules for making sunglasses that disrobe everyone walking down the street? Is it OK to pour billions of “grains of sand” in road concrete that can track all vehicle speeds, road conditions, lane position, weight, and tire condition? Insurance companies love the electronics in your car; if you are over the speed limit their liability may be less. This year, all cars will have a cell phone connected to the emissions systems, and will automatically call the government if the car pollutes. It may be possible to shut off your car when this occurs.
The day of Big Brother is here, and his house rules do not exist. NSA, government geeks, track every electronic signal on earth. Yet the political dialog between liberals and conservatives over the rules of “wire taps”, the Patriot Act, was disgusting. What was legal for listening to a drug lord was illegal for listening to Osama Ben Laden. Insanity.
Where is John Wayne and the IEEE, when we need them? If you do not know who these are, you are the problem, and certain victim.
You state:
“I look at the technical competency, and ethics, of our leaders and can dip into despair.”
Well, your dispair is somewhat misplaced. You should dispair above all and well before that when you recognize that your ‘supreme leader’ the President of the US doesn’t represent the national interests of the US. Afterwards, you may worry about a leader’s “technical competency and ethics.”
This is just a tangential note, but one about which I would invite the views of the very expert commenters earlier in this thread. I have no expertise in this area, but something just seemed off…., rather like two different realities in an Escher drawing….
I just nipped over to The Washington Post to read the article by Mike McConnell referenced in this post (v. ¶ 5, “reengineer the Internet”). As a former Director of National Intelligence, Mr. McConnell must needs possess oceans of expert knowledge that I cannot even imagine. However, I feel that his choice of the Cold War intelligence structures and strategies as a paradigm for Cyber War solutions does a disservice both to his undoubted knowledge and to a more useful explication of what’s needed to counter this new threat.
The Cold War and Cyber War, it’s apples and pears, no? You can’t really shoe horn the needs and requirements of the Cyber War situation into the old Cold War defensive strategies. Two different realities. The defensive early-warning system Mr. McConnell suggests would require a total, and no doubt wildly expensive (though nicely remunerative for someone), overhaul of the Internet to derive information that a moderately gifted hacker could discover now with the current Internet (?Experts: am I way off the mark here? Were all those hacker movies really just Dragon Tattoo fiction?). Also, wouldn’t his dream Internet just make things more difficult for our own Cyber warriors who are on offense? Dunno. But it just struck me as very “old”, two-dimensional / linear thinking that in no way suits the multi-dimensional nature, fluidity, and subtlety of the Internet and thus of Cyber War (at least, as I imagine it might be.) Perhaps, Mr. McConnell was just using an easily accessible model to explain a complex situation for “the rest of us” — I hope so, for it seems, to my ill-tutored mind at least, that using such ossified structures from the old Cold War reality would be ill suited to capturing the mind of wind that is the Internet.
I dunno.. my company is routinely attacked by Chinese “cyber-warriors”, and we have so far caught them all.
What a lot of the comments I’ve read fail to note is that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. That is, for every concern that Big Brother is “already monitoring your car” there are a couple thousand “car-hack” websites distributing knowledge on how to blind Big Brother.
There is no lock that cannot be picked, and no code that cannot be broken – even if it requires not computer power, but boots on the ground to kidnap the lock or code builder and torture the information out. But no matter the means, it gets done.
This is just the old “arms/armor” conflict that has been the natural state of affairs since humans first learned to think. At least as things stand today and into the foreseeable future, nothing has changed nor will change.
As to the unforeseeable future, however… well, that’s unforeseen.
“when secrets weren’t encrypted or coded, but were kept in their most pure form — in the mind and conscience of a loyal individual.”
Where said secrets were safe until a book offer too good to refuse showed up.
Here’s a crazy idea. If you have info you really want to prtect, don’t store it on a computer. Type it out, put it in a safe, and post a sentry outside.
It may be a corollary to Moore’s law that microprocessor capabilities double every two years, but that was not Moore’s law. Moore’s law was simply that the number of transistors will double every two years.
From the horse’s mouth, so to speak: http://www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/
Capabilities do not increase at the same rate as transistors, it depends on what you do with the transistors as to how fast capabilities increase. If we could figure out how to make transistors function and communicate exactly like neurons in the human brain (and we have simulacrums today, but with hopefully better memory than our imperfect source), capabilities could skyrocket in areas that have progressed very slowly so far. Quantum computing would likely do nothing for those same areas, but would greatly improve others (the killer app, of course, is to figure out how to create life-like, user-directed animated pornography [now in 3D!], not encryption, but I can understand how three letter agencies might disagree).
As another person pointed out, though, cryptography (both creating and breaking) is under the purview of the NSA. I won’t bore you with the lengths they USED to go to so as to prevent information getting out, but they certainly do use physically separated networks, their Fort Meade buildings are built as Faraday cages, and, most importantly, they assume that their connected networks are already compromised so they can’t rest (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/NSA-Assume-Attackers-Will-Compromise-Networks-395027/), unlike most corporate IT pros who only worry about the edges while a competitor sneaks in a rogue access point or a new printer appears (who turns down printers from heaven?) that turns out to have a VPN’ed web server built in that is forwarding every copied image to a foreign government. Who needs to crack your encryption when they have source copies of your blueprints? (from slashdot, load all the comments and display all of them, then wade through to find what the more devious minds say how they would implement something like this http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/04/20/1641228/Digital-Photocopiers-Loaded-With-Secrets?from=rss).
It is my understanding that the so-called “one time” pad for “short” messages remains unbreakable. And does anyone really have a working scalable quantum computer? Much of the work is shrouded in secrecy and public commentary is mostly gibberish by folks who haven’t a clue because the stuff is hard to really understand. On the other hand, understanding how non-quantum computers work and grasping the problems they can tackle is almost a trivial pursuit.
BTW, I have a degree in computer science (MIT). I never pursued a career in the field because of the almost indescribable boredom I knew that I would find.
What about when Moore’s Law becomes no longer applicable? i.e. Once nanotechnology begins to become implemented in computing.
Espionage at the Boston University Boat House
It was at MIT, they set me up with a job and a dorm room for the summer in 1971. I never found out who arranged this, but they obviously wanted a murder solved. Karen and I are telepathic, and she had me get in the habit of riding my bike around the esplanade, starting at the stairs leading down from the Boston University bridge. On a Saturday night around midnight in early June, I met some people at the stairs, they were also investigating the murder; they said someone had a gun and I should go find a cop. That took me fifteen minutes, and he wouldn’t investigate. I decided to forget the whole thing and went home. The next morning at six I found the body, she was sitting up with a stocking tied around her neck to a bench. I called the police, and told them I didn’t want to be involved any further. The cop said he thought I was much more involved.
That summer I had been sent to the Russian recruiter to see if I could become a KGB agent. He asked about my political affiliation to the international democracy movement, and said I couldn’t. Then I was sent to meet the FBI at two on July 27. It was about if I had been raped and was resisting hypnosis. They used scopolamine and a polygraph to break down my resistance, and I and all my girlfriends got raped and knew it. I’m demanding damages. And they had me investigate the communists. In 1977, the communists at MIT and Harvard did what they called the split brain experiment on me; my boss pushed a pressure point on my spinal column, which lowered my resistance to their hypnosis. I thought they’d get caught doing this. By February 1979, I completely lost control of my mind and spent the next 24 years living on the street. And finally, in 1985, I was reading the Boston Globe about a murderer who had gotten out of prison for a murder in 1971 at the Boston University boat house. See http://www.masscases.com/cases/sjc/385/385mass497.html
In 1969 I had been recruited to be a shadow telepathic agent of the NSA. To read about these people see http://www.acsa.net/paranormal_agents_at_the_nsa_by.htm; my web site on this is http://www.agentcounterspy.com. They sent me on a mission to MIT to solve this case. The news article said that the body had been found with a lot of blood under the Boston University boat house, and that the “murderer” had been caught on an anonymous tip leading to a bloody diner jacket found in a church. I think this “murderer” was the guy who told me to go find a cop. The body I found was probably an investigator for the murder. Lark Elaine Turner might have been there also, investigating. As I understand it, decades later, the motive was to blow the cover of the counterintelligence agents to the criminals taking over the government by mass hypnosis, after the Kennedy assassination. But this played into our strong suit, who are they anyhow if they’re blowing the cover of counterintelligence; they’de have to be the spies.