Spies Can’t Hide

David Ignatius of The Washington Post looks at entrepreneurs seeking to profit in a world in which technology has made it difficult, if not impossible, for spies to hide:

It’s a dazzling world of new technology. One company uses data to identify researchers who may have connections to Chinese intelligence. Another interrogates big data systems the way an advertising company might, to identify patterns through what its founder calls “ADINT.” A third uses a technology it calls “Obscura” to bounce cellphone signals among different accounts so they can’t be identified or intercepted.

Most of these intelligence entrepreneurs are former CIA or military officers. They share a fear that the intelligence community isn’t adapting fast enough to the new world of espionage. “Technologically, the agency can feel like a sarcophagus when you see everything that’s happening outside,” worries Edward Bogan, a former CIA officer. He now works with a nonprofit called 2430 Group — the number was an early CIA cover address in Washington — that tries to help technology companies protect their work from adversaries.