THE INTELLIGENCE APPARATUS AND CYBERSECURING NATIONS: HEADS OR TAILS

The National Security Agency (Fort Meade, MD, USA). Source: CNN.

By Gundhramns Hammer

June 3, 2014 

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Intelligence information is expensive to gather, to keep safe, to maintain in storage and to implement it when needed. The bigger the country´s intelligence apparatus, the bigger the budget needed to keep it running.

Although this apparatus nowadays uses sophisticated computers to solve what needs to be solved to make sure you have the right set of information when you need information on something or someone, machines cannot do it alone. 

People are the key, from mathematicians, informatics PhDs to analysts and historians. All of these are sort of hived around the computing machines utilizing ports of interface round the clock.

If all works well as expected, any nation can fell "safe" from any agression or agressor day in, day out. 

Nevertheless, people can make mistakes and this may lend itself to get to dead ends, uncomfortable surprises and deals or errors which cannot be mended so easily. 

But as long as the nation´s security is at stake, anything out of the course of things which may result in a mistake may be hushed, thrown under the carpet or become part of a legal demand from anyone getting the end of the stick by mistake. 

An example of the latter would be the Muslin wrongly accused of being a terrorist and had to be given a compensation of £14,000 by the British Government in 2008.

So, any intelligence apparatus is not perfect and can never be perfect.

Furthermore, since people can be bought, there is always the possibility of leakage from this security bottle. 

What looks secure is not so secured after all. 

This is why it is necessary to create an aura of powerful mystery around it and must be sold as being the best to any potential enemies.

In the end, this game of intelligence apparatuses and cybersecuring nations has its own sets of complications of heads or tails in and out of the fence.

The following clip (Video 1) is about the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA):  

Source: YouTube

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The nation's point man on cyber threats, National Security Agency Director and the Pentagon's Cyber Command Commander General Keith Alexander discuss cyber-threats and the steps being taken to combat them.

Featuring:
Gen. Keith Alexander, Director, National Security Agency; Commander, U.S. Cyber Command

Moderator:
Pete Williams, Chief Justice Correspondent, NBC News

Transmitted: 18/7/2013

Video 1. Clear and Present Danger: Cyber-Crime; Cyber-Espionage; Cyber-Terror; and Cyber-War.