If you want to change the rules, break them. Fair play will not decide who wins the international intelligence and cybersecurity competition in the third millennium. Espionage and counter-espionage in the days of TikTok, 5G and artificial intelligence have little or nothing to do with the idea of intelligence that decades of literature and cinema have photographed in the public imagination, explains Antonio Teti , Head of the Systems sector information and technological innovation of the University “G. D’Annunzio “of Chieti-Pescara, one of the leading Italian intelligence experts, in his latest book,” Spycraft revolution “(Rubbettino), with a presentation by Mario Caligiuri , president of the Italian Intelligence Society (Socint) and a preface byRobert Gorelick , former head of the CIA in Italy. Borsalino hat, 24-hour briefcase, sunglasses. Decades of literature and film have accustomed us to this cliche of secret agents. Today how do you recognize a “spy”
Spies do not have to be recognizable, if they were they could not define themselves as such. Literature and cinema have for decades conveyed an image of the secret services and agents far removed from reality. The work of the intelligence agencies and their operators is essentially based on the collection of information, on their elaboration and on the definition of possible scenarios that can identify, for their respective Governments, the best decisions to be taken for national security and for interests pursued at that particular time. It is an activity that requires human resources in possession of great patience, absolute determination, extreme ability to process the information collected and foresight, strategic and tactical, in defining possible future scenarios. Cyberspace currently represents the main “terrain” for the collection of data of various kinds, and this has involved a technical and methodological upheaval, on a professional, organizational and working level, for all the secret services of the planet. Nevertheless, it should be noted that even if the cyber espionage and counter-espionage activities are able to collect huge amounts of data from the various computer systems connected to the network, from social media and from the web, with minimal risks and very low costs, they cannot, still today, they represent the decisive tool for intelligence activities. Several centuries will pass before we can say that the historical and traditional method of acquiring knowledge based on direct and personal relationships, better known as human intelligence,Services are necessarily “secret” or have found a way to open up to worlds that were once closed, such as academia or businesses
In some countries, such as the United States, Great Britain and Israel, such opening activities have already been a practice for years. The CIA, for example, formalizes agreements with US universities, especially in terms of recruitment, in order to identify students in possession of those “profiles” that may be of interest to the Agency. In terms of collaborations with companies, in 2020 Langley was signed an agreement, worth tens of billions of dollars, called Commercial Cloud Enterprise with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and IBM for development, over the next decade, of cloud-computing platforms. In Israel, there are more than 300 high-tech companies operating in the high technology sector, such as IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola and Cisco. Since 2014, at least 117 companies from 21 countries have opened R&D centers in Israel, generating some 6,000 startups. Of course, it goes without saying that Tel Aviv’s intelligence agencies play an important role in these activities. In Italy, a fruitful interaction activity with the academic world has begun for some years in order to search for those professionals that may be of interest to national intelligence agencies. Obviously the secret services, by their nature and in order to achieve the set objectives, must preserve the confidentiality of the activities they carry out and the information they acquire.
The cover of the book In a world now fully digitized, how important is Osint (Open-source intelligence) for the work of the Services
In 2015 I wrote a book entitled “Open Source Intelligence & Cyberspace. The new frontier of knowledge ”, published by Rubbettino. It was the first text, perhaps internationally, to describe the conduct of Osint’s activities within the Internet. The text had a good success also because it was the first to announce that epochal change that would have produced, from a methodological point of view, an overturning of the old methods of acquiring information from “open sources”. Through a case study on cyber osint, I demonstrated, for example, how it was possible, through the use of some simple applications accessible free of charge on the net, to rake in a considerable number of precious information even on a particularly “protected” structure. Remember that the Osint is not equivalent to an illegal activity of gathering information, but the collection of data from sources of public access. The virtual world represents, as we all know, the largest “information container” in the world, from which it is possible to extract data of various kinds, some even apparently insignificant, but which if assembled in an “intelligent” way can produce “intelligence products.” “Of considerable value. Some information present on the net, in particular on social media, even belongs to the category of personal or confidential information, but is made available to the public by the same individuals to which they belong, almost unconsciously, because they are unknowingly considered of little interest. The ease of individuals on the dissemination of their information on the net, it stems from the belief that the Internet is a sort of “safe zone” to experience one’s own drives, often unmentionable, which in direct relationships would never come to light. In virtual relationships, those psychological and behavioral conditionings that can derive from a direct interaction are ignored, such as, for example, physical appearance, sex, age, etc. In this regard, some studies conducted by US universities have confirmed that the majority of people believe that behind every virtual profile there is a real person and this represents an element of indisputable relevance for the conduct of “virtual humint” activities. Nowadays, cyber osint activities represent a truly remarkable opportunity for the production of knowledge, in any field.How the world of intelligence has changed with the cyber revolution
Someone is left behind
The backwardness lies in having the culture of change. Digital technologies have transformed the entire planet, and the life of each of us. Our modus pensandi and modus vivendi are completely conditioned by technological tools that we can no longer do without. I always ask my university students to measure their dependence on technologies and the need to always be “online” through a simple test: keep your smartphone off for as long as possible. The test results are disheartening. The global intelligence community has suffered greatly from this technological tsunami, particularly in the last decade, but many intelligence agencies have understood its scope in terms of new opportunities to be experimented for conducting a multiplicity of operations. We know well what a “cyber-attack” to an IT infrastructure or the dissemination of a “post” produced by a “fake profile” of a social media can produce. Nevertheless, in various government intelligence agencies of different countries it is still difficult to understand the importance of conducting “defensive” and “offensive” activities within the Cyberspace, both for reasons attributable to the difficulties deriving from the processes of “reorganization” of their own structures , especially if they affect existing human resources, which due to the persistence of mental approaches of intelligence operators who, after so many years spent in the conduct of traditional and consolidated intelligence activities, still offer some resistance to change,Two of the deadliest cyber intrusions in American history, the recent attacks on SolarWinds and Microsoft, were unearthed by small private companies even before the 007s. It’s a sign of the times.
In my last book I have devoted almost a whole chapter to this question. From the postwar period, intelligence was regarded as a strictly governmental activity, dominated by experts suitably trained in the art of espionage and counter-espionage, and managed by institutional bureaucracies controlled and strongly influenced by an insatiable desire for information on the enemy of the moment. Enormous were the budgets allocated during the Cold War by both “blocks” for the conduct of these activities and with a particular focus on the recruitment of agents and sources. It is therefore easy to understand how, at that time, the hypothesis of a hypothetical approach to “contracted intelligence” to non-governmental suppliers could be inconceivable. Starting from the 1990s, there were many causes that contributed to the hypothesis of outsourcing some activities, i.e. to commercial suppliers capable of providing specific services that the personnel of the intelligence agencies were not, at least at the time, in able to deliver, above all in function of the need to face those abrupt and sudden changes in terms of relations, which saw “friendly” countries turn into “enemies” and vice versa. These were new needs that had produced challenges that the entire intelligence community was not prepared for. The collapse of the Soviet Union had caused a significant downsizing of the secret services of both Western and Eastern countries, leading to the need for a reallocation of intelligence resources towards a greater and more complex range of new transnational threats, such as nuclear counterproliferation, international terrorism, the expansion of organized crime, the increase in drug trafficking, the spread of conflicts on an ethnic and political basis. In addition to the significant reduction in the budgets of intelligence agencies, the growth of new requests for intelligence analysis in the virtual world have contributed to the destabilization of the old paradigms and traditional methods of managing intelligence activities. A possible and immediate solution could be that of increasing on-demand espionage and counter-espionage activities, that is, to be entrusted outside one’s own organization. According to some estimates, the total number of contractors supporting the Intelligence Community currently stands at approximately 70,000, with 70% of the intelligence budget spent on acquiring goods and services from the private sector. In this perspective, the continuous and growing interaction between government agencies and private companies can also be explained, especially in terms of the use of digital technologies.The secret services are also a “private matter” or must remain under the strict control of the state
What does the Israeli model teach a country like Italy
I start from the second question: the Israeli model is a unique case on a planetary level. Every citizen of the State of Israel is genuinely convinced of the importance of intelligence, intended as a primary tool for safeguarding national security. Of course, the historical psychological motivation of Israelis based on the awareness of living in a country that is constantly “in danger” plays a fundamental role. It is perhaps the only case of the realization of the concept of “collective intelligence”, which is based on the use of each individual citizen as a potential tool for research and information gathering. Also for this reason, the two main government intelligence agencies, Shin Bet and Mossad, are among the most organized and efficient in the world. In Italy, perhaps we still suffer from that deficiency that the President Emeritus of the Republic, Francesco Cossiga, one of the country’s greatest intelligence experts, defined as a “lack of intelligence culture”. Intelligence men of great depth have passed through our services, such as, for example, Federico Umberto D’Amato, creator of the Reserved Affairs Office of the Ministry of the Interior, but little trace remains of their history and, above all, even fewer teachings. Historically in Italy, unfortunately, the term “secret services” evokes nebulous scenarios in the collective imagination, unhealthy intertwining and even the concatenation with structures “deviated” from incomprehensible purposes. On the contrary, the men of our intelligence structures carry out a daily activity of great value for the state, avoiding clamor, spotlights and gratifications of all kinds. And the real job of intelligence workers: to work in the shadows, with the only, intimate and secret awareness of having served their country. And for a true servant of the state that represents a great honor and a particular privilege. In England, on the contrary, the national secret services enjoy great respect from the Government and the entire population, to the point that former directors often find a natural place within academic structures, where they can continue to work as trainers and expert recruiters, as in the case of Sir Richard Billing Dearlove, former head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), currently chairman of the Foundation Board of the University of London.In the spring, Italy foiled an episode of Russian espionage, the sale by officer Walter Biot of NATO secrets to spies of the Moscow intelligence services. They are routine activities or a red line has been crossed
The espionage case of frigate captain Walter Biot has some anomalies. One of these is represented by the reduced sum of money agreed for the stealing of “classified” documents, which would amount to about five thousand euros. Another is given by the apparently insignificant value of the documents delivered to the GRU officer, the Russian military intelligence. The analysis of these two simple elements would lead us to believe that this espionage activity can be classified as the phase in which we try to “test” the usefulness of a new spy. In other words, its value is verified according to the level of information it can produce. Another unusual aspect and referable to the techniques and methodologies adopted for the conduct of the activities. In other words, there is a poor level of preparation in managing the interaction between the case officer and the spy. Carrying out the delivery of the stolen material and the money by means of a direct meeting, shows a poor knowledge of the use of digital technologies, which nowadays can almost eliminate the opportunities for direct contact between two subjects, especially as regards the transmission of money and documents. For example, there are applications that can be used on the net that can allow, by reducing the risks almost completely, to send documentation to any corner of the globe while preserving anonymity and with the aid of encryption systems that prevent access. For the delivery of money, payment systems can be used that are based on the use of cryptocurrencies, guaranteeing, also in this case, complete confidentiality. Nevertheless, traditional delivery methods based on “dead drop” can be used, but which avoid direct contact between people. Also on this subject I have reserved a chapter in my last book. Ultimately there is an aspect that remains somewhat strange: the practice dictates that intelligence operations must remain secret, without revealing what happened, and when secret agents of foreign countries operating on the territory are discovered, they are invited to return home as they are covered by diplomatic immunity. In this case, the news was given wide coverage. How come but which avoid direct contact between people. Also on this subject I have reserved a chapter in my last book. Ultimately there is an aspect that remains somewhat strange: the practice dictates that intelligence operations must remain secret, without revealing what happened, and when secret agents of foreign countries operating on the territory are discovered, they are invited to return home as they are covered by diplomatic immunity. In this case, the news was given wide coverage. How come but which avoid direct contact between people. Also on this subject I have reserved a chapter in my last book. Ultimately there is an aspect that remains somewhat strange: the practice dictates that intelligence operations must remain secret, without revealing what happened, and when secret agents of foreign countries operating on the territory are discovered, they are invited to return home as they are covered by diplomatic immunity. In this case, the news was given wide coverage. How come and when secret agents of foreign countries operating on the territory are discovered, they are invited to return home since they are covered by diplomatic immunity. In this case, the news was given wide coverage. How come and when secret agents of foreign countries operating on the territory are discovered, they are invited to return home since they are covered by diplomatic immunity. In this case, the news was given wide coverage. How comeHow much has Italian intelligence changed in recent years
In the last two decades our intelligence agencies, like the others in other countries, have carried out a considerable effort of reorganization, especially as regards the “cyber” component. The possibility of drawing personnel from universities has allowed us to raise the level of preparation in terms of information technology of our agencies, placing them in a condition of absolute importance in terms of competitiveness and technological innovation. Much remains to be done, especially as regards the attention that must be paid to economic intelligence and terrorism, which in recent months has been reappearing on a large scale.It is true that we have gone from a culture of secrecy to a culture of security or just rhetoric
The culture of secrecy must remain such, otherwise it would no longer make sense to define the services as still “secret”. It is important, however, to continue to spread the culture of “country security”, which must be extended to public and private companies, but above all to citizens. It is a culture that must be inoculated starting from schools to universities, through a training course that must produce in the new generations a sense of belonging to institutions and the safeguarding of national interests. This training process can also allow national intelligence agencies, right from high school, to “intercept” students who have important vocational aspects for a future entry into the world of intelligence.With the reform initiated by the delegated authority Franco Gabrielli, cybersecurity has been entrusted to an agency outside the intelligence sector. It is right to avoid overlaps
What are the “cyber” tasks that remain the prerogative of the 007s
I suppose that Franco Gabrielli’s intentions were above all the intention of creating an agency capable of solving the problem of skills and above all of the “very strong criticisms” that the cyber structures of Italy experience, starting from the PA and ending in the private companies, as he recently declared during the hearing on 1 July last before the Constitutional Affairs and Transport Commissions, where he intervened as delegated authority for the security of the Republic. Of course, the division of responsibilities represents another milestone of the reform: cyber investigation, cyber defense and cyber operations conducted by intelligence agencies will continue to be carried out by law enforcement, armed forces and secret services respectively. It seems to me a good start for the great challenge that Gabrielli has decided to launch. I just hope that the traditional slow and nebulous bureaucracy of our country, especially in a subject in continuous and incessant evolution such as cybernetics, does not compromise everything or make this Agency plastered between the “snares” and “snares” of excessively interpretable and agonizing rules realization times. I recall, but just to name one, the case of the system of control centers of technological equipment, referable to the “cyber perimeter” affair, introduced by the Conte-bis government which, after more than two years, remained in an embryonic state. especially in a subject in continuous and incessant evolution such as cybernetics, do not compromise everything or make this Agency plastered between the “snares” and “snares” of excessively interpretable rules and agonizing realization times. I recall, but just to name one, the case of the system of control centers of technological equipment, referable to the “cyber perimeter” affair, introduced by the Conte-bis government which, after more than two years, remained in an embryonic state. especially in a subject in continuous and incessant evolution such as cybernetics, do not compromise everything or make this Agency plastered between the “snares” and “snares” of excessively interpretable rules and agonizing realization times. I recall, but just to name one, the case of the system of control centers of technological equipment, referable to the “cyber perimeter” affair, introduced by the Conte-bis government which, after more than two years, remained in an embryonic state.A year ago the Intelligence College of Europe was inaugurated, an institute that brings together the agencies of the Services of dozens of European countries. Effective forms of collaboration can be found between different agencies or is pure utopia
In reality, the project dates back to 2019 and has been signed by 23 member countries and 7 partner countries. The indication that the clear interpretation of this document of intent can provide can be found in the first paragraph and reads “Although national security is a matter of national competence (as stated in Article 4.2, Treaty of the European Union), the close cooperation between the European national intelligence communities and a widely shared objective to jointly face contemporary security challenges “. It is clearly reiterated that national security is an issue that is handled independently by each individual country. I would add that a European agreement on intelligence based on a document of only 4 pages and how to reduce the Divine Comedy to a number of pages comparable to those of a compendium of instructions for a smartwatch. The quick reading of the agreement shows that it “promotes and facilitates strategic dialogue between the intelligence communities of the participating European countries, academics, national and European decision-makers who want to improve strategic thinking and mutual knowledge on issues of common interest”. In short, it would seem a sort of think tank in which professors, researchers and experts in the sector discuss about intelligence. The truth lies in the very nature of national secret services: they serve to protect the interests of the country for which they operate.
