Secrecy is Weakness: Schrödinger's IED Jammer
Loose lips sink ships... and allow the enemy to develop better IEDs (improvised explosive devices) according to Prez. Dubya and the Pentagon who are attempting to dissuade the media from reporting on technical developments in ant-IED technology.
Reporter and blogger Noah Shachtman has been told by a U.S. Colonel that his reporting on the development of technology to thwart the ever present danger of roadside bombs in Iraq was little short of spying. The argument is that revealing this information to the world would allow the enemy to develop work-arounds for the anti-IED systems before they are even deployed:
None of the material in the story -- the stuff about microwave blasters or radio frequency jammers -- was classified, he admitted. Most of it had been taken from open source materials. And many of the systems were years and years from being fielded. But by bundling it all together, I was doing a "world class job of doing the enemy's research for him, for free." So watch your step, he said, as I went back to my ride-alongs with the Baghdad Bomb Squad -- the American soldiers defusing IEDs in the area. [Noah Shachtman - defensetech.org]
To put the cherry on this, the president and the Pentagon, after smearing the Los Angeles Times for the same 'offence', are preparing a policy to prevent further disclosure of this kind of information:
A draft memo prepared for Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary, would impose strict limits on all exchanges of information on improvised explosive devices and efforts to defeat them. This includes a mandate that all requests for information from journalists regarding IED threats and IED defeat efforts be routed through public affairs offices, according to a copy of the memo.
The policy would also require entire new discipline on exchanging information related to IED efforts across the government, academia and industry.
"Preserving information security is a critical component to winning this war and protecting the lives of our service members," states the draft memo. "We must protect sensitive information and deny our enemies easy access to critical intelligence." [military.com]
Here's the SiW bottom line: If your anti-IED technology fails just because people know about it, if your ship can be sunk with loose lips, then the truth is not the problem, it's the technology that has failed, and it's the reliance on secrecy that has allowed so much time and effort to be wasted on a fundamentally flawed system. If your device does not work 'in the open' then it does not work at all! If secrecy is your primary defence, you've already lost.
Exactly what kind of war is being fought when a government is forced to treat its own people like the enemy? Perhaps science students should be signing NDAs before their lectures.
A little while back I posted about forensics experts refusing to work with TV series creators to produce convincing science in their shows (such as CSI:*) because they thought that it was giving too much information to criminals on how to avoid leaving evidence (or create misleading evidence). I have to admit, I thought then that it was just amusing, but this is starting to look like the beginning of an extremely disturbing trend.
Reporter and blogger Noah Shachtman has been told by a U.S. Colonel that his reporting on the development of technology to thwart the ever present danger of roadside bombs in Iraq was little short of spying. The argument is that revealing this information to the world would allow the enemy to develop work-arounds for the anti-IED systems before they are even deployed:
None of the material in the story -- the stuff about microwave blasters or radio frequency jammers -- was classified, he admitted. Most of it had been taken from open source materials. And many of the systems were years and years from being fielded. But by bundling it all together, I was doing a "world class job of doing the enemy's research for him, for free." So watch your step, he said, as I went back to my ride-alongs with the Baghdad Bomb Squad -- the American soldiers defusing IEDs in the area. [Noah Shachtman - defensetech.org]
To put the cherry on this, the president and the Pentagon, after smearing the Los Angeles Times for the same 'offence', are preparing a policy to prevent further disclosure of this kind of information:
A draft memo prepared for Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary, would impose strict limits on all exchanges of information on improvised explosive devices and efforts to defeat them. This includes a mandate that all requests for information from journalists regarding IED threats and IED defeat efforts be routed through public affairs offices, according to a copy of the memo.
The policy would also require entire new discipline on exchanging information related to IED efforts across the government, academia and industry.
"Preserving information security is a critical component to winning this war and protecting the lives of our service members," states the draft memo. "We must protect sensitive information and deny our enemies easy access to critical intelligence." [military.com]
Here's the SiW bottom line: If your anti-IED technology fails just because people know about it, if your ship can be sunk with loose lips, then the truth is not the problem, it's the technology that has failed, and it's the reliance on secrecy that has allowed so much time and effort to be wasted on a fundamentally flawed system. If your device does not work 'in the open' then it does not work at all! If secrecy is your primary defence, you've already lost.
Exactly what kind of war is being fought when a government is forced to treat its own people like the enemy? Perhaps science students should be signing NDAs before their lectures.
A little while back I posted about forensics experts refusing to work with TV series creators to produce convincing science in their shows (such as CSI:*) because they thought that it was giving too much information to criminals on how to avoid leaving evidence (or create misleading evidence). I have to admit, I thought then that it was just amusing, but this is starting to look like the beginning of an extremely disturbing trend.