Keysight Technologies' US$1.6 billion decision to purchase Ixea has captured attention as a folding of "two" impressive network and measurement competitors into one giant with the power to dominate competitors in the T & M marketplace. Under the radar: The pairing creates a separate type of behemoth combining Keysight's formidable RF monitoring for military clients with … [Read more...]
DARPA Memex and the Hunt for Deep or Dark Web Intelligence
The teaming of companies such as Diffeo, Uncharted Software and Hyperion Gray in the DARPA Memex partnership program has spurred major advances in alternative search technologies, making it possible to range all over the Web, including the Deep and the Dark portions. Without question, the types of information now available through Memex-inspired search capabilities far … [Read more...]
Show Con Artist Wolf Intelligence the “Back Door”
In an earlier post we observed how demand for intrusive surveillance solutions in second and third world countries has fueled the emergence of new competitors such as Wolf Intelligence in a bid to compete with longstanding players in the marketplace. At least in part, these next generation malware players are getting an assist from Wassenaar Arrangement-inspired clampdowns such … [Read more...]
FPGAs: Understanding the Stars of High-Speed Data Capture
Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are circuit boards that can be programmed by the user for a variety of applications including lawful intercept and government surveillance. FPGAs are important to ISS because they accelerate the capture of “unstructured” data, i.e., any type that does not follow a predefined data model, from voice to SMS, video, HTML web … [Read more...]
Italy’s AREA SpA: Lesson in the Importance of Legal Awareness
When a company is in the business of serving law enforcement, generally it is inadvisable to act like a scofflaw. Yet such appears to be the case with Milan's AREA SpA, a well-established ISS vendor noted for its work in lawful intercept, mobile location, IP monitoring, data retention, and more recently "post-Trojan" surveillance involving work in the Deep and Dark Webs. For … [Read more...]