It is home to some of the sharpest folks in the U.S. government, but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency does something very stupid: It puts way too much of its research online.
A cursory visit to DARPA’s website offers just how much the agency is willing to share with foreign intelligence services.
Its Blue Wolf program, for example, intends to develop unmanned underwater vehicles capable of long range, long duration missions. Its Ocean of Things program intends to use the Ocean as a force multiplier for the Navy’s awareness capability (Mandy Mayfield has more on DARPA’s ocean efforts). Then there’s DARPA’s Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology program to engage human war-fighters with nano-interfacing. This would feasibly allow soldiers to control drones and other non-human military platforms by direct brain-computer connection.
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How about this program which seems designed to defend against Chinese missile saturation strikes on U.S. warships. What about the effort to develop enhanced attribution for cyberattacks, thus threatening Russian modus operandi? Or DARPA’s pursuit of a swarm force of unmanned ground and air vehicles which might overwhelm enemy strongholds.
DARPA’s website lists dozens of other similar programs. But while the level of detail listed on each web page varies, DARPA also provides name and biographical links for each of the team leaders managing each program. That gives foreign intelligence service a targeting opportunity to either focus in on team leader communications, or their broader social networks as a means of getting close to them. It is a breach of basic operational security.
My point here is simple: DARPA does instrumentally important work for the nation. But it should be far more careful about what it puts online. We need to master the next developments in warfighting, not tell others how to cheat us to victory.
