IQT

1,2016

-It’s no surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has its fingers in a lot of pots, but most people don’t know that the CIA invests in startups.

-Through In-Q-Tel, a strategic investment group that’s technically independent but remains extremely close with the Agency, the CIA has invested in over 300 startups since setting up shop in 1999.

-By virtue of being at the intersection of two of the least transparent industries around—intelligence and venture capital—there isn’t much publicly available information about the firm or many of its investments. If it feels a little like a stranger-than-fiction combination of VC and 007, you’d be correct. In fact, the firm’s name derives from an abbreviation of the word “intelligence” wrapped around “Q,” the name of James Bond’s gadget guru, according to a profile of the firm published in 2000 by the Wall Street Journal.

-Unlike the world of Bond, though, In-Q-Tel is not fiction, and some of the technologies it invests in would give Q and the staff of MI-6’s gadget lab a run for their money.

https://mattermark.com/q-tel-cias-vc-arm-busy-years/

>>5562154

Huawei

22/2019

–The US will stop sharing intelligence with countries that use Huawei hardware in their core communication systems, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said.

–The threat: “If a country adopts this [Huawei equipment] and puts it in some of their critical information systems, we won’t be able to share information with them, we won’t be able to work alongside them,” Pompeo said during an interview with Fox Business on Thursday. “In some cases there’s risk—we won’t even be able to co-locate American resources, an American embassy, an American military outpost,” he added.

–Defiance: Britain, New Zealand, and Germany all signaled this week that they may be willing to continue using Huawei gear as they prepare their infrastructure for the arrival of 5G. Pompeo’s remarks are a major escalation in tensions between the US and its allies over the role of Huawei.

–American concerns: It’s got a lot to do with the role of 5G and whether China could use security back doors to exert undue control over a nation’s digital infrastructure via Huawei’s equipment. Confusingly, on the same day as Pompeo’s comments, President Donald Trump tweeted that he wanted the US to win in 5G development “through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies.”

–Denials: In an interview with the BBC this week, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said the company has never installed back doors into its technology and never would do so, even if required to by Chinese law.

https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/613002/the-us-threatens-to-stop-sharing-intelligence-with-allies-if-they-use-huawei/