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United States Technology

CIA's New Tech Recruiting Pitch: More Patents, More Profits (technologyreview.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
America's most famous spy agency has a major competitor it can't quite seem to beat: Silicon Valley. From a report: The CIA has long been a place cutting-edge technology is researched, developed, and realized -- and it wants to lead in fields like artificial intelligence and biotechnology. However, recruiting and retaining the talent capable of building these tools is a challenge on many levels, especially since a spy agency can't match Silicon Valley salaries, reputations, and patents. The agency's solution is CIA Labs, a new skunkworks that will attempt to recruit and retain technical talent by offering incentives to those who work there.

Under the new initiative, announced today, CIA officers will be able for the first time to publicly file patents on the intellectual property they work on -- and collect a portion of the the profits. The agency will take the rest of the balance. Dawn Meyerriecks, who heads the agency's science and technology directorate, says the best-case scenario is that the agency's research and development could end up paying for itself. "This is helping maintain US dominance, particularly from a technological perspective," says Meyerriecks. "That's really critical for national and economic security. It also democratizes the technology by making it available to the planet in a way that allows the level of the water to rise for all."
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CIA's New Tech Recruiting Pitch: More Patents, More Profits More

CIA's New Tech Recruiting Pitch: More Patents, More Profits

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  • Just think (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @12:34PM (#60536544)

    If this was in effect during the 1960s, some CIA employee would hold the patent on exploding cigars.

    • Congratulations on winning the FP race and I wish I had a Funny mod point for you. Or at least an exploding cigar?

      Looks to me like the Slashdot editors are trying to detrollify the FPs, at least some of the time.

      Patentable solution approach for Slashdot (not the CIA)? Bonus payments for their work as assessed by the quality of the resulting discussions. That would obviously call for picking good stories, too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aitikin ( 909209 )

        Patentable solution approach for Slashdot (not the CIA)? Bonus payments for their work as assessed by the quality of the resulting discussions. That would obviously call for picking good stories, too.

        How do you gauge the quality? Certainly not by the quantity of comments, or else we'll just get purely political stories...

        • I don't get why NASA doesn't just wait, or fund a landing version of the SpaceX Starship. Once they have that, all these missions would be trivial in comparison to developing unique hardware each time. Maybe the $28B should be spent building a landing pad on the moon with a refueling station, some storage, and some accommodations?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Patentable solution approach for Slashdot (not the CIA)? Bonus payments for their work as assessed by the quality of the resulting discussions. That would obviously call for picking good stories, too.

          How do you gauge the quality? Certainly not by the quantity of comments, or else we'll just get purely political stories...

          I think it would have be be a compound metric, but quantity should be one part of it. Certainly a story that disappears with no comments was not a good story. I haven't seen that, though I've seen some that came close. The second story from the bottom now has only 11 comments. I'm guessing it's about a couple of orphaned games?

          I would bet that the political stories could be effectively discounted by considering the moderation, especially the troll and off-topic mods. Or give extra weight to the comments fro

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        You all, just plain missed it didn't you. Who would be in a better position to steal other people's ideas from all over the globe and patent it USA, who better than Cunts Idiots and Arseholes, not happy with the theft, they fucking kill you. Only Pompous Pompeo could so publicly be a LIAR, CHEAT AND THIEF by his own idiot fat fucking mouth.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Hmm... I don't like your tone but you actually raised an extremely good point. I think you could have gotten my attention more quickly if you had changed the Subject to match your substance. From seeing the Slashdot message, it didn't seem interesting, since I knew my Subject was basically a joke.

          Having said that, I'm not sure what the appropriate response is. For one thing, I think the NSA is better positioned for the kind of government-sponsored IP theft you're discussing. On the second hand, I'm pretty s

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Tom and Jerry have prior art.

  • I'm just a bit concerned that someone might find a way to manipulate this in unethical ways. Or am I just overthinking the moral fiber of the US government?

  • What is wrong with this business model? Didn't we have enough problems with how the CIA worked in the past? Or how it failed in so many cases?

    I really want to see the business plan for the CIA. Not to invest. Just to laugh.

    Really hard to get anywhere deeper from such a crazy story, but maybe that's because I'm becoming so confused about what government means now. It seems like it's become an insurance scam to pay for today's damages with premiums borrowed from the taxpayers of tomorrow. After all, if the da

    • Selling shares? No. It's just a way to try to increase recruiting without raising pay to market levels, which they have no way to do. Based on my experience with such programs it hasn't been a big incentive because the employees share isn't very large, and because the employee has to work on technologies that meet work assignments, not for profit potential, so the odds of getting a big success are almost negligible.

      • Not to mention that the most exciting and potentially profitable advancements will be patented secretly, preventing them from being disclosed or sold - and therefore ineligible for profit.

        • I thought of that too, but then I realized that the government can simply suppress any part of the patent application and subsequent patent from public view, but still use it and still pay out. Your name will appear on the patent if it is declassified.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nite_Hawk ( 1304 )

        As if we didn't have enough problems with patent trolls. Now we'll have the CIA trying to charge royalties because some drone thought they could make a quick buck by patenting symmetric key encryption when used for paying your taxes online via a smartphone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        You have to be kidding. It is a way to recruit psychopaths who will make use of industrial espionage to steal ideas and patent them, not screwing about. Just take them, claim them as their own, fabricate a false trail and profit. To much resistance from the actual inventor, eliminate the actual inventor. Even if you delusionally could claim the CIA would not do this, how about the agents themselves as individuals, multi-million dollar idea, all that has to happen is the inventor must die and the evidence go

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Just to clarify, yes, I was kidding. I thought the last part made it clear enough, but even the reference to "shares" in the "CIA" stock was apparently misinterpreted. Or were you talking only to timeODay?

          There were a couple of approaches to insight in the branch, however. The thing about cheap motivation, which reminded me of meaningless job titles in lieu of earned salary. Also the bit about the kind of recruits this approach might attract to the CIA, though I think they get plenty of psychopaths already.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Of course it just mean that fat fuck Pompeo wants to steal a bunch for himself and fellow insiders, at this time. Probably the correct answer, those at the top of the CIA already have a bunch of patents they want to steal. This change would not occur at random but only as a result of intent to steal, at this time. They don't get to be cunts idiots and arseholes that no one wants to deal with by accident, staging coups and wars, shows their talents and honesty and integrity are not going to be part of them e

  • Government Holding Patents? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @12:48PM (#60536632) Homepage Journal

    There is something very wrong with the government holding patents. Don't they have a huge conflict of interest - they are supposed to administer patents for the people they serve. Competing with the people, granting themselves patents then charging people for it is just a thinly disguised tax imposed by a shady arm of the executive branch.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by owlaf ( 5251737 )
      If I remember correct, the logic for gov't holding patents is for them not to get screwed. They invent something and later someone else patents it, then sues the gov't

      • All you need to stop being screwed is to publish. You don't have to patent.

        That happens all the time in companies. Some of my patents end up published instead because they like the idea, but it didn't make it to the patent cut line. So it gets published instead to prevent someone else patenting is and suing us (because it is going in the silicon if I invented it). There are dark corners of the internet where this stuff goes, I have no clue where.

    • The US Government can and does already file patents. Government employees already get a percentage of any royalties the patent generates. They often get some type of reward or monetary bonus too. The government doesn't patent highly classified stuff if it compromises security. I doubt the CIA is changing that policy. Rather they are probably advertising that nonsensitive things will be able to be patented in the public.

      • That doesn't mean it's right. It's like the FCC setting up it's own for-profit cellphone carrier company and granting itself spectrum.

  • This should be 100% illegal (Score:3)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:07PM (#60536706) Homepage Journal

    The government should never be in business or compete with private enterprise!

    This is a huge conflict of interest. In a patent dispute the government should be a disinterested 3rd party. Not a business with a vested interested to get their way!

    • What? BA HA HA HA

      Basically you're conceding control of the Gov't to business. Last time I checked businesses don't get a vote - and as such Citizens United should have gone the other way. Money does NOT equal speech.

      By that logic: Intuit is right to screw everyone out of the $$ to efile their own taxes. I don't have to pay someone to efile my state taxes - the state (and not one of the more technically advanced ones, mind you) setup a really nice website where I enter in a bit of info, click a few button

    • The government should never be in business or compete with private enterprise!

      Believing in absolutes make one say stupid things.

    • The United States Government isn't that Unified.
      The Patent System is very separated from the CIA which is separated from the Judicial System.

      If you are Medicaid Patient, and you are addicted to illegal drugs, Medicaid will not call drug enforcement to have you arrested. Even if you were arrested, then you have a violation of HIPAA on your side, as well, many other groups. Finally the court can decide if what happened was considered just.

      Now the US System of Justice isn't in a good position at the moment.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      In a patent dispute the government should be a disinterested 3rd party.

      Well, they would be. Its not like the CIA is another arm of the same company that deals with patents... its a completely different unrelated organization from the company / governmental body or organization that administers and oversees patents and the patent system, so yeah, the USPTO as an entity would be a disinterested 3rd party in a dispute involving one of the CIA's patents.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:08PM (#60536710)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Joe Rogan had on ex-CIA agent Mike Baker a few months ago who had a few stories about the CIA polygraph techs. My favorite quote:

      Polygraph Operator: "So, Mike, you seem to know a lot of foreign nationals. Why is that?"
      Baker: "Do you know what I do for a living? Do you know what this agency does?"

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • If you watch the Original Star Trek and even TNG, Humans seems to have Telepathic powers, or at least very limited ones, in which they can learn some basic telepathic traits. Today we see this, and figure it is just Star Trek being Trek breaking to many Impossible things that is appropriate for Science Fiction (Eg you should only break one law of physics. Faster than Light Speed xor Time Travel, not both). But during the late 1960's ESP seemed like a real thing, that was just on the verge of being exploi

    • From what I have heard, if you use the words "polygraph" and "Phrenology" in the same sentence the polygraph examiners head will explode.

    • The abuse starts far before that. The CIA;s security requirements are so high that they will come to campuses and make several offers for the same job. The first candidate who passes security clearance gets the job. The rest are out of luck. Who is going to go for that if the have a concrete job offer from a Silicon Valley company.

      Also, "CIA officers will be able for the first time to publicly file patents on the intellectual property they work on -- and collect a portion of the the profits" is utter

    • My brother was running a research project at a university in the USA. Right in the middle of the project, a US government agency swooped in and announced that the entire project was now classified and, since my brother isn't an American citizen, he was out on his ear.

      The original idea for the project was his and the fact that he was in charge of it up to that point. But that didn't matter.

    • Nothing against the government per se, at the end of the day your going to find jerks anywhere. Some of the best working environments I've ever been at were the types of places that some people might think were cold and uncaring. The most toxic workplaces I ever been at put up a great show to the public about being wonderful places.

      That being said, polygraphs have no place in the government. There are good reasons they can't be admitted in a court of law. They should have no place in background checks. They

      • Yeah, they should just follow the procedures and procede to act like a fucking sociopath like the CIA at large is "supposed" to act, huh? You know, kill some democratically elected leaders, teach thugs how to torture dissidents, that kind of thing.

        • How much of that is real and how much of that is hollywood hyperbole? Remember hyperbole sells better than reality. Whether it's the media or hollywood, people respond to things of interest far more than the benign.

          Take the whole Breona thing that just came about as a good example. There was a very carefully crafted public narrative about that story. The city just paid out 12 million dollars based on the following narrative:

          No knock warrant
          Police shot first
          She was asleep
          Her apartment wasn't even involved
          She

          • Nice attempt to change the subject, did you really just type all that up thinking I would respond to it rather than the reason I posted to begin with? As for your accusations of hyperbole, were you alive and awake only a couple years ago when we were talking about the CIA's torture programs? Ever heard of black sites? Ever read about the Phoenix Project? It serves you well to change the subject, because then maybe you won't have to attempt to rewrite history.
  • This can't possibly even work, the Government is owned and funded by the people what they create is as much mine as it is theirs, this is going to be blown away in court.

  • help make the water rise for all (Score:3)

    by bugi ( 8479 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @02:16PM (#60537034)

    "This is helping maintain US dominance, particularly from a technological perspective... That's really critical for national and economic security. It also democratizes the technology by making it available to the planet in a way that allows the level of the water to rise for all."

    Just wanted to highlight that last bit. I can't tell whether that statement is pro humanity or a threat to exacerbate climate change. It's probably the former, but I hesitate to make the assumptions that requires.

  • Remember, the CIA funded the creation of Oracle!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Remember, the CIA funded the creation of Oracle!

      Indirectly in that they were their first big customer.

      Their first alleged query:

      UPDATE citizens SET bugPhone=true WHERE interceptedMailText LIKE '%J.E. Hoover wears dresses%'

  • I see a CIA where the best ideas are still classified and you are not allowed to file a patent for years (best and brightest get screwed) but where midlevel people get the benefit because the ideas/tech they develop just aren't that revolutionary. CIA benefits if they sucker in enough grade A talent in the short term but it won't last.

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