The exponential compounding effect of the NSA controling innovation

So I've been thinking more and more about the technological gap between a layman such as myself and somone with a lab and funding.

That got me to thinking about the gap between public/private labs and NSA sensitive technologies labs.

Let us forget the fantastic mj-12 theories spawning into run away secret space programs or even paperclip nazi scientist and anti grav just for a minute.

I'm talking sr-71 owned by the CIA aka article 112 or more popularly as the a-12 or u-2 test flight dates to public aknowledgment.

U-2 1955 - 1960 = 5 years dark.

A-12 1962- 1982 = 20 years dark.

So in the time frame of 2 years from 1960 to 1962 uncle sam went from keeping the public 5 years behind to keeping us 20 years behind.

With the list of national security sensitive technologies being as long as it is now, is it reasonable to consider the public is at least 20 years behind in most fields?.


I'd say that is a rather modest estimate and some may argue it's way to high, but that is what makes this a discussion.

My point is that "was" the gap as of 1982. What reason do we have to believe that gap has grown shrunk or stayed the same?

If we asume it stayed the same then we can assume by using Moore's law that the government is using computers with 1024x the power as what sits on your table or lap.

"Moore's Law refers to Moore's perception that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years"

2 years ahead = 2 times the power

4 years ahead = 4 times

6 years equals = 8 times

8 years = 16 times

10 years = 32 times

12 years = 64

14 years = 128

16 years = 256

18 years = 512

20 years = 1,024 times the number of transisters per chip that the NSA sensitive tech labs have access to compared to us.


So from 1955-1960 the NSA probably had tech that way roughly 4-8x advanced as joe six pack

By 1982 they were 1,024x more advanced.

Now I know this is not apples to apples, but you can see the cause for concern.

2 years or 2 decades the problem is exponential.

Some fields may be 2-5 years ahead some may be 2-5 decades.

Regardless the effect is exponential.

What effects could this have on a society beyond mere control over innovation which may allow near peer adversaries a military advantage or cause a conflict with national security interests?

Well do you remember what cell phones were like in 2001? Those little Nokia phones with the crappy tiny camera. Paying per text. Sub game boy graphics games like ribbon, no apps, videos, face time, or even music, but you can download ring tones or send/recieve pics wink wink.

Now imagine all you are allowed to live with is your old Nokia and your not even 3g service. While I have my I phone x ultra 4k HD voice activated brain thingy we call a smart phone in my pocket running on a 5g network.

That is a 20 year tech gap.

Some of you couldn't even imagine having last years phone, how about an 8 year old one or how about a 20 year or older?

That is just phones.

Here is my point. Some tech you used 20 years ago would seem no different from today while other tech would seem like almost walking into the stone age.

What fields do you think this NSA sensitive technologies gap has effected the most?

How far behind do you think we are in certain fields?

What would be some of the unintended or non security related real world consequences of this gap on innovation?

What would I have to walk up and show you in my hand now to amaze you the same way you could do to the 2001 you with your smart phone tv laptop game console....?

Would it be in my hand at all? Maybe my tech is wearable or inside me. Maybe my tech has allowed me to become so isolated I never bump into you at all because I'm now 100% virtual.

Good thread.

I imagine the effects are uneven when considered by field of endeavor.

Exotic aerospace technology is probably way ahead of our 1960s-standard airliners.

Ditto surveillance technology and specialized electronics that go with it.

Other fields may be roughly what is available to the public today.

Never know. The breakaway civilization has perhaps emerged and we'll never know it.

Cheers

a reply to: Stevenmonet

I think private industry has either surpassed or is equal to government technology at this point. Most government agencies including.the DOD, the CiA, the FBI, the NSA and the military rely on third party international corporate contractors for a lot of their R&D and tech development. The US army has crippled itself technologically by doing this.

The same contractors selling to the US army sell to China, india, russia, isreal, saudi arabia, the eu, nato, private mercenaries etc.

I'm sure the cia and military have classified technology hidden from general public, but i'm sure that same technology is sold to every other government by the same companies that provide it and contract for the US and at this point, i wouldn't be surprised if corporations have started withholding technology from the us government and orher governments. Many of them are bigger and more powerful than any one government and borders mean nothing to them.

a reply to: dug88

Darpa was founded in 1958 we get to see some of what goes in but very little of what comes out still to this day.

The a-12 used russian titanium yet they had no hint a new bird existed until they saw the cool spot left by its shadow on the desert sand durring rcs testing of a model.

My question to you is; how drastically has the military r&d and procurement process changed from say 82 to now?

As far as I can see we have between 20 trillion and 40 trillion in unaccounted for DOD funds.

Sure we could assume what 10-90% is fat fingers and bad accounting I'll take the 90%

Ok that means

2-4 trillion is black budget off the books zero oversight. They lied about dollars for x so they could spend them on y.

Then again. It could be a lot more.

I am a layman but I could list 2 game changing techs off the top of my head that I personally could fully develop with a fraction of that funding.

As far as I know of any civilian or public entity working on advanced tech on the NSA sensitive technologies list is under NDA and government contract.

Sure some percentage of the stuff for assembly line publicly aknowledged tech as far as components is widely available but if you think nothing is floating arround the NSA controlled tech world that is game changing, then ask yourself this:

What was the paint for the sr-71 made out of?

It was made in the 60's and we use way newer and better stuff today yet if you can find the recipe I'm sure there are a few nations who would love to have it.

Hence you wont find it.

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

I agree the effects are totally uneven. Just think back 20 years take the office for example.

The printers may be 15- 20 years old.

The computers might be 5 the chairs are about the same.

The cubicles could be from the 70's, and the phones are basically identical to the 80's unless we start talking auto dialers.

The software is 2-5 years old maybe worse depending on your it guy.

The building could be 100 years old or brand new.

The business model could be over 100 years old or brand new.

So even a common office could be both recognizable and yet un-navigable if the founder walked in after a say 20-100 year absence.

Now let's break it down to the military. Could a
Pre-9/11 era infantryman say from the first gulf war be teleported in time to today and fire his m4 and put on his armor? Sure could!

Could a pilot from the same era do the same with say an f-22 probably not.

The tank comander gunner and driver would all be at home. The motor pool techs would all just ask for another cig.

The camp cook no probs.

The comms guy would be lost.

The radar tech would make it work, and signals and Intell guys would probably see a drone and piss themselves.

I probably missed a few In there, but minus a couple new boats the sailers would probably all do a better job then their modern counterparts subs and all.

Well, I think you're overlooking some things.

The SR-71, for example, was known about long before 1982. Heck, even I knew about it back in the 70's. The exact performance characteristics were still classified, but the existence of the the aircraft and the technology was known. Probably one of the most classified elements of the SR-71 was some of the photography equipment, but it didn't really do anything any other camera couldn't do, it was just much, much, better at it (i.e. lenses, etc). The secrets were in some of the manufacturing techniques for things like optics more so than the technology of the cameras themselves. Same goes for satellites.

Another good example is the X-37 (Orbital Test Vehicle). Practically everything about the X-37 is classified, but we all know it exists, right? What it does, and where it goes, is all classified, but people have known of the existence of the craft since practically the first launch.

Secondly, you have to ask yourself what you would do with a "smart" phone which is 10x smarter than the one you have today? Why would you need one? What would you do with it? And, while this may seem like a dumb question, there's actually more to the question than meets the eye. You see, other countries (think: China) are not bound by the same secrecy laws as the US or Europe are. If there was a market driven need for a certain technology, some other country would develop and release it, regardless of it's classification status here. This has actually happened on numerous occasions.

Further, most of the areas where something is highly classified are in areas which wouldn't be legal to own anyway, because it would break other laws. Want to see through a concrete wall? We can already do it. But, that kind of technology isn't legal for John Q. Public to walk around on the street with because it breaks privacy laws. Want to build a super-computer? You can do it, right now if you like. But, you're not going to be allowed to create some advanced encryption system with it.

In summary, I'm not too worried about classified technology being way out in front of commercially available technology. Some of the applications for these technologies may be classified, but the technology itself isn't.

Good thread though! S&F!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

70"s heck you were slow to the game. Nixon announced publicly in 64.

10x computational power on my smart phone blah come on 3 to 4 x chip density and 3 to 4 x battery density and my whole smart phone fits on my contact lens with it and telescopic zoom.

Could you market a car that runs on watter?

Could you market light weight flexible bullet proof armor that weighs less than two sheets of paper and stops .308 rifle rounds?

So if I pulled up to you let you shoot me with a .308 point blank wearing a t shirt and hop in my watter powered car and roll out would you say the only reason a can do it and you can't was because it wasn't marketable?

Or would such technologies be too disruptive to the current power structure?

Space ex is recycled tech from the 60s and solar city was recycled tech from the 70's combined with a novel financing structure.

Tesla is recycled tech that is even older.

So obviously Novel combinations can be made with existing components, but when the people funding the research compartmentalize all the data and keep the specialists seperate they can limit the big picture view and obscure what would be otherwise obvious for far longer than you can imagine.

This is what worries me.

originally posted by: Stevenmonet
when the people funding the research compartmentalize all the data and keep the specialists seperate they can limit the big picture view and obscure what would be otherwise obvious for far longer than you can imagine.

This is what worries me.

RAND: tip of the iceberg

a reply to: Stevenmonet

Im Sure there are tech that's being withheld.

As for Moore's law...
Transistors are already 14 nanometers across and are reaching their limit.
DNA molecules are one nanometer.
I dont remember the exact number but I think it's 70 silicone atoms in 14 nanometers.

The next large leap in transistors will not be with silicone.

Truthfully metallurgy is a huge roadblock in innovation.

a reply to: Stevenmonet

It is my understanding that the NSA deals mostly with communication technology/data.

I dont think they are in every cookie jar as Hollywood would portray. How far advanced in comms/data are they? Good question but at any rate I think they have their hands full with cyber atm.

Good documentary is Zero Days if you haven't seen it.

I dont think the NSA or anybody in the DoD has the capability to manufacture semiconductors at any scale. From what I have seen, the DoD, and IC in particular, use COTS chips for just about everything they do. We are hitting a speed limit in Moore's Law. I don't think anything they have is to the effect of 1024x better than what we have....at least speaking on computer chips.

a reply to: PokeyJoe

Exactly.
Transistors, batteries, solar panels.

All are near their maximum potential with the current materials.

a reply to: PokeyJoe

Agreed. And Photonic/Quantum computers are in such infant stages I think they (NSA) and whoever are just using large quantities of today's leading tech. Algorithms make the world go round

a reply to: PokeyJoe

Since the thread is focused on 1960's technology that was declassified in the 1980's a quick search will find museum articles like:

GaAs' progress in the 1960s was hampered by, among other things, thermal conversion, that is, becoming electrically conductive after heat treatments, of the semi-insulating substrates.

The cold war aerospace technology moved to space where its safer more secure and cheaper with global oversight.

AI resources might be all under global control now if they are using space based data grooming?

a reply to: In4ormant

Thats the thing that really jumped out to me when I was working in the murky world of the Intel Community and the DoD in general. Its not necessarily super advanced tech, its more just the volume of things they have....like the number of top flight servers, or the size of some of these systems. It seems like they've spent most of their money on quantity, not quality in this sense.

Now, thats not to say we don't have super advanced tech that would blow the publics mind, because we do. Just in this particular instance, I don't think they are too far off of what we have in the general public.

a reply to: Bordon81

Free cooling, heat dif & solar for power and a super clean, near vaccum, micro-g environment perfect for growing crystalline structures.

Ok nazi bells and mj-12 ssp breakaway society, or physical limits were reached back in the 60's-80's and we are approaching the end of and/or sifting through the trickle down?

Is it that simple, or is there a grey area?

Do near peer rivals have aligned goals as far as the humans as currency/labor units global human farming power structure is concerned?

At first I was excited to see some of my ideas being talked about in actual peer reviewed papers.

Now not so much.

Over time when you start seeing the data and how it is presented to obscure certain obvious conclusions or fails to make obvious observations yet alone see them worthy of further investigation/application it becomes obvious there is something going on.

So you try and play with the big boys out of your garage and then you hit limits that require x, y, or z.

You can make things work with x but its ineficient except for proof of concept. Y will work fine but can only be produced/procured in limited supply and becomes inefficient on cost. Z works, can and is produced in high quantity, but is restricted access only.

10 inch by 12 inch highly conductive monolayer graphene sheets.

Aluminium hydride.

Just 2 of my personal z's.

I get to play with x the college's play with y and maybe a small amount of z, those with access/clearance know what you can build with z and are working on a much better secret option a.

That is the best I can break it down I guess.

Maybe I should have posted this in rants.

a reply to: PokeyJoe

I tried to replace the "NSA controling" bit of my title with "limited access to" but the time ran out before I thought of the edit.

Many institutions/governments finance research and development projects.

The more compartmentalized it gets the easier it becomes for those doing the compartmentalization to conceal relevant information and or access to developing innovative ideas into finished products.

The question of "who" is doing the compartmentalization is less interesting to me right now than the why and even more so what is the down stream unintended impact on innovation as a whole.

The gap is even larger than you suggest because it is between what the public is allowed to learn and the actual hardware of Lockheed's Skunk Works, etc. A prime example of the reality that is largely hidden from us is quite apparent in some ways. The F-117 stealth fighter was OPERATIONAL in units for TEN years before it was unveiled.

It is easy to look at the details about the Tic-Tac hard data admitted from the government (after levels of security was by-passed) to understand that we are being played. The bottom line is that we have our own craft that mock the very essence of the pesky UFOs of the last 70+ years. We are being shown (told) that we are on parity with some levels of the alien technology that we have witnessed over the decades and, therefore, not to be too unset when we learn even more about the visitors.

a reply to: post=25761652]Stevenmonet[/post]

The NSA?? New to the game. A hundred years ago Tesla supposedly invented free energy through the air and the power mogul then said "can you meter it, no, then kill it". That was what was supposed to happen. Now for the ordinary man in the street wants and it's not superior surveillance equipment and as long as these people have charge of the purse strings nothing will be released.
China invented fireworks hundreds of years ago. A glorified firework put Yuri Gagarin into space, put US astronauts on the moon and guess what? Musk and Bezos are using glorified fireworks, but oh with updated electronic guidance systems.
The first petrol combustion engine was invented around the late 1800s. The exact same engine is in your car, but oh, with updated electronics.
The jet engine, invented in the first half of the 1900. Virtually the same engine on jet liners AND the modern fighting aircraft, but oh, with up dated electronics.
AND don't get me going on the oil and nuclear power people, yes that's the people not the industries.
So now tell me just WHAT innovations are they withholding. As long as they are making money on these "old" technologies they aint gonna move.

a reply to: Stevenmonet

There is a lot of disinfo out there, I remember when the movie "a bridge too far" came out in the 1970's.
The movie was supposedly about an operation carried out by the US military in 1944.
The map scene in the movie showed a Nazi SS rear security operation run by Wilhelm Bittrich near Arnheim.
You would think that they might have been guarding or listening at the Radio Kootwijk station 19 KM's from Arnheim?

Its easy to get WW1 technology from 1918 mixed up with WW2 technology and WW2 technology mixed up with 1960's.

This dish was filled in long ago and wouldn't call it off the shelf technology in the 1940's and 1950's.

www.pa3fwm.nl...

Egyptian themed..

archixplore.com...