Mon Jan 1, 0001

Google and Intelligence Community Funding

MDDS (Massive Digital Data Systems) Program

Launched 1993 by the US intelligence community. Sponsors: NSA, CIA Office of Research & Development, intelligence community’s Community Management Staff (CMS). Funding: ~$3-4 million/year for 3-4 years. Managed for CIA and NSA by military and intelligence contractors. Program was unclassified but highly compartmentalized.

The Stanford Grant

1995: one of the first MDDS grants went to a computer science research team at Stanford University with a decade-long history of NSF and DARPA grants. Primary objective: “query optimization of very complex queries described using the ‘query flocks’ approach.”

Grant funded research by graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who were making advances in web-page ranking and tracking user queries. Two intelligence community managers charged with leading the program met regularly with Brin as research progressed. Brin was author on several research papers resulting from the MDDS grant before he and Page left to form Google.

What Is Documented vs. Disputed

  • Documented: MDDS grant funded Stanford research that Brin and Page participated in
  • Documented: Intelligence community managers met regularly with Brin
  • Documented: The research funded by MDDS became the foundation of Google’s search technology
  • Disputed: Whether MDDS “funded Google” directly. Program administrator later clarified Brin never reported to her or Dr. Rick Steinheiser (CIA); he gave presentations during their Stanford visits. MDDS funded Stanford University, not Google the company.

In-Q-Tel

Overview

Founded 1999 by CIA Director George Tenet. Independent nonprofit venture capital firm, Tysons, Virginia. Mission: close innovation gap between intelligence community and Silicon Valley. 750+ investments total. As of 2016: 325 listed investments, 100+ secret/undisclosed.

Focus areas: AI, quantum computing, cybersecurity, biotechnology, space systems, advanced materials.

Notable Portfolio Companies — Surveillance & Data

Keyhole Inc. (invested 2003) Mapping technology. Within weeks of investment, CIA had Keyhole supporting US troops in Iraq. Google acquired Keyhole in 2004; became Google Earth.

Palantir Technologies (invested 2005) ~$2 million across multiple stages. Founded 2003 by Peter Thiel and others. Developed Gotham platform for intelligence analysts. Used by DoD, CIA, DHS to monitor countries, identify terrorist networks, plan drone strikes. Domestically used for tax fraud detection, immigration enforcement (ICE deportations), COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Market cap reached ~$250 billion. Criticized for expanding government surveillance through AI and facial recognition.

Source: The Intercept (February 2017): “How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Helped the NSA Spy on the Whole World” — https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/

Recorded Future Machine learning and NLP for open-source intelligence analysis. Real-time threat intelligence. In-Q-Tel backed.

Dataminr Real-time social media monitoring. Preserved access to Twitter’s data stream. Helped law enforcement monitor Black Lives Matter protests and George Floyd protests (2020) — tipped off police to social media posts with whereabouts of demonstrators.

Source: The Intercept (July 2020): “Police Surveilled George Floyd Protests With Help From Twitter-Affiliated Startup Dataminr” — https://theintercept.com/2020/07/09/twitter-dataminr-police-spy-surveillance-black-lives-matter-protests/

Geofeedia Location-based social media monitoring. Marketed to law enforcement as tool to monitor Black Lives Matter protests. ACLU (September 2016) revealed Geofeedia and Media Sonar marketed products specifically for protest monitoring. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram had secretly provided user data access to social media monitoring developers used by law enforcement. After ACLU exposure, platforms revised policies to prohibit use of data for law enforcement surveillance.

State police spent at least $480,000 on Geofeedia, Media Sonar, Dataminr, and ShadowDragon since late 2015.

Source: ACLU (2016): https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/why-government-use-social-media-monitoring Source: New York Focus (2023): https://nysfocus.com/2023/01/13/state-police-social-media-surveillance-including-dataminr-shadowdragon-geofeedia

FireEye Cybersecurity, advanced threat detection.

Notable Portfolio Companies — Other

Babel Street — location intelligence (Locate X tool used by CBP; see data-brokers.md)

Other disclosed investments: Kensho (AI analytics, acquired by S&P Global), Docker (containerization), goTenna (mesh networking), Mesosphere (distributed systems).

Biotechnology

In-Q-Tel invests in genomics, biometrics, biosecurity. Specific biotech portfolio companies largely undisclosed.

Sources