American Spies Are Using MapD This Season

November 11, 2016

Spies have cool gadgets to do their jobs.  Since the advent of the digital age, their gadgets not only have gotten cooler, but more complex.  Spy technology is built on the same software used in other non-intelligence-related industries.  Datanmi shares the CIA’s next technology investment in, “Why America’s Spy Agencies Are Investing In MapD.”

Q-Tel heads the CIA technological venture and they decided to run their new innovations on MapD.  The article makes an apt point that the CIA has fallen into the big data pool like the rest of the world, thus they are encountering many of the same problems as other industries.  Some of these problems include too much data and not enough time, funds, or ways to interpret it.

One reason that Q-Tel has turned to MapD is that it uses GPUs.  MapD is a very fast SQL database and, unlike many of its counterparts, it was specifically designed to run on GPUs.  It also includes a visual analytics layer that allows users to interact with data.

The CIA wants to use MapD to speed up its technology, so it can process and interpret its data faster than before.  It is straight forward why the CIA wants to use MapD.

Do not think this will be the last development from MapD this year.  The young company has already rounded up investors:

MapD is still ramping up. The San Francisco-based company completed a $12-million round of financing earlier this year, which In-Q-Tel was a part of. The company has 30 employees, and a handful of customers (Mostak says “in the tens”) across various industries. The software is being used by oil and gas companies, banks, hedge funds, retailers, ad tech firms, and the U.S. Government, the CEO confirms.

MapD will power an entire generation of CIA intelligence technology.  That is something you will not learn from the latest spy movie.

Whitney Grace, November 11, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

 

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