The Disruptive Technology Office (DTO) was a funding agency within the

United States Intelligence Community United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * United (2003 film), ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * United (2011 film) ...

. It was previously known as the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA). In December 2007, DTO was folded into the newly created IARPA. ARDA was created in 1998 after the model of

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Ad ...

by the

Director of Central Intelligence The director of central intelligence (DCI) was the head of the American Central Intelligence Agency from 1946 to 2005, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Security ...

and the Department of Defense, and took responsibility for funding some of DARPA's projects. ARDA evaluates proposals and funds speculative research, particularly in the fields of data mining,

video processing In electronics engineering, video processing is a particular case of signal processing, in particular image processing, which often employs video filters and where the input and output signals are video files or video streams. Video processing t ...

, and

quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Thou ...

. There has been speculation that the DTO is continuing research efforts started under the

Total Information Awareness Total Information Awareness (TIA) was a mass detection program by the United States Information Awareness Office. It operated under this title from February to May 2003 before being renamed Terrorism Information Awareness. Based on the conce ...

program (TIA) in

Information Awareness Office The Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology ...

(IAO). Data-mining activities within the US Department of Defense are controversial and have met with public and congressional disapproval. Although ARDA's budget is presumably classified as part of the intelligence budget, the ''New York Times'' quoted an unnamed former government official saying the agency spent about $100 million a year in 2003. The Associated Press reports that ARDA had a staff of only eight in 2004. Headquartered at Fort George G. Meade in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

, site of the headquarters of the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

, ARDA/DTO has kept a low profile, quietly funding research of interest to the intelligence community. A move to a research park near the University of Maryland, College Park was announced at about the same time as the consolidation into IARPA.

References

Sources

* Work on cracking

public-key encryption Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic alg ...

using a

quantum computer Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Thoug ...

. ''"This work was supported in part by … US Disruptive Technologies Office … "''. American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 21 December 200
Alternative link
* Markoff, John

, ''The New York Times'', 21 May 2003. * Jackson, William. ttps://web.archive.org/web/20051106020548/http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24622-1.html Intelligence community seeks protection from inside threatsGCN.com. 12 January 2004 * Sniffen, Miachel J.
U.S. High-Tech Spy Agency Has Low Profile
Associated Press 22 February 2004. * Sniffen, Miachel J.
Controversial terror research lives on at other agencies despite closing of Pentagon office
Associated Press. 23 February 2004. * Sniffen, Miachel J.
Privacy Safeguards Quietly Killed
Associated Press 15 March 2005. * Regan, Tom.

''Christian Science Monitor''. 24 February 2006. * Harris, Shane.

''National Journal''. 23 February 2006.
''New Scientist'' article on the NSA continued data mining activities

External links

ARDA's website, taken down in 2005
(courtesy of the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and s ...

) {{Intelligence agencies of USA 1998 establishments in the United States United States intelligence agencies Research and development in the United States

See also

References

Sources

External links