CIA's venture capital firm gets new chief

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

CIA's venture capital firm gets new chief

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

By Ted Bridis, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The new chief of the CIA's venture capital  
organization, In-Q-Tel, wants to make the fanciful spy gadgetry it  
develops through investments more broadly available to all U.S.  
intelligence agencies.



Amit Yoran, who resigned as the government's cybersecurity chief in  
2004, is taking over as In-Q-Tel's chief executive after the surprise  
departure of longtime CEO Gilman Louie. Yoran had previously founded  
a technology startup, Riptech Inc., which Symantec Corp. purchased in  
2002 for $145 million (?122 million) in cash.



Yoran, whose career has focused mostly on protecting computers from  
hackers, said he wants to expand In-Q-Tel to invest in companies  
whose technology will help not just the CIA, but all U.S.  
intelligence agencies.



Many of the tools are classified once they're adopted by the spy  
community, but among the hottest in demand: better tools to mine and  
analyze large amounts of data, "sensing" technologies and programs to  
find relationships among information where they aren't obvious, Yoran  
said.



"Technology is one of the biggest threats to our intelligence systems  
and one of the biggest opportunities," Yoran said.



Louie, chief executive since 1999, said he intends to return to  
California to start his own private venture capital firm and spend  
more time with his family. Under Louie, In-Q-Tel won favorable  
reviews from inside government and Capitol Hill.



In-Q-Tel -- named for "Q," the fictional inventor of spy tools and  
toys for James Bond -- makes about a dozen such investments annually  
with roughly $60 million it receives from the CIA's Directorate of  
Science and Technology, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI and  
the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

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