The EI Podcast The espionage revolution
Aug 28, 2025
David Omand, former director of GCHQ and seasoned British intelligence official, reflects on how tech has remade spying. He compares fiction to modern tradecraft. He explores AI for pattern recognition, digital footprints that endanger clandestine work, satellites and Starlink in conflict, and the push for agencies to partner with industry and academia.
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From Gadgets To Mind Tech
- Intelligence tradecraft has shifted from gadgetry to digital mind-tech where human judgement pairs with advanced tech like face recognition and pattern-finding AI.
- David Omand contrasts Bond's exploding pens with Skyfall's digitally encoded pistol as a cultural signpost of espionage becoming data-driven.
Telegraph Changed Wartime Intelligence
- Early adopters of electric communication quickly saw its intelligence value, with the 1837 Camden–Euston cable and Morse's 1844 telegraph message accelerating wartime use.
- David Omand cites President Lincoln sleeping in the War Department telegraph office during the Civil War to track movements.
Scale Jump From Colossus To Modern AI
- Computing breakthroughs repeatedly expanded intelligence capacity from Colossus in WWII to today's trillion-parameter generative AIs for sifting massive datasets.
- Omand notes Colossus had 1,600 valves versus GPT-1's 117 million parameters and modern models' trillion-plus scale.