The Defense Intelligence Agency Is Looking For Contractors To Help It Exploit Mobile Devices

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency is looking for a few good contractors to help it kick up its mobile information gathering capabilities, according to a new request for information (RFI) posted to its website Dec. 12 and spotted today by Fierce Wireless. The request has the government organization solicitingĀ informationĀ sources for technology aimed at exploiting digital media and hardware, with a special request for exploitation of mobile devices with methods not generally available on the commercial market.

The request looks to be a general effort by the government to find ways of better unlocking the potential of information on cell phones and tablets. The rush to mobile isn’t just something that startups and established businesses are trying to keep up with, in other words; the U.S. government wants in on the action, too.

The RFI is pretty broad overall, covering not just mobile, but also “exploitation systems in Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. On the whole, it looks like a fairly straightforward ask for outsider expertise in hacking and digital intelligence. But the mobile section looks like essentially an admission that truly valuable efforts on this front would take the form of portable devices that would be able to gather info from exploited media information sources.

Here’s what the whole thing has me thinking of: the scene in every episode of Person of Interest where Jim Caviezel pairs his own mobile phone with his target’s, allowing him to overhear and see any activity on that device completely unnoticed. Isn’t that real yet? If it isn’t, the government seems to want some outside help to make it so.