About NSIST
The National Signals Intelligence and Security Trust
NSIST has been founded to support those who want to preserve and promote both our civilian and military signals intelligence, cyber, and communications security heritage, to conserve the past for future generations and to use this rich history to inform the future of SIGINT.inform future , research and enjoy.
Why is this heritage important?
This heritage shows how the development of communications technology became the impetus for a new source of secret intelligence which has contributed significantly to the UK and its allies’ successes from its beginnings at the start of the twentieth century to today.
It also shows how signals intelligence and communications security became inextricably linked: that the skills used to generate intelligence could also be adapted to ensure that the UK’s secrets could be preserved.
The history NSIST is focussed on shows how the experiences gained in the twentieth century enabled GCHQ to transform into the nation’s cyber agency in the twenty-first century, working in and protecting the information environment in which modern life is lived.
The story of SIGINT in the UK illustrates the mindset of successful technologists whose experience in and of developing technologies enables them constantly develop and modifying the tools which keep our country safe and prosperous.
Why does this need NSIST?
There is no other organisation with the remit to do this. GCHQ itself is an operational intelligence and security agency whose priority and focus is on the present, and its small history team serves GCHQ’s mission. The Bletchley Park Trust is outstandingly successful in telling the story of the work done at Bletchley during seven of the most important years in GCHQ’s history, but it does not stretch beyond that time and location..
NSIST has a broader task as the heritage NSIST wants to preserve and promote exists in hundreds of sites across the UK, not just in well known government buildings, and it spans the entire period from the development of wireless communications to the present day.
We are also passionate about how this heritage relates to the present and the future. Cyber is not an exclusive space, but is rather an environment which affects the lives of everybody. NSIST will encourage those working in cyber to think about the ways in which technologists working at the cutting edge of information technologies have overcome challenges in the past to inform how we address our present and future challenges.
NSIST is unique because it is independent, but with a close relationship to the SIGINT community. It embraces all aspects of SIGINT history, from small local sites and archives through to the largest and most significant people and stories.