Bob Brewin at GovExec writes the White House is going VOIP. Quoting a GlobalSecurity.org analyst and CISCO, Brewin ignores the fact the White House went VOIP before and ripped it out. Why? Because electronically shared information on internal computer networks must be kept for later recall, such as email and Word docs and PDFs. A VOIP conversation, unless the law has changed, fell under the same data archive rules… hence WH ripped out the system and went back to switched (and not subpoena-able) voice comm.
I’ve heard good things about Mercy Hurst’s intel program. Mike Tanji suggests some reading if you’re interested in learning more.
In nearly the same vein, Opinio Juris notes Seton Hall is partnering with Second Life for a program on “Interrogation and Intelligence Gathering” that includes a walk-through of Gitmo. I hope they won’t include water boarding, most virtual life forms don’t hold up to that very well…
Speakers will address FBI methods of interrogation, reliability and evidence gathering, and our international obligations on interrogation. The Second Life platform involves a virtual Guantanamo Bay center, which allows visitors to walk through the experience of military detention and features clips from a Guantanamo documentary.
Courtesy of a Swedish Meatball is paper by Paul Bracken describing the financial component of Unrestricted Warfare:
Financial warfare complements military operations as well as information operations. When combined with advances in social network mapping, it can give a highly detailed picture of an elite’s communication and financial structure that can be used for targeting. Communication and software tools now exist to analyze connections in vast networks of heterogeneous information, such as financial transactions, mobile telephone calls, e-mail, and air travel. This gigantic information pool can be a source of knowledge about a nation’s elite, where they stash their money, who they talk to, and their position in a social hierarchy. The key to doing this lies in constructing overlays of these datasets to visualize the various connections.
Watching how money flows out of a country in a crisis can be an important tip-off to who is in the know and who is at least partially responsible for national decisions. Carried to the next step, this can be combined with precise military attacks to go after a nation’s elite. For example, tracking mobile telephone calls can reveal things like where the elite live, their vacation homes, and their travel patterns. Financial tracking of their bank accounts can reveal where they keep their money and who has access to their accounts. This creates the conditions for potentially ruinous attacks with far-reaching social implications on the national leadership. Were a national elite’s overseas bank accounts frozen and their homes targeted with cruise missiles, simultaneously, a hyper-decapitation attack could destroy a nation’s leadership. Clearly, this represents a large escalation. But there are many possibilities which fall short of this, and these constitute an important type of strategy: counter-elite targeting. Counter elite targeting has been considered in the past, both in the Cold War, with nuclear weapons, and more recently in conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq. But the 21st century is likely to see considerably more applications of it.
Lastly, RYP posted to the PMC list a review of the new John Rambo script (trailer here):
Script Review : John Rambo
By Kent Church
I’m a child of the eighties. They were great times. We had the battle of the box office giants raging in full swing. There was Schwarzenegger, the golden boy who could do no wrong, new guys Van Damme, Seagal and Bruce Willis and of course, Sylvester Stallone – the godfather of action.
Many folk disrespect Stallone for his films. Sure, he’s had more than his fair share of stinkers, “Stop or my Mom will Shoot” can never be forgiven, but he started the wave of mucho action heroes. Before Martin Riggs, we had Marion Cobretti, before working stiff John McClane we had the barely working Rocky Balboa, and before John Matrix we had JOHN RAMBO!!!!
Last year the Italian Stallion staged a comeback with the mighty “Rocky Balboa” and he continues the parade with “JOHN RAMBO” – the most likely final adventure of a forgotten hero.
This 113 page draft opens in Burma where an evil army of dominant soldiers are forcing villagers to walk through rice paddies riddled with landmines. Right off the bat, we know this Rambo isn’t gonna be the jokey, one-liner-spouting killing machine we last saw in 1988’s “Rambo III”.
When we finally meet our fallen hero, he is now a snake catcher who lives a quiet, lonely life. All that changes when a group of missionaries ask him to take them down river into the jungle so they can deliver medical supplies and bibles to the downtrodden villagers.
Initially reluctant, Rambo accepts, and with his crew of snake catchers, hauls the missionaries down river.
On the trip he manages to bond with Sarah, who is able to see the softer side of our rough as nails hero. The two share a bond.
However, the temperature changes when pirates try and hijack them.
Faster than a speeding bullet, Rambo ices the men, leaving the missionaries stunned. It’s not surprising, since no one knows WHO Rambo is!
With his job complete, Rambo leaves the ambassadors of goodwill in the jungle and retreats back to his fortress of solitude. But unbeknownst to him, the missionaries have been ambushed and kidnapped by the evil Major Tint, a man who makes Saddam Hussein look jovial.
Alerted by a shady CIA-type, Rambo takes a group of colorful mercenaries down river to rescue the missionaries. Once again, none of his passengers know who he is. Upon hitting the jungle all hell breaks loose. There are gunfights, explosions and best of all; Rambo gets to break out his trusty bow and arrow.
I really liked this new version of Rambo. As he did with the last Rocky, Stallone – who knows the character better than anyone – has crafted a screenplay that has more in common with the first film than the last. There are many action set pieces in this draft, but they’re more realistic and more intimate.
There are also exceedingly bloody. People don’t just die in this thing. They explode and rain down red on their friends who are left stunned.
Many folks have complained that Rambo could be overshadowed by the mercenaries he has with him. I have to say, this is not true. The mercs, who all have individual personalities, help our aged hero but their presence is necessary. After all, Stallone is chasing realism with this script, and having Rambo kill around 100 soldiers would probably shatter that. Does this mean Rambo is less effective?
Not by a long shot!
He knifes people, he beheads them, he shoots them, he blows them up, he shoves one pour soul’s nose up into his brain. Thankfully, he does not have any one-liners. In one scene, he shoots a solider with his bow. Big deal, right? The body falls on a landmine and is blown to bits. Rambo is back. BIGTIME!
Perhaps they should have called this “RAMBO IV: KILLING UPMUTHERS”.
He also makes the villains more than comic-strip vile. They’re not faceless bad guys who are fodder for Rambo. They rape women, they throw babies into fires, and they feed disemboweled men to hungry pigs. In short they deserve to die, and Rambo makes sure of it.
Stallone also manages to get in some genuine political issues. Burma is a hotbed of trouble. There’s genocide, rape and murder on a daily basis, but none of the superpowers of the world want to help?
As I said before, no one knows the Rambo like Sly. His writing for him is dead on perfect. Our hero is broken and feels useless. As he says in the screenplay, the war is over, but the one inside always burns. Clichéd, yes, but these words have always applied to our hero.
Stallone also gets points for style. In one scene, a Burmese soldier tries to rape Sarah. Sensing something, he turns and comes face to face with “THE ANGEL OF DEATH”. Stallone actually calls Rambo this!
I also liked how nobody knew Rambo’s past. It’s a nice touch and it works great when he opens a can of whup-ass.
Having seen assembled footage of the finished film, I can say that some things have been changed. Normally this means “softened”. In this case, the film makers have gone the other way. They’ve added in scenes where Rambo guts people, rips out their throats and in one scene, blows them up with a giant tank-mounted machine gun. This baby is gonna be nasty, and using this draft as a guide, “John Rambo” will be my must see pic of 2008. Welcome back, Sly!
Rating: B