According to the Voice of America, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates endorses the recent report – Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan – authored by Major General Michael Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor. However, according to VOA, the SecDef took issue with the report being published by CNAS.
Category: Intelligence
Quoting History
Today’s reports are too often unknowing rehashes of reports that have gone before. What is new is the context and specific details. From Charles Thomson’s Overseas Information Service of the United States Government, published by The Brookings Institution, 1948:
Noteworthy
“Our ‘don’t hate me because I’m beautiful’ message isn’t working either. Like Jim Glassman says, it’s not about us, it’s about them. The sooner we recognize that, the better.” – Angela Trethewey and Joe Faina in talking about Sen. Lieberman’s Not-So-Straight Talk on Public Diplomacy
“One of the problems with Open Source research is that most of it is farmed out to contractor [companies], who are just using it as unclassified work for people who are in the process of getting their clearance. This is one of the reasons contractors will NEVER contribute to the field of Open Source. Their analysts pick up some skills but then are ripped out of there to serve on a higher-paying contract, once they get cleared. This brain drain is a huge problem.” – Open Source Spy Looks for Upgrade by Noah Shachtman
“The decline of the U.S. military’s acquisitions workforce, and the resulting reliance on private contractors to perform oversight on weapons program, is ‘going to be sooner or latter one of the biggest stories of the military complex in this half of the century,’ according to one longtime defense industry professional.” – Pentagon Weapons-Buying: ‘Dumb as a Bag of $600 Hammers’ by David Axe
“Hackers knocked out Al Qaeda’s online means of communication, thus preventing them from posting anything to commemorate the anniversary.” – Hindustan Times (h/t MT)
Online Symposium at CTLab: Social Science in War starts next week (22 September 2008)
“Google is talking about moving some of their data centers offshore, which in their mind apparently means at sea. … The ‘water-based data centres’ would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google’s costs. Their offshore status would also mean the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centres, which are sited across the world, including in Britain.” – Google Going Offshore? by Galrahn (see also Google and Am FP)
“Despite almost seven years of fighting, the administration has still not clearly articulated a strategy and has starved the effort of resources. … Good tactics and more troops are not a substitute for a strategy – and in fact can significantly raise the cost of a bad strategy. Both candidates need to explain the strategy that justifies such a commitment.” – The Good War? by T.X. Hammes
Welcoming Kent’s Imperative back to the blogosphere
After a long silence, Kent’s Imperative comes back to life with a series of posts. Welcome back, KI.
Passing the word on the 2008 DNI Open Source Conference
Here’s my PSA for the month:
Conference: DNI Open Source Conference 2008
Date: 11-12 September 2008
Location: Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 2004
Web Site: http://www.dniopensource.org
Continue reading “Passing the word on the 2008 DNI Open Source Conference
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The Clean Team: cleaning the image
In the Washington Post about the six Gitmo prisoners to be tried over 9/11:
The Bush administration announced yesterday that it intends to bring capital murder charges against half a dozen men allegedly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, based partly on information the men disclosed to FBI and military questioners without the use of coercive interrogation tactics.
The admissions made by the men — who were given food whenever they were hungry as well as Starbucks coffee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — played a key role in the government’s decision to proceed with the prosecutions, military and law enforcement officials said.
FBI and military interrogators who began work with the suspects in late 2006 called themselves the "Clean Team" and set as their goal the collection of virtually the same information the CIA had obtained from five of the six through duress at secret prisons.
To ensure that the data would not be tainted by allegations of torture or illegal coercion, the FBI and military team won the suspects’ trust over the past 16 months by using time-tested rapport-building techniques, the officials said.
Such decadence. No wonder people fear us.
H/T Noah
Social engineering through flirting, robot flirting
Interesting story at CNET (h/t Kurzweil):
Those entering online dating forums risk having more than their hearts stolen.
A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools.
The artificial intelligence of CyberLover’s automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the "bot" from a real potential suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report on every person it meets complete with name, contact information, and photos.
Did FBI/CIA infiltrator color US understanding of the enemy?
From Mike Waller:
After looking at the mess the FBI made of part of the Hanssen espionage damage assessment, it might be too much to ask for the Bureau to make a proper assessment of how former Special Agent Nada Nadim Prouty may have warped US understanding of the Islamist enemy.
Read the whole post and see more from a different Mike here.
That squirrel might really be watching you
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean everyone isn’t out to get you. Turkish official media is reporting IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, that Iran has captured 14 “spy squirrels”.
Iranian police has captured 14 “spy squirrels” equipped with modern technology including GPS units, cameras, and listening devices.
The report said that the squirrels that were trained for espionage and information-gathering, are believed to be sent to Iran by Israel.
Yes. The squirrel uplinks to the pigeon loitering overhead who relays it to a gopher in his command bunker who then tasks the badgers, who are training in Basra.
Hmmm, good idea
From Michael Tanji commenting on an article about the DIA trying to bridge worlds:
General, please, it’s simple: you have computers, wikis and blogs – use them. Everyone else in the information business is working this way (some are getting ready to go beyond it). If you can’t grasp it, if your office chiefs can’t grasp it, I guarantee the kids you hired since ’02 do (as well as the mid-career folks who now wear yellow badges). It’ll work. It works millions of times every day. Make that your pilot and save yourself the grief, time and expense.
Hmm… a wiki… that’s a fine idea…
Breaking the stovepipes
Michael Tanji has a post on possible executive order from the Bush Administration that would potentially break down institutional & cultural barriers to cooperation within the intelligence services. It sounds more similar to the Goldwater-Nichols Act than what is necessary, but it’s a start.
Quoting Sneakers
I’m probably one of the last people to see the 1992 movie "Sneakers", but I just did and found two fascinating and prescient quotes worth repeating here.
First, Redford to the NSA: You’re the guys I hear breathing on the other end of my phone.
NSA: No, that’s the FBI. We’re not chartered for domestic surveillance.
Second and more importantly: "It’s a war out there, a world war. It’s all about information…"
This is the killer quote of the movie. The guy who said it, a computer hacker with PlayTronic as his front, was likely thinking in terms of Future Combat System awareness of the "where" in battlespace and not the real bullseye of information of the "who" and the "why".
Anyways…