DefDog: DHS Comedy of Errors on Water-Pump “Hack”

10 Security, Corruption, DHS, Government, IO Impotency
DefDog

If there is ever a story to validate the reduction of spending in the
intelligence community, this would be it……….

Exclusive: Comedy of Errors Led to False ‘Water-Pump Hack’ Report

It was the broken water pump heard ’round the world.

Cyberwar watchers took notice this month when a leaked intelligence memo claimed Russian hackers had remotely destroyed a water pump at an Illinois utility. The report spawned dozens of sensational stories characterizing it as the first-ever reported destruction of U.S. infrastructure by a hacker. Some described it as America’s very own Stuxnet attack.

Except, it turns out, it wasn’t. Within a week of the report’s release, DHS bluntly contradicted the memo, saying that it could find no evidence that a hack occurred. In truth, the water pump simply burned out, as pumps are wont to do, and a government-funded intelligence center incorrectly linked the failure to an internet connection from a Russian IP address months earlier.

Read full article with two photos.

More reporting on this event, with some detail showing the lack of “intelligence” within this intelligence activity…….

America's critical infrastructure security response system is broken

Following SCADA water utility ‘hack', is the reporting system in need of re-thinking?

By Ellen Messmer | Network World US | Published: 16:01, 02 December 2011

The flap over the reported water utility hack in Illinois begs the question: Is the reporting system that the US has set up to identify cyberattacks on critical infrastructure broken and in need of re-thinking?

Read full article.

John Robb: War with Iran Very, Very Close

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence
John Robb

WAR with IRAN? It's closer than you think….

Israel's hawks are VERY close to manufacturing a full scale war with Iran.  On Monday the 28th of November, it used special operations forces (referred to below as the “Hand of God”) to blow up a portion of an Iranian Nuclear facility near Isfahan (confirmed by satellite imagery).   This follows on the heels of another explosion at Tehran facility that killed an Iranian general.

What's even more worrisome is that Israeli hawks are actively claiming responsibility for this sabotage (from the Times of London):

  • Dan Meridor. the Israeli Intelligence Minister, said: “There are countries who impose economic sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.”
  • Major-General Giora Eiland, Israel's former director of national security, told Israel's army radio that the Isfahan blast was no accident. “There aren't many coincidences, and when there are so many events there is probably some sort of guiding hand, though perhaps it's the hand of God”
  • A former Israeli intelligence official cited at least two other explosions [that we haven't heard about] that have “successfully neutralised” Iranian bases associated with the Shahab-3, the medium-range missile that could be adapted to carry a nuclear warhead. “This is something everyone in the West wanted to see happen,” he added.

Ok, let's put this into perspective:

  1. These claims are blood in the water.  Israel's hawks see Iran as an existential threat to Israel.  They WANT a war with Iran.  This is an attempt to make that war happen.
  2. The US, from President Obama on down, are incapable of reigning Israel in.  Israeli hawks are now operating open loop (without restraint).
  3. Iran's anger at these attacks, demonstrated by an attack on the UK embassy in Tehran, is just the start.  Who knows what they will do next?  Iran's hawks are likely frothing at the mouth too.

What does this mean?  A war with Iran would:

  • Cause an immediate energy shock.  Oil prices shooting through $200 + a barrel.  Lost production from Iran, Iraq, and most of the monarchies.  A potential loss of  6-10 m barrels a day?
  • Global depression deepens.  Prices over $150 cause immediate recessions.  Higher than that, who knows?  Usually, a slow down in economic activity reduces demand, however with peak oil (we hit the max the world could produce a couple of years ago) and lost production from the Middle East, that price could remain high even in the face of a deep, deep economic depression.
  • Networked Resilient Communities.  Nobody is going to save you.  You need to prepare by building or moving to a resilient community that produces most of the energy and food it needs to survive.

Josh Kilbourn: Why Retail Investors Should Flee Stocks

Commerce, Corruption
Joshua Kilbourn

An interesting read.

A Hedge Fund Insider Explains Why Retail Investors Should Flee The Stock Market

Regular readers know that ever since 2009, well before the confidence destroying flash crash of May 2010, Zero Hedge had been advocating that regular retail investors shun the equity market in its entirety as it is anything but “fair and efficient” in which frontrunning for a select few is legal, in which insider trading is permitted for politicians and is masked as “expert networks” for others, in which the government itself leaks information to a hand-picked elite of the wealthiest investors, in which investment banks send out their “huddle” top picks to “whale” accounts before everyone else gets access, in which hedge funds form “clubs” and collude in moving the market, in which millisecond algorithms make instantaneous decisions which regular investors can never hope to beat, in which daily record volatility triggers sell limits virtually assuring daytrading losses, and where the bid/ask spreads for all but the choicest few make the prospect of breaking even, let alone winning, quite daunting. In short: a rigged casino.

Read more.

Thomas Briggs: Georgetown Students Scoop Secret World on China’s Tunnel System for Nuclear Weapons – or a PSYOP Against US Public?

02 China, 04 Education, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Academia, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence
Thomas Leo Briggs

A wonderful example of what can be done with open source material!

Georgetown students shed light on China’s tunnel system for nuclear weapons

By

Washington Post, November 29, 2011

The Chinese have called it their “Underground Great Wall” — a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal.

For the past three years, a small band of obsessively dedicated students at Georgetown University has called it something else: homework.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  The ability of students to excel in relations to spies is not knew, even with hard targets such as China.  For decades this web site and its antecedents have been saying “Do not send a spy where a schoolboy can go.”  HOWEVER, in this specific case, with China as the target and the Pentagon budget on the line, there is a very high probability that the students are unwitting dupes in an illegal PSYOP being used to create an unethical justification for an ideological and political build-up against China, while protecting the bloated and extraordinarily corrupt Pentagon budget from the mandatory reductions agreed to in relation to the crisis at hand.  Bottom line:  the students have earned an A but the integrity of this endeavor is suspect.

Chuck Spinney: Is Iran an Enemy of the Arabs? NO!

02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney

The West, especially the United States, and Israel are stoking the grand-strategic fires in Middle East by trying to intensify the conflict between the Sunnis and the Shias.  As Patrick Seale explains in this important essay, our leaders are playing very a dangerous, and I would add, ‘dirty' game — but the United States are on the cusp of Presidential election year in the United States and Obama's narrow vision of triangulating the Republicans in the domestic politics of foreign policy [1] is trumping the criteria for shaping a sensible grand strategy.

——————–
[1] A pathbreaking book outlining how domestic politics shaped American foreign policy between the Spanish-American War and the Cold War is Robert Dallek's, The American Style of Foreign Policy: Cultural Politics and Foreign Affairs.

Chuck Spinney
The Blaster

Is Iran the Enemy of the Arabs?

by Patrick Seale
Agence Global, 29 Nov 2011

EXTRACT:

It would be wise for the Arab states to look to their own interests in this matter, rather than follow the bellicose lead of the Western powers and Israel. The Arabs must surely be aware that a military clash between Iran and the United States or Israel could be disastrous for the Arab Gulf region. Sensitive installations such as oil terminals and desalination plants could come under fire. The achievements of recent decades could be wiped out.

Read full article.

Winslow Wheeler: US Generals/Admirals Corrupt & Bloated — Panetta Reverses the Token Cuts by Gates

Corruption, Military
Winslow Wheeler

Two excellent and important articles follow.  They address the corrupt nature of America's general officer corps, and they are examples of journalism and think-tank work at their best.

“Corrupt officer corps?”  An overstatement?  You be the judge.

The first article is yet another in USA Today‘s Tom Vandenbrook's long and continuing series about DOD's “mentor” program.  It describes corrupt behavior in indisputable terms.  The second by POGO's Ben Freeman describes how the general officer corps has reversed former SecDef Gates' attempt at a modest reduction in officer bloat, a reversal enabled by Leon Panetta.  (What next should we expect from this politician occupying the top position in America's most important national security agency?)

The issues are not just ethics and cost.  Bloated officer corps are a characteristic of militaries in decline, or rather that have already declined and lose wars.  The attachment is a briefing given in recent years by an anonymous and highly respected, at least by me, retired military officer.

It not just a budget crisis the Pentagon is experiencing; it's also a leadership crisis — especially at the top.  Moreover, the two are directly related.

I believe these materials are important reading.

Two articles in full below the line.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: US Generals/Admirals Corrupt & Bloated — Panetta Reverses the Token Cuts by Gates”

DefDog: SEC Lacks Integrity, Court Says

Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement
DefDog

Not business as usual in this case….maybe some integrity is returning….

Judge Blocks Citigroup Settlement With S.E.C.

By EDWARD WYATT

November 28, 2011

WASHINGTON — Taking a broad swipe at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s practice of allowing companies to settle cases without admitting that they had done anything wrong, a federal judge on Monday rejected a $285 million settlement between Citigroup and the agency.

Read more.

noble gold