Ineptitude – Page 63 – Public Intelligence Blog

Feeling foggy? Intelligence chief James Clapper is brewing a $12 million elixir for you!

Al Kamen

Washington Post, 28 January 2013

No more “high energy” drinks. No more jitters. Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) James Clapper’s office “has embarked on a multi-year research effort to develop and test methods to improve reasoning and problem-solving in healthy, high-performing adults.”

The Monday announcement says that, “If successful, proven methods developed under the Strengthening Human Adaptive Reasoning and Problem-solving (SHARP) program may enhance analysts’ capacity to reason through complex, ambiguous and often novel problems common to the Intelligence Community.”

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: DNI Pays $12M to Improve Human Reasoning”

2014/01/272014/01/27

Yoda: The NSA’s Losing Argument

Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency, Military

The NSA’s Losing Argument

The Editors, Bloomberg, 26 January 2014

Of the many questions that still surround the National Security Agency’s vast global spying operations, one seems especially pertinent: Do they actually work? That is, have they helped to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans?

In the case of the NSA’s phone-data program — in which the agency vacuums up information about essentially every call made by Americans — it’s getting harder and harder for the government to answer yes. The latest evidence comes from a report last week by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent federal agency established on the recommendation of the Sept. 11 Commission to balance the right to liberty against the need to prevent terrorism.

Continue reading “Yoda: The NSA's Losing Argument”

2014/01/27

Stephen E. Arnold: Business Intelligence – A Functional Barrier

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

Business Intelligence: A Functional Barrier

Walls.

I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees. (Robert Frost, Mending Wall)

A reader sent me a link to an item that appeared in Phi Beta Iota. You can find the graphic at http://bit.ly/1d3H3Q4. The original document appeared on 2010 at http://bit.ly/1fnOB2Y. I thought again of walls.

In late 2014, O1Business published a short item that provides more back up for the apparent slow down in some business intelligence markets. You can find that original article at http://bit.ly/1aAgA27. My take on the 01Business story by Marie Jung appeared in December 2013 at http://bit.ly/19VUqH9.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Business Intelligence – A Functional Barrier”

2014/01/27

SchwartzReport: NSA Is Making Us All Less Safe

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military

People who are truly knowledgeable about IT are appalled about what the NSA is doing and, as this report shows, they are speaking out.

Open Letter From Top U.S. Computer Security Experts Slams NSA Spying As Destroying Security
WashingtonsBlog

The NSA Is Making Us All Less Safe

An open letter today from a large group of professors – top US computer security and cryptography researchers – slams the damage to ecurity caused by NSA spying:

Inserting backdoors, sabotaging standards, and tapping commercial data-center links provide bad actors, foreign and domestic, opportunities to exploit the resulting vulnerabilities.

The value of society-wide surveillance in preventing terrorism is unclear, but the threat that such surveillance poses to privacy, democracy, and the US technology sector is readily apparent.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: NSA Is Making Us All Less Safe”

2014/01/212014/01/21

Steven Aftergood: US Secret Intelligence [PBI: Three Strikes and Out]

Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, Military

DEFENSE SCIENCE BOARD URGES EXPANDED GLOBAL MONITORING [OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION]

GAO TO ISSUE REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE CONTRACTORS

SEN. MCCAIN BLASTS SECRET LEGISLATION ON DRONE POLICY

Continue reading “Steven Aftergood: US Secret Intelligence [PBI: Three Strikes and Out]”

2014/01/212014/01/21

Stephen E. Arnold: Yale Online Course Catalog Censorship Update

Academia, Ethics, Ineptitude

Yale Online Course Catalog Update

I read “Yale Censored a Student’s Course Selection Website. So I Made an Unblockable Replacement.” The author seems to be a Yale student. Excitement will definitely ensue. Also, I am encouraged that the workaround is a Google Chrome extension. Good news for students who want to use a popular browser to respond to administrative actions. Perhaps a Googler will help out in the spring?

Here’s the passage I noted:

Banned Bluebook never stores data on any servers. It [the code] never talks to any non-Yale servers. Moreover, since my software is smarter at caching data locally than the official Yale course website, I expect that students using this extension will consume less bandwidth over time than students without it. Don’t believe me? You can read the source code. No data ever leaves Yale’s control. Trademarks, copyright infringement, and data security are non-issues. It’s 100% kosher.

Yep, kosher.

Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2014

Previous Yale Report:

Stephen E. Arnold: Yales Censors Superior Course Catalog Made By Its Own Students

2014/01/19

Marcus Aurelius: One Family Loses Two Sons – Khost Kathy Took One of Them

Government, Ineptitude

Long story at link below is front page of today's WaPo and is a compelling one. In electronic version, there is also video.

One family, two sacrifices: In a war few Americans fought, the Wise family would pay an awful price | The Washington Post

IMHO, story showcases two key points:

1. After 9/11, the military and intelligence community went to war while America went to the mall. Score a failure for the Bush Administration.

2. While I certainly neither present nor involved and at the risk of both speaking ill of the dead taking issue what Leon Panetta said at the time, the Chief of Base at Camp Chapman (Khost), Afghanistan was unqualified for the position held.. She may have been a credible analyst but she wasn't an operator by either experience or training and based on everything I've read and watching the move “Zero Dark Thirty,” I think she was personally responsible for not preventing the deaths at Khost Base, including Jeremy Wise, on that day in December, 2009.

See Also:

Khost Kathy @ Phi Beta Iota