Ineptitude – Page 66 – Public Intelligence Blog

Any More U.S. “Stabilization” and Africa Will Collapse

December 23, 2013 10:39 am

South Sudan is at the brink of civil war and societal collapse

History is just one of those hard things to ignore, especially in South Sudan.

In 2011, the U.S. midwifed the creation of a new nation, South Sudan. Though at the time Obama invoked the words of Dr. Martin Luther King speaking about Ghana (“I knew about all of the struggles, and all of the pain, and all of the agony that these people had gone through for this moment”) in officially recognizing the country, many were more focused on the underlying U.S. motives,

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Peter Van Buren – Any More U.S. “Stabilization” and Africa Will Collapse”

2013/12/232013/12/29

Steve Aftergood: Orgs ask DNI to Preserve Access to World News Connection — Comment on OSC in AF by Robert Steele

Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

ORGS ASK DNI TO PRESERVE ACCESS TO WORLD NEWS CONNECTION

More than a dozen professional societies and public interest groups wrote to the Director of National Intelligence last week to ask him to preserve public access to foreign news reports gathered, translated and published by the Open Source Center and marketed to subscribers through the NTIS World News Connection.

The CIA, which manages the Open Source Center for the intelligence community, intends to terminate public access to the World News Connection at the end of this month. (CIA Halts Public Access to Open Source Service, Secrecy News, October 8.)

Among other things, the groups said that this move is inconsistent with the President's Open Government National Action Plan.

Continue reading “Steve Aftergood: Orgs ask DNI to Preserve Access to World News Connection — Comment on OSC in AF by Robert Steele”

2013/12/22

Berto Jongman: Pakistan Outs Three CIA Chiefs in Three Years… + CIA Cover Incompetence RECAP

Government, Ineptitude

Pakistan Outs Three US CIA Station Chiefs in Three Years

Corporate Media Keeps US Citizens in the Dark

by DAVE LINDORFF

Counterpunch, Weekend Edition December 20-22, 2013

For the third time in three years, a CIA station chief has been outed in Pakistan, a country where the CIA is running one of its largest covert operations. It’s a remarkable record of failure by the CIA, since each outing, which has required a replacement of the station chief position, causes a breakdown in the agency’s network of contacts in the country.

The full names of all three station chiefs have been published widely in Pakistan and India and all over the world via the Internet—though Americans getting their news exclusively from domestic mainstream media wouldn’t know, as those organizations have consistently blacked out the names.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Pakistan Outs Three CIA Chiefs in Three Years… + CIA Cover Incompetence RECAP”

2013/12/22

Mini-Me: USG Yard Sale in Afghanistan — Billions of Taxpayer Dollars Down the Drain

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

Huh?

The US Is Hosting A Giant Military Yard Sale In Afghanistan

It is a January sale with a difference. The American military is auctioning off millions of pounds of tankers, accommodation blocks, tents, generators and other “white goods” in Afghanistan ahead of next year’s deadline for the end of combat operations.

In a tender document published on Friday, buyers are invited to offer a percentage of the equipment’s original value by January 10 when sealed bids will be opened.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: USG Yard Sale in Afghanistan — Billions of Taxpayer Dollars Down the Drain”

2013/12/222013/12/22

Mini-Me: NSA-RSA Debacle Gets Worse

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call

Huh?

Researchers Break RSA 4096 Encryption With Just A Microphone And A Couple Of Emails

As if it wasn’t enough that the NSA paid RSA $10 million to adopt an algorithm that wasn’t entirely secure, researchers have now demonstrated that they can break even RSA 4096 bit encryption with little more than a few emails and a microphone. And that microphone can indeed just be one in a smartphone sitting on the desk.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science discovered that they could steal even the largest, most secure RSA 4,096-bit encryption keys simply by listening to a laptop as it decrypts data.

To accomplish the trick, the researchers used a microphone to record the noises made by the computer, then ran that audio through filters to isolate the vibrations made by the electronic internals during the decryption process. With that accomplished, some cryptanalysis revealed the encryption key in around an hour.

Well, no, pace Engadget it is a little more complex than that. You can’t just listen to a computer and break the algos just like that.

Read full article with how they did it.

Full paper.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: NSA-RSA Debacle Gets Worse”

2013/12/212013/12/21

DNI Directive on Supply Chain Risk Management

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude

DNI Directive on Supply Chain Risk Management

Because the Intelligence Community utilizes commercial products including those that may be manufactured abroad, it could be vulnerable to threat or compromise through its supply chain. Intelligence Community Directive 731 issued by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on December 7 establishes IC policy on “Supply Chain Risk Management.”

“Many IC mission-critical products, materials, and services come from supply chains that interface with or operate in a global marketplace. A greater understanding of the risks inherent in the IC's participation in the global market place is crucial to safeguarding our nation's intelligence sources, methods, and activities,” the Directive said.

“Supply chain risk management is the management of risk to the integrity, trustworthiness, and authenticity of products and services within the supply chain.”

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2013/12/19

Stephen E. Arnold: Microsoft Bing – Tits Up, No Milk + Microsoft @ PBI

Commerce, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

Whither the Bing Thing in 2014?

I found the data in the “2013 Bing Infographic” surprising. I continue to think of Bing as a search and retrieval system. I don’t use the system directly. I prefer to run queries on metasearch systems that use Bing as one source of content. The reason for my indirect access is that I don’t want distractions, social media content, and videos. In case you, gentle reader, have forgotten, I prefer to read. I read more rapidly than I can watch a video unfold in real time. I understand that some people find videos just the best possible way to locate information. I don’t.

The infographic has a number of data points. Let’s look at three in the context of locating a white paper, information about a person of interest, and a fact.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Microsoft Bing – Tits Up, No Milk + Microsoft @ PBI”