Advanced Cyber/IO – Page 115 – Public Intelligence Blog

The rise and $23 billion fall of text messaging

Text messaging, the 20-year-old thumb-happy talk replacement that radically changed people’s communications habits and enriched cellphone carriers, is on a decline.

Mobile operators like Verizon and Vodafone lost a combined $23 billion of potential revenue in 2012 as users opted for other ways to send short notes to each other, market research firm Ovum notes, as reported by the BBC.

The latest thing in thumbs. "Chat apps" like WhatsApp overtook text messaging in 2012. — The latest thing in thumbs. “Chat apps” like WhatsApp overtook text messaging in 2012.

Many phone owners switched to “chat apps.”

“Instant messaging on chat apps, such as WhatsApp, has overtaken the traditional SMS text message for the first time,” writes the BBC, attributing that finding to another research firm, Informa.

Chat apps carried 19 billion missives a day in 2012 compared to 17.6 billion for texts, Informa notes.

Next year the gap will widen, to 50 billion versus 21 billion, the research firm predicts. Other chat app providers include Viber and KiK, all competing against services like Apple’s iMessage, Blackberry Messenger and Facebook Chat Heads in an assault on texts, notes the Financial Times

Don’t toll the bell just yet. Texting is still rising, and revenue will hit $127 billion in 2016, up from $115 billion last year, Informa forecasts. While chat apps are popular among smartphone users, consumers in emerging economies with simpler phones will keep text messaging alive for now. Businesses are also considering increasing their use of text messaging because it works on all phones.

“There are a few things that, I think, will keep the SMS alive for a few years yet,” says Informa’s Pamela Clark-Dickson

A few years? Oh how the mighty will fall. What’s next, a Twitter tailspin?

More from under your opposable digit:

A keyboard optimized for thumbs

2013/04/282013/04/28

Zahir Ehrahim: A Note on the Mighty Wurlitzer: Anatomy of Modern Propaganda Techniques

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Officers Call

A Note on the Mighty Wurlitzer: Anatomy of Modern Propaganda Techniques

Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, began his seminal 1928 book simply titled Propaganda, with these ominous words:

‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.' — Edward Bernays, 1928, pg.1, Propaganda

Aldous Huxley, on the 30th anniversary of his own seminal 1931 allegorical novel Brave New World, made the following dreadful observations in the very opening segment of his talk on the Ultimate Revolution upon which mankind and modernity are perilously perched:

‘You can do everything with bayonets except sit on them! If you are going to control any population for any length of time you must have some measure of consent. It's exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion. An element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them. Well, it seems to me that the nature of the Ultimate Revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: that we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people actually to love their servitude! This is the, it seems to me the ultimate in malevolent revolution shall we say.' — Aldous Huxley, 1962 speech at UC Berkeley, minute 04:06

Read full article with photographs and many links.

Continue reading “Zahir Ehrahim: A Note on the Mighty Wurlitzer: Anatomy of Modern Propaganda Techniques”

2013/04/252014/03/31

Search: how much humint is clandestine — Response by Robert Steele + Clandestine Meta-RECAP

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Military

ROBERT STEELE: I have been watching with growing concern as Phi Beta Iota has posted a string of relatively radical posts on the Boston bombing and Texas fertilizer explosion. As most know, I lean toward transparency, truth, and trust, and the last thing I would want to do is marginalize these voices for truth and trust as I have been marginalized these past six years. My focus now that my clearances have been justly reinstated is to get out of town — to find the toughest job in the darkest corner and vanish. Have brain will travel. Having said that, this search is important and merits a broad response that ties everything together in context.

The short answer, if you accept my pioneering concept of the “fifteen slices,” as cleared by CIA and DoD and offered up in Human Intelligence: All Minds, All Languages, All the Time (US Army Strategic Studies Institute, June 2010), is that clandestine Human Intelligence (HUMINT), one of the four secret slices, is 6.6% of the totality of HUMINT and should receive 13.2% of the budget. In my view, HUMINT has failed miserably on two fronts: leveraging Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for spotting and assessing as well as post-recruitment vetting and validation; and in pointedly questioning the value of the technical disciplines that produce so little — that compare very poorly with HUMINT/OSINT in relation to the investments made and the processing not done.

HUMINT CIA OK

HUMINT DoD OK with two changes

Here below is the original graphic I created after being interviewed for DISL HUMINT at DIA (not selected or I would be invisible), the central graphic for the above monograph — I post the clearance letters above because there are still too many that fail to understand my deep commitment to doing the right thing.

Continue reading “Search: how much humint is clandestine — Response by Robert Steele + Clandestine Meta-RECAP”

2013/04/242013/04/25

Neal Rauhauser: On Intelligence & Foreign Policy Analysis — Looking Forward, Looking Behind

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics, Government

Looking Forward, Looking Behind

The Democratic Study Group was a 150 staff member legislative service organization(LSO) that had as customers all of the Democratic members of Congress and a good number of Republicans. This internal think tank analyzed policy proposals, serving as an in-house ‘brain’ for Congress. The “Republican Revolution” of 1994 would lead to the defunding of this entity in 1995, functionally turning over control of domestic policy making to the likes of the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. This has result, in my opinion, in an unmitigated policy making disaster that has ended the American empire and that endangers the stability of our nation. The construction of Progressive Congress News was a halting attempt to reverse this trend.

Our intelligence community was more resilient, due to their structure and duties. The outing of Valerie Plame, a twenty year CIA veteran and the head of our counter-proliferation operation, for failure to support the Bush administration’s desire for an adventure in Iraq, ought to have resulted in the prosecution of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Instead we limp forward with this crime unpunished, lugging a variety of other attendant baggage of our decay.

Having seen the problems at the domestic level and having a good idea of how they’ll be resolved, I decided I would turn my attention to foreign policy issues. I have gone through the Quadrennial Diplomacy & Development Review, the State Department’s companion to the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review, I spent the first three months of the year surveying the foreign policy discussion space, and I have my own short list of openings in the area.

Read full post.

Continue reading “Neal Rauhauser: On Intelligence & Foreign Policy Analysis — Looking Forward, Looking Behind”

2013/04/232013/04/23

Berto Jongman: State-Sponsored Industrial Cyber-Espionage

Advanced Cyber/IO

State-backed data spies hunt industrial secrets

State-sponsored industrial espionage became a bigger cyber-threat to companies in 2012, a report indicates.

Statistics gathered for Verizon's annual data breach report suggested state-sponsored hacking attacks were now the number two cyber-threat.

Top of the list were hackers looking to steal money after breaking into corporate networks,

Often, the report said, companies took months to spot a breach and discover what data had been stolen.

The study was published to coincide with Infosec – an annual security conference in London.

While hackers had financial motives in 75% of the cyber-attacks analysed for the report, in 20% of cases the perpetrators were after trade secrets or intellectual property, it stated.

“The number one statistical change we noticed is the level of state-sponsored espionage,” said security analyst Wade Baker, lead author on the report. “That's a lot higher.”

He added that 2012 was the first year that there were so many espionage-motivated attacks that they deserved their own category.

Read full article.

2013/04/232013/04/23

Jean Lievins: Social Innovation Management

Academia, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

Post-Graduate Certificate in Social Innovation Management

Amani Institute in Nairobe

This unique, field-based program brings together a group of competitively selected, highly talented individuals from around the world. You receive a holistic, future-oriented training endorsed by leaders across the social, business, education, and government sectors. Your 5-months in Nairobi will possess the depth and pace necessary to train for effective social change making – the intensity is equivalent to a 2-year traditional master's degree.

Learn more.

2013/04/21

Search: osint 101/102

Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Earth Intelligence, Ethics

The most obvious “set” responding to this is

2002 OSINT 101: Basic Training in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

We are long overdue — a decade overdue — for a complete re-visioning of OSINT as OSC/M4IS2, ideally under the dual sponsorship of NATO, White SOF, and the regional (continental) associations.

Category: Advanced Cyber/IO

SmartPlanet: The rise and $23 billion fall of text messaging