Category: Information Operations (IO)

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Reference: MountainRunner on Information Operations

Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Media, Mobile, Real Time
DefDog Recommends...

www.MountainRunner.us

National Security will require Smarter Networks (Ali Fisher on June 1, 2010)

An Introduction to Using Network Maps in Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication (Ali Fisher on October 8, 2009)

Ali Fisher is Director of Mappa Mundi Consulting and a former Director of Counterpoint, the cultural relations think-tank of the British Council. Ali blogs on network mapping and Public Diplomacy at WandrenPD.com

Wikileaks as an exemplar of Now Media, Part 1 (Matt Armstrong on November 1, 2010)

This [above link] is the first in a series of posts that will explore our world of disappearing boundaries – from geographic to linguistic to time to organizational – that create new opportunities and challenges to agenda setting and influence. Wikileaks, as an exemplar non-state actor in this world of “now media,” requires analysis beyond the superficial and polarized debate common in today’s coverage of both the organization and the material it disseminates. The MountainRunner Institute is working to convene a series of discussions with experts across the spectrum, including (ideally) someone from Wikileaks, to discuss the role and impact of actors like Wikileaks and the evolving informational and human landscape. If you are interested in more information or in participating, email me at blog@mountainrunner.us.

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Reference: Collaborative Technologies

Augmented Reality, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, IO Technologies, Tools
Master Source

Knowledge Sharing Tools or Technologies are distinct from Knowledge Sharing METHODS, and both are further separated from Knowledge Analytics and Knowledge Management which is but Quadrant I of the Four Quadrants.   The Whole Enchilada does not exist and is unlikely to exist given the present courses of IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.

Below we offer a small selection of the tools that are very ably represented in proper context at the Master Source.  The entire list, while not complete, is highly recommended.

See Also:

Graphic: Information Operations (IO) Cube

Graphic: OSINT and Full-Spectrum HUMINT (Updated)

Graphic: The New Craft of Intelligence

Journal: What to do with all this data?

Reference: Five Golden Rules for Data-Based Decisions

Reference: M4IS2 OSINT UN NATO Search List Alpha

Reference: The Next Revolution in Productivity

Review: Knowledge As Design

Review: The Design of Business–Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage

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NIGHTWATCH Extract: Anchors Aweigh in Bay of Bengal

Earth Intelligence, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, Military, Peace Intelligence

India: The Chandigarh Tribune reported the results of last Wednesday's bi-annual naval conference, at which Minister of Defence Antony spoke. Antony said the government approved the construction of two new naval bases in the Bay of Bengal, opposite the Malacca Strait and Sri Lanka. At present, the only Indian naval base in Bay of Bengal is the huge naval establishment at Vishakapatnam, the headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command.

The northernmost base will be built at Paradip in Orissa State, closer to Bangladesh and opposite the Malacca Strait. The southernmost base is at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu State, opposite Sri Lanka.

The Tribune commentator assessed that the two new bases are a counter to China's increased naval presence in the Bay of Bengal, including in Burma and Bangladesh. The Navy has smaller stations in the eastern Indian Ocean, but no full-size bases capable of providing all logistics support, supplies, replenishment, repair and maintenance. A third base for nuclear powered submarines also will be built at a separate location in the Bay of Bengal. The bases will take at least three  years to build.

Comment: Chinese naval interest in the eastern Indian Ocean is spurring the expansion of India's naval infrastructure. China has announced its intention to build a deep sea port at Sonadia near Cox Bazar, Bangladesh. It is also building ports in Burma/Myanmar. All are in the Bay of Bengal.

Most major Indian naval infrastructure construction has been focused against the threat from Pakistan. The new bases represent a shift in Indian strategic thinking — to counter the threat from Chinese poaching in the Indian Ocean, without reducing vigilance against Pakistan. A new naval base in western India was announced in April 2010.

Phi Beta Iota: The maritime environment may well displace the space environment in the 21st Century, as offshore cities and factories come into being (including water desalination plants away from the brown water), and a portion of the population takes to permanent ocean-going residence.  As with outer space, the “Outlaw Sea” are not charted in the sense that most vessels do not have transponders and there is rotten “situational awareness” overall including close-in.  We we re-writing the 450-ship Navy piece today, we would place even more emphasis on getting the 75-ship Expediter into existence, and we would create a surface and air breather arm to the Ocean Surveillance Information System (OSIS) as a new command with global reach and very tight multinational information-sharing and sense-making networks centered at each of the regional multinational decision-support centres that China may fund if the USA does not get its act together.  Whoever owns and operators those regional centers is going to be in the cat-bird seat–they will completely displace the unaffordable ineffective secret C4I grid that DoD and the US IC have now.

See Also:

Search: maritime piracy charts + RECAP

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Water

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Journal: Pentagon Network Attacks–Cloud Truth?

10 Security, Computer/online security, IO Sense-Making, Military, Officers Call
DefDog Recommends...

Despite Scare Talk, Attacks on Pentagon Networks Drop

Listen to the generals speak, and you’d think the Pentagon’s networks were about to be overrun with worms and Trojans. But a draft federal report indicates that the number of “incidents of malicious cyber activity” in the Defense Department has actually decreased in 2010. It’s the first such decline since the turn of the millennium.
Click on Image to Enlarge

In the first six months of 2010, there were about 30,000 such incidents, according to statistics compiled by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Last year, there were more than 71,000. “If the rate of malicious activity from the first half of this year continues through the end of the year,” the commission notes in a draft report on China and the internet, “2010 could be the first year in a decade in which the quantity of logged events declines.”

The figures are in stark contrast to the sky-is-falling talk coming out of the Beltway.

“Over the past ten years, the frequency and sophistication of intrusions into U.S.military networks have increased exponentially,” Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn wrote in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs.

Full Article Online….

See Also:

2010: OPINION–America’s Cyber Scam

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Reference: Open Source Civilization

03 Economy, 04 Education, 06 Family, 11 Society, About the Idea, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Peace Intelligence
Open to See the Future

Phi Beta Iota: We cannot say enough good things about these folks.  This is righteous good stuff–eight times cheaper than industrial offerings, virtually no “true cost” externalities, interchangeable parts, human scale, the whole enchilada.

Tip of the Hat to Brandin Watson at Facebook.

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Journal: Building Information Modeling as the Core of Sustainable Design Impacts on 40% of Global Energy Consumption

Analysis, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Computer/online security, Geospatial, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Policies, Reform, Strategy, Threats
Published October 27, 2010

OAKLAND, CA — Building information modeling can be a valuable tool for architects, engineers and contractors that allows them to explore different design options, see what projects will look like and understand how a structure will perform long before it's built.

BIM, as it's known in the industry, also can help building owners and operators throughout a structure's lifecycle by providing visual context to performance-related data, retrofit plans and other projects intended increase energy efficiency.

In a webcast on Tuesday moderated by GreenBiz.com Executive Editor Joel Makower, representatives for design software giant Autodesk, DPR Construction and the consulting engineering firm Glumac talked about “How Building Information Modeling Solutions Transform Sustainable Design.”

– – – – – – –

Increased costs of energy, ongoing challenges posed by the economy and concerns about sustainability, market demands, occupany and eventual regulation of carbon output combine to make building owners, operators and managers increasingly aware of how their properties perform — and compare with others.

Those issues and the availability of state and federal incentives are powerful drivers to improve portfolios. “Not surprisingly, large multinational companies are getting their buildings in order,” Deodhar said.

Examples include Walmart, which will retrofit 500 buildings this year, Marriott, whose hotel chain includes 275 hotels that bear the Energy Star label, and Starbucks, which by the close of the year will begin to seek LEED certification for all new company-owned stores around the world.

Globally, buildings account for about 40 percent of energy consumption and more than 200 million buildings are candidates for efficiency improvements, Deodhar said. But optimizing a building's environmental performance requires incorporating interrelated factors, such as location, orientation, internal systems, how the building is used and other variables, into design.

Read full article (long and valuable)

Phi Beta Iota: This is the kind of project we had in mind for DIA/DO (Directorate of Open Sources & Methods).  Apart from DoD being the biggest gorilla on the planet where any improvement can be measured in billions of dollars, this is the tip of the “true cost” iceberg and a success here could be immediately extended to every aspect of acquisition across all mobility, weapons, and other systems, over to the rest of the federal government, down to state and local, and out to the world.   In the 21st Century design is intelligence, intelligence is design, and intelligent design, not weapons, is the influencer most likely to achieve the desired outcome.