Journal: Regurgitated Pablum from David Ignatius

06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, Commercial Intelligence, Computer/online security, Government, IO Secrets, Law Enforcement, Mobile

Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Washington Post  July 4, 2010 Pg. 19

Keystroke Spies

By David Ignatius

The alleged Russian spy ring is a pleasant summer distraction (Anna Chapman — call your agent!) and a wonderful opportunity to use the phrase femme fatale. But if you want to ponder a 21st-century intelligence puzzle this July 4 weekend, turn your attention to cyber-espionage — where our adversaries can steal in a few seconds what it took an old-fashioned spy network years to collect.

First, though, let's think about what the Russian “illegals” were up to in their suburban spy nests. U.S. intelligence officials think it's partly that the Russians just love running illegal networks. This has been part of their tradecraft since the 1920s, and it enabled many of their most brilliant operations, from Rudolf Abel to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The FBI finds it hard to break its cultural habits, and so does Russia's intelligence service, the SVR.

FULL STORY ONLINE

See Also: Neil Stephenson in SNOWCRASH (first edition late 1980's),

Winn Schwartau in Terminal Compromise: Computer Terrorism is a Networked Society and then in INFORMATION WARFARE: Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway (early 1990's), and

top observers in 1994 in a Memorandum to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) “czar.”

Journal: Google Wants You….In Every Way, Forever

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Computer/online security, Corporations, Corruption, Cyberscams, malware, spam, InfoOps (IO), Misinformation & Propaganda, Mobile, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Privacy, Real Time, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Technologies, Tools

Prevent web malware and enforce policies for all users

Google Web Security for Enterprise, protects organizations of all sizes against web malware attacks and enables the safe, productive use of the web, without incurring hardware, upfront capital, or IT management costs.

Simple to deploy, effortless to maintain, scalable and secure

  • No hardware to install or maintain, just a simple change to your firewall or proxy
  • Proactively blocks web malware before it reaches your network
  • Integrates easily with directory services for granular enforcement and reporting
  • Extends to all employees wherever they are working – at home, in a hotel room, café, client premises, or Wi-Fi spot

Interested in learning more? Download these resources

Comment:  You were right. I've just learned about Google's Endgame. I'm sure it's been out a while, but when I saw this, I immediately thought of your statement about Google wanting to BECOME the Internet. The short video tells all.  REDACTED

Phi Beta Iota:  see also these posts.

Journal: One Mobile Per Child

About the Idea, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, microfinancing, Mobile, Real Time, Reform, Tools

Phi Beta Iota: The idea of one mobile per person was originally devised by the Earth Intelligence Network, and is articulated in both brief form and in a full-length book.  Now the idea is emerging, spontaneously, from others.  Below is a link to a letter in the Journal of Health Informatics in Developing Countries.

Letter: One mobile per child: a tractable global health intervention

The authors, Prajesh Chhanabhai and Alec Hold, one working at the University of Otago in New Zeland, the other for the Department of Economic and Soical Affairs in the United Nations, make several important points, not least of which is the price point: mobile telephones are being offered in Venezuela for $15, which is half the price the World Bank negotiated with Motorola.

If and when the Chinese see the opportunity (free cell phone, no extra charge for listening in), we should see both free cell phones and eventually free airtime as well as free call centers to educate the poor “one cell call at a time” at the same time that we recoup the investment in elevated national productivity, now proven to be associated with the diffusion of cell phone access.

It merits observation that the cell phone is now the “gift of life” that any one of the one billion rich (80% of whom do not give to charity now) can endow, down to a specific person in a specific village.  The sooner we make cell phones ubiquitous, the sooner we can start exposing corruption at all levels (with web sites that make sense of text messages and expose corruption in near-real-time “by name,” and also creating infinite wealth among the four billion at the “bottom of the pyramid.”  The human brain is the one inexhaustible resource we have, giving every human a cell phone is the fastest way to harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth.

Interesting Side Note: Carlos “slim” Helu (richest person in the world) has a major stake in Tracfone (some phones go for $10). He could be a major player in the one mobile per child campaign. Venezuela president Hugo Chavez has a Twitter account and the Earth Intelligence Network just posted >>  earthintelnet @chavezcandanga “the Vergatario” ($15 phone) + Carlos “Slim” Helu ? http://phibetaiota.net/?p=25785 #Vergatario #Venezuela #CarlosSlim

Event: 24 Jun 2010, Wash DC – Can You Help Me Now? Mobile Phones and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan (Also Webcasted)

Corruption, Mobile
Event page

Can You Help Me Now? Mobile Phones and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

Smart Tools for Smart Power II

Please note: This event will be webcast live beginning at 9:00am EDT on June 24, 2010 at www.usip.org/webcast.html

Location: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2nd floor, conference room 1200, 17th St, NW Washington, DC 20036

Mobile phone technologies are the subject of considerable enthusiasm in the peacebuilding sector. In the past few years, they have been used in connection with campaigns to restrain election violence, reduce corruption, develop the news media, and support counter-insurgency to name just a few. Success has been significant, but mixed. Yet little has been done to evaluate systematically the factors of success or failure in the use of mobile phones for peacebuilding.

So to best understand the true potential of these increasingly powerful tools, USIP — in partnership with cell phone pioneer Mobile Accord (who raised a record sum of over $37 million within three weeks of Haiti’s earthquake crisis with their “Text HAITI to 90999” campaign), the National Defense University, the United Nation’s-mandated UPeace, and TechChange — will bring together experts on international peacebuilding and mobile phone technology to focus on the use of mobile phones in one of the most difficult conflict environments today: Afghanistan.

Using techniques pioneered in the 2009 Smart Tools for Smart Power program, we will evaluate the reality of cell phone deployments along three vectors:
  • Improving governance –  rule of law and anti-corruption
  • Countering extremism – media development and counter-insurgency
  • Delivery of essential services – education, health, agricultural development, commerce

Agenda

  • Amb. Richard HolbrookeOpening Remarks
    Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
  • Sheldon Himelfarb, Moderator
    Executive Director, Center of Innovation for Science, Technology, and Peacebuilding
    United States Institute of Peace

Panel 1: Mobile Phones for Tackling Corruption and Improving Governance

Panel 2: Mobile Phones for Countering Extremism and Counter-insurgency

Panel 3: Mobile Phones and Essential Service Delivery

Panelists will include innovators from the DoD, Department of State, UN personnel, World Bank, Internews, and NGOs (US and European) like ICT4Peace, Ushahidi, FrontlineSMS, and Mobile Active.

The Mexico + American Narcosphere (Calling Carlos “Slim” Helu)

01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Education, 06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Immigration, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Audio, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Media, Military, Mobile, Research resources, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

Excellent May 31, 2010 New Yorker article by William Finnegan called Letter from Mexico, Silver or Lead which is unfortunately only available by subscription only (click here for link to abstract also pasted below) The most telling two words of the article = “state capture.”

ABSTRACT: LETTER FROM MEXICO about La Familia Michoacana and the pervasive power of drug traffickers in the country. Writer visits the hill town of Zitácuaro in the Mexican state of Michoacán. On the morning before his arrival, the dismembered body of a young man was left in the middle of the main intersection. It was an instance of what people call corpse messaging. Usually it involves a mutilated body and a handwritten sign. “Talked too much.” “You get what you deserve.” The corpse’s message—terror—was clear enough and everybody knew who left it: La Familia Michoacana, a crime syndicate whose depredations pervade the life of the region.

Mexico’s president, Felipe Calerón declared war—his metaphor—on the country’s drug traffickers when he took office, in December, 2006. It was a popular move. Although large-scale trafficking had been around for decades, the violence associated with the drug trade had begun to spiral out of control. More than twenty-three thousand people have died since Calderón’s declaration. La Inseguridad, as Mexicans call it, has become engulfing, with drugs sliding far down the list of public concerns, below kidnapping, extortion, torture, unemployment, and simple fear of leaving the house. The big crime syndicates still earn billions from drugs, but they have also diversified profitably. In Michoacán a recent estimate found eight-five per cent of legitimate businesses involved in some way with La Familia. Among Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations, La Familia is the big new kid on the block. It first gained national attention in September, 2006, when five severed heads rolled onto the dance floor at a night club in Uruapan, Michoacán. A senior American official in Mexico City told the writer, “La Familia is looking more and more like an insurgency and less like a cartel.” Mentions one of La Familia’s leaders, Nazario Moreno González, who is also known as El Chayo, or El Más Loco (the Craziest). Writer discusses La Familia’s activities with a local politician and relates how the cartel has, in some places, filled the vacuum created by public distrust of the police and the courts.

The overwhelming growth of organized crime in Mexico in the past decade is often blamed on multiparty democracy. Until 2000, the country was basically a one-party state for seventy-one years under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Drug trafficking flourished, but its practitioners enjoyed stable relations with officialdom. Describes how the election of Vicente Fox in 2000 changed the status quo between drug traffickers and government. Writer gives a survey of other significant Mexican drug cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel, and the Zetas, who had previously occupied Michoacán. Tells about the rise of La Familia in 2006 and its expansion into nearby states. Discusses U.S.-Mexico relations and the drug trade. Writer visits a drug-rehabilitation center in Zamora. Describes acts of kidnapping and extortion perpetrated by La Familia.

Links Connecting Police Corruption + Narcosphere + U.S. + North Mexico/Chihuahua/Juarez & Beyond: Continue reading “The Mexico + American Narcosphere (Calling Carlos “Slim” Helu)”

Open Data Developments from Seattle, Portland, San Fran & New York City

Academia, Civil Society, Government, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Open Government
data.seattle.gov homepage

+ The purpose of data.seattle.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by various departments of Seattle City government.

NYC Council Committee on Technology in Government Blog

+ The New York City Council Committee on Technology will hold an important hearing on open data standards for all city agencies at 10:00am on June 21, 2010 at 250 Broadway, New York, NY (Across the from City Hall). This bill, Introduction 029-2010 (formerly Intro. 991-2009), is an effort to increase government transparency and facilitate easier access to public data. Beyond the ‘good government’ benefits of this legislation, the bill will also unlock City data to enable web developers and entrepreneurs to interact with City government in new and unforeseen ways. Data published under this legislation will be readable by any computer device, whether that is a laptop or a phone, for innovative developments. This Gov 2.0 inspired transparency legislation, targets application developers, startups, small businesses, and academics with the ultimate goal of strengthening the connection between government and the public, while re-energizing the small business-tech sectors. Visit http://nycctechcomm.wordpress.com/opengov/ for information on Introduction bill 029-2010.

Comment: Another aspect needed is an “open process” so that we know how the data was collected and how to verify that the data is accurate.

Also see Portland's CivicApps and San Francisco's open data