Category: Threats

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Journal: Death by a Thousand Cuts? Or Deliberate Elite Murder of the USA?

09 Terrorism, Budgets & Funding, Strategy
DefDog Recommends...

See all those security lines? Just because al Qaeda's recent attacks haven't succeeded doesn't mean the terrorist group's overall strategy is failing.

Foreign Policy

BY DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS | NOVEMBER 23, 2010

“Two Nokia phones, $150 each, two HP printers, $300 each, plus shipping, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses add up to a total bill of $4,200. That is all what Operation Hemorrhage cost us… On the other hand this supposedly ‘foiled plot', as some of our enemies would like to call [it], will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures.”Thus begins the lead article in the latest issue of Inspire, the English-language online magazine produced by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the jihadi group's Yemen branch, which was released Saturday. The cover features a photo of a UPS plane and the striking headline: “$4,200.” It is referring to the recent cartridge-bomb plot, and specifically the great disparity between the cost of executing a terrorist attack and the cost to Western countries of defending against asymmetric warfare — costs now numbering in the billions of dollars a year and climbing. The magazine warns that future attacks will be “smaller, but more frequent” — an approach that “some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts.”

The slick packaging may be new, but al Qaeda's emphasis on bleeding the U.S. economy is not.Read rest of article online….

Continue reading “Journal: Death by a Thousand Cuts? Or Deliberate Elite Murder of the USA?”

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From the Ashes: Public Daily Brief Weekly Report Archive

Key Players, Policies, Threats


From 2006-2008, thousands of people subscribed to the Earth Intelligence Network's Public Daily Brief weekly report entitled GLOBAL CHALLENGES: THE WEEK IN REVIEW – Destabilizing Threats, Stabilizing Policies, and Global Powers at a Glance. It was maintained by Winston Maike whose unexpected death/passing abruptly stopped the publication of this powerful and free global public service and whose work was “lost”. Former intelligence personnel were known to have said that the Public Daily Brief was superior to the President's Daily Brief.

The Daily Brief consisted of *hundreds* of RSS feeds organized into categorized headlines that were followed by a descriptive sentence that would scroll vertically.  See this example. By the end of the week, that daily feed would be aggregated into weekly reports that were sent out by email.

Thanks to Archive.org's Wayback Machine, we have now posted the archive to http://pdb.re-configure.org

We plan on gradually bringing this service back to life. We will be in the process of collecting RSS feed addresses from many sources (such as Silobreaker). We will then need to form a database and code tailored to our needs.

Inquiries: earthintelnet [at] gmail.com

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Journal: Microsoft, Kinect, & Hackers

Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, IO Technologies, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

Innovators like Oliver Kreylos were eager for the Xbox Kinect, but not to play games. He uses it to capture live 3-D images.

With Kinect Controller, Hackers Take Liberties

Mr. Kreylos, who specializes in virtual reality and 3-D graphics, had just learned that he could download some software and use the device with his computer instead. He was soon using it to create “holographic” video images that can be rotated on a computer screen. A video he posted on YouTube last week caused jaws to drop and has been watched 1.3 million times.

Philipp Robbel combined an iRobot device and the new Microsoft controller that can recognize gestures. He calls it the KinectBot.

Mr. Kreylos is part of a crowd of programmers, roboticists and tinkerers who are getting the Kinect to do things it was not really meant to do. The attraction of the device is that it is outfitted with cameras, sensors and software that let it detect movement, depth, and the shape and position of the human body.

Mehmet S. Akten uses the system to draw in 3-D.

Phi Beta Iota: Microsoft took a few days to “get it” but their “final answer” is exactly right: “Anytime there is engagement and excitement around our technology, we see that as a good thing,” said Craig Davidson, senior director for Xbox Live at Microsoft. “It’s naïve to think that any new technology that comes out won’t have a group that tinkers with it.”  Kudos as well to the New York Times for a lovely piece of useful inspiring reporting.

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Reference: Social Media for Business 101

About the Idea, Articles & Chapters, Collaboration Zones, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, IO Technologies, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

Eric Lefkofsky

The New York Times November 17, 2010

A Business Creator Sees Big Returns From Social Media

By DARREN DAHL

Asked to name the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, few people would think of Eric Lefkofsky, who is 40 and keeps a deliberately low profile in his hometown of Chicago. But Mr. Lefkofsky has an impressive entrepreneurial track record, one that recently led Forbes to estimate  his wealth at $750 million.

The first business Mr. Lefkofsky started, StarBelly, made tools for building Web sites; he sold it in 2000 for $240 million. He then started two companies that have since gone public —  InnerWorkings, which provides printing capabilities over the Web, and Echo Global Logistics, a transportation and logistics outsourcing business he founded with a law school friend, Brad Keywell. He also founded MediaBank, which helps companies buy advertising. In each case, Mr. Lefkofsky used the power of technology and the Internet to update an industry.

And then came Groupon, the social-coupon Web site that he bankrolled and started in 2008 with Andrew Mason  —  a venture that has been called the fastest-growing company ever. Groupon offers its followers a deal-of-the-day coupon, sponsored by a local business, that the followers are encouraged to share with their social networks. The local business gets customers, and Groupon takes a share of the coupon proceeds  —  a business model that has led to talk that Groupon, still privately owned, could be worth as much as $3 billion. More recently, Mr. Lefkofsky and Mr. Keywell started an investment fund with $100 million of their earnings. It’s called Lightbank, and it invests only in early-stage technology companies that are built around social media. The following is a condensed version of a recent conversation with Mr. Lefkofsky.

Read full article at The New York Times…

Continue reading “Reference: Social Media for Business 101”

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Reference: Quantitative Easing Explained

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government
Michael Ostrolenk Recommends...

Below is just one of a number of short (YouTube) videos that are gaining traction as the American people begin to understand the reality of Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve being allowed to blow up the US economy and now the world economy, with the full blessing of President Barack Obama.  This is change we can believe in?

"Must Watch"
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Worth a Look: Driven to Death–Psychological Aspects of Suicide Terrorism

09 Terrorism, Worth A Look
Berto Jongman Recommends...

What drives a person to kill himself for killing others, in the name
of a political or religious cause? This book is the first to report a
series of studies in which failed suicide bombers and organizers of
suicide attacks were subjected to systematic clinical psychological
interviews and tests and were compared to non-suicide terrorists. This direct psychological examination enabled a first-hand assessment of the personality characteristics and motivation of suicide bombers.

Amazon Page

Additional interviews conducted by seasoned area specialists provided a comprehensive picture of the ways by which the suicide bombers were recruited, prepared and dispatched to their planned death, as well as how they felt and behaved along this road. This information was supplemented by data derived from interviews with the families of suicide bombers who died carrying out their attacks.

The book describes the first systematic empirical studies of the personality characteristics and motivation of suicide bombers and organizers of suicide attacks.  Arrested suicide bombers own accounts of the process of making suicide attacks, as well as their decisions and feelings along this process.  On the basis of these findings the book provides a unique comprehensive analysis of suicide attacks, showing how personality characteristics interact with group pressure and public atmosphere.  In analyzing suicide attacks around the world, the book relies on the most comprehensive database.

See Also:

Review: Driven to Death: Psychological and Social Aspects of Suicide Terrorism (includes links to other books that provide essential context)

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