Phi Beta Iota: Google is now seriously evil. If you thought the blue screen of death was bad under Microsoft, just wait for the multi-colored cloud of death from Google, with toll gates everywhere, and of course you only see search results that someone else has paid to put in front of you. Microsoft is blowing a once in a lifetime opportunity to cut Google off at the knees by going directly to infrastructure-independent OS3: open source software, open source intelligence, and open spectrum, all in generative devices that embrace open source hardware and all the other opens.
Here are the four requirements documents for the all-source fusion analytic workstation converging in 1989–we do not have this today because no one has ever tried to manage the US Government's approach to IT–distributed chaos and centralized ignorance just will not do.
Phi Beta Iota: Hackers are like astronauts, pushing the bleeding edge of the envelope. If the US Government had listened to us in 1991-1994, cyberspace would be secure today, and we would not be spending $12 billion a year on the cyber-scam game–outsourcing to beltway bandits fighting for the 100 folks that actually know how to do this stuff and can qualify for clearances. Our solution for the regional networks is gong to be multinational and open everything. This event is specifically recommended for young teens who show signs of intelligence and curiosity, and for mid-career officers beginning to realize that 80% of what they do is without merit, seeking a better way. This is where we do the right things righter, not the wrong things righter.
Chuck Spinney is still the best “real” engineer in this town–almost everyone else is staggering after fifty years of government-specification cost-plus engineering. Also, as Chuck explores in the piece on Complexity to Avoid Accountability is Expensive we in the “requirements” business are as much to blame–Service connivance with complexity has killed acquisition from both a financial inputs and a war-fighting relevance outcome point of view. The Services have forgotten the basics of requirements definition and multi-mission interoperability and supportability.
The Marine Corps Intelligence Center (MCIC) was created by General Al Gray, USMC (Ret), then Commandant of the Marine Corps, for three reasons:
1. Intelligence support to constabulary and expeditionary operations from the three major services was abysmal to non-existent.
2. Intelligence support to the Service level planners and programmers striving to interact with other Services, the Unified Commands, and the Joint Staff was non-existent–this was the case with respect to policy, acquisition, and operations. The cluster-feel over Haiti and the total inadequacy of our 24-48 hour response tells us nothing has changed, in part because we still cannot do a “come as you are” joint inter-agency anything.
Phi Beta Iota: We've known since 9/11 that the asymmetric war is also marked by an asymmetric excellence in public relations, propaganda and perception management–not only do our opponents spend $1 for every $500,000 to $5 million that we spend, but they are better at this than we are. The USA is spending billions (low billions) on Information Operations (IO) and Strategic Communications, and still has no idea how to do it in languages we still do not speak, from a moral base we still do not have in the context of a Grand Strategy that does not exist because we have a secret intelligence world that is incapable of thinking broadly and deeply or giving the President and the Secretary of Defense what they NEED to know rather than what our expensive ignorant technical systems make possible to give. We are SO reminded of Catholic Mandarin Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet-Nam with his murderous sister Madame Nhu (Karzai's Brother….), only this time you have drugs, religion, and no competent Afghan military we can pretend we are supporting. A reprise of Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam?
White House meets corporate CEOs for ideas on modernizing government
Because too many government information technology systems are rooted in the 1960s and ’70s, the White House is convening a conference today of 50 corporate chief executives with the hope of generating fresh ideas to help modernize government and improve efficiency.
Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients, who has spent 20 years in the private sector, said that “in my seven months as CPO it has become clear to me that one of the biggest challenges we face is the technology gap that exists between the public and private sectors.”
Phi Beta Iota: Despite the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) effort to find “common solutions,” the reality is that stove-pipe budgets and stove-pipe promotion systems produce stove-pipe minds. What OMB should be doing is creating a global skunk works to establish the open source trinity: free/open source software, open source intelligence, and open spectrum, amidst deep Multinational Engagement. Of course, DoD could do this on its own, if it really wanted to, through the Defesne Open Source Center and embedded Multinational Decision Support Center.
The Right Testicle of Hell: History of a Haitian Holocaust
By Greg Palast
Blackwater before drinking water
6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, “I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people.” Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.
7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.
Any Questions?
Phi Beta Iota: This is what we were thinking of when we laid out the CAB 21 Peace Jumpers scenario. The Pentagon is out of touch with reality because they have such a narrow mind-set that is uninformed about the possibilities and simply does not compute Whole of Government resourcing or clean drinking water as a security device vastly more effective than a Marine standing guard over nothing. With all humility, if DIA goes not get its act together in the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Multinational Engagement arena, and help the Pentagon learn about the new craft of waging peace with Whole of Government non-secret campaign plans and multinational virtual harmonization of resource needs identification and fulfulfillment at the Twitter level, we will continue to fail ourselves and everyone else. As we pointed out early on, Haiti's disaster was/is an OPPORTUNITY. Evidently no one in the Pentagon is thinking that way.
The software chapter in
HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH (HOPE)
Phi Beta Iota: Hackers are like astronauts, pushing the bleeding edge of the envelope. If the US Government had listened to us in 1991-1994, cyberspace would be secure today, and we would not be spending $12 billion a year on the cyber-scam game–outsourcing to beltway bandits fighting for the 100 folks that actually know how to do this stuff and can qualify for clearances. Our solution for the regional networks is gong to be multinational and open everything. This event is specifically recommended for young teens who show signs of intelligence and curiosity, and for mid-career officers beginning to realize that 80% of what they do is without merit, seeking a better way. This is where we do the right things righter, not the wrong things righter.
Taliban Overhaul Their Image In Bid To Win Allies
