Egypt: Protesters in Tahrir Square, Cairo, are asking citizens to take part in demonstrations on 11 February, for the “Day of Confrontation,” Al Arabiya reported. One news service reported tens of millions of text messages about the event. According to a report in the Indian Express, “organizers” want a “big push” on Friday that could include storming parliament and the state television station in Cairo.
Search (2): osint clarity; osint + clarity
SearchesTwo different things. This entire website is about OSINT and its follow-on, M4IS2.
On OSINT as a first stop: OSINT Starting Point
See Also: Original BASIC Table and Original COMMUNITIES Table
Both of the latter have been superceded by this web site, which is the new portal for OSINT and M4IS2.
On Clarity as a concept: there is no specific posting on this. It is one of the “core values” for intelligence on earth, along with diversity, integrity, and sustainability–the first three are practices, the last is the desired outcome. Clarity can be considered the opposite of secrecy–indeed, the three core values can be considered the anti-thesis of secrecy, because secrecy is inherent obscure, unilateral or exclusive, and lacking in integrity at multiple levels (fraudulent collection, poor processing, non-existent analytics, and grave misrepresentation including outright lies to the President or other key clients). Clarity of means (revenue), ways (force structure), and ends (strategy and policy) is fundamental. Clarity without diversity or integrity is a lie.
See for example:
Continue reading “Search (2): osint clarity; osint + clarity”
Event: 25-27 Feb, Duke Univ in Durham NC, Ashoka U
Academia, Commerce
The Ashoka U Exchange is a working meeting between social entrepreneurship educators, students, practitioners, employers, and investors who are actively engaged in building the field of social entrepreneurship education. Together, we will ask: How can colleges and universities drive positive global change?
Worth a Look: 4INFO.com Free Text Message (SMS) Custom Alerts + News Search
Mobile, Worth A LookNews search using text messaging
Craigslist job alerts (does not include “ETC” or labor jobs, unfortunately)
USAF Backs Off on Threat to Air Family Members….
06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, IO Impotency, Military, Officers Call
Air Force Rescinds New Guidance on WikiLeaks
Secrecy News reported Monday on strange new guidance from the Air Force Materiel Command declaring that Air Force employees and even their family members could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for accessing the WikiLeaks web site. On Monday night that new guidance was abruptly withdrawn.
Lt. Col. Richard L. Johnson of Air Force Headquarters released this statement: read statement….
Airmen, It’s Illegal for Your Kids to Read WikiLeaks [Updated]
Spencer Ackerman, WIRED Magazine Danger Room, Feburary 7, 2011
“[I]f a family member of an Air Force employee accesses WikiLeaks on a home computer, the family member may be subject to prosecution for espionage under U.S. Code Title 18 Section 793,” the legal guidance reads. “The Air Force member would have an obligation to safeguard the information under the general guidance to safeguard classified information.”
Phi Beta Iota: We do not make this stuff up. If SecDef wants an excuse to dismiss Air Force leadership down to the one-star level, this is it. This is utterly insane, and a clear demonstration of moral and intellectual and leadership vacuum that exists in the US Air Force.
Journal: Chuck Spinney on Gallipoli
Censorship & Denial of Access (35)
Review (Guest): Program or be Programmed–Ten Commands for a Digital Age
5 Star, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Communications, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Douglas Rushkoff
Table of Contents
I. TIME Do Not Be “Always On”
II. PLACE Live in Person
III. CHOICE You May Always Choose “None of the Above”
IV. COMPLEXITY You Are Never Completely Right
V. SCALE One Size Does Not Fit All
VI. IDENTITY Be Yourself
VII. SOCIAL Do Not Sell Your Friends
VIII. FACT Tell the Truth
IX. OPENNESS Share, Don’t Steal
X. PURPOSE Program or Be Programmed
5.0 out of 5 stars Re-Humanizing Our Future
December 29, 2010
Brent Finnegan (Harrisonburg, VA, US) – See all my reviews
I haven't read Rushkoff's other books (although I might go back and read Life Inc: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How We Can Take It Back).
Program or be Programmed is a quick read. I read it on the Kindle my wife got me for Christmas. The irony of reading a book about the pitfalls and possibilities of technology we don't fully understand on a device I don't fully understand was not lost on me.
I would describe this as an “Internet philosophy book” that might fit on the bookshelf somewhere between Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning…was the Command Line and Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do? But I found Program to be even more thoughtful and succinct than those books.
Quote from the book: “Instead of learning about our technology, we opt for a world in which our technology learns about us.”
Continue reading “Review (Guest): Program or be Programmed–Ten Commands for a Digital Age”
CIA Re-Direction of Clandestine Operations
Advanced Cyber/IO, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, GovernmentCIA's Panetta Shakes up His Spy Corps
Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
US News & world report, Feburary 8, 2011
In a major shift to reinvigorate the post-9/11 spy world inside the Central Intelligence Agency, Director Leon Panetta has decided to change how the agency's National Clandestine Service operates, potentially impacting up to half the CIA's workforce. The shift is part of Panetta's long-range “CIA 2015″ reorganization plan and should make the agency much more agile and quick to respond in the war on terror and other national security flare-ups.
Phi Beta Iota: This is not a shake-up. This is an abandonment of language skills and cultural knowledge as a foundation for effective clandestine operations, and a general acknowledgment that the clandestine service is merely in liaison business, and “one size fits all” since English is the common languages for both spies and air traffic controllers. A “real” clandestine service would have five classes of personnel in more or less equal measure:
- Career Trainees 20%
- Mid-Career US Citizen Non-Official Cover Hires 20%
- Mid-Career Non-US Citizen Non-Official Cover Hires 20%
- Foreign Liaison Rotationals to Multinational Field Stations 20%
- One-Time “It's Just Business” Contracts 20%
What CIA has today is way too many youngsters with no real foreign experience, and way too many annuitants (contractors) and old guys who will finally retire when the money dries up, as it is about to. CIA clandestine operations have no bench, no middle, and no strategy for the future, in part because CIA analytics are not serious, CIA multi-lingual processing at machine speed does not exist, and CIA leverage of global open sources and methods is both out-sourced and pedestrian. At the same time that our Embassies have become “bunkers,” our spies are increasingly uninformed, disconnected, and ineffective for lack of language, context, and leadership.
