Twitter has barred Dataminr, a service that analyzes tweets from across the globe to inform users about news events, from providing its information to US intelligence agencies, according to the Wall Street Journal. The social network has not confirmed that it cut the agencies off from the service, which claims to have informed clients about the…
Category: Counter-Surveillance
The Surveillance State: Spy Chief Might Reveal Number of “Accidentally Surveilled”” Americans
“U.S. Persons Caught INCIDENTALLY in Internet Surveillance…” HA!! Where have we heard that before? -SF Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Monday his office is considering options to obtain and publicly disclose an estimate of the number of U.S. persons caught incidentally in Internet surveillance intended for foreign targets. “We are looking at…
Espionage Files: A Day In The Life of a Spy
The complex life of a CIA officer is unveiled in this fascinating AMA on Reddit, which reveals an existence that is both terrifying and amusing, but never boring. Names, places, and timelines are redacted, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of his words, as it’s easy to assume his involvement in a number of covert operations that have…
A New Generation of Unrestricted Warfare
In 1999, two Chinese colonels wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare, about warfare in the age of globalization. Their main argument: Warfare in the modern world will no longer be primarily a struggle defined by military means — or even involve the military at all. They were about a decade and a half before their…
The Surveillance State: Spies in the Skies
America is being watched from above. Government surveillance planes routinely circle over most major cities — but usually take the weekends off. Each weekday, dozens of U.S. government aircraft take to the skies and slowly circle over American cities. Piloted by agents of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the planes are…
Espionage Files: The Brave New World of Drone Hacking
The Israel Police and Shin Bet security service arrested a Gaza resident suspected of hacking into the feeds from Air Force drones and collecting information on troop movements and civilian flights for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, police said Wednesday. A police statement named the suspect as Majd Ouida, 22, describing him as an…
Espionage Files: The Return of Wetwork
Putin’s Kremlin Employs assassination abroad as State Policy in a manner not seen in Moscow since Stalin By John R. Schindler This week’s announcement by a British court that Russian spies murdered Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006, made global headlines. Particularly because the massive report, based on a multi-year investigation, concluded that the…
Modern Crime: The Next Great Hacker Threat Could be Drones
Ryan Satterfield was testing out his new Parrot drone in his backyard in Camarillo, California, when suddenly he wondered: Could it get hacked? Since Satterfield, founder of information security company Planet Zuda, uncovers hacking vulnerabilities for a living, it didn’t take long for him to discover a way to take over the aircraft remotely. He…
Cyber-Warfare: Policing The Dark Web and How it Can Effect National Sovereignty
Cops hack into foreign computers to find cyber criminals As crime continues to proliferate on the so-called dark web, law enforcement agencies are sometimes having to work outside of their jurisdiction. When a suspected criminal acts on the dark web, authorities are unlikely to know where in the world he or she is physically located….
Crusader Corner: Tracking Down Salah Abdeslam
Man Hunting, The Sport of Security Forces Bottom Line Up Front Intelligence agencies must cooperate more rapidly and proactively to counter ISIS’ rapid and haphazard operational tempo. Clandestine operatives must rely on support networks that include overt members of the public. These networks are easily mapped out based on metadata available to nation state…