Public Intelligence Blog

Neal Rauhauser

Confusion & Disinformation

I published What 2013 Has In Store 166 days ago and summed up my discoveries in Professionalism & Propaganda a week ago. This 1,800+ word piece with descriptive links to over thirty posts covers everything from my network of now over 3,000 Facebook Anonymous supporters through the CIA’s application of mindfulness to the analysis process, a direction taken in response to network threats.

During that time I completed a social network analysis class offered by Coursera and I curated nineteen related documents in my SNA Class collection. Humans exhibit a variety of interconnected ways of making decisions, information itself has a network of precursors and successors, and the flow of information through human networks can often be modeled as a spreading contagion.

There are a variety of problems that professional analysts face which have been studied in-depth by the Central Intelligence Agency‘s internal think tank, the Center for the Study of Intelligence. A distributed, grassroots network shares some characteristics with a professional cadre of analysts, but organizing, motivating, and assessing their progress is dramatically different from that of a hierarchical organization.

Here is an overview of the universe for the next stage in my inquiries. This Maltego graph displays five major components. The large group with the most diverse colors is representative of my place in the scheme of things – people who engage me in a bi-drectional fashion and organizations to which I subscribe. The cluster of people(lavender) and Twitter accounts(green) at the lower left represents e-International Relations, which is open and academic in nature. The similar looking cluster at the upper right are the Twitter users among the 156 analysts for Wikistrat. A larger graph of their complete network is seen in the next image. The cluster at the lower right is the LinkedIn-centric International Security Observers, an open, web based think tank.

. . . . . . . . .

If I had to distill what I am trying to get at here in one paragraph, it would be this:

Groups of analysts need a shared context that can store and display information in chronological order, recognizing entities in the field ranging from states to naval vessels to individuals. The system needs to be able to store documents, images, URLs, and other internet accessible content. The system need not perform link analysis, but it must be amenable to doing so with its content using a tool like Maltego or Gephi, and then making the analysis available as an integral part of the overall offering.

Read full post with many links and graphics.

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Stephen E. Arnold

Google: An Island or a Digital Monaco?

May 19, 2013

After several days of rehash about search, I am running out of energy for topics related to information retrieval. Hello, hello, search today is not much better than it was five years ago. In fact, when it comes to locating high value information, I think we are now regressing.  I took a moment to read “Welcome to Google Island.” It’s a Condé Nate thing. I am okay with trendy writing, but at age 69 I think a trend is a Silent 700 terminal with a fresh roll of thermal paper. There you go, young folks.  The main point of the write up is that Wired found the Google conference in mid May 2013 sort of disconnected from the mainland. I ignored the utopia stuff and I shudder when me too companies do the innovation thing.

Here’s a passage which I marked with my trust yellow highlighter:

“Governments are too focused on democracy and rule of law. On Google Island, we’ve found those things to be distractions. If democracy worked so well, if a majority public opinion made something right, we would still have Jim Crow laws and Google Reader. We believe we can fix the world’s problems with better math. We can tear down the old and rebuild it with the new. Imagine Minecraft. Now imagine it photorealistic, and now imagine yourself living there, or at least, your Google Being living there. We already have the information. All we need is an invitation. This is the inevitable and logical end point of Google Island: a new Google Earth.”  And I realized I believed him. I believed in him, even. Sure, he’s a weird guy living in his own world. But what vision! And I wanted Google to make my world look like its own. And I wanted to give it all my information, about everything in my life, even my most private shameful thoughts. I put the glasses back on, and took off my pants. We stood, naked, before each other with no secrets, no rules, and no shame. And I knew I never wanted to leave Google Island. Even if I could.

I assume that the write up is Swiftian, but with Condé Nast one never really knows.

Several thoughts:

First, we are returning to the walled garden view of technology. Sure, there’s lots of talk about open, but big companies are gunning for lock in.

Second, when outfits operate with sweeping visions, some of the faithful may not follow along. Even cults experience some attrition.

Third, Google is embroiled in a dispute with England over taxes. The fix may be to set up a summit between England’s prime minister and Google’s chairman.

Net net: Google is not an island. Google may be operating more in the Luxembourg or Monaco mode. The prince, I believe, is a strong advocate of the blue fin tuna. And Luxembourg is really into money.

I am not sure the island metaphor is the right one.

Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2013

Stephen E. Arnold

Connecting the Dots Yields Spotty Results

Posted: 10 May 2013 05:30 AM PDT

In the aftermath of the Boston bombing, many have discussed whether or not the FBI should have had the capabilities to “connect the dots” to identify and prevent the bomber from following through. Boing Boing reiterates the point that Bruce Schneier made in a recent CNN op-ed in their post, “Why ‘Connecting the Dots’ is the Wrong Way to Think about Stopping Terrorism.”

It goes back to the old adage: hindsight is 20/20. It takes a future perspective to look at an event and create a narrative amongst dots of data. The concept of the “narrative fallacy” is what makes a past event seem like a neat story where the dots to be connected should have been obviously illuminated the entire time.

The article tells us:

“Rather than thinking of intelligence as a simple connect-the-dots picture, think of it as a million unnumbered pictures superimposed on top of each other. Or a random-dot stereogram. Is it a sailboat, a puppy, two guys with pressure-cooker bombs or just an unintelligible mess of dots? You try to figure it out. It’s not a matter of not enough data, either. Piling more data onto the mix makes it harder, not easier. The best way to think of it is a needle-in-a-haystack problem; the last thing you want to do is increase the amount of hay you have to search through.”

No one can deny that connecting dots is an important way to increase knowledge. However, as good of a technique — and phrase — that it is, spotty results are invariable.

Megan Feil, May 19, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

Chuck Spinney

“The Moral is to the Material as Three to One” …or as the Taliban said about the US exit strategy, “You may have the clock, but we have the time.”

Drone pilot burnout triggers call for recruiting overhaul

EXTRACT:

The coming swarm
As the Air Force’s drone program grows, so does the importance of pilot selection. What started in 2004 as five drone combat patrols — four aircraft each — will to swell to 65 patrols by 2014. By 2010, Predators had logged more than a million combat hours, more than any other military bird. And today’s population of 1,300 combat drone pilots will be joined by 500 more in the next few years.

And as autonomous systems evolve, the capabilities of unmanned craft will, too. The Air Force will shift to a system with multiple vehicles flown in tandem, answering to a single pilot. These “swarm” handlers will have more complex tasks heaped on them earlier in their career.

“In terms of who we need to have, I think we’re on a learning curve there,” Anthony Tvaryanas, a doctor of aerospace medicine and technical advisor with the 711th Human Systems Integration Directorate at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, told NBC News.

“If [a pilot is] operating a swarm, what are you looking for in that person? I don’t think anyone’s looking into those concepts,” Tvaryanas said.

“As we get from a pilot in an airplane to a pilot outside the airplane to a pilot controlling 100 airplanes, I think we’re approaching the limits of what [prior experience and studies] can inform us. There’s a need to look back at training,” he added.

Read full article.

David Isenberg

What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks?

April 4, 2013

Kenneth Roth

Larry Towell/Magnum Photos

Drone aircraft at a US base, Afghanistan, 2011

As bits and pieces of the Obama administration’s legal justifications for its drone attacks trickle out, what is most striking is their deliberate ambiguity. The recent Justice Department “White Paper,” for example, is meant to give the impression that, at least for US citizen targets, the program has been carefully reviewed by lawyers, but it seems written to maximize the program’s latitude.¹ That is obviously troubling for people who believe that the United States should conduct its counterterrorism operations in accordance with international law. It also sets a worrying precedent as other governments inevitably develop their own drone programs.

Larry Towell/Magnum Photos – Drone aircraft at a US base, Afghanistan, 2011

What does international human rights and humanitarian law require? Not necessarily abolition of the drone program. Yes, there is something disconcerting about drone operators killing their targets from the comfort and safety of their office—making war too easy, as some contend. But discrepancies of power have been inherent in warfare since the advent of the bow and arrow. And from the perspective of avoiding civilian casualties, drones are an advance. Like all weapons, they are only as good as the information available to their operators and their operators’ willingness to abide by legal constraints. But with their pinpoint accuracy and ability to hover for lengthy periods to verify a target and select the most propitious moment for attack, they have the potential to reduce the costs of war to civilians.

However, drones have set off controversy since they do kill civilians and are deployed far from any traditional battlefield where combatants are fighting the United States. Some have suggested they are counterproductive, arousing much resentment in the targeted countries and creating more terrorists than they stop. Killing Taliban and al-Qaeda forces fighting US troops may be a necessary evil in a traditional armed conflict like the one in Afghanistan. But what is the justification in places like Yemen, Somalia, or possibly soon Mali? And where does northwestern Pakistan fit?

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Neal Rauhauser

The Only Red Line That Matters

Conclusion:

Here are what I hope are a fairly complete laundry list of the issues:

• NATO member Greece has collapsed, triggering regional banking meltdown concerns
• Banks of Cyprus collapsed, Russian offshore banking haven taken out by Greek troubles
• Russian ally Assad’s Syria is failing, loss of Tartus would exclude them from the Med
• Assad regime is the only Iran friendly outpost in the area
• Syrian revolt is funded in part by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, other Sunni majority regimes
• KSA & Qatar funds come /w Salafist radicalization built into the deal
• NATO members Greece & Turkey are at odds over Cyprus partition
• Syrian instability is spilling into Iraq, fueling Sunni/Shia violence, some refugees
• Syrian instability is spilling into U.S. ally Jordan, many refugees
• Syrian instability is spilling into NATO member Turkey, many refugees
• Israel is concerned over weapons transport to Hezbollah in Lebanon

Click on Image to Enlarge

The Syrian civil war has been metastasizing into all of its immediate neighbors – Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon have all seen violence precipitated by this festering conflict. Regional powers Iran and Russia have connections to the failing Assad regime and have taken indirect steps to protect the status quo. Regional Salafist funders Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funneling support and pushing ideology on Sunni Syrian rebels. I do not envy Israeli policy makers and the menu of unpleasant options that reality has provided them.

Russia has drawn a red line of their own – no NATO intervention in Syria. They’ve backed it up with a naval presence and the transfer of advance anti-aircraft systems to the Assad regime. The Syrian civil war is a multifaceted, multipolar regional issue and there are no soundbite sized prescriptions that will end it.

Read full post with maps.

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Stephen E. Arnold

Government IT Professionals Not Ready for Big Data

Posted: 10 May 2013 05:29 AM PDT

It is not a surprise that 97 percent of state and local IT professional expect their data to grow by more than 50 percent over the next two years. However, more than 75 percent of them are only somewhat or not very familiar with the term big data. These findings are found in a recent report by MeriTalk and GCN did a nice write up on the implications of the study in, “Is Big Data Big Trouble for State, Local Governments?”

A survey of 150 state and local government CIOs and IT managers taken in November and December 2012 comprise the respondents in “The State and Local Big Data Gap.”

The article lists more of the statistics gleaned from the study:

“Seventy-nine percent of responding agencies said it will be at least three years before they are able to take full advantage of big data, even though they see it improving overall efficiency (57 percent); increasing the speed and accuracy of the decision-making process (54 percent); and providing a greater understanding of citizens’ needs (37 percent). And although 79 percent said they were just somewhat or not very familiar with the term, they do report having the kind of problems that big data techniques are intended to solve.”

Are state and local governments able to tap the alleged power of big data? Maybe not yet? That is certainly the conclusions that the numbers speak to.

Megan Feil, May 18, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search

See Also:

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Click on Image to Enlarge

Syria-Russia: Update. This week, the New York Times reported that Russia is delivering not only the S-300 advanced air defense missile systems to Syria, but also Yakhont “ship killer” missiles, which would make it a lot more painful for any foreign navies trying to intervene in Syria or provide supplies to the rebels by sea

In 2007, the two countries signed a contract for 72 Yakhont missiles which are supersonic and have a range of about 200 miles. Some missiles were delivered in 2011 but the Russians have not said how many remain to be provided. They are among the most deadly anti-ship missiles in the world.

Comment: Details about the S-300 system delivery remain undisclosed, including whether Russians will install and operate it. A member of the Russian parliament confirmed the Russians consider the Yakhont delivery a part of a longstanding weapons contract. The effect of these deliveries is to deter a UN resolution approving creation of a no-fly zone in Syria, as occurred in Libya which evolved into a NATO air combat campaign with limited ground intervention.

Russia: Russian navy ships from the Pacific Fleet entered the Mediterranean Sea for the first time in decades this week. The task group includes the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, two amphibious warfare ships Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, as well as a tanker and a tugboat.

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YARC YARC

‘Six Americans’ killed in suicide bomb in Afghanistan as Taliban target NATO workers

Muslim militant group, Hizb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for attack
U.S. Defense Secretary confirmed two of the dead are US soldiers
Nationality of four civilian contractors not yet officially announced
Powerful explosion rattled buildings on the other side of Kabul
Identity of dead Americans has not yet been released

By Anna Edwards

MailOnline, : 01:40 EST, 16 May 2013

Click on Image to Enlarge

Read full article with video and more photographs.

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DefDog

Ho ho ho….

Russian Pacific Fleet Warships Enter Mediterranean For First Time In Decades, To Park In Cyprus

Zero Hedge, 16 May 2013

Earlier we reported that the US has now officially landed a Marine force in Israel as well as an assault ship, in a visit that the US Navy promptly assured “is not associated with, nor a reaction to, any world events.” It seems we were not the only ones who read this justification somewhat skeptically: so did Russia.

And in a historic event, the Russian Pacific fleet, for the first time in decades, crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean, direction Cyprus’ port of Limasol (hi Cyprus – Russia will be arriving shortly) in what is now the loudest implied warning to the US and Israel amassing military units across Syria’s border that Russia will not stand idly by as Syria is used by the Israeli “Defense” Forces for target practice.

Russian Amphibious Ship Admiral Nevelskoi – Click on Image to Enlarge

“The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region,” Capt. First Rank Roman Martov said. This is what is also known as dropping hints, loud and clear.

Admiral Panteleyev destroyer – Click on Image to Enlarge

The group, including the destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the amphibious warfare ships Peresvet and Admiral Nevelskoi, the tanker Pechenga and the salvage/rescue tug Fotiy Krylov left the port of Vladivostok on March 19 to join Russia’s Mediterranean task force.

The task force currently includes the large anti-submarine ship Severomorsk, the frigate Yaroslav Mudry, the salvage/rescue tugs Altai and SB-921 and the tanker Lena from the Northern and Baltic Fleets, as well as the Ropucha-II Class landing ship Azov from the Black Sea Fleet. The task force may be enlarged to include nuclear submarines, Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said last Sunday.

Click on Image to Enlarge

Shore leave for a whole lot of submarines just a few hundred kilometers from Syria? Surely. From Rian.

The Defense Ministry said in April Russia has begun setting up a naval task force in the Mediterranean, sending several warships from the Pacific Fleet to the region. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in March a permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean was needed to defend Russia’s interests in the region.

A senior Defense Ministry official said the Mediterranean task force’s command and control agencies will be based either in Novorossiysk, Russia, or in Sevastopol, Ukraine.

Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, head of the parliamentary defense committee, previously told RIA Novosti that the Mediterranean task force should be comprised of 10 warships and support vessels as part of several tactical groups tasked with attack, antisubmarine warfare and minesweeping.

The Soviet Union maintained its 5th Mediterranean Squadron from 1967 until 1992. It was formed to counter the US Navy’s 6th Fleet during the Cold War, and consisted of 30-50 warships and auxiliary vessels

It appears that the squadron is being reincarnated and quite rapidly at that.

It also appears that the two key naval forces in the Mediterranean are finally starting to position themselves for what may soon be a face off.

Hopefully Europe’s “anti-manipulation” task force can spook enough majors to push the price of Brent much lower before the moment such an escalation becomes reality.