Over the weekend rumors began to swirl that Facebook was looking at spending about $100 million to buy Israeli startup Face.com, to access its clever face recognition technology. Now it’s suggested via GigaOm that the momentum for the deal is actually in Russia’s search engine leader Yandex, which invested in Face in 2010, may be looking to sell its large stake in the company for a combination of cash and Facebook stock. Continue reading →
The message came from the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the order seems to have come from echelons above him: Ranger School will admit women within a few months. And the women will pass, whatever it takes.
The Ranger Training Brigade has been told to roll the welcome mat and the first class could be March 2013 but will definitely be May 2013 at the latest. Each class will receive five to eight women, and the treatment, mentoring, nurturing and ultimate success of those female candidates will be intensively managed by the Chief of Staff and the Sergeant Major of the Army, not to mention civilian appointees.
While Department of Defense and military department policies still restrict women from serving in combat units, the soldiers selected from this group will serve alongside the Army’s most elite units on the battlefield. Continue reading →
Rule one when you attend CIA case officer training, always protect the source – they teach it, and as field operatives (case officers) we live it.
As a graduate of “the Farm” and having spent the better part of my 30-year career in the intelligence community conducting and directing agent operations, I am appalled at the White House failures to protect a critical source of Pakistani Dr. Shakil Afridi – the man, who as a clandestine operative of the United States, was able to provide the key information to verify the location of Usama bin Laden.
The FBI has recently formed a secretive surveillance unit with an ambitious goal: to invent technology that will let police more readily eavesdrop on Internet and wireless communications.
The establishment of the Quantico, Va.-based unit, which is also staffed by agents from the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Agency, is a response to technological developments that FBI officials believe outpace law enforcement’s ability to listen in on private communications.