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.
When Tom Cruise had to break into police headquarters in Minority Report, the futuristic crime thriller, he got past the iris scanners with ease: He just swapped out his eyeballs.
CIA agents may find that just a little beyond the call of duty. But meanwhile, they’ve got to come up with something else: The increasing deployment of iris scanners and biometric passports at worldwide airports, hotels and business headquarters, designed to catch terrorists and criminals, are playing havoc with operations that require CIA spies to travel under false identities.
Creativity is a fascinating topic and one that I love to discuss. It is a personal thing and a universal ideal at the same time. My creativity isn’t your creativity but in some ways our brains function in a similar manner.
What is the flow? The ultimate goal of the creative spirits. When your creativity flows and you lose track of time — ideas and images flow feverishly from your brain to your fingers. The term emulates water flowing as your ideas are born. “In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand.”
Maya Angelou said “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” And thankfully this is true. But can you do things to increase and nurture your creativity? Absolutely! Here are some innovative ways to get your creative juices flowing.
You are not paranoid – they really are watching you. Criminals, web companies and governments all have reason to spy on your online life, and the methods they use are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
This article is about what kind of information you share and who can find out what about you, and how to stop them. What you do with this information is, of course up to you. Whether you are concerned about the scale of information gathered by web companies or you are hiding from a corrupt government, read on to learn how to keep your data yours.
More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.
Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”
Thanks for visiting! This is my newest WordPress site and first true blog. It’s a special place for me to post about topics I’m interested in. Some posts will be authored by me, while others will be reprinted with links to original articles.
Please comment on anything you would like to discuss.
Thanks, Ray.