UKISIS

Ever the speartip. Brittain, please report to the stage. You must devolve power to local governments, stem the exodus of corporates and financial services, close structural deficits, achieve a cheaper nimbler military, avoid prickles with neighbors, and beat ISIS on home soil. All others, remain in the green room until the UK has written your script. That's global relevance.

Nik's Laws: Don't Spit in Eyes

Hey, Bibi.

Nik's Laws: Don't Arm your Future Enemy

Hey world (and Barack and the useless heap of Congress) are you listening?

That moment when terrorism becomes guerrilla warfare

Are we all clear on what's happening here?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/us-northkorea-cyberattack-idUSKBN0K107920141223

http://theweek.com/article/index/274145/why-america-would-be-foolish-to-wage-a-cyber-war-against-north-korea

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30587837

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/23/china-likely-irked-by-north-koreas-sony-hack

Breaking News: Market Share Stolen by Hackers!

A Wall Street Journal article today carries the following quote:

Chinese state television has broadcast footage of what two experts on the Chinese military say appears to be a military institute demonstrating software designed to attack websites in the U.S.

DailyTech blog captured screenshots including the image below.

This further supports my prediction in a January 2010 blog post What Will Tomorrow (Today?) Bring: Virtual War.

"Make no mistake, this is
Cyber Warfare."

It is now undeniable: we are engaged in a new Cyber Cold War which represents the most unconventional and asymmetric war the world has ever seen. Control is extremely decentralized. Weapons are easily acquired. The risk of retaliation is low. Battles are waged remotely. The prosecutors and victims of the war can be anyone or any group of people. Governments, individuals, and businesses are all players, like it or not.

The WSJ article shows, however, that more conventional power structures are now on the battlefield. Many in the LulzSec group may have simply been bored, over-caffeinated students who wanted some celebrity. However, security insiders increasingly see hard evidence to support the WSJ's case: governments, particularly those of Russia, China, and the US are quietly backing attacks.

Many people would laugh at the notion that a foreign military might wage an online attack on a US financial institution. Consider, however, two factors which might give them motivation:

1. Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) increasingly own debt and equity of governments AND businesses. This gives them a financial interest in the success (or failure) of certain companies as well as economies. Hack a bank, leak a headline, and watch the share price drop until a buying opportunity has emerged.
2. Many emerging market countries have discovered that they don't have to create an economy as big as the US in order to have companies which compete on a global scale. These companies can be jump-started with some quiet government support. As a result, it has become common policy to support "national champions" which successfully compete against the largest and most mature global (though still mostly US-based) companies. Government-sponsored hackers might help these champions by hacking the competition and stealing trade information or by creating bad headlines.
   

Like it or not, we have to acknowledge that certain governments have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit cyber attacks against financial institutions. In all likelihood, this has been going on for at least several years. Consider a March 2009 Telegraph.co.uk article:

"A vast Chinese cyber-espionage network, codenamed GhostNet, has penetrated 103 countries and infects at least a dozen new computers every week, according to researchers ... [GhostNet] is the latest sign of China's determination to win a future 'information war'... In 2003, the Chinese army announced the creation of 'information warfare units'."

Fox News added to the story:

"The Chinese government on Monday denied it was behind GhostNet"

Banking has the notion of security at its core. Think of a bank branch and you'll instantly visualize vaults, armed guards and video surveillance. Behind the scenes, banks all have hardened ATMs, teller stick-up procedures, passwords and permissions. In other words, security is tightly integrated with their physical channels.

It is also tightly integrated into their physical products through watermarks, microdot printing on checks, serial numbers on other financial instruments, signature specimens, etc.

Ironically, banks have been dangerously slow to understand how this relates to the online world. Today's banks are dot-coms. Online banking is now a core product. Moreover, it is the "face of the bank" for many customers. It is the gateway or channel through which all other products and services are offered.

Dot-com execs have an advantage in the realm of security and fraud inasmuch as their core product is a piece of technology which intrinsically has a set of permissions and security controls built in. The tools their engineers use also have permissions and security controls at their core. Bank execs need to think like dot-commers. Online security and fraud prevention are just as intrinsic to their core products as signature cards, credit scores, personal relationships, and armed guards once were.

The logical conclusion is that banks need to be organized, staffed, and run more like dot-com businesses to survive in the current Cyber Cold War. Security must be "baked in" to everything they do, just as credit scores and ratings have been baked into lending and trading decisions for decades. Executives should make no mistake: on the current battlefield, market share is not stolen by a bank down the street who might lure customers away with better rates and free toasters. Market share is "stolen" by hackers who ruin the bank's reputation or steals clients' identities and thus causes customers to flee.

It is no longer a sci-fi fantasy that these hackers may be shadow agents of a competitor or even a government intent on manipulating markets, economies, or even specific businesses.

Yeah, What HE Said: The Blasphemy of Expressing Opinions

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot, but when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

ALARM! ALARM! BIGOT ALERT! PSYCHO ALERT! INSANE RADICAL CONSERVATIVE RIGHT-WINGER ALERT! CRUCIFY WHOEVER SAID THIS! SEVER ALL TIES TO AVOID GUILT BY ASSOCIATION! ABANDON SHIIIIIIP!

OK, OK, probably ... maybe ... peut-être I'm over-reacting a bit. I mean, it WAS an opinion show, so ... maybe ... but eek - what will people think? That's it. Out he goes!

Apparently that's NPR's idea of a defensible argument for firing one of their most renowned, long-standing employees. That's exactly what they did to Juan Williams for his O'Reilly Factor quote ... or for something ambiguously "larger" as several have suggested.

And therein lies the rub. Juan Williams has long been a bridge across many political worlds. He worked for NPR (for many years) but was happy to participate in political discussions live, in print, on air, and on TV with just about anyone, on just about anything. He has always been willing to try and expand mutual understanding. Problem: Conservative nuts don't understand the real world? Juan's Solution: Go on Conservative shows and explain the opposing viewpoint in refreshingly clear, even-keeled, non-inflammatory terms.

Was his line culturally-insensitive? Yes. Did it reflect a true bias that he ... and many others have? Yes. Did he specifically preface it with the caveat that he's not bigoted? Yes. Did he mis-represent opinion as fact? No. He clearly stated a fact: he gets nervous. In doing so, did he betray his insensitive opinion? Yes.

Even journalists are allowed to have opinions ... even insensitive ones.

In his own words (on Good Morning America this week)

"This is one of the things in my life that's shocking. I grew up on the left. I grew up here in New York City and I've always thought the right wing was the ones who were inflexible and intolerant. Now, I'm coming to realize that the orthodoxy at NPR, as it's representing the left, is just unbelievable," he said. "And especially for me as a black man, to somehow, you know, say something that's out of the box. They find it very difficult... I think they were looking for a reason to get rid of me. They were uncomfortable with the idea that I was talking to the likes of Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity."

NPR's differentiating advantage is that they're like Juan: Clear, non-inflammatory, diverse, and comprehensive, if a bit left-leaning, in their reporting. When I want to get a (much) deeper understanding of an issue than I can get from the talking heads on TV ... and a (much) clearer understanding than I can get from the cacophony of the internet ... I turn to NPR.

And I want to hear Juan.

Talking People to Death

From this week's NY Times:

"[Netanyahu's offer to freeze colonization of contested Palestinian territories] was aimed either at keeping talks with the Palestinians alive and his right-wing coalition partners in check, or at seeking to shift the burden of failure to the Palestinians and escape blame should the talks wither and die. - NY Times 10/12/10

They said "should" but clearly they meant "when." Why the hell did they re-start colonization anyway?? Oh, yeah, so they could offer to stop ... again.

This, to me, summarizes the whole problem. The involved parties, including the Israeli, Palestinian, and US governments as well as the Jewish diaspora, the militant mullahs, the Syrian and Iranian militaries, the arab-royals, the money-siphoning nonprofit organizations, and all the other agents provocateurs have no intention of saving the patient. They just want to make sure they're not blamed for it's death.

Lest they forget among all their strategic positioning (in soft chairs at fancy resort hotels), ego-stroking (whilst sipping tea on private jet they didn't pay for), and diplomatically chortling (while enjoying 5-star cuisine on finer china), there are people dying because of their delays. Some of those people are starving in camps. Others are getting blown to bits during their daily commute. Others are so hopeless and angry about their future that they're letting Bin Laden's clowns whip them into homicidal/suicidal furies. Others still are dying atop Humvees.

Yet everyone just continues talking. One step left, then one step right. Never moving forward lest they accidentally resolve the issue and lose their relevance. If that happened, who would pay for their fancy limos and massive security detail? Who would fund their next European vacation?

Hey Bibi, Hill, Abu! Hey nationalists! Hey settlers! Hey martyrs! Hey donors-to-the-cause! Hey talking heads! You're all wrong. You're all culpable. You're all criminally negligent. Let history reflect that as your true legacy.

Talk Amongst Yourselves ... Liberty ... Build it and they will come

Take THAT Paranoid Saudi/UAE/India

(ad placed by the government of Bahrain in the August 19th Economist)

What Will Tomorrow (Today?) Bring: Virtual War

Given China's love for child labor, these guys may be teens, but it's not idle curiosity that is motivating them. Nor individual malice. Make no mistake, this is Cyber Warfare.

Researchers identify command servers behind Google attack

The cyber-assault came to light on Tuesday when Google disclosed to the public that the Gmail Web service was targeted in a highly-organized attack in late December. Google said that the intrusion attempt originated from China and was executed with the goal of obtaining information about political dissidents ...

"The source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof," the report says ...

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/01/researchers-identify-command-servers-behind-google-attack.ars

This Isn't A Child's Game, Folks, but it Ain't Rocket Science

Surprise surprise a bloated, non-functioning, politically-motivated organization run by a revolving-door president is ineffective.

And I'm talking about the White House.

"The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack, but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots,"
Barack Obama criticises CIA failures over Detroit bomb plot

Obama's own report, as paraphrased by Guardian.co.uk, said:

They said that the biggest US crisis in intelligence-gathering since 9/11 had
been brought about mainly because no single agency is in charge, with a dozen agencies fighting for their own turf.

Gee, last time we blew the dots game, I was just sure Washington would fix it:

A key congressional committee opened its investigation Thursday into the November 5 Fort Hood shootings with a pledge to find out if authorities failed to "connect the dots" and could have prevented the attack.
Senate panel seeks to 'connect the dots'

Must have gotten lost somewhere in the bureaucrazy. But that's OK, because the problem should have already been fixed. We realized we sucked at dot connection years ago and did something about it:

It is said that prior to the attacks of September 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy ... So to prevent another attack – based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute – I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program.
George Bush, 2006 State of the Union address

Maybe that, too, got drowned in bureaucrazy. Kinda like THIS one way back in 2002:

The Department of Homeland Security consolidates 22 agencies and 180,000
employees, unifying once-fragmented Federal functions in a single agency
dedicated to protecting America from terrorism

But back to the dot-connection game currently at hand. Last I checked, you had to have a visa to get on a plane to the US. Funny, I thought the State Department issued Visas into the US. I agree with Hill on this one:

We are, in the State Department, fully committed to accepting our responsibility for the mistakes that were made
Secretary of State Clinton on plane bomb blame

But, wait, we fixed visa procedures with THIS back in 2008:

The Visa Security Program was established in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to increase the security of the visa process at U.S. embassies and consulates. The program enhances national security by preventing terrorists, criminals, and other ineligible applicants from receiving visas ... The program assigns experienced special agents to Visa Security Units overseas to review visa applications, initiate investigations, and provide advice and training to consular officers. Agents bring valuable resources to posts and add a layer of security to the visa process

No, wait, that one got lost in bureaucrazy too.

When the cause of failure is bureaucrazy, how can we keep expecting that bureaucrazy to fix it? Maybe more childish games should be part of the Civil Service Exam. Or maybe we'd be better at a different game. Tic-tac-toe, anyone?

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."-Albert Einstein

Follow Up: I Keep Waiting for Somone to Say "Joke"

Stuff ain't cool unless it's secretive. See how it worked for Nixon? He was about as un-cool as they come until ... well, you know.

In that vein, the Nobel Peace Price nominees are kept secret for 50 years in order to avoid offending anyone ... and to respect Alfred's will, in which he ordered that the Peace Prize be the "coolest" of all prizes offered.

So we'll never know which deserving candidates really got snookered in this year's run-off for said prize. In lieu, more than one reader/friend (you know who you are) has suggested I come up with my own list. I'd never be so presumptuous as to assume I knew better ;-) but here are just a few names I might have offered if asked:

The US Military - How many lives HAS the US Military saved? Seriously, folks, is there any other entity on the planet who has actually DONE more to quell conflict? Every life is valuable - everyone is someone's son or mom. These guys are the only group on the planet willing to make the REALLY tough decisions about life - their own and those of others. If this is too big a group for ya, pick the current leaders - Gates, McChrystal, Mullen.

Ronald Reagan - Jeez, where to begin. Not only did he take the first steps to de-escalate the Cold War, he finished the job he started. He understood this had to be done from a position of power. Along the way, he left us with guiding principles that serve us well even today. "Trust but verify" would get us a lot further along with the Evil Leaders League than sending the Clinton twins for photo-ops.

The faceless, nameless, and thankless who dedicate their lives selflessly to promote peace one person at a time - Each of us knows one, but no one can see them all.

SOS Children’s Villages - In their own words, the "world's largest charity dedicated to orphaned and abandoned children"

Morgan Tsvangirai - Pick your metaphor. He put his life on the line. He went all-in. He took a leap of faith. He spoke truth to hideous power. He stood toe to toe ... and continues to do so in the most peaceful, calm manner possible.

Mordechai Vanunu - On a one-man lifelong crusade against military escalation.

Japan - For quietly fostering over 50 years of peace in Asia

Romeo Dallaire - Betcha don't know this one. Look 'em up.

Bono - If you don't know this one, your name must be Osama.

Wei Jingsheng - Oft mentioned as a candidate, and for good reason. Standing up to the People is beyond ballzy.

Helmut Kohl - Yeah, really. How quickly we forget. He accumulated and then spent incredible political capital to see through the peaceful reunification of a nation. Who'd have thought a commie police state could be turned into a beacon of democracy and capitalism in a mere decade? Who'd have thought West Germans could be convinced to effectively donate a quarter of their income for a decade or more to fund the reconstruction of the rusty East

Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Ian Paisley, Hugh Smyth, Tony Blair, and Bertie Ahern - One of the world's best examples of conflict resolution, de-escalation, de-militarization, empowerment, and legitimization. They dealt with an incredibly sticky wicket with patience and trust from the grassroots up. In a scary world, they proved that, at least in some cases, there IS a way out of terrorism ... err ... I mean 'troubles.'

Gates Foundation - I'll never understand why anyone considers it novel or controversial that development creates stability creates wealth creates peace. There are too many examples to list, yet the Gates foundations is one of the few major benefactors attempting to take whole economies from zero to a stable platform for development in order to facilitate true wealth (and thus peace) creation.

Safaricom, the M-PESA, and the Safaricom Foundation - Along the lines of the above, these guys are establishing the factors of development in order to let poverty-stricken people bootstrap themselves.

The 150 (and counting) Russian Journalists murdered for speaking truth to power

OFAC - Struggling, albeit bureaucratically, but fairly successfully to cut off the lifeblood of conflict.

Rodrigo Lara Bonilla - Colombian Minister of Justice who sacrificed his life in the fight against the collapse of his country into a cartel-owned narco-state.

Virgilio Barco Vargas, César Gaviria - Colombian politicians at a time when that was a decidedly ill-advised career choice.

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish, Janet

Thanks Big J, I feel better already:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word “terrorism.” Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word “terrorism,” I referred to “man-caused” disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

Okay, if combating terrorism isn't sexy enough for her undivided attention, well then she better get busy on all those trendy new topics she's just bitten off. Here's Time Mag's latest (2007) Top-10 list of those man-caused disasters she'll be busy saving us from:

#1. Global Warming
#2. Brazil Plane Crash
#3. Southern California Forest Fires
#4. Yangtze River Dolphin Extinction
#5. Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
#6. Utah Mine Collapse
#7. North Korea Oil Pipe Explosion
#8. Siberia Mine Explosion
#9. Mozambique Munitions Explosion (huh?)
#10. Congo Train Derailment

I can see it now ... as a trendy ... um I mean goodwill ... gesture, we can send a US Coast Guard flotilla to babysit all those "functionally extinct" River Dolphins. As she'd know if she were properly versed in her Douglas Adams lit, the dolphins are gonna be fine. Humans are the ones in need of saving.

Then again, if people in general were properly versed in Douglas Adams lit, they'd better understand lot of things.



But I digress. Call me old-fashioned but I woulda thought these at least deserved a mention in Time's list:

-Zimbabwe ("The collapse of Zimbabwe’s health system in 2008 is unprecedented in scale and scope ... as of December 2008, there were no functioning critical care beds in the public sector in Zimbabwe." )

-Terrorism (Over 2500 dead in 2007 attacks alone)

- Assassination (for example, Rafik Hariri in 2005, Benazir Bhutto in 2007, João Bernardo Vieira in 2009)

- Collapse of Pakistan (no, this didn't start in 2009, or in 2007)

- Deforestation and Biodiversity Collapse (Governments across South America and Africa turn a blind eye to the rape o the Amazon and Congo river basins. On the bright side it seems to be slowing there. The same cannot be said for Chinese and Southeast Asian decimation)

(chart source: mongabay.com)

- Genocide and war in lawless Sudan and Somalia

- Nuclear proliferation (particularly thanks to this "winner" who recently walked free)

- Oh yeah ... let's not forget the Evil Leaders League and their disregard of human rights and consequent deepening of poverty and hopelessness across nearly half the world's population and two-thirds of the alphabet ... from Afghanistan's Taliban to Congo's ... everybody ... to Iran's Ah-(throat-clearing noise)-madi-nejad to Russia's leader-whose-name-be-not-spoken-lest-I-end-up-in-a-gulag to the al-Saud plunderers of Arabia to Zimbabwe's Moogie. If properly provoked, I might even add the UN to the list, guilty of sitting idly by while this all continues year after year.

Talk Amongst Yourselves ...

The cure for terrorism? A middle class. Jobs. Affluence. Hope. A shift from the current sense of entitlement from the nanny-government to a sense of opportunity, responsibility, and ambition.

Reagan said "The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts."