I'm pretty open (within legal bounds) about my time in the operational and technical intelligence world, to the consternation of others in the field, and would say that this article is dead on with it's analysis.
One thing that I try to get across to people is that, Intelligence as a discipline is fundamentally about servicing the Instrument of National Power [1] of "Information."
In that context, the manner in which information is tasked, collected, processed, analyzed and used to make decisions on is a forever moving target, which the Intelligence Community is very well aware of.
The really interesting question here is, what happens when commercial and consumer information systems (eg Google, Facebook, Huawei, Tencent) are able to deploy collection sensors and do information processing at a much larger scale than any individual nation state? The balance of Information power starts to shift away from nations and toward Multinational corporations who control those sensor networks.
For example the USG used to run every imagery satellite in existence, now there are a half dozen commercial imagery satellites and growing.
Corporations capable of operating according to their own rules. At least within their sphere of expertise.
If they have the resources to operate beyond the reach of the law, they transcend the law to make their own new rules. They do whatever they want, scoped according to their capabiities, and they cover up anything that isn't on the level. They use what they have to their own advantage, as a natural perk of having he means to do so.
The VOC and EIC were always run by civilians who were primarily after profit and obeyed the laws of the Dutch and English state. They were no more operating beyond the reach of law than ExxonMobil is. Just as the US does not respect the sovereignty of other, less powerful countries now the Netherlands and England did not respect weaker countries’ sovereignty then.
The companies are a distraction, the relative power differentials between countries aren’t.
No, it was only after the VOC was dissolved that governors where to be appointed by the Crown. To a certain extend, they where the law. Remnants of that past are still to be found in the UN treaty on the high seas as it grants captains of (trade) ships rights and privileges associated with the state, not with civilian commercial enterprises.
Your stories are not mutually exclusive, i'm afraid you both are right.
But the VOC was always a corporation chartered under Dutch law which was run by Dutch civilians. It had its own navy and army but at the top it was never sovereign and never aspired to be. It acted as a sovereign but never in or indeed near the Netherlands.
Isn't any big enough state or corporation with too little transparency a threat to individual freedom? Is China combing opaque big tech with repressive state? Is that scary? Is Amazon changing people's lives? etc
> The really interesting question here is, what happens when commercial and consumer information systems (eg Google, Facebook, Huawei, Tencent) are able to deploy collection sensors and do information processing at a much larger scale than any individual nation state?
Thanks for the link I'll have to get my hands on a copy.
Edit: I read the preface and I had no idea about the disgusting behaviour exhibited towards the Tibetan protesters in Canberra as the Beijing torch passed through[1].
I'm on my way to work and it is actually making me feel ill.
Not entirely. China isn't imperialistic in the same fashion as Russia. That said there are parallels in terms of power dynamics within ASEAN certainly when compared with the Caucasus.
Scud the Disposable Intelligence Officer would make for a legit revival of the Scud comic franchise.
The 2010 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai by Mossad was a shocker to the general public when the kill team and support personnel were plastered on TV by UAE law enforcement immediately following via dozens of stitched together CCTV feeds.
That op burned a few dozen people from most future external operations.
All I know is that there will be thousands of former intelligence officers and shooters sweating biometric datamining for future overseas holiday travel on their own passports in allied countries, forget about semi/non-permissive country personnel travel.
This is what happens when you indict foreign intelligence officers. You expose your own to criminal charges and Interpol Red Notices. It's just a question of time before US soldiers and sailors are included in the loop.
That's why I reckon suppliers of biometric hardware and software are likely to be some of the most valuable intelligence targets in the world. Every time I see another country with a 3M scanner etc I wonder...
"As the cost of conducting espionage operations—in money, time, and effort—has shrunk, spying has become less esoteric. These days it is an integral part of business, finance, sports, and family litigation over divorce and child custody. Indeed, modern life encourages people and institutions of all kinds to adopt the thinking and practices of the spy world."
My joke, for some years now, has been that the average teenager has better surveillance capabilities than the CIA did in the 1960's. It might be better than what they had in the 70's or 80's by now. It seems likely to me that Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon, have better data than intelligence agencies of the 90's could've ever hoped for.
> Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon, have better data than intelligence agencies of the 90's could've ever hoped for.
Putin was being made fun of back in 2012 or 2013 when he was saying that the Internet is actually a tool for the US Intelligence Community. Shortly after that some of Putin's cronies took direct control of VKontakte. As it so happens, Facebook was advised by a boutique investment bank called Allen & Co when it acquired Whatsapp for what was considered to be a huge sum ($19 billion) [1]. One of the managing directors of Allen & Co back then was none other than George Tenet, former Director of the CIA. [2]
I also believe that Skype's acquisition by MS (for what was also considered as a huge sum back then, $8 billion) was in part a covert operation to help the US Intelligence Community. Shortly after the acquisition MS got rid of Skype's p2p architecture and reverted to using one big centralized communications system, which by all intents and purposes made it easier for anyone so interested to control and check what was being discussed on Skype.
it is well known that skype's crypto has always been an obfuscated black box (this may have been primarily to prevent reverse engineered clients using the protocol but it makes backdoors much less detectable), and transitioning from p2p to centralized architecture (which iirc was done after the ebay acquisition) where one party holds the keys obviously makes snooping easier
Initially Skype was an Estonian company, with founders from Denmark and Sweden. A reporter asked the CEO whether they would modify it to allow compliance with a U.S telecom law mandating provision for wiretapping of voice services, and the CEO said "We're not American. Why would we?"
> Investigators can also combine these two tactics with a third: financial information. What is the student’s credit rating? What plastic cards does she carry? Does her purchasing history and behavior match her cover story? Every one of these questions is revealing if answered and devastating if not. There are, after all, very few people who travel abroad without a bank account or credit rating, with no social media history, and a prepaid burner phone—and those who do tend to have something to hide.
Heh, is it something that rare. I personally knew people never ever had even a landline in Russia, and I can't say about that being rare.
On other hand, Russian own spies are said to be intentionally recruited from small towns in Russian Far East
a spy may not know who they are really working for or where the information is going whether thats a operative or informant. the word spy can cover a wide range i mean even journalists act very much like a spy network.
I do not think that we should operate our world as if it were a James Bond movie.
It shows a fundamental moral deficiency that effectively makes civilization into a myth. And regardless of morals, it's an inherently insecure paradigm.
Was there ever a time when this was not the case? What realities were different during that time? Could we change towards those realities today? Should we?
> And regardless of morals, it's an inherently insecure paradigm.
As well as this I think it slows communication of important issues and undermines trust. We need to be better at these things globally so that we can tackle the important global problems we are facing with climate breakdown etc.
One thing that I try to get across to people is that, Intelligence as a discipline is fundamentally about servicing the Instrument of National Power [1] of "Information."
In that context, the manner in which information is tasked, collected, processed, analyzed and used to make decisions on is a forever moving target, which the Intelligence Community is very well aware of.
The really interesting question here is, what happens when commercial and consumer information systems (eg Google, Facebook, Huawei, Tencent) are able to deploy collection sensors and do information processing at a much larger scale than any individual nation state? The balance of Information power starts to shift away from nations and toward Multinational corporations who control those sensor networks.
For example the USG used to run every imagery satellite in existence, now there are a half dozen commercial imagery satellites and growing.
[1]https://www.thelightningpress.com/the-instruments-of-nationa...