The federal government has launched a cyber security "Manhattan Project," U.S. homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday, because online attacks can be a form of "devastating warfare", and equivalent in damage to "physical destruction of the worst kind."

US Has Launched a Cyber Security 'Manhattan Project'

Fifty years ago, the CIA embarked on a project to intercept Soviet and East German messages transmitted via underground cable. Intelligence was collected to determine the best place to hit the target, and then concrete planning for a new collection site was begun.

Engineering the Berlin Tunnel

It's all about the incentives.

It is important that one critical point, explained in the middle of this document, be highlighted upfront: The focal point of the current breakdown of the HTS program is a conflict of interests created by program management’s competing incentive structures–they cannot fulfill their oversight responsibilities over BAE’s numerous failures to fulfill their contractual responsibilities without arming critics seeking the cancellation of the entire program.

Human Terrain Systems

Following a fascinating debate that ranged from bullet-proof hosting to onion-routing, the conclusion had to be that the cyber security threat was evolving rapidly and was touching all aspects of society. Its political importance is also increasing and in a cyber society that “has no rules or borders, according to Estonia’s Minister of Defence Jaak Aaviksoo, there is a need for improved coordination at the highest level.

Assessing the Cyber Security Threat

GAO found numerous defense-related items for sale to the highest bidder on eBay and Craigslist. A review of policies and procedures for these Web sites determined that there are few safeguards to prevent the sale of sensitive and stolen defense-related items using the sites. During the period of investigation, GAO undercover investigators purchased a dozen sensitive items on eBay and Craigslist to demonstrate how easy it was to obtain them. Many of these items were stolen from the U.S. military. According to the Department of Defense (DOD), it considers the sensitive items GAO purchased to be on the U.S. Munitions List, meaning that there are restrictions on their overseas sales. However, if investigators had been members of the general public, there is a risk that they could have illegally resold these items to an international broker or transferred them overseas.

Undercover Purchases on eBay and Craigslist Reveal a Market for Sensitive and Stolen U.S. Military Items

one thing that I found particularly interesting is that in this discussion of transformation and training revision NO ONE mentioned FM 3-24; indeed, while the captains we spoke to later in the afternoon knew about it, none we spoke to had read it.

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Patterson Trips II

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is announcing the first-ever strategy to improve the ability of intelligence professionals to share information, ultimately strengthening national security.

The document, titled the U.S. Intelligence Community Information Sharing Strategy, complements a related national strategy that President Bush released last year. The document responds to needs identified in the 9/11 and WMD Commission reports, as well as mandates in executive orders and the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.

The intelligence community’s strategy calls for the removal of institutional and technical barriers to information sharing in order to give the federal government an advantage in making critical decisions to help keep the nation safe.

Intelligence Community Information Sharing Strategy

The United States depends on space assets to support national security activities as well as civil and commercial activities. The Department of Defense (DOD) depends on space assets to support a wide range of military missions to include intelligence collection; battlefield surveillance and management; global command, control, and communications; and navigation assistance. This operational dependence on space has placed new and increasing demands on current space systems and organizations to meet Joint Force Commanders’ needs. Moreover, concerns have increased regarding emerging threats that could affect the United States’ and other countries’ access to the free use of space.

National Security Space Strategy Needed to Guide Future DOD Space Efforts

This paper explores the potential value of blogs to military information strategy. It examines whether blogs are influential, whether the information environment adequately supports blogging for an information cam- paign, and whether blogs offer a significant, reliable source of intelligence for information operations. While we can make reasonably certain statements about blogging in general that can be applied universally, the actual employment of tactics and techniques comes down to cases. The successful employment of blog operations depends on a number of variables that must be determined during intelligence preparation of the environment.

Blogs and Military Information Strategy

Shown here for the first time, these sixty patches reveal a secret world of military imagery and jargon, where classified projects are known by peculiar names (“Goat Suckers,” “None of Your Fucking Business,” “Tastes Like Chicken”) and illustrated with occult symbols and ridiculous cartoons. Although the actual projects represented here (such as the notorious Area 51) are classified, these patches—which are worn by military units working on classified missions—are precisely photographed, strangely hinting at a world about which little is known.

By submitting hundreds of Freedom of Information requests, the author has also assembled an extensive and readable guide to the patches included here, making this volume one of the best available surveys of the military’s black world—a $27 billion industry that has quietly grown by almost 50 percent since 9/11.

I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World