WASHINGTON: In a speech that demonstrated just how important SIGINT really is, President Obama issued a new policy directive today that essentially says, we’ll be more careful in the future about containing leaks, making allies mad at us and giving American’s reason to think we might be violating their privacy. Perhaps most importantly, the new… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Positing the future of intelligence — even for one year — poses unique challenges. First, there’s so much those of on the outside don’t know. Then there’s the simple truth that our enemies and competitors drive so much of intelligence. Since we can’t know with certainty what will happen, it’s difficult to predict what the intelligence… Keep reading →

  WASHINGTON: America faces a new intelligence “gap” because an Al Qaeda affiliate has exploited information leaked by fugitive Edward Snowden so that the United States can no longer monitor the terrorists, Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said today. “And, by the way, we have already seen one Al Qaeda affiliate has… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The American Civil Liberties Union, those card-carrying folks, have come straight out in opposition to CISPA, the House cybersecurity bill. The ACLU cited the Obama administration’s “veto threat” in its statement, released soon after the 288-127 bipartisan vote in favor of the bill. But the administration’s veto threat is pretty squishy, if past Obama… Keep reading →

The National Security Agency is launching a mobile device capability at the end of this year that will allow its personnel to securely access classified information with their smartphones and tablet computers. The program, which is a joint effort with the Defense Information Systems Agency, could potentially provide the military services with similar secure information… Keep reading →

The intelligence community is developing a single cloud computing network to allow all its analysts to access and rapidly sift through massive volumes of data. When fully complete, this effort will create a pan-agency cloud, with organizations sharing many of the same computing resources and information. More importantly, the hope is the system will break… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: NSA director and Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander stepped into the lion’s den today to address the Chamber of Commerce, which helped kill cybersecurity legislation Alexander had strongly backed. Over and over, Alexander reassured the business-dominated audience at the Chamber’s cybersecurity conference today that the government sought to work together with industry as… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: For all the senatorial furor over Chinese counterfeit parts making their way into US weapons, the Pentagon is worried about something worse. Corrupt subcontractors selling knock-off products at brand-name prices is much easier to cope with than foreign governments covertly altering those components to grant themselves a back door into American systems.”The vast majority… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Maybe cyberspace isn’t as fragile as it’s made out to be. “Relax, Chicken Little, the sky isn’t falling,” said Columbia professor Abraham Wagner. “Protection ultimately is easier than penetration.” Wagner’s argument reverses the conventional wisdom that the attacker always has the advantage online. A forthcoming study by the Cyber Conflict Studies Association, for… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The nation needs cyber-security legislation to authorize sharing of threat data between industry and government in real time, said Gen. Keith Alexander, chief of both the National Security Agency and the US Cyber Command, and it can be done without any danger to individual privacy. “This cyber legislation that’s coming up is going to… Keep reading →