Blogs of War (Page 9)

Warren Ellis Listens to Covert Contact

Warren Ellis Listens to Covert Contact

Lifehacker asked writer Warren Ellis what he listens to while he works and Covert Contact made the list

Encryption as the New Norm: Discussing A Changing Internet with ProtonMail Co-Founder Andy Yen

Encryption as the New Norm: Discussing A Changing Internet with ProtonMail Co-Founder Andy Yen

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been evaluating ProtonMail [http://protonmail.ch/]. This service is part of a new generation of tools (most inspired by Edward Snowden) developed with the aim of delivering robust encrypted communications and file sharing to the widest possible audience. Blogs of War readers

Espionage Among Allies

Espionage Among Allies

William J. Tucker serves as a senior security representative to a major government contractor where he acts as the Counterintelligence Officer, advises on counterterrorism issues, and prepares personnel for overseas travel. His additional duties include advising his superiors in matters concerning emergency management and business continuity planning. Mr. Tucker regularly

Encryption vs. Mass Surveillance with Former FBI Agent David Gomez

Encryption vs. Mass Surveillance with Former FBI Agent David Gomez

Former FBI Agent David Gomez joins John W. Little on the Covert Contact national security podcast.

Life, and Art, in Afghanistan with Francesca Recchia

Life, and Art, in Afghanistan with Francesca Recchia

In this episode I catch up with Francesca Recchia to get an update on life in Kabul, Afghanistan where, mostly thanks to the weather, life has been even more difficult than usual. But the conversation also shifts quickly to the subject of art, and artists, in the country. Francesca is

Why Terrorism Fails: A Discussion with Max Abrahms

Why Terrorism Fails: A Discussion with Max Abrahms

We know that terrorism succeeds at terrorizing its targets but does it help the groups behind it achieve their political goals? In this episode I’m joined by Northeastern University professor and terrorism theorist Max Abrahms who makes a persuasive case that terrorism does not succeed where other more selective

Isn't It Bromantic: Thoughts on Soft Biases and Gender Demographics in Military Affairs

Isn't It Bromantic: Thoughts on Soft Biases and Gender Demographics in Military Affairs

Jill S. Russell is a military historian whose interests lie in contemporary security affairs. She has recently submitted her doctoral dissertation on logistics, subsistence and American strategic culture. She has worked as a defence consultant and in the American professional military education system. You can find her writing at Kings

Hillary Clinton's Email Server: Dissecting the Risks with William J. Tucker

Hillary Clinton's Email Server: Dissecting the Risks with William J. Tucker

William J. Tucker joins me again to discuss Hillary Clinton’s decision to manage her own email services while Secretary of State. While this decision has angered political opponents and government transparency advocates (not to mention a few historians) we are bypassing the political and legal issues to zero in

Andy Priest on the Importance of Developing New International Crisis Policing Models

Andy Priest on the Importance of Developing New International Crisis Policing Models

Policing is on the agenda again in episode 14. In this episode I talk to Andy Priest about his international rapid intervention concept that focuses on providing advanced police support during critically destabilizing events. Andy stresses the importance of building this capability now so that participating nations can draw on

Scriven L. King on Balancing Security, Values, and Public Perception in Modern Policing

Scriven L. King on Balancing Security, Values, and Public Perception in Modern Policing

In episode 13 of Covert Contact I speak to security blogger/podcaster, and Blogs of War contributor [https://blogsofwar.com/scriven-l-king-on-security-conceptualization], Scriven L. King about some of the challenges in modern policing. Security professionals, police included, are scrambling to understand rapidly evolving technologies and threats. Evolving to meet those threats,

All Filler, No Killer: Robert Baer's "The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins"

All Filler, No Killer: Robert Baer's "The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins"

Theodore W. Weaver is a former Intelligence Officer within the CIA’s National Clandestine Service and the Directorate of Science and Technology. He has close to a decade working as a Special Agent with several Federal agencies and has worked against counter proliferation, human trafficking/smuggling, child exploitation, Intellectual Property

Counterintelligence: William J. Tucker Breaks Down the Challenges

Counterintelligence: William J. Tucker Breaks Down the Challenges

In episode 12 of Covert Contact I’m talking to William J. Tucker about counterintelligence. It is a complex discipline that is often misunderstood – even by intelligence professionals. But it presents as many opportunities as it does challenges and this conversation hints at that. Like all intelligence disciplines, it is

Counterterrorism Challenges: Pondering Seemingly Unsolvable Problems with Phillip Smyth

Counterterrorism Challenges: Pondering Seemingly Unsolvable Problems with Phillip Smyth

The first Covert Contact interview features University of Maryland Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics researcher Phillip Smyth. Phillip is also well known for his Hizballah Cavalcade [http://jihadology.net/hizballah-cavalcade/] project on Jihadology [http://jihadology.net/] Phillip specializes in Shia militias, and we touch on that topic, but most of

The Senate Torture Report

The Senate Torture Report

It is always disheartening when America does not live up to the standards many of us expect and in the adoption and execution of enhanced interrogation we have failed to do that on many levels. The primary failure is that our elected officials and the people who serve them strayed

Art in Afghanistan: Francesca Recchia Updates from Kabul

Art in Afghanistan: Francesca Recchia Updates from Kabul

Episode nine of Covert Contact focuses on the unusual work of Francesca Recchia. Francesca is an independent researcher and writer who has worked in many challenging places including Iraq, Pakistan, and Palestine. She is currently in Kabul and this episode features several daily updates that I asked her to record

The Navy SEAL Who Killed Osama bin Laden and the Anonymous Heroes You'll Never Know

The Navy SEAL Who Killed Osama bin Laden and the Anonymous Heroes You'll Never Know

In episode eight I look at the case of Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill [http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/12/navy-seal-who-shot-usama-bin-laden-revealed-in-exclusive-fox-news-interview/] and the culture that lures men and women like him out of the shadows and into a world of fame, ego gratification, and financial reward. I examine

Dr. Aaron Mannes: A Veterans Day Reflection

Dr. Aaron Mannes: A Veterans Day Reflection

Dr. Aaron Mannes is a researcher at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics (LCCD) [http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/research/LCCD/]. At LCCD, he is the subject matter expert on terrorism and international affairs to a team of inter-disciplinary scientists building cutting edge information systems to

Robots and the Future of Warfare

Robots and the Future of Warfare

In episode 6 of the Covert Contact podcast I am looking at the evolution of unmanned platforms and speculate about the impact that they could have on warfare. The technology is evolving faster than our appreciation for the complications it will bring so while there will be countless positive benefits

Lone Wolf Terrorism and the Importance of Perspective

Lone Wolf Terrorism and the Importance of Perspective

In episode 5 of Covert Contact I take a look at the real impact of lone wolf terror attacks, why ISIS seems to have been more successful than al-Qaeda at motivating these individual actors, and how the average citizen can put these acts of violence in proper perspective. I also

What the Attack in Ottawa Teaches Us About Terrorists - And Ourselves

What the Attack in Ottawa Teaches Us About Terrorists - And Ourselves

As promised earlier today this episode of Covert Contact [https://blogsofwar.com/tag/podcast/] is focused entirely on today’s attack in Ottawa. I had originally intended this to be a discussion about a particular type of attack and terrorist strategy but much is still unknown in this case. I

Crypto Wars: Winners, Losers, and the Case for Compromise

Crypto Wars: Winners, Losers, and the Case for Compromise

In episode 3 of the Covert Contact podcast [https://blogsofwar.com/tag/podcast/] I’m focusing on a single critical topic – the struggle between privacy advocates and governments overcryptography [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography]. This is a sensitive topic and there are a lot of extreme positions on the

Terrorism, Trolls, Tech - and Our Struggle to Understand

Terrorism, Trolls, Tech - and Our Struggle to Understand

ISIS stormed through Twitter just a few weeks ago and now many of them are paying the ultimate price for their trolling. I’ll explain why terrorism, social media, and apps aren’t the potent mix that many people fear they are and tell you who really stands to gain from these tools.