Interviews - Blogs of War (Page 3)

Interviews

A collection of 80 posts

Phil Walter on Life After War

Phil Walter on Life After War

Phil Walter joins me to talk about his transition from the the battlefield, to home, and eventually into a role where he has the opportunity to work on national security policy. I’m thankful to Phil for sharing his personal story because I think it might help others who are

The Damascus Cover and the Psychology of Spies with Howard Kaplan

The Damascus Cover and the Psychology of Spies with Howard Kaplan

Howard Kaplan wrote his debut espionage novel, The Damascus Cover [http://www.amazon.com/Damascus-Cover-Jerusalem-Spy-Book/dp/0990526305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446524012&sr=8-1&keywords=the+damascus+cover] , nearly forty years ago. He joins me to discuss the book, the recently completed the film

Matthias Pfau: Tutanota and the Battle Against Mass Surviellance

Matthias Pfau: Tutanota and the Battle Against Mass Surviellance

Matthias Pfau [https://twitter.com/matthiaspfau] is co-founder and developer of the encrypted email service Tutanota [https://tutanota.com/]. Tutanota is part of what can be considered a post-Snowden development movement that aims to short-circuit government mass surveillance capabilities. I spoke to Matthias to discuss his project and where he

Government Email Problems, Wikileaks, Russia, Drone Leaks, NASA Security and Other Counterintelligence Nightmares

Government Email Problems, Wikileaks, Russia, Drone Leaks, NASA Security and Other Counterintelligence Nightmares

The Covert Contact podcast kicks off again with an admittedly rambling, but hopefully entertaining, start as I review a number of high profile security issues with counterintelligence pro William J. Tucker. We look at the hack of DCIA John Brennan’s AOL account [http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/

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

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

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,

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

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

Ryan Boyette: Chronicling the War in Sudan from the Nuba Mountains

Ryan Boyette: Chronicling the War in Sudan from the Nuba Mountains

Sudan, like too many other places in Africa, fades in and out of the sights of Western journalists and their readers. Many foreign observers and aid workers have been harassed, forced out, and even killed. It is one of those places that is tempting to write-off. And, if you wanted

Iraq's Ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily, Updates Blogs of War on the ISIL Threat

Iraq's Ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily, Updates Blogs of War on the ISIL Threat

Ambassador Faily [https://blogsofwar.com/tag/lukman-faily/] was kind enough to take some additional questions. I originally submitted these questions to him the day before there were widespread reports of, if not a coup, at least a difficult political transition in Baghdad. That situation has since stabilized somewhat but the

DIA Director Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn Shares His Thoughts on Threats, Opportunities, and 33 Years of Service

DIA Director Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn Shares His Thoughts on Threats, Opportunities, and 33 Years of Service

Update This interview occurred in 2014 before Lt. Gen. Flynn assumed a much more political and public profile. It occurred before he was caught dining with Vladimir Putin [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696] to celebrate the founding of a Russian propaganda outfit built to undermine the West. It

Anthony Bourdain Talks Travel, Food, and War

Anthony Bourdain Talks Travel, Food, and War

I’ve never met anyone interested in the world around them who isn’t terribly envious of Anthony Bourdain. Fans of his books [http://www.amazon.com/Anthony-Bourdain/e/B001H6GY4C/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1405910889&sr=8-2-ent] and shows like No Reservations [http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/

A Brief Chat with Iraq's Ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily

A Brief Chat with Iraq's Ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily

Ambassador Faily [https://blogsofwar.com/tag/lukman-faily/] and I have traded tweets for some time now but I am honored that he agreed to take time out what must be an overwhelming schedule to answer a very short list of questions for Blogs of War readers. You can follow Ambassador

Hacker OPSEC with The Grugq

Hacker OPSEC with The Grugq

The Grugq is a world renowned [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/23/shopping-for-zero-days-an-price-list-for-hackers-secret-software-exploits/] information security researcher with 15 years of industry experience. Grugq started his career at a Fortune 100 company, before transitioning to @stake, where he was forced to resign for publishing a Phrack article on

A Mossad Officer's Life in the Cold

A Mossad Officer's Life in the Cold

Michael Ross was born in Canada and served as a soldier in a combat unit of the Israel Defence Forces prior to being recruited as a “combatant,” (a term designating a deep-cover operative tasked with working in hostile milieus) in Israel’s legendary secret intelligence service, the Mossad [http://www.

Ali-Reza Anghaie and Scot Terban on InfoSec, Hackers, China, and Cyber Hype

Ali-Reza Anghaie and Scot Terban on InfoSec, Hackers, China, and Cyber Hype

Ali-Reza Anghaie is a Consulting Security Engineer and Senior Analyst with Wikistrat. His varied work in engineering and security has taken him to numerous universities and Fortune 500 companies in the Defense, Energy, Entertainment, and Medical fields. You can follow Ali-Reza on Twitter [https://twitter.com/Packetknife] and Quora [https:

Life at Mossad Headquarters

Life at Mossad Headquarters

Michael Ross was born in Canada and served as a soldier in a combat unit of the Israel Defence Forces prior to being recruited as a “combatant,” (a term designating a deep-cover operative tasked with working in hostile milieus) in Israel’s legendary secret intelligence service, the Mossad [http://www.