Comments for The Enemy is Reading.

The Enemy is Reading.

2006-04-19T14:27:26Z

Heh. Someone else has (openly) discovered the blogs. Worldwide. The CIA.

"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.

It's not just our side, you can rest assured.

Any of you who have been reading this blog from it's earliest days will have noticed the change over time where, in many respects, it grew less informative (and lost a segment of readership) over time, as my awareness of the OPSEC issues as well as changes in my job tasks caused me to rethink the underlying premise I operated from. There's a lot more to it than that - but lemme tell ya, it's frustrating sometimes!

"I can't get into detail of what, but I'll just say the amount of open source reporting that goes into the president's daily brief has gone up rather significantly," Mr. Jardines said. "There has been a real interest at the highest levels of our government, and we've been able to consistently deliver products that are on par with the rest of the intelligence community."

I don't mind being someone that foreign intel services read to gain insight into attitudes and fortitude.

But I don't want to be someone who makes that puppy unhappy. We milbloggers who have insider access, so to speak, need to keep that in mind. For you deployed guys - save it for your postwar books...

The whole story is here. H/t, Tammy.

Comment from Cannoneer No. 4 on 2006-04-25

2006-04-25T06:22:11Z

OPSEC Guidelines

Comment from M. Simon on 2006-04-20

2006-04-21T01:09:14Z

The flesh pots of Olongapo. I had my own bar girl there - who I shared with 100 or 200 other guys. Gone are the days. And so is my ship - The Bainbridge DLGN25. I trained at A1W (Enterprise Mock up) but got assigned to the Bainbridge. I did have the honor of watching flight ops on the Big E when I was allowed on deck.

Comment from Justthisguy on 2006-04-20

2006-04-20T08:32:40Z

M. Simon, you might want to take a look at one of my favorite time-wasters, http://www.mooj.com/rxdpt.htm. It's run by a rather weird Punjabi ex Navy enlisted Nuke, and solicits stories from similar folks who've served aboard USS Enterprise. Some of the stories are very interesting and hilarious, but I'm afraid an awful lot of them are inherently unverifiable, due to the influence of strange mixes of Filipino spirituous liquors claimed to have been imbibed by the storytellers. I'll say this for those who have posted there; they demonstrate by their stories the efficacy of Navy Training, and the stern rationality and engineering skill of Hyman Rickover, who insisted that naval nuclear reactors were so sailor-proof that one could come back from liberty in Olongapo City in a Yossarian state (I see everything twice) and still bring the ship's reactors to criticality and get her under way. (Might have had to cover one eye to see one set of gauges, though.)

Comment from Justthisguy on 2006-04-20

2006-04-20T08:29:36Z

Comment from M. Simon on 2006-04-20

2006-04-20T06:23:22Z

BTW I'm a Naval Nuke Tonkin Bay Yacht Club - '66

Comment from M. Simon on 2006-04-20

2006-04-20T06:17:31Z

You linked to a couple of my pieces: http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/04/ptsd-and-endocannabinoid-system.html and http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/04/is-hilton-burning-yet.html I can't find the articles and would like to read them. I have lots more on PTSD and the military including several articles on how the Israeli Military deal with the problem. And another on Israeli research being done in co-operation with a New York hospital. I even have a bit on how they dealt with it in the Civil War. Our military has even started to look at some of this in a research kind of way. I can give you links or write you a piece. Contact: msimon6808 at yahoo dot com

Comment from Justthisguy on 2006-04-19

2006-04-20T01:36:29Z

Well, there's compromising OPSEC, and then there's General Embarassment. Guess which gets stomped on harder. Owhell, maybe Lt. Prakash's mouthing off had something to do with getting canister for the guys who came after him..

Comment from kat-missouri on 2006-04-19

2006-04-19T22:48:11Z

Of course, the open source info that he's talking about is from blogs of other nations. I think the most interesting would be the Afghani and Iraqi blogs, but certainly translating Iranian blogs or saudi blogs, or Syrian or any of the others is an excellent way to get information. In fact, it was from Iraq blogs that I was able to understand the political parties and militias and how they were part of the current situation militarily and such. It was great reading to find out things that even we didn't know about Saddam's actions towards different people. For instance, while I knew that Saddam had invited Arabs, particularly Palestinians into Iraq, I didn't know to what extent he had given special privileges, provided education, material wealth etc and how that would translate to loyalty to the ex-regime. I learned some things about Syria and Lebanon that I did not know before or seemed very lame from history books. So, I understand exactly what that gentleman is saying about open source materials providing better views of the situation than a few intelligence field agents trying to do the same from limited locations or with fear of being discovered. I also wonder if open source analysis of situations don't get reviewed and considered? Things like the security and counterterrorism blogs or even Winds of Change that regularly discusses political and war situations in other nations. I just learned that Indian Maoists call themselves Naxalists and pose the most serious threat to Indian democracy; more than Islamists according to some. I'm sure the CIA knew that already, but, I'm just saying, if I can learn that, imagine what they can learn. On the otherhand, I had thought that out quite a bit myself lately in discussing any military actions or trying to analyze their meaning or future actions. I prefer to stick to analyzing what the others think or philosophizing (except that I admit I just questioned an article where for the third time the Ramadi Marine's were under attack and somebody said that it was 50 insurgents; I had to question the 50 because that's the number that always seems to be given when discussing enemy numbers and I do worry that some in the military are still trying to focus on body counts and numbers of attackers to prove their mettle or keep certain other folks happy). Still, thank you for the reminder.