Politics

Robert Steele: The Second American Revolution – Reflections on the Near Future

Professor Igor Panarin, a most distinguished Russian intelligence officer and strategic forecaster, is the dean of the Russian school for future diplomats.[1] I salute his work, and particularly admire and wish to support his idea of a joint Russian-American information-analytical anti-crisis centre. Here and now I will focus on his prediction, in 1998, that the United States of America (USA) would disintegrate by 2010, and be Balkanized into five regions as shown below.[2]

Focusing only on the fundamentals – a dysfunctional election system that disenfranchises 70% of the eligible voters;[3] a wanton citizenship system that has granted US citizenship to as many as 5 million Chinese ready to vote as directed in future elections;[4] a dollar that is not backed by anything combined with a criminal banking system; a water, food, and air system that is toxic by design,[5] creating fat stupid people;[6] and an information ecology that is completely controlled by the Deep State and Shadow Government to the point that fake news is now the national standard[7] – Professor Panarin is correct.

Opinion

Is Putin a C.I.A. Agent?

President Trump’s steadfast reluctance to say anything negative about Russia is so striking that a former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, once observed that Vladimir Putin manages Trump as if he we were a Russian intelligence “asset.” He may be. But if I were a Russian citizen, I’d be asking this question: Is Putin a U.S. agent?

Why? Because Putin has undertaken so many actions in recent years that contributed to the weakening of Russia’s economy and human capital base that you have to wonder whether he’s secretly on the C.I.A.’s payroll.

Beginning around 2007 or 2008, Putin appears to have decided that rebuilding Russia by nurturing its tremendous human talent and strengthening the rule of law was just too hard — it would have required sharing power, holding real, competitive elections and building a truly diverse, innovation-based economy.

Instead, Putin decided to look for dignity for Russia in all the wrong places: by tapping his oil and gas wells, not his people; by strengthening the Russian military, instead of the rule of law; and by enriching himself and his circle of oligarchs while wrapping himself in a cloak of Russian Orthodoxy and Russian nationalism that appealed to his base.

Intel gathering

CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination

The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.

The CIA’s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking Mohammed to the operation and complicates the Trump administration’s efforts to preserve its relationship with a close ally. A team of 15 Saudi agents flew to Istanbul on government aircraft in October and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate, where he had come to pick up documents that he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.

In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence.

Cybersecurity

The Case Against Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is all the rage. It seems like hardly a day goes by without some news outlet describing the extraordinary things this technology promises. Most commentators forget, or just gloss over, the fact that people have been working on quantum computing for decades—and without any practical results to show for it.

We’ve been told that quantum computers could “provide breakthroughs in many disciplines, including materials and drug discovery, the optimization of complex manmade systems, and artificial intelligence.” We’ve been assuredthat quantum computers will “forever alter our economic, industrial, academic, and societal landscape.” We’ve even been told that “the encryption that protects the world’s most sensitive data may soon be broken” by quantum computers. It has gotten to the point where many researchers in various fields of physics feel obliged to justify whatever work they are doing by claiming that it has some relevance to quantum computing.

Meanwhile, government research agencies, academic departments (many of them funded by government agencies), and corporate laboratories are spending billions of dollars a year developing quantum computers. On Wall Street, Morgan Stanley and other financial giants expect quantum computing to mature soon and are keen to figure out how this technology can help them.

Weapons

Bullets that don't miss, weaponized insects and more: Innovations from DARPA, America’s secret lab

Some of DARPA’s most incredible military research centers on the deadliest of weapons: the human mind.

Under Justin Sanchez, head of the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA, the organization has funded human experiments at Wake Forest, the University of Southern California, and the University of Pennsylvania, with the aim of giving individuals a memory “boost.”

Researchers implanted electrodes into one person’s brain to record mental activity associated with recognizing patterns and memorizing word lists.

Then they reinforced that person’s memory by playing back the recorded brain activity through the circuits, significantly improving their memory.

However, many people have questioned these findings, including former DARPA program manager Doug Weber.

He explained to The Atlantic that when scientists put electrodes in the brain, those devices eventually fail—after a few months or a few years, mainly because of blood leakage.

Nuclear security

Pairing AI and nukes will lead to our autonomous Doomsday

Eventually the Soviets deployed a modified, nearly automatic system where a small group of lower-ranking duty officers deep underground would make that decision, relying on data that the Kremlin leadership had been wiped out in a U.S. nuclear strike.

The plan was not meant to deter a U.S. strike by assuring the U.S. that if they attacked first, even with a limited strike against the Soviet leadership, that there would be a guaranteed nuclear response. The Soviets kept the plan secret from the United States. It was meant to ensure an all out, nearly automatic nuclear response, which would have existential consequences.

As AI develops and confidence in machine learning increases, the U.S. needs to be leading the effort diplomatically by reinvigorating strategic stability talks with both China and Russia, which should include this issue and ensure that this type of nuclear planning does not make its way back into the thinking of our nuclear adversaries or our own, whether secretly or as a form of deterrence.

While concerns have been raised in Congress about having the decision to use nuclear weapons solely in the hands of the commander in chief, an even more ominous, impending threat is having that command and control in the hands of AI.

The potential application for this developing, powerful technology in increasing stability and the effectiveness of arms control in areas such as early warning, predictive decision-making by bad actors, tracking and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, and empowering verification for further reductions is as yet unknown.

Nuclear security

U.S. Refuses to Adopt a Nuclear Weapon No First Use Pledge – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (7/8)

The major purpose of nuclear weapons, from almost the time we began planning in the late ’40s, was against Russians, against Soviets, in the event of a ground conflict in Europe. And that implied- that was a time when we had a monopoly of nuclear weapons, until 1949. By ’49 and ’50, ’51, we had hundreds of nuclear weapons targeted on Soviet cities, which would have been only a first strike. There’s no possibility of a second strike.

Then with NATO, from the beginning of NATO, its assurance to our allies that there would be no war was based on the notion that if there was, we would initiate nuclear war on Soviets even though they could respond. They were now a nuclear weapon state. If they did, that would assure the annihilation of Europe. So it was a suicide pact, as far as Europe was concerned. At the first they weren’t able to attack us, so we were able to say, we’ll do it. You can count on our doing it, and the Russians can count on our doing it, even though you’re destroyed. Even though our allies are destroyed.

Mind control

Mind control using sound waves? We ask a scientist how it works

At the moment, non-invasive neuromodulation – changing brain activity without the use of surgery – looks poised to usher in a new era of healthcare. Breakthroughs could include the better management of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, reducing the pain of migraines or even reversing cognitive disorders caused by brain injury

But what happens if this technique for altering our brain waves escapes regulation and falls into the wrong hands? Imagine a dictatorial regime with access to the tricks and tools to change the way its citizens think or behave.

That’s the ethical battleground that Antoine Jerusalem, a professor of engineering science at Oxford University, finds himself in as he researches the potential of ultrasound technology to tackle neurological diseases and disorders.

In this interview, conducted as part of the World Economic Forum's annual gathering in the Middle East of scientists, government and business, he tells us more about this growing field of research.

Controlling the brain with sound waves: how does it work?

Well, to get straight to the science, the principle of non-invasive neuromodulation is to focus ultrasound waves into a region in the brain so that they all gather in a small spot. Then hopefully, given the right set of parameters, this can change the activity of the neurons.

Economic security

China Is Beating the US in the Rare-Earths Game


Overall, Reuters reports, “Chinese exports typically supply around 80 percent of the globe’s rare earth needs, about 156,000 tonnes annually.”

Reuters noted that “the U.S. military is worried about China’s dominance of the rare earths market, calling it a ‘significant and growing risk,’ according to the Pentagon’s recently released industrial-base study.

But there appears to be little concern evinced — at least in public — by the White House, the Departments of Energy or Commerce, or Congress. Instead, U.S. policy makers appear to be counting on a quick ramp-up of private mining operations to cover the absence of Chinese rare earth concentrates and oxides. Regrettably, mining cannot solve the problem. To start with, mine permitting and development typically takes 7 to 10 years in the United States, according to one industry-backed study. Moreover, no one is rushing to fund new rare earth mines.

But — and this is what few in the U.S. government appear to understand — China’s grip on the world’s rare earths is not limited to its 80-percent share of raw materials. It also controls almost all of the world’s processing facilities that transform raw concentrates and oxides into useful forms: metals, alloys, magnets, garnets, and the like.

Innovations & technologies

From crowd control to ‘wireless energy beaming,' the Army’s new vehicles must have more power but use less fuel

On the Army wish list are energy weapon systems to counter rockets, missiles and drones, wireless energy beaming to help with running unmanned ground vehicles and aerial drones with remote power, non-lethal energy weapons for crowd disbursement, silent modes for vehicle movement, high-power electronic jamming, electronic armor to deflect electromagnetic spectrum and projectile attacks, and long-range electromagnetic guns for multiple uses.

And the backbone of those capabilities is an open architecture powering system on the next wave of ground vehicles that nearly any system built today or decades from now can plug into, and it will provide the power needed to run.

Part of that, the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Electrical Power Architecture, has been in development at TARDEC since 2012.

Once implemented, the system is expected to provide fuel efficiency that will reduce fuel consumption by more than 10 percent and provide 20 percent more efficient power generation and energy transfer. That will put less strain on the vehicle systems while using less fuel and providing more power.

Mass surveillance

Snowden warns Israelis of dangers of state surveillance

US  whistle-blower Edward Snowden urged Israelis to be on guard against heavy-handed government and private surveillance in a speech on Tuesday.

Snowden, a former government contractor, blew the lid off the United States' vast surveillance programme in 2013, triggering an international debate on the mass spying by governments.

The US whistleblower highlighted Israel's hi-tech capabilities but warned that accepting too much government surveillance and too easily acceding to the argument that it is needed for security reasons posed serious risks.

"If we can allow ourselves to be terrorised by someone with nothing but a knife, to reorder our societies for the convenience of state power ... we've stopped being citizens and we've started being subjects," said Snowden, who spoke via video link from an undisclosed location in Moscow.

Electronic surveillance

China has a new surveillance tool that identifies citizens by how they walk

Chinese authorities have begun deploying a new surveillance tool designed to identify people by how they walk, or the shapes of their body.

Adding to the already staggering number of surveillance cameras — many of which use bleeding edge optics and facial recognition technologies — China is already using the tool on the streets in its two largest cities, Beijing and Shanghai. It, again, raises concern among privacy advocates about how far the government is willing to go to keep tabs on its citizens.

Huang Yongzhen, CEO of Watrix, the company that designed the system, says it can identify people from up to 50 meters (165 feet), even when their back is turned or their face is covered.

The tool would fill gaps in current surveillance technology, that needs close-up, high resolution images of a person’s face to work. Watrix requires only a clear view of the person walking, even from the back or side.

“You don’t need people’s cooperation for us to be able to recognize their identity,” Huang told the Associated Press. “Gait analysis can’t be fooled by simply limping, walking with splayed feet or hunching over, because we’re analyzing all the features of an entire body.”

Economic security

2018 midterm election: US enters 'longest business cycle' ever, analyst says

A divided CongressOpens a New Window. is good for U.S. stocks, market strategist Michael Lee said on the heels of the critical midterm electionOpens a New Window..

“Divided government has historically been in the best playing field for stocks,” he said on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria” on Wednesday. “We went into this election with a fantastic economy, one that’s only going to improve from here and I don’t think that thesis changed one bit.”

U.S. stock futures rose on Wednesday, as Republicans maintained control of the Senate and Democrats took control of the House.

In Lee’s opinion a Republican House would be too much to manage.

“I think had the Republicans held the House, you would have gotten the chance for additional fiscal stimulus, maybe we get some sort of infrastructure bill,” he said. “I just think there are too many moving parts and there’s too much compromise involved for something like that to happen.”

Politics

Dems to flex muscle with new House majority: Subpoenas, investigations, even possible impeachment talks loom

The incoming Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has the power to open a slew of investigations into the White House and President Trump when the new Congress is seated in January, and early indications are that Democrats plan to aggressively take advantage of their new authority.

But the president fired a warning shot early Wednesday morning, declaring he would turn the tables and leverage his party's Senate majority to investigate Democrats if they go that route.

"If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!" Trump tweeted.

Economic security

Trump’s Trade War Is Making Russia and China Comrades Again

Fu Ying recalls vividly how, as a young woman, she’d get woken by sirens in the middle of the night for drills to practice for a Soviet invasion. It was the time of China’s traumatic Cultural Revolution and, although the farm she’d been sent to was more than 200 miles from the border, the threat seemed imminent—strong enough, it turned out, to throw Maoist China into the arms of its capitalist nemesis, the U.S.

Today’s world could hardly look more different. The U.S.-China realignment that began with President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to Beijing has been reversed in the most consequential geopolitical shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall. China and Russia are now as close as at any time in their 400 years of shared history. The U.S., meanwhile, has targeted both countries with sanctions and China with a trade war.

“There is no sense of threat from Russia. We feel comfortable back-to-back,” says Fu, now chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China’s National People’s Congress, over drinks in a hotel bar near the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where she’s attending a conference. The two countries have settled the border dispute that produced a brief war in 1969.!

Immigration security

DHS Secretary Nielsen: Some caravan migrants come from Middle East

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News there is intelligence indicating the caravan of migrants making their way through Mexico includes a limited number of people from outside the region, including the Middle East.

"We absolutely see people from the Middle East, from southeast Asia, from other parts of the world -- not just from Central America," Nielsen said in a wide-ranging interview.

The caravan started in Honduras last month. This week, hundreds of migrants have begun arriving in Mexico City, seven hundred miles from the U.S. border.

President Trump, who has vowed to stop the caravan from entering the United States, tweeted last month that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners” are among the migrants.

U.S. elections

Democrats Ponder the Unthinkable: What If They Lose?

Nearly two years of organizing, marching, candidate recruitment and unprecedented fundraising has led the Democratic party to a critical moment. On Tuesday, it can either reassert itself politically or fall short, prompting an utter and complete psychological meltdown.

Most in the party believe that the path they will go down will be the former; that they will gain a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since former President Barack Obama’s first term. But paranoia is part of the Democratic DNA, especially after the shock of the 2016 election. And in the final stretch of the midterm campaign, a scenario in which the party is unable to flip the requisite 23 House seats looms in the dark recesses of the mind.

“It will be paralyzing for a while, it will,” said Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. “Candidly, I think there will be a fair amount of soul searching and people will feel back on their heels... We will have to rebuild. But the resistance is built on opposition to [Donald] Trump's extremism. And the more extreme he is, the more we will have.”

Or, as veteran Democratic strategist Paul Begala put it: “After all this work, all these volunteers, it would be absolutely shattering.”

Few midterm elections have taken on as much significance as the current one.

Electronic surveillance

China is Exporting its Cyber Surveillance to African Countries


China has consistently been ranked by digital advocates as the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom. The country, however, isn’t just tightening online controls at home but is becoming more brazen in exporting some of those techniques abroad including in Africa, says a new report from the US-based think tank Freedom House.

Using a mix of official training, providing technological infrastructure to authoritarian regimes, and insisting that international companies accept its content regulations even outside of China, Beijing is becoming adept at controlling information both inside and outside its borders. Together, these trends present “an existential threat to the future of the open internet and prospects for greater democracy around the globe,” the Washington DC-based non-profit said.

The study assessed developments related to internet freedom that took place between June 2017 and May 2018 in 65 countries across the world.

Opinion

U.S. Elections Are Neither Free Nor Fair. States Need to Open Their Doors to More Observers.

Gerrymandering. Can Tuesday’s midterms in the United States really be considered free and fair elections?

Perhaps we should consult with the experts. Few Americans have heard of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE; even fewer are aware that OSCE observers have been keeping tabs on U.S. elections since 2002, at the invitation of the U.S. State Department.

On October 26, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Washington, D.C., issued an interim report on the 2018 midterms. It didn’t make for pleasant reading. “The right to vote is subject to many limitations,” warned the report, “with racial minorities disproportionately impacted.”

This isn’t the first time the OSCE has sounded the alarm. In the wake of the 2016 presidential race, OSCE observers praised the U.S. for holding a “highly competitive” election while also criticizing a campaign “characterized by harsh personal attacks, as well as intolerant rhetoric” and changes to election rules that “were often motivated by partisan interests, adding undue obstacles for voters.”

“Suffrage rights,” the 2016 observers concluded, were “not guaranteed for all citizens, leaving sections of the population without the right to vote.”

Communication security

CIA system HACK as Iran DISMANTLES ENTIRE spy network using Google in ‘nightmare scenario’

IRAN humiliated the CIA in one of the organisations biggest intelligence blunders by uncovering a secret communication system by using only Google.

Several former members of the CIA who were stationed in Iran have said that Iran was able to uncover their secret internet-based communications system that the Agency had used in order to communicate with sources.

However, it is believed that the weakness in the system was discovered prior to Iran.

Defence contractor John Reidy worked for the CIA in Iran and would contact and manage human sources that they had.

In 2008, Mr Reidy says that he warned the CIA about a “massive intelligence failure” related to “communications” with sources.

While the CIA could have avoided this massive intelligence failure if they listened to Mr Reidy’s warning, a year later the very “nightmare scenario” that he had described became a reality.

...The report says that Iran had used Google to find the CIA’s fake websites that they were using to communicate with their sources and used its search engine to find other sites with similar digital signatures.

From there, Tehran just traced anyone who visited these sites and uncovered the network.

US intelligence is still not sure if China and Iran had worked together on this or if they did it on their own.

An official added that both of the systems that had been used in each country were very similar.

Health security

A cure for cancer: how to kill a killer

Last month, the Nobel prize in medicine was awarded for two breakthrough scientific discoveries heralded as having “revolutionised cancer treatment”, and “fundamentally changed the way we view how cancer can be managed”. One of them went to a charismatic, harmonica-playing Texan named Jim Allison for his breakthrough advances in cancer immunotherapy. His discovery had resulted in transformative outcomes for cancer patients and a radical new direction for cancer research.

And yet many cancer patients, and even some doctors, have hardly heard of cancer immunotherapy or refuse to believe it. Those who have struggle to make sense of the new menu of options and sort reasonable hope from overblown hype.

Nuclear security

New System Could Protect Nuclear Reactor

A scary yet realistic scenario in the digital age could involve the following: attackers, sponsored by a rogue organization or radical state, gain access to the control system of a nuclear reactor, a chemical reactor or a similar critical system.

A question arises: is the reactor system smart enough to know it is attacked? Most experts would answer that if an insider assists attackers, nearly all industrial systems become vulnerable. Worse yet, the system could remain defenseless and sustain physical damage from an attack.

“Security defenses against digital attacks are for the most part based on the concept of erecting walls or fences to stop unauthorized access from outsiders,” said Hany Abdel-Khalik, a Purdue University associate professor of nuclear engineering, who is leading the research team.

Weapons

Chinese Military Develops Mystery Missile

The Chinese military is building a new and mysterious missile that could cripple American air power. The weapon, known as the PL-XX missile is a very-long-range missile designed to strike enemy aircraft.

The goal is to shoot down the tankers, airborne early warning planes, and other support aircraft that military combat jets rely upon during wartime. Stripped of these forces, American air power would operate at a serious disadvantage, shifting the air battle in China’s favor.

The new missile carries the typical “PL” designation common to Chinese air-to-air missiles. At 5.5 meters, PL-XX is thought to have a range exceeding 160 kilometers, the typical maximum range of air-to-air missiles.

China’s new missile most likely would work like this: In a future air battle, a Chengdu J-20 fighter loaded with PL-XX would attempt to fly around U.S. fighters to get behind them and search for a tanker or AWACs plane. If it finds such a target, the J-20 would launch the missile from long range, then disengage. Even if the missile misses, the danger might force U.S. support aircraft to fly farther behind friendly lines, limiting their effectiveness in general.

Warplanes need plenty of support to reach their wartime potential. In that way, tankers, command and control aircraft, and reconnaissance planes are the backbone that let fighters operate at long ranges.

Climate security

Climate goal demands huge boost in Chinese nuclear

The Paris Climate Change Agreement, which entered into force in November 2016, aims to limit the global temperature rise to below 2°C by 2010. The agreement also aims to drive efforts to limit temperature increases to below 1.5°C.

Researchers at China's Energy Research Institute analysed the nuclear power capacity needed in the country by 2050 to realise the 1.5°C target, as well as the feasibility, necessary measures and difficulty. The results were published in Advances in Climate Change Research earlier this year.

China's nuclear power capacity will need to increase from 26 GWe in 2015 to 554 GWe in 2050, the studyconcluded. The share of nuclear power in country's energy mix would increase from 3% to 28% over this period.

The study noted that, up to the end of August 2017, 37 power reactors were in operation in China, with a combined generating capacity of 35,820 MWe. A further 19 reactors with an installed capacity of 22,140 were under construction.

An additional 290 reactors will need to be constructed in order to add a further 361.3 to 433.3 GWe of generating capacity, depending on the size of the reactors built.

Nuclear security

Estimating India’s nuclear weapons-producing capacity

Using a different set of theoretical assumptions, and what we consider to be very credible mathematical formulas, we found that contrary to previous estimates, India has the capacity to produce many more nuclear weapons than generally assumed. We estimate that India could produce 1,044 nuclear weapons (914 plutonium-based and 130 uranium-based nuclear weapons), if one includes reactor grade materials from non-military programs in India, as well as that from the country’s weapon-grade nuclear material production program.

A new paradigm. To support these findings, we carefully examined every aspect of Indian unsafeguarded nuclear reactors and included important factors such as each reactor’s history, size, and amount of material produced over its working lifetime. We have considered the Reactor-Grade Plutonium (RGp), Weapon-Grade Plutonium (WGp), and Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) produced by these unsafeguarded facilities.

Economic security

Russia’s gold reserves smash Soviet-era record as part of Moscow's de-dollarization drive

The Central Bank of Russia bought over 92 tons of gold in the three months to the end of September breaking the Soviet peak of 2000 tons in gold reserves seen in 1941, according to a new report by the World Gold Council (WGC).

Russia reportedly purchased more gold than any other country in the world, followed by Turkey, Kazakhstan, and India, which bought 18.5 tons, 13.4 tons and 13.7 tons respectively.

That marks the highest quarterly net purchase since 1993, when the WGC started tracking the country’s data. Russia’s gold stockpile now accounts for 17 percent of the country's overall foreign exchange reserves.

Intel gatheruing

Make GRU GRU again, Putin says as intelligence agency turns 100

The Russian president suggested returning the historic name to the military intelligence agency, which is accused in the West of staging coups, tilting US elections and using chemical weapons to get rid of double agents.

On Friday, Russian military intelligence officers were celebrating their professional holiday. This year is a big date for the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The organization is best known by its Soviet-times name the GRU (Maine Intelligence Directorate), even though the agency has changed its name to simply GU years ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the internationally-recognized old name of the agency should be returned. He was speaking during a celebration held in Moscow’s Theater of the Russian Army.

“It’s not clear where the word ‘intelligence’ disappeared [to]. Why don’t we go back to the Main Intelligence Directorate,”the Russian president suggested.

The holiday was chosen after the date when the freshly-created Red Army was ordered to centralize intelligence-collecting activities under a single department of the general staff. The military intelligence changed its name several times over the years, eventually becoming the GRU in 1953. The latest change came in 2010.

Communication security

CIA’s secret communication network was cracked by Iranians using… Google Search?

The web-based network which was used by the CIA to communicate with its sources was overcome by Iranians using text-book Google queries, a new exposé claims. The agency knew about the vulnerability, but failed to act on it.

Probably the biggest failure of US intelligence since 9/11 has been the compromise of the CIA’s communication network, which it had used to keep in touch with agents and assets in foreign nations. The Chinese busted and executed dozens of US spies because of it. A new exposé by Yahoo News says a similar upheaval happened in Iran and that the Iranians managed to defeat the system relatively easily – because it was never intended for the purpose it was used for.

The internet-based platform was first used for war zones in the Middle East and was not designed for long-term communication or to stand up to any serious counter-intelligence effort. “The issue was that it was working well for too long, with too many people. But it was an elementary system,” one former US intelligence official said.

Election security

DHS Secretary Nielsen: Midterms will be ‘most secure election in the modern era,’ but US will respond if attacked

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Friday she believes the midterm elections will be the “most secure election in the modern era” but told Fox News in an exclusive interview that “everything is on the table” if others try to meddle with the vote.

In New York City for a cyber security event at the Council on Foreign Relations, Nielsen said the government is in a “tremendously different place” than in 2016, when the Russians attempted to interfere in the presidential election.

"I do think it's safe to stay this will be the most secure election in the modern era,” Nielsen said. “We are in a tremendously different place than we were in 2016 in terms of partnerships with state and locals and everything they have done to secure their infrastructure."

Pressed on whether a cyber response is being readied by the United States if attacked, Nielsen said, "Everything is on the table. I think the president has made it very clear if we are attacked we will defend ourselves so every element of power that we have available to us will be considered in terms of our response."