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  1. #1
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    Default The British on intelligence: a collection (SIS, MI5, GCHQ & more)

    London, Nov 25(ANI): UK Ministry of Defence(MoD) had over 280 computers lost or stolen in the past 18 months, according to official figures.
    The figures indicated that 188 laptops, 99 desktops, 72 hard discs and 73 USB memory sticks went missing.
    The MoD also lost 18 mobile phones, 10 BlackBerry phones,194 compact discs and 150 back-up tapes used to store information.
    One thirty five other items, including USB tokens, radios, 3G cards and cameras, were also reported lost or stolen during the Coalition's tenure.
    UK Defence Secretary Andrew Robathan said 21 laptops were lost in a single incident in Germany, and 20 laptops, that were reportedly lost in a separate incident, were traced.

    http://in.news.yahoo.com/over-280-uk...GVzdAM-;_ylv=3
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
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  2. #2
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Keep a sense of proportion

    Sadly not the first time, although I do not recall other departments releasing such information.

    Best of all was this debacle in 2007:
    Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he "profoundly regrets" the loss of 25 million child benefit records....includes names, dates of birth, bank and address details...
    Link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7104945.stm

    Senior civil servants stated the HMRC data loss had a greater impact on public confidence in the state than the Iraqi WMD furore.
    davidbfpo

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    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default MI5 rebuffed in court case over a Russian spy

    An article commenting on a recent immigration court case in London, where the government tried to expel a Russian young lady, Katia Zatuliveter, based on a case assembled by the Security Service (MI5):
    The FBI’s investigation into the sleeper spy ring in the USA was an impressive intelligence operation, producing detailed, irrefutable evidence for the public record. The MI5 investigation into British parliamentary aide Katia Zatuliveter was quite different — superficial, speculative and spontaneous. Nick Fielding, an expert witness in Zatuliveter’s successful deportation appeal, believes serious questions must now be asked of the agency entrusted with Britain’s national security.
    Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russ...tuliveter-case

    Interesting comparison made with the Anna Chapman spy ring in the USA:
    On June 27, 2010, the FBI arrested 10 illegal agents of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR. This long-running foreign counterintelligence investigation was code-named Ghost Stories within the FBI. On October 19, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder recognized the Ghost Stories team for its “exceptionally creative and tenacious multi-year investigation.” This release of Ghost Stories material includes documents, photos, and videos related to the activities and arrest of the SVR illegals.
    Link:http://vault.fbi.gov/ghost-stories-r...rvice-illegals
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-10-2011 at 12:24 PM. Reason: Insert her name
    davidbfpo

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    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default MI5 recruiting pre-screening quiz

    The United Kingdom Security Service (MI5) has an interesting little quiz, to help pre-screen potential Intelligence Officer recruits:https://www.mi5.gov.uk/careers/inves...enge-quiz.aspx

    A different way of attracting publicity, even recruits.

    In a few days I shall post a commentary on the quiz.
    davidbfpo

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    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default

    Well, not being one to brag it was recommended I consider joining

    eight out of 8
    If you want to blend in, take the bus

  6. #6
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default

    Well, well a rapidly digested thread, so best post the commentary now. It is from a blogsite that is IMO a critical friend:https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@...fficer_Quiz.pl
    davidbfpo

  7. #7
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Well, well a rapidly digested thread, so best post the commentary now. It is from a blogsite that is IMO a critical friend:https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@...fficer_Quiz.pl
    David,
    I think they are a little too paranoid for my taste, and, between all the e-mails I've sent to the Brit embassy and the MET, my IP address is well documented Anyone that can perform a right click on the site will get "view source" so not difficult (well, except for maybe you, David ).

    But since the idea was to read about 5 paras in 10 minutes I decided not to cheat and take the exam as intended.

    Hints: Read the HUMINT first and then go onto the people. Don't spend any amount of time concentrating on names, vehicle numbers and dates of birth as it is clear that the HUMINT has all that. Concentrate more on the theoretical scenario and think slightly as if you were in a former Soviet State and the remainder is easy !
    Last edited by Stan; 01-25-2012 at 06:47 AM. Reason: can't spell this morning - too much coffee
    If you want to blend in, take the bus

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    Default Result = 3

    Thus, I'm not suited to be an FBI agent - damme

    Interesting test - how do MI6 people test score on it ?

    Regards

    Mike

  9. #9
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Bletchley Park and After (SIGINT)

    Bletchley Park was the centre for the WW2 British Empire code-breaking effort, often referred to as Ultra, which broke a large part of the encoded German Enigma radio traffic.

    Alan Turing one of the key people there has come to the fore:
    This week sees the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, a man regarded as one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th Century. He is best known for his work cracking the Germans' secret codes during the Second World War. He is also regarded as one of the pioneers of computer technology.
    Link to the many BBC stories:http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=turing

    Recently Warwick Business School hosted an event with three speakers, each using a different perspective:
    Chris Grey explores how Bletchley Park was made as an organisation. What was its culture and how was its work co-ordinated? Challenging many popular perceptions Chris examines the complexities of how 10,000 people were brought together in complete secrecy and yet worked as a team.
    I've followed his work for a few years and he has made an important contribution to understanding what occurred at Bletchley Park. This is a short interview:http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/knowledge/culture/chrisgrey

    Then two historians:
    Michael Smith an award-winning journalist and number one best-selling author; an expert on codebreaking, espionage and how spies operate.

    Richard Aldrich, Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick who is an expert in the technology of secrecy. He talks about what happened to Bletchley Park after the end of the Second World War and how it transformed into GCHQ..
    Podcasts and PPT slides available on:http://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/features/2...chley/Park/and
    davidbfpo

  10. #10
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Bletchley’s forgotten heroes

    A short press article:
    While Alan Turing has been justly celebrated in his centenary year, there were other brilliant codebreakers
    Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/w...en-heroes.html

    The British have a way of not rewarding those who make a valuable, no invaluable contribution to national success, although this came as a surprise:
    Bill Tutte became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, then went to Canada to become professor of mathematics at Waterloo. He never received any official recognition of his war work. Tommy Flowers was awarded £1,000 (less than he had personally spent on Colossus’s development) and given an MBE. He stayed at the GPO, working on electronic telephone exchanges and Ernie, the Premium Bonds computer. He was unable to use the success of Colossus to give weight to his advanced ideas and was left to watch America’s electronics industry move ahead of Britain’s.
    davidbfpo

  11. #11
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default The best book GCHQ and more

    Richard Aldrich has written a historical tome 'GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency', which has been well reviewed:http://www.amazon.co.uk/GCHQ-Richard...mm_pap_title_0 and for the USA:http://www.amazon.com/Gchq-Uncensore...ligence+Agency

    There is also a sub-website on his book plus other sources:http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pa.../lectures/gchq
    davidbfpo

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    Default

    http://www.amazon.com/Codebreaker-Fa.../dp/0192803867

    Alan Stripp's work is a short, but interesting book that adds to the explanation of Bletchley Park.

    My copy is yours if you like David, in payment for your help with my research.

  13. #13
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default The last survivor gets a "gong"

    A couple of days ago, in Post No.2, I remarked:
    The British have a way of not rewarding those who make a valuable, no invaluable contribution to national success....
    In the New Year Honours List:
    A Bletchley Park codebreaker who has been appointed MBE in the New Year Honours said he still hopes his whole team will one day be recognised. Raymond "Jerry" Roberts, 92, receives the honour for services to the WWII decryption centre and to codebreaking.... was among four founder members of the Testery section tasked with breaking the German High Command's Tunny code. The decrypts are credited with helping shorten the war by at least two years.

    He is now the last survivor of the nine cryptanalysts who worked on Tunny, and has spent the past four years campaigning for acknowledgement of his colleagues.
    Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...herts-20859561 and a BBC radio interview:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20863205
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-29-2012 at 08:25 PM. Reason: Add 2nd link
    davidbfpo

  14. #14
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Margaret Thatcher and intelligence

    A fascinating snapshot of Mrs T and UK intelligence based on her initial encounter with the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which appears on the website of:
    Number 10 Downing Street
    Link:http://www.number10.gov.uk/history-a...nce-committee/

    Hat tip to Kings College War Studies Tweet @warstudies.

    A very short explanation of the JIC:
    ..the Joint Intelligence Committee supported by the Joint Intelligence Organisation assesses the raw intelligence gathered by some of the Agencies and presents it to ministers to enable effective policy making.
    Link:http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reso...ence-machinery

    Incidentally Annex A is the best explanation of intelligence work I know:http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/site...vember2010.pdf

    For US readers this is the closest officialdom will get to saying - someone like the London CIA Head of Station sits in the JIC meeting's opening part:
    Also in attendance, as was normal, were representatives of the UK’s closest allies, who were present for the discussion of current intelligence and then withdrew.
    The others are expected to be Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
    davidbfpo

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    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    Default

    Here's a different C-i-C approach


    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...4e1_story.html
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
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  16. #16
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default The First Intelligence Prime Minister

    A rather surprising way of making an impact.

    An essay on 'The first intelligence prime minister: David Lloyd George (1916-1922)'; who dealt with the 'Great War' (WW1) and a few 'small wars', notably Ireland:http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/site...orge-as-PM.pdf

    The essay ends:
    Yet the way in which Lloyd George used intelligence was—like later prime ministers—a reflection of his own personal style and personality. Lloyd George approached intelligence in the same way that he
    approached everything else—with a keen eye for politics. Lloyd George was not as interested in intelligence as have been other prime ministers, nor did he often use intelligence particularly well. Certainly Churchill outranks Lloyd George in both respects. Yet, unlike any of his predecessors, intelligence formed an important part of Lloyd George’s premiership. For that reason, he rightfully earns the distinction of called being Britain’s first intelligence Prime Minister.
    An explanation for the essay:
    In 2012, as part of a competition, post graduate students were invited to submit an article under the heading Prime Ministers and their use of intelligence. The following article was originally intended for a wide popular audience rather than being written as a scholarly piece. In the event it was decided not to go forward with the competition and the article is reproduced here.

    Daniel Larsen is a Junior Research Fellow-Elect at Trinity College, Cambridge, 2013-2017. He is currently completing his PhD at Christ's College, Cambridge, and has a number of articles published or forthcoming in scholarly journals, including Intelligence and National Security, the International History Review, and Diplomatic History. His primary research interests are in the foreign polices of the United Kingdom and the United States in the early twentieth century, with a special focus on the role intelligence.
    davidbfpo

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    Default MI5 Chief Security Brief

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ty-speech.html

    I will focus on three things:

    • the MI5 of 2013, and what guides and shapes it;
    • the enduring and diversifying threat from Al Qaida and its imitators; and third
    • the question of how in a world of accelerating technological change MI5 will continue to be able to get the information it needs to protect the UK.

  18. #18
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Nothing is simple, even if MI5 say it is

    Bill,

    Not unexpectedly the speech got extensive publicity and yesterday morning two "wise, old men" were on BBC radio commenting. One, Nigel Inkster, ex-No.2 at SIS:
    I sense that those most interested in the activities of the NSA and GCHQ have not been told very much they didn't know already or could have inferred.
    Within a commentary:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...y-intelligence

    The Security Service's Director-General has used RUSI as a venue before, but rightly others ask, as would I, when he remarks about the unnamed Snowden revelations - where is the GCHQ Director? See:http://www.spyblog.org.uk/

    Then the Security Service's ex-legal adviser stated:
    Secrecy in this country is over-protected and under-regulated....The UK has signally failed to prepare itself for openness when dealing with politically sensitive issues such as terrorism or the involvement of their secret agencies in the gathering of information by secret means. We see only a fleeting and ephemeral face of the intelligence agencies chiefs; ministers glide over the threats, never explain their relationship with those agencies and are content to retain an obviously inadequate system for their supervision.

    (Bickford said public scepticism was) ..made worse by the Communications Data Bill's proposal that the agencies themselves control their mining of communications data. Unless government takes this debate seriously, secrecy will be pierced by the needs of society and terrorism and organised crime will plunder our sovereignty.
    Within a report on a speech by Hilary Clinton, in London:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...clinton-spying

    Issues of accountability, damage and necessity pale in significance when it is alleged politicians had not authorised the GCHQ-NSA collaboration to conduct such extensive surveillance of the innocent. Then bizarrely, in the UK, ministers from the coalition and Labour had promoted legislation to undertake such surveillance.
    davidbfpo

  19. #19
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Landscape moving

    The MI5 Director-General's speech has hardly calmed opinions and here are three different viewpoints.

    First an extended comment by Nigel Inkster, ex-SIS, now IISS, entitled Surveillance and Counter-Terrorism:http://www.iiss.org/en/politics%20an...d-counter-c6f9

    Then an article in The Guardian, by Ken McDonald, a top lawyer and formerly a Director of Public Prosecutions, who is usually worth reading:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ing-technology

    Incidentally an ex-GCHQ legal adviser is speaking next week @ Oxford University, at a cyber event and hopefully a transcript will appear. It is very rare for such luminaries, let alone anyone from GCHQ, to speak in public.

    The third article is by a retired Conservative MP, known for being robust as a minister and backbencher. If he is being critical then the political assumptions on surveillance are changing:http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...nce?CMP=twt_gu
    davidbfpo

  20. #20
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    Default Ex-SIS Director talk 'Terrorism and National Security: Proportion or Distortion?'

    A short RUSI podcast (30 mins) of a lecture by Sir Richard Dearlove, former Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) till 2004:https://www.rusi.org/events/past/ref.../#.U7rENdzGvlJ

    Two different commentaries. The title in The Guardian:
    Islamist terror threat to west blown out of proportion - former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove says extremists are now focused on Middle East and giving them publicity in west is counter-productive
    Link:http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...chard-dearlove

    Or this headline in The Daily Telegraph:
    Islamist terror is little threat to the West, and Saudis are backing Iraqi jihad': is this former spy chief right?
    Link:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/sh...y-chief-right/

    Those who have been 'C' rarely speak openly, so worth a listen IMHO.
    davidbfpo

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