FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Career opportunities: cybersecurity and clouds. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “Booz Allen is a leading provider of management consulting, technology, and engineering services to the US government in defense, intelligence, and civil markets, and to major corporations and not-for-profit organizations. . . . The firm is hiring in San Diego, CA; Annapolis Junction, MD; Hawaii; the Washington, DC Metro area―and other locations nationwide—for these opportunities and others . . . .”
2. Spy story: George Koval. Contributor David Brown tells the story: “When we talk about spies and leakers generally, motivations tend to revolve around money or love—the man who runs up too much gambling debt and needs a way out, or the woman who says too much to the person she brought home from a bar. But there is another, much simpler reason that people violate their security clearance: they really want to. That is to say, they are philosophically disposed toward another power. . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Turkey supporting Kurds. DefenseNews.Com’s Burak Ege Bekdil reports from Ankara, Turkey, “In a landmark statement, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Oct. 20 that Turkey allowed forces from the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to cross into the Syrian border town of Kobane to fight against jihadists. . . . ‘We are helping the Peshmerga . . . cross into Kobane. Our discussions are still underway . . . . Turkey has been in ‘full cooperation’ with the international coalition over Kobane . . . . We have never wanted Kobane to fall . . . and never will. Turkey has made every effort to prevent that. Turkey sent humanitarian assistance and medical equipment.’” Aljazeera.Com reports, “Turkey to let Iraqi Kurds join Kobane battle.”
2. al Qaeda dukes it out with Houthi rebels in Yemen. LongWarJournal.Org’s Oren Adaki reports, “Clashes between fighters from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Shiite Houthi rebels continued over the past several days as the two groups attempted to expand their respective advances throughout the country. After the Houthis took Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, in late September, AQAP declared an open war against the rebels and increased its operations against both the Yemeni military and the Houthis, especially in the central portion of the country. AQAP has claimed credit for 16 attacks that took place in six Yemeni provinces between Oct. 16 – Oct. 20.” See also, “Beyond the Houthi Takeover of Yemen.”
3. Iraqi PM rules out foreign boots. DefenseNews.Com reports, “Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Monday ruled out any foreign ground intervention to assist government forces in retaking territory lost to jihadists and urged Sunnis to give up such hopes. . . . ‘No ground forces from any superpower, international coalition or regional power will fight here,’ Abadi [said]. ‘This is my decision, it is the decision of the Iraqi government.’”
4. SOFA in Afghanistan—Wolesi Jirga vote coming. Khaama.Com reports, “Lawmakers in the Lower House of Parliament – Wolesi Jirga are due to vote on Bilateral Security Agreement between Kabul and Washington and the NATO Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) next week. . . . The draft bilateral security agreement between Kabul and Washington was endorsed by majority during a gathering by tribal elders last year. However, the former President Hamid Karzai refused to sign the deal. The agreement will pave the way for the presence of US troops to Afghanistan beyond 2014.” See also from Khaama.Com, “Czech gov’t approves plan to keep troops in Afghanistan until 2016.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Navy—you’re gonna get a $2 million Dell! NextGov.Com’s Bob Brewin reports, “The Navy has tapped Dell to provide it with a Microsoft enterprise-as-a-service cloud email system for its reservists. The Navy says the Microsoft cloud email pilot will save hundreds of millions of dollars as an alternative to the service’s Next Generation Enterprise Network, known as NGEN. . . . The Dell award, made retroactive to Sept. 30, is valued at about $2.14 million . . . .”
2. Air Force in orbit. MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Air Force researchers are asking for industry’s help to find technologies that will enable U.S. military forces to control orbital space above the Earth in similar ways to how they control military air space below. Officials of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, on Friday released presolicitation (BAA-RIK-2015-0001) for the Space Operations Initiative (SOI) project to improve command and control of military space warfare operations.”
3. RW wow-factor contract competition. AviationWeek.Com’s Graham Warwick reports, “Speed comes at a cost and, as Bell and Sikorsky/Boeing design fast rotorcraft demonstrators for the U.S. Army, to justify the price they must prove their designs will do more than cross the battlefield more swiftly than today’s helicopters. Their competing Joint Multi Role (JMR) demonstrators are set to fly in 2017 . . . .”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Hack attack—China’s man in the middle. Reuters reports, “Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) iCloud storage and backup service in China was attacked by hackers trying to steal user credentials, a Chinese web monitoring group said, adding that it believes the country’s government is behind the campaign. Using what is called a ‘man-in-the-middle’ (MITM) attack, the hackers interposed their own website between users and Apple’s iCloud server, intercepting data and potentially gaining access to passwords, iMessages, photos and contacts . . . .”
2. 3D printing—dog noses (sans cool damp). NextGov.Com’s Rebecca Carroll reports, “Now, a new $228,977 3-D printer will churn out some of the best artificial dog noses anywhere. Because dogs are precision sniffers able to distinguish odors from a greater distance than ordinary vacuums, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology wondered how much the shape of the creatures’ noses factored into their skill. The researchers began 3-D printing anatomically correct artificial noses modeled after a female Labrador retriever.”
3. Clouds in defense and intelligence. FederalTimes.Com’s Amber Corrin reports, “Defense and intelligence agencies operating missions around the world increasingly are looking to the cloud to store, organize and process operational data critical to decision-making on the ground. The world of defense intelligence is, by nature, highly classified and secured behind the deepest layers of protections, but the technological juggernaut that is cloud is driving a change in how missions are carried out.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. The curse: “President Obama delivered a blow to Democratic Senate candidates looking to distance themselves from his flagging approval ratings Monday, saying lawmakers avoiding him on the campaign trail were ‘strong allies and supporters’ who have ‘supported my agenda in Congress. . . . The bottom line is though, these are all folks who vote with me, they have supported my agenda in Congress, they are on the right side of minimum wage, they are on the right side of fair pay, they are on the right side of rebuilding our infrastructure, they’re on the right side of early childhood education.’ Obama went on to say that his feelings weren’t hurt by Democrats reluctant to campaign with him.”
2. Best gig going: “The federal government has shelled out more than $700 million in paid leave to more than 57,000 employees who were home from work for time periods stretching from one month to three years, a Government Accountability Office report has found. . . . The report found that during a three-year period beginning in 2011, 263 employees remained on paid leave for one to three years at a cost of $31 million. In some cases, about five percent of the time, the federal government couldn’t come up with a reason why some employees were home on paid leave.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. GOOD READ: “Putin’s Coup: How the Russian leader used the Ukraine crisis to consolidate his dictatorship.” Politico.Com contributor Judah explains, “The war in Ukraine is no longer only about Ukraine. The conflict has transformed Russia. This increasingly is what European leaders and diplomats believe: that Vladimir Putin and his security establishment have used the fog of war in Ukraine to shroud the final establishment of his brittle imperialist dictatorship in Moscow.”
2. “Lessons of Ebola: Unequal in life, unequal in death.” Reuters contributor John Lloyd argues, “Globalization has made our lives richer in many ways; now it presents us with the horrors of the poor, and prods us, for our own safety as much as for our conscience, to respond with all our expertise and courage.”
3. “Even Containment Needs Boots on the Ground.” DefenseOne.Com contributor Jeffrey Meyerle argues, “The United States may need to deploy ground forces to Iraq and Syria just to contain the Islamic State and arrest its momentum, to say nothing of destroying the group. Air strikes have not halted its advance and are bound to yield diminishing returns. The longer the group controls important cities such as Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul, the stronger it will become.”
THE FUNNIES
2. Power struggle.
3. Midterms.
