Monday Mourning & Jordan Spieth wins the Masters
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
On the road. Contributor Jennifer Cary explains, “For most of us, traveling for work is a fun bonus. It doesn’t happen very often and when it does, it’s usually for a short period of time. However, there’s a group of people in the workforce who travel about 70-80 percent of the year for work. While these ‘road warriors’ benefit from a lot of travel perks and well paying jobs, they also have to perform a balancing act with their home lives. Do you think you have what it takes? Get the inside scoop from two road warriors and decide for yourself.”
China’s perfect spy. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “China now has a blueprint for creating the perfect mole – particularly concerning what degree of foreign influence, debt, or other potentially disqualifying conditions allow an individual to make the cut. They can craft the perfect spy – by making sure he or she isn’t ‘too’ perfect, just the perfect blend of skills and associations to make an attractive candidate.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
Taliban attack Parliament. AP’s Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah reports, “The Taliban launched a complex attack on the Afghan parliament Monday, with a suicide car bomber striking at the entrance and gunmen battling police as lawmakers were meeting inside to confirm the appointment of a defense minister . . . . [T]he attack began with a car bomb explosion near the entrance. Gunmen then attempted to storm the compound but were pushed back by security forces and eventually took refuge in a nearby building under construction . . . . The insurgents have also been advancing across the country’s north, capturing two districts of the Kunduz province in as many days.” See also, “Taliban launch brazen attack on Afghan parliament, seize second district in north” and “Parliament siege ends; all seven attackers killed by special forces.”
Jihadi training camps. The Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss report, “The number of training camps operated by jihadists inside Iraq and Syria continues to rise. The Long War Journal has identified more than 100 in the two countries. While not all of these facilities may be currently operational, the proliferation of camps by the Islamic State, the Al Nusrah Front, and other groups poses a regional and global threat. Since the beginning of 2012, a total of 117 camps have been identified as being operational at one point in time. Of those, 85 have been found in Syria, and 32 in Iraq; 11 are used to indoctrinate and train children.”
Ash Carter on Russia. Reuters’ Phil Stewart reports, “The United States and its allies won’t let Russia “drag us back to the past”, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in an address in Berlin on Monday, as he accused Moscow of trying to re-create a Soviet-era sphere of influence. Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has put NATO allies in eastern Europe on edge and triggered a series of military moves by the NATO alliance, including an acceleration of exercises and the creation of a NATO rapid response force. Carter, who will view components of that NATO force later on Monday, said the alliance would keep the door open to an improved relationship with Russia but said flatly: ‘It’s up to the Kremlin to decide.’”
Defying ISIS. Christian Science Monitor’s Dominique Soguel reports, “Rim Alif (not her real name) may be young but she’s no stranger to the risks of defying authority. When the Islamic State took control of her hometown of Minbaj in northern Syria she was just 17. Before then, she had organized and participated in scores of protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Today Ms. Alif belongs to a small universe of Syrian teenagers who managed to defy IS and lived to tell the tale.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Mobility matters: the JLTV. Breaking Defense’s Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. reports, “The first crucial difference is what the JLTV is meant to do: combine the protection of the bulky MRAPs with the off-road agility of the original unarmored Humvee, before layers of added armor weighed it down. Mobility matters both on the attack and on defense, because the best protection against a roadside bomb is to get off the road. Mining a key chokepoint along a predictable route is easy. Mining all possible cross-country approaches is not. The second crucial difference is JLTV’s design. . . .”
Kudu Dynamics shoulders Air Force cyber defense. Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Air Force cyber security experts are looking to Kudu Dynamics LLC in Catharpin, Va., to help enhance the understanding of internal computer functions as a way to detect and counter advanced cyber warfare threats. Officials of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, announced a $7.2 million contract to Kudu Dynamics late Thursday to participate in the Transparent Computing project. The Air Force Research Lab awarded the contract on behalf of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
OPM’s failure. Federal Times’ Aaron Boyd reports, “The biggest misstep in the breach of Office of Personnel Management networks was not the failure to block the initial breach but the lack of encryption, detection and other safeguards that should have prevented intruders from obtaining any useful information. The data stolen in the massive OPM breach was not protected by practices like data masking, redaction and encryption — all of which should become the norm, rather than the exception . . . . OPM CIO Donna Seymour pointed to aging systems as the primary obstacle to putting such protections in place for certain systems, despite having the encryption tools on hand.”
Nuke up. Defense One’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “The United States should develop new low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons to deter countries from seeking nuclear weapons of their own, a new think-tank report says. It also argues that the U.S. should base more nuclear weapons around the world to better deter attacks.”
Side channel attacks. PC World’s Jeremy Kirk reports, “By studying the electronic signals, researchers have shown it is possible to deduce keystrokes, figure out what application a person is using or discover the secret encryption keys used to encrypt files or emails. This latest work focuses on capturing the encryption keys for laptops running GnuPG 1.x, an open source encryption program using the RSA and ElGamal key encryption algorithms. The researchers said they’ve notified the developer of GnuPG, Werner Koch, of their research. The researchers built a device that could be concealed in pita bread that collects electromagnetic signals from 50 centimeters away.”
Off limits: the Waldorf-Astoria. Homeland Security News Wire reports, “The U.S. State Department said American diplomats and State Department officials, for the first time in decades, would not be staying at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel during this year’s UN general assembly. The State Department gave no reason for the decision, but the writing was on the wall since Hilton Worldwide last year sold the high-end Midtown hotel for $1.95 billion to the Chinese group Anbang Insurance Group. The sales contract allowed for ‘a major renovation’ by the Chinese, and American security experts had no doubt as to the purpose of these ‘renovations’: As is the practice in China, the Chinese owners, working on behalf of China’s intelligence services, were going to plant listening devices in every room and ball room, and wire every phone, Wi-Fi hot spot, and restaurant table in order to eavesdrop on hotel guests.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Irony. “In an Associated Press image that drew comment and criticism on Twitter on Sunday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is seen speaking with what appeared to be a gun aimed straight at him. The photograph — taken by the AP’s Charlie Neibergall — actually captured a background poster, with a large semi-blurred image of a handgun pointed at Cruz’s forehead, straight between the eyes.”
Vigil. “The wait is almost over for what could be the last big legal threat to ObamaCare. Court-watchers are working themselves into a frenzy awaiting a decision on King v. Burwell, one of the most-anticipated cases of the year. On opinion days, dozens of reporters are packing into the court or swarming the steps outside, while nearly 10,000 people tune into SCOTUSblog for live updates. False reports attempting to predict the timing of the decision have only further fueled the hype.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
“Iran: The Last Lap.” US News contributor Mortimer B. Zuckerman argues, “If we do go down this road of giving Iran a chance to behave in a civilized manner, let’s keep in mind the adage: Experience is a wonderful thing; it enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.”
“Why Obama is wrong about Iran being ‘rational’ on nukes.” LA Times’ contributor Michael Oren argues, “Obama would never say that anti-black racists are rational. And he would certainly not trust them with the means — however monitored — to reach their racist goals. That was the message Israeli officials and I conveyed in our discreet talks with the administration. The response was not, to our mind, reasonable.”
