Sealed & expunged, commission & omission. Contributor Sean Bigley advises, “One of the most common and needless mistakes I see security clearance applicants make involves the listing (read: not listing) of sealed and expunged criminal records on their SF-86 forms. By the time the applicant comes to us for assistance, he or she is often fighting a preliminary security clearance denial based upon Guideline ‘E’ (Personal Conduct) for the allegedly intentional omission. Frequently our clients tell us that they were operating in good faith upon the advice of their former criminal defense attorney.”
Cybersecurity degrees. Contributor Ron Kness writes, “Because of the competiveness in [the cybersecurity] field, at least a bachelor’s degree is usually required by most companies and government agencies hiring entry-level positions in cybersecurity . . . . For those already working in the field, they should look at possibly adding a master’s degree to their cybersecurity education repertoire to stay both relevant and competitive – particularly within General Schedule (GS) positions.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports, “Russia is running out of money. President Vladimir Putin is taking a strategic gamble, depleting the Kremlin’s last reserve funds to cover the budget and to pay for an escalating war in Syria at the same time. . . . Russia is pressing ahead with massive rearmament, pushing defence spending towards 5pc of GDP and risking the sort of military overstretch that bankrupted the Soviet Union.”
Reuters’ Tom Perry and Suleiman al-Khalidi report, “Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies near Aleppo said on Monday they had received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of a major government offensive last week. . . . The delivery of the U.S.-made TOW missiles to rebels in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria appears to be an initial response to the new Russian-Iranian intervention. Foreign states supporting the rebels include Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.”
The Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss report, “The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and their Shiite militia allies have reported major successes after launching an operation to recapture the central Iraqi city of Baiji last week,. The Islamic State is said to be holed up in just a pocket of the city after the Iraqi forces retook the Baiji oil refinery, the city center, and several districts.”
Homeland Security News Wire reports, “Amid growing concerns about the growth of home-grown terrorism, British prime minister David Camron has announce that the government will spend millions on funding anti-extremism projects in communities and tackling online attempts to radicalize vulnerable Britons.”
The Daily Beast’s Kevin Maurer reports, “Anne, an Air Force staff sergeant, was—and still is—a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) sensor operator or ‘sensor.’ At Creech, she is assigned to a reconnaissance squadron flying missions over Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Defence Talk reports, “The multi-million dollar jet sustained significant damage, forcing it to jettison its fuel tanks and munitions before returning to base . . . . The attack occurred last Tuesday in the Sayid Karam district of eastern Paktia province, much of which is under control of the Taliban, who have been waging an insurgency against US-led NATO forces and government troops since they were forced from power in 2001.”
CONTRACT WATCH
Vice News’ Shannon Hayden reports, “Three bidders — France, Germany, and Japan — are duking it out at the invitation of the Australian government, with final bids for the construction of up to 12 subs to replace the current fleet of six due on November 30. Each of the three bidders received $6 million to complete their applications. The smart money seems to remain on Japan, which sweetened the pot by agreeing to share top-secret technology relating to lithium-ion batteries as part of its package.”
Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor John Keller reports, “Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., have issued a broad agency announcement (DARPA-BAA-16-06) for the Dynamic Network Adaptation for Mission Optimization (DyNAMO) program, which seeks technologies that enable network interoperability among airborne platforms in adversarial environments. The DyNAMO is intended solve a critical problem in the nation’s ability to conduct operations against enemies with similar technological capabilities . . . .”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
The Register’s John Leyden reports, “Diffie-Hellman is a cornerstone of modern cryptography used for VPNs, HTTPS websites, email, and many other protocols. Bad implementation choices combined with advances in number theory mean real-world users of Diffie-Hellman are likely vulnerable to state-level attackers . . . . The root cause of the cryptographic weakness is that many applications use a standardised or hard-coded prime. This means an adversary can perform a single enormous computation to ‘crack’ a particular prime before breaking any individual connection that uses that prime.”
The Daily Beast’s Robert M. Galford reports, “In January 1944, at the height of World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the predecessor of today’s Central Intelligence Agency—issued an extraordinary classified document. OSS operatives, under the direction of General William J. ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, had been organizing and training members of the European resistance movement in tactics of sabotage. These techniques were presented in a slim volume, the Simple Sabotage Field Manual .”
Wired’s Kim Zetter reports, “A hacker who claims to have broken into the AOL account of CIA Director John Brennan says he obtained access by posing as a Verizon worker to trick another employee into revealing the spy chief’s personal information. Using information like the four digits of Brennan’s bank card, which Verizon easily relinquished, the hacker and his associates were able to reset the password on Brennan’s AOL account repeatedly as the spy chief fought to regain control of it.”
