Security & Defense

NSA Deputy Warns Against Cyber Vigilantes

By Colin Clark, Breaking Defense

From Colin Clark, Breaking Defense:  The private sector — and the government — must “exhaust” the use of traditional responses such as public shaming, criminal charges, diplomatic demarches, and sanctions “before we contemplate the dangerous possibility we might encourage vigilantism

Report Recommends US Permit Private Counterattacks Against International Hackers

By David E. Sanger, New York Times

From David E. Sanger, New York Times:  With President Obama preparing for a first meeting with China’s new president, a commission led by two former senior officials in his administration will recommend a series of steps that could significantly raise the cost to China of the theft of American industrial secrets.

Crisis in the Sahel: Overview

By Rudolph Atallah

North Africa and the intertwined Sahel, from Egypt to Mauritania, is a region that has undergone profound and destabilizing political and social change in the last several years, especially since the “Arab Spring” of 2011. Nascent political systems, newly empowered non-state actors, and underlying structural problems in the region contribute to an increasingly volatile mix, […]

NATO Deactivates Allied Air Command Izmir HQ in Turkey

By Kimberly Rhoades, Allied Air Command

Digital Warfare: North Korean Cyber-Rattling

By Economist

From Economist:  Earlier this month the Department of Defence delivered a report to Congress accusing the hermit kingdom’s expanding army of “cyber-warriors” of using foreign infrastructure, such as broadband networks, to launch cyber-attacks on American allies, most notably South Korea. Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s fresh-faced dictator, is said to have 4,000 loyal cyber-warriors at […]

EU Invites NATO to Boost Cyber Cooperation

By NATO Parliamentary Assembly

From NATO Parliamentary Assembly:  The European Union’s top justice official invited NATO on Saturday to work more closely with the EU to combat cyber-crime and create a safe Internet environment where citizen’s rights and personal data are protected.

The Unique Characteristics of Cyber Weapons

By Panayotis A. Yannakogeorgos, National Interest

From Panayotis A. Yannakogeorgos, National Interest:  Cyber events breaching the threshold of armed attack require the use of cyberweapons. These differ substantially from other malicious code.

Challenges in Measuring Violent Conflict, Syria Edition

By Jay Ulfelder

As part of a larger (but, unfortunately, gated) story on how the terrific new Global Data on Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) might help social scientists forecast violent conflicts, the New Scientist recently posted some graphics using GDELT to chart the ongoing civil war in Syria. Among those graphics was this time-series plot of violent events per […]