12/2: The Dark Web Baits Me

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I spent the week in Florida with my family, and I [security insertion: don't reveal publicly where your family lives; lock your geographical references down!] found myself with a teachable moment. On Friday, at around 10:21 in the morning, I received the following text message on my …

11/25 – Friendship Hacking And Juice Jacking

A weekend coincidence brought to my attention a very simple, often quite under-appreciated tradecraft mistake that journalists commit quite often.  I have been, am currently, and will be in violation of the maxim I am about to impart. Do not add your sources to any of your social networks. Sounds head-thuddingly obvious.  But it's actually …

Digital / Security / Tradecraft (11/22) — Dr. Hill’s Warning

After she accepted an offer to join President Trump's National Security Council, Dr. Fiona Hill,  found herself the putative victim of campaign of digital harassment to defame, degrade and doxxed her and her family. The political vector attached to this function came from the network of pro-Trump media agitators. Hill was a "mole."  She was …

Digital / Security / Tradecraft (11/20)

U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland's worldview-vitiating testimony about President Trump hoping to trade an official act for a thing of personal value is rightfully crowding out a congressional discussion of whether the calls between President Trump and Sondland constituted a counter-intelligence threat. Well, yes -- they did. Sondland told Rep. Adam Schiff that …

A Short Post About The Post…

I saw The Post tonight. I should say that I finally saw the Post. It’s a movie I wanted to see in a mostly empty theatre so I could be alone with my thoughts about Steven Spielberg’s creation. And thoughts I have! And share them I will…. eventually. A number of government folks will say …

China’s spy inside the CIA’s clandestine service?

In May, The New York Times, in a feat of national security journalism that made me quite jealous of their reporters and those reporters’ sources, broke the news that the CIA and the FBI were years-deep in a counter-intelligence investigation because virtually all of the CIA’s informants and agents inside of China had been killed …