Vox: “Every American knows what the CIA is. I would guess that maybe 1 in 1,000 have ever heard of INR — the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, American diplomats’ in-house intelligence agency. But if you do know about INR, you probably know two things: It has gotten big stuff right when the… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Defense
Hacked data reveals which US gun sellers are behind Mexican cartel violence
USA TODAY exclusive: “A massive leak of Mexican military intelligence has exposed for the first time in two decades U.S. gun shops and smugglers tied to 78,000 firearms recovered south of the border – and which types of guns are being trafficked. The nuggets of information are among roughly 10 million records hacked by an… Continue Reading
Top spy official releases principles on intel agency use of info bought from data brokers
Cyberscoop: “The U.S. spy chief on Wednesday published its policies for how intelligence agencies collect and use information from data brokers, but a prominent Hill critic says the guidance doesn’t address a key point about what kind of information it can or can’t obtain. The “Policy Framework for Commercially Available Information,” or CAI, released by… Continue Reading
The Rise of AI: Insights from RAND
RAND – “Artificial intelligence—from machine learning that’s already widely used today to the possible artificial general intelligence of the future—has the power to transform the way we live, work, and interact. AI tools are evolving quickly, and decisionmakers are grappling with how to maximize the potential benefits, minimize the short- and long-term risks, and plan… Continue Reading
Extremist Militias Are Coordinating In More Than 100 Facebook Groups
Via Wired: Facebook Dangerous Individuals and Organizations List (Reproduced Snapshot Original Document (PDF) » [100 pages] Contributed by SooHee Cho (The Intercept). “This is a reproduction of an internal Facebook list used to regulate speech on company platforms. This snapshot of the list has been lightly edited for clarity. Notes associated with the entries were… Continue Reading
A National Security Insider Does the Math on the Dangers of AI
Wired [unpaywalled]: “Jason Matheny is a delight to speak with, provided you’re up for a lengthy conversation about potential technological and biomedical catastrophe. Now CEO and president of Rand Corporation, Matheny has built a career out of thinking about such gloomy scenarios. An economist by training with a focus on public health, he dived into… Continue Reading
U.S. Intelligence Community’s 2024 Annual Threat Assessment
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) [March 11, 2024] released the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. This report reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community, which is committed every day to providing the nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need… Continue Reading
An Action Plan to increase the safety and security of advanced AI
“In October 2022, a month before ChatGPT was released, the U.S. State Department commissioned the first-ever assessment of proliferation and security risk from weaponized and misaligned AI. In February 2024, Gladstone completed that assessment. It includes an analysis of catastrophic AI risks, and a first-of-its-kind, government-wide Action Plan for what we can do about them…”… Continue Reading
Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community
February 5, 2024 – Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI): “This annual report of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (Pub. L. No. 116-260). This report reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community (IC), which is committed every… Continue Reading
House Committee Approves Bill Restricting Sales of Sensitive Data to Foreign Adversaries
EPIC: “March 7, 2024 the House Energy & Commerce Committee approved H.R. 7520, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, sponsored by Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The bill prohibits data brokers from selling, transferring, or providing access to Americans’ sensitive data to certain foreign adversaries… Continue Reading
A.I. Joe: The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence and the Military
Public Citizen: “The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the military-industrial complex are rushing to embrace an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven future. There’s nothing particularly surprising or inherently worrisome about this trend. AI is already in widespread use and evolving generative AI technologies are likely to suffuse society, remaking jobs, organizational arrangements and machinery. At the… Continue Reading
How much money has each country spent, each year, on its military?
Data is Plural: “Different datasets have different answers, cover different timeframes, and use different methodologies. Miriam Barnum et al.’s Global Military Spending Dataset attempts to bring them together. By uniting “76 variables from 9 dataset collection projects,” the authors write, “we provide the most comprehensive and complete set of published datasets on military spending ever… Continue Reading
