I Spy With My Cyber Spy
August 27, 2019
This is Tim Hsia, Daily Pnut’s publisher. If you are in San Francisco today (8/27), then please join a panel I’m moderating this evening at the Marines Memorial Club & Hotel. I’ll be interviewing three successful veteran entrepreneurs. I think this panel will be especially interesting to veterans interested in startups, technology, and transitioning from the military to the private sector. However, we welcome anyone to attend. Please RSVP here.
“If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of the reasons startups win. Big companies want to decrease the standard deviation of design outcomes because they want to avoid disasters. But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as the low. This is not a problem for big companies, because they don’t win by making great products. Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies.” – Paul Graham
I Spy With My Cyber Spy…
When Army General Paul Nakasome took over last year as director of America’s premier covert intelligence gathering organization — the National Security Agency — he was determined to change the reality that rivals didn’t fear the US in the cyber realm. Nakasome immediately began fostering a more aggressive cyber strategy, something he calls “persistent engagement.”
While this approach covers a broad spectrum of cyber activities, its fundamental objective is to relentlessly track adversaries, and increasingly take offensive action against them. “That’s the idea of persistent engagement. This idea of enabling and acting,” he said.
The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes; it’s also tasked with the protection of US communications networks and information systems. One of the changes Nakasone initiated is to create the Cybersecurity Directorate, which launches in October. It’s the “umbrella” under which the NSA’s full range of cyber capabilities, offensive and defensive, will reside.
With the opening in May 2018 of the $500 million Integrated Cyber Center and Joint Operations Center — or ICC/JOC — the NSA, Cyber Command, and other US government organizations and their foreign partners are now housed under one roof, a state-of-the-art cyberwarfare bunker on the NSA compound in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Additional read: China’s Spies Are on the Offensive: China’s spies are waging an intensifying espionage offensive against the United States. Does America have what it takes to stop them? (Atlantic)
From Burning The Rainforest To Burning France, Bolsonaro Continues To Be Awful
- It’s hard to imagine Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro behaving more despicably than he already does, considering his predatory chauvinism and attacks on the environment. Yet, he’s managed to dig his way even deeper into the gutter, this time cracking jokes about France’s first lady, President Emmanuel Macron’s wife Brigitte. (Guardian)
A No-Filter Look At Thailand’s Rulers
- Last July, on the occasion of his 67th birthday, Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn bestowed the rank of noble consort on his 34-year old wife, former army nurse Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi.
- Now the palace has released rare images and a biography of the king’s consort that show Sineenat in camouflage fatigues, taking part in military drills, flying a small plane, and laughing at a table with the king, with both wearing casual clothes.
- The images and details provide an unusually intimate glimpse into the private lives of the powerful, ultra-wealthy monarchy. No one will make any disparaging comments about the images, lest they violate a royal insult law that carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. (Guardian)
Man: 2, Rainforests: 0
- Indonesia’s coastal capital, Jakarta, already suffering from catastrophic pollution and traffic congestion, also faces rising sea levels. Now the government has announced it will move its capital from the climate-threatened toxic megalopolis of Jakarta to the sparsely populated island of Borneo, which happens to be home to some of the world’s greatest rainforests. What could possibly go wrong? (Guardian)
The Grass Is Also On Fire On The Other Side Of The Fence
- Although international attention has been focused on the catastrophic fires in the Brazilian Amazon, neighboring Bolivia is undergoing devastating fires of its own. Farmland and environmentally sensitive forests are both aflame.
- President Evo Morales, who suspended his reelection campaign Sunday, said foreign aid was welcomed.
- Brazil’s president Bolsonaro dismissed the seriousness of Bolivia’s fires, while France’s president Macron said the G-7 nations were putting together an aid package for the South American countries affected by the fires. (NYT)
Endangered Cheetahs & Endangered Conservationists
- Nine Iranian conservationists who conducted an ambitious wildlife project, setting camera traps in seven provinces in Iran’s central plateau to monitor the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah, are now being tried for espionage and could face the death penalty or ten years in prison.
- Prior to embarking on their project the men had worked with the government, secured the right permits and received funding and equipment from abroad. But the researchers drew the suspicion of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful branch of Iran’s armed forces, and were arrested last year for spying and “spreading corruption on earth.” (WaPo)
Additional World News
- ‘Melania is ready to risk it all’: first lady’s Trudeau encounter delights internet Images of Trump and Trudeau taken as world leaders and spouses came together to conclude the G7 summit captured the imaginations of many (Guardian)
- Trump leans into his chaotic style (CNN)
- Trump and Rouhani say they are willing to meet (WaPo, $)
- Immigration panic: how the west fell for manufactured rage: From Trump to Orbán, politicians are winning votes by stoking age-old hatreds. Where does this fear of migrants come from? (Guardian)
- China’s Leaders Are Divided Over Trade War With U.S. (NPR)
This Is Your Company. This Is A Fine. This Is Your Company On A Fine. Any Questions?
- In a case of first impression, an Oklahoma judge has held Johnson & Johnson responsible for helping to fuel the state’s opioid crisis that has claimed the lives of 6,000 Oklahomans.
- Judge Thad Balkman presided over a seven week civil trial in which prosecutors alleged J&J had deceptively marketed painkillers through its pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen, and should pay the state $17.5 billion. Balkman found the state had proved its key legal argument, that the company had created a public nuisance, and ordered J&J to pay $572 million.
- The judge’s award was far short of what prosecutors had asked, and is estimated to only fund Oklahoma’s opioid recovery plan for one year. Two other pharmaceutical companies settled with the state prior to trial. (NPR)
Additional USA News
- New 2020 Poll Shows Three-Way Tie Among Sanders, Warren and Biden (NYT, $)
- Nestlé plan to take 1.1m gallons of water a day from natural springs sparks outcry: Opponents fighting to stop the project say the fragile river cannot sustain such a large draw (Guardian)
- 19 States And DC Sue Administration Over Plan To Detain Migrant Children Indefinitely (NPR)
- Investigators scrutinizing video outside Epstein’s cell find some footage unusable, according to people familiar with the inquiry (WaPo)
- Trial of High-Powered Lawyer Gregory Craig Exposes Seamy Side of Washington’s Elite (NYT, $)
Who Audits The Auditers?
- A new study says budget cuts at the Internal Revenue Service are estimated to have cost $34.3 billion in lost tax revenues from corporations. The research supports previous statistics indicating the IRS is auditing fewer tax returns from big business because it has fewer people and resources available to identify potential errors and follow up on questionable tax returns.
- This is the first study to actually quantify the amount of corporate tax revenue lost during the audit process per dollar of IRS budget cuts. “We’re quantifying the effect of budget cuts on collections by trying to better understand how cuts impact the entire enforcement process — from audit rates to ultimate settlements between taxpayers and tax authorities,” said one of the researchers. (Accounting Today)
Additional Reads
- Millennials are accused of destroying everything. And now the economy fights back: The Next Recession Will Destroy Millennials Millennials are already in debt and without savings. After the next downturn, they’ll be in even bigger trouble. (Atlantic)
- Millennials might lose but credit cards will never: The spy in your wallet: Credit cards have a privacy problem: In a privacy experiment, we bought one banana with the new Apple Card — and another with the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa from Chase. Here’s who tracked, mined and shared our data. (WaPo)
- Let us now stop praising famous men (and women) (Aeon)
- Speaking of not praising famous people: I Gooped Myself: I spent $1,279 of The Atlantic’s money on creams, crystals, and a vibrator from Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness empire. Things got weird. (Atlantic)
- Optimism may hold secret to longer life, study suggests: Research claims people who ‘look on the bright side’ stand better chance of reaching 85 (Guardian)
LAST MORSELS
“If you have to choose between two theories, prefer the one that doesn’t center on you.” – Paul Graham