Quotulatiousness

September 25, 2011

The new TV show will have to be highly imaginative to match the real Pan Am

Filed under: Americas, History, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:11

Scott Van Wynsberghe looks at the fascinating history of the real-world Pan American:

To say the least, it was a peculiar charter flight. At some point in the first half of the 1960s, Pan American World Airways put one of its planes at the disposal of Indonesian president Sukarno. However, Pan Am was also working with the CIA, and the plane was wired for surveillance. As well, Pan Am vice-president Samuel Pryor — who was the airline’s liaison with the CIA — staffed the flight with “stewardesses” who were actually German hookers. Pryor would later reveal all this to co-authors Marilyn Bender and Selig Altschul for their 1982 book on Pan Am CEO Juan Trippe, The Chosen Instrument. Referring to Sukarno, a known womanizer, Pryor commented, “I was afraid to expose our Pan Am girls to him. Our girls were nice girls.”

The new ABC television series Pan Am, which premiered on Sept. 25, will have to go a ways to beat that image of intrigue and sexism. Still, the creators of the series deserve credit just for reviving interest in a company notorious for combining flying and spying.

[. . .]

Amid the profits in Latin America, however, were the roots of shadowy affairs to come. As early as 1930, Pan Am quietly acquired SCADTA, a Colombian-based German aviation firm, but the existing management was allowed to remain. That caused trouble later in the 1930s, as war threatened in Europe and Washington fretted over the proximity of so many German fliers to the Panama Canal. In early 1939, the U.S. military — well aware of the true ownership of SCADTA — simply ordered Trippe to purge the Germans from the company. When American replacement crews arrived, they discovered that someone had been modifying SCADTA planes to permit the mounting of bombs and machine guns.

Over a year after the SCADTA affair, in mid-1940, U.S. authorities were so worried over a possible spread of the Second World War to the Western Hemisphere that they decided to create a chain of installations across the Caribbean and the coast of Brazil. The problem was that all this would require complex military treaties, for which there was no time. Airfields and radio stations could, however, be built by a private company pretending that all the activity was just routine business. If war did reach the hemisphere, panicky local governments could then permit the U.S. military to take over the sites. Pan Am was chosen for the job, and a secret deal was finalized in November. According to historian Stanley Hilton, German military intelligence attempted to monitor the ensuing construction.

September 21, 2011

Tories drop “lawful access” provisions from omnibus crime bill

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:16

That’s a bit of good news on the civil liberties front:

A controversial Internet surveillance bill has been omitted from the federal Conservative party’s proposed crime legislation.

Today, Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General Rob Nicholson held a press conference to introduce the Conservatives’ promised omnibus crime act, titled The Safe Streets and Communities Act, which focuses on crime and terrorism. However, an expected component of the act regarding Internet surveillance known as “Lawful Access” legislation was nowhere to be found.

The set of Lawful Access bills would have warranted Canadian law enforcement and intelligence agencies the power to acquire the personal information and activity of web users from internet service providers (ISPs). ISPs would also be required by an additional provision to install surveillance equipment on their networks.

The legislation would essentially give law enforcement the ability to track people online without having to obtain a warrant. The federal NDP and Green parties, and civil liberties groups among others decried the bill as overly-invasive, dangerous and potentially costly for internet users.

That’s the good news. The rest of the bill, as Grace Scott points out, is awash with “tough on crime” noises:

The Safe Streets and Communities Act will increase penalties for sex offenders, those caught with possession or producing illicit drugs for the purposes of trafficking, and intends to implement tougher sentencing on violent and repeat youth crime. It also plans to eliminate the use of conditional sentences, or house arrest, for serious and violent crimes.

September 9, 2011

When drug smugglers go high tech

Filed under: Americas, Law, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:07

Strategy Page has more information about the submarine factory that was recently discovered, and the boats they were constructing:

Colombian police recently arrested eighteen members of a gang that specialized in building submarines and semisubmersible boats for transporting cocaine from Colombia to Central America and Mexico. As police suspected, some (five) of those arrested were retired or on active duty with the Colombian Navy (which operates two 1970s ear German built Type 209 submarines). These arrests are part of an intense effort to find the people responsible for building subs for cocaine gangs. Find the builders, and you stop the building efforts.

[. . .]

The submarines that have been captured have, on closer examination turned out to be more sophisticated than first thought. The outer hull is made out of strong, lightweight, Kevlar/carbon fiber that was sturdy enough to keep the sub intact, but very difficult to detect with most sensors. The hull could not survive deep dives, but this boat didn’t have to go deep to get the job done. The diesel-electric power supply, diving and surfacing system and navigational systems of captured (by the army, while under construction) subs were all in working order. It was believed that some of those who built these boats probably had experience building recreational subs. The sub builders also had impressive knowledge of the latest materials used to build exotic boats. It had already become clear that something extraordinary was happening in these improvised jungle shipyards.

The two fiberglass/Kevlar submarines found so far were obviously built to transport cocaine to North America. Neither the United States, nor anyone else who might know, are talking about how many of these subs are out there, or believed to be in operation or under construction. Similar type boats could be built for terrorist or espionage missions.

August 31, 2011

The “official” start of the Cold War: 5 September, 1945

Filed under: Cancon, Government, History, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:28

George Jonas, in a review of Mark Steyn’s latest book, gives a thumbnail sketch of the real trigger event that started the Cold War:

Sixty-six years earlier, another writer put together a manuscript of sorts to let Western readers know they were headed for hell in a hand-basket. He wasn’t in Steyn’s league as a wordsmith, although he did write a non-fiction bestseller and win a Governor General’s Award for a novel called The Fall Of A Titan. But far from making the apocalypse amusing, Igor Gouzenko could make a slapstick comedy apocalyptic. No two writers were less alike, yet their work carried a similar message.

The Cold War began on a Wednesday, a few minutes after 8 p.m., on September 5, 1945. This was when a young, slight, nondescript man closed the door of an embassy building on Charlotte Street and walked out into the humid Ottawa evening. He looked a little bulky for a reason. He carried 109 documents under his shirt.

During August, 1945, while the atomic bombs were exploding over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gouzenko had been discussing his defection with his wife Svetlana in their small apartment on Somerset Street. As a cipher clerk, Gouzenko knew a great deal about a Soviet spy ring operating through the office of GRU (military intelligence) Colonel Nikolai Zabotin. The aim of Zabotin’s spy ring was to secure atomic secrets. Gouzenko’s tour of duty in Ottawa was ending, and he feared that being privy to such information would reduce his chances of survival in Moscow. In self-defence, he triggered the Cold War.

The thing was damn hard to trigger. When it came to international intrigue, Canadians were wet behind the ears. Having just concluded a victorious war, they resisted the idea that they were at war again, this time with their former comrades-in-arms. Gouzenko knew that his tale might sound far-fetched, and carried documents with him for proof.

For two harrowing days, with his pregnant wife and their two-year-old son in tow, Gouzenko tried to convince incredulous Canadian journalists and Ministry of Justice officials that he was worthy of a hearing. Mackenzie King’s government couldn’t make up its mind about the defectors, and for a brief period actually considered returning them to the Soviets. Messengers bring bad tidings at their peril.

Gouzenko didn’t start the Cold War; he just warned us to do something, or get ready for Armageddon. So we did something, but 66 years later we’ve another Cassandra at the doorstep, telling us it wasn’t enough.

July 24, 2011

No, that’s not suspicious at all . . .

Filed under: China, Government, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:39

. . . when you use backhoes to bury the wreckage before determining the cause of the high speed rail crash:

The wreck on Saturday night killed 35 and injured 210 after a high-speed train lost power for more than 20 minutes and then was rear-ended by another train, according to the Xinhua news agency. Six cars derailed and two fell off a viaduct near the city of Wenzhou.

[. . .]

Photos on the popular Weibo microblogging service showed backhoes burying the wrecked train near the site. Critics said the wreckage needed to be carefully examined for causes of the malfunction, but the railway ministry said that the trains contain valuable national technology and could not be left in the open in case it fell into the wrong hands.

Foreign companies maintain that some crucial technology was stolen from their imported trains. But more importantly to domestic audiences is the perception of a coverup. Initial reports of how the accident occurred are already being partly contradicted by reports in the official media.

July 5, 2011

Would-be terrorists advised to pretend to be gay

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:42

A link from Jon, my former virtual landlord, discussing a document that fell into the hands of the Sunday Mirror:

al-Qaeda fanatics in Britain are being taught to avoid detection — by pretending to be gay.

A new terror training manual tells Islamic extremists to lie about their sexuality if a woman approaches them in case she is a “honeytrap” spy sent by security services.

The handbook, which was uncovered by a Sunday Mirror ­investigation, says: “Many hotels — especially in busy UK cities — have women hanging around the lobby areas in order to attract men.

“A young beautiful woman may come and talk to you. The first thing you do to protect yourself from such a ­situation is to make dua (prayers) to Allah for ­steadfastness.

“The second thing is to find an excuse to get away from her that is realistic and sensible, such as you having a girlfriend for the past few years and you are loyal to her or you are ­homosexual.”

The suggestion is one of many tips in the manual, called Class Notes From The Security and ­Intelligence Course.

Of course, if they were drawing their recruits from Pashtun tribesmen, they might not have to pretend much.

June 28, 2011

Government attempts to censor and control the internet spawn opposition

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:06

Loz Kaye makes the point that the recent ratcheting-up of freelance subversion of government and corporate web sites and online communities is a direct reaction to attempts to control the internet:

LulzSec wasn’t an isolated or unique phenomenon. People with passionate beliefs have been using new technological tools to effect change out of a sense of powerlessness. In the last year, I’ve watched 38 Degrees using the strength of association online to change government policy, WikiLeaks force transparency on those who’d rather run from it, even the amorphous mass that is Anonymous taking a stand on whatever issue they feel deserves their attention.

These tools are now themselves under attack. Lord Mandelson’s last gift to us, the Digital Economy Act, is just one of a raft of “three strikes laws” worldwide that threaten to cut off households from the web. Buried in the coalition’s Prevent strategy is the assertion that “internet filtering across the public estate is essential”. Nor is it solely a British issue; Nicolas Sarkozy called for global online governance at the eG8 in his attempt to civilise the “wild west” of the web.

We’re starting to see what this civilising process entails. Open Rights Group revealed that Ed Vaizey and lobbyists held a secret meeting discussing the future of web blocking powers. There was no public oversight and no one asked the net natives. Vaizey has relented a little via Twitter, consenting to open up the discussion — the Pirate Party and I welcome that invitation. It will take more, however, than getting a few NGOs around a table to ease the real sense of anger poisoning the online community.

We’re quickly coming up on a time when we’ll need to enshrine access to the internet (or equivalent data sources) as a formal constitutional right. If we don’t, we will always have this urge to control and to censor on the part of petty authoritarians and bureaucrats.

June 19, 2011

Cyber-espionage in theory and practice

Filed under: China, Government, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:50

An interesting article at Strategy Page discussing online espionage:

Firms with the most to lose, like financial institutions, guard their data most successfully. They do this the old-fashioned way, with layers and layers of security, implemented by the best (and most highly paid) people and pushed by senior managers who take the time to learn about what they are dealing with, and what it will take to stay on top of the problem.

It’s different in the defense business. If the Chinese steal data on some new weapon, there might be a problem years down the road, when the Chinese offer a cheaper alternative to an American weapon, for the export market. But even that problem has a silver lining, in that you can get away with insisting that those clever Chinese developed your technology independently. Meanwhile, everyone insists that there was no espionage, cyber or traditional, involved. As a further benefit, the American firm will get more money from a terrified government, in order to maintain the American technical edge. It’s the same general drill for military organizations. But for financial institutions, especially those that trade in fast moving currency, derivatives and bond markets, any information leaks can have immediate, and calamitous consequences. You must either protect your data, or die.

It’s not exactly a secret that China has been active in this area, but the extent of their official activity is hard to state. However, just as non-state actors take advantage of individuals who fail to use anti-virus software on their computers, ignorance and apathy are tools for state actors:

But the biggest problem, according to military Cyber War commanders, is the difficulty in making it clear to political leaders, and non-expert (in Internet matters) military commanders, what the cyber weapons are, and the ramifications of the attacks. Some types of attacks are accompanied by the risk of shutting down much, or all, of the Internet. Other types of operations can be traced back to the source. This could trigger a more conventional, even nuclear, response. Some attacks use worms (programs that, once unleashed, keep spreading by themselves.) You can program worms to shut down after a certain time (or when certain conditions are met). But these weapons are difficult, often impossible, to test “in the wild” (on the Internet). By comparison, nuclear weapons were a new, very high-tech, weapon in 1945. But nukes were easy to understand; it was a very powerful bomb. Cyber weapons are much less predictable, and that will make them more difficult for senior officials to order unleashed.

So the first order of business is to develop reliable techniques to quickly, and accurately, educate the senior decision makers about what they are about to unleash. This would begin with the simplest, and cheapest, weapons, which are botnets, used for DDOS attacks. In plain English, that means gaining (by purchase or otherwise) access to hundreds, or thousands, of home and business PCs that have had special software secretly installed. This allows whoever installed the software that turned these PCs into zombies, to do whatever they want with these machines. The most common thing done is to have those PCs, when hooked up to the Internet, to send as many emails, or other electronic messages, as it can, to a specified website. When this is done with lots of zombies (a botnet), the flood of messages becomes a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack that shuts the target down. This happens because so much junk is coming in from the botnet, that no one else can use the web site.

May 13, 2011

Will China’s rise eclipse the United States?

Filed under: China, Economics, History, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:49

Jon sent me this link, suggesting that it was good “hobby horse bedding”. It starts with the notion that the pattern (and method) of China’s rise to economic superpower status actually follows that of the United States:

The last time a rising power came bursting onto the international scene and successfully supplanted the existing dominant power was when the United States was a boisterous upstart with a stampeding economy. Back then, America employed its own ruthless political machinations to advantage economic production — slavery and Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policies made cotton king, while the three-fifths compromise ensured southern political control of Congress.

Meanwhile, we stole designs of British factories for replication here, jump-starting our own industrial revolution. And we forced Britain into a two-front war in the midst of its cataclysmic fight with Napoleon. To outside appearances, America orchestrated political, military, and economic power in ways that shrewdly upended existing rules to our advantage.

Just enough historical parallels to make an interesting story. But the Chinese are not (yet) in a position to actually supplant the Americans, and much of the reason for that isn’t so much economic as it is political:

America is the democracy that those people living under authoritarian regimes choose whenever they get the opportunity. It is a democracy often mistaken in the short run, with the best means of correcting itself, and by its sheer existence, a reminder to others of what they might make for and of themselves. The international order is genuinely different because of the rise of an economically and politically liberal American polity. The Chinese model doesn’t have the kind of advantages that make for success competing against the American one. There’s no reason to believe Chinese citizens aren’t yearning for what Americans get to take for granted. To the contrary, there are many signs that the Chinese are increasingly agitating for it.

American power is robust and enduring because it is built on the strength of ideals that foster our advantage. China is banking on prosperity reducing the desire for political rights, on centralized control by elites that will make “better” choices than individuals would make for themselves, on nationalism and grievance to trump the appeal of values we claim to be universal, on mercantilist foreign policies and the threat of force making them preferred allies. It didn’t work for Palmerston in a much more conducive age and it is unlikely to work for China’s leaders.

A quick search of the blog will come up with lots of posts on China and its economy. This is what Jon refers to as my “hobby horse”.

April 19, 2011

WikiLeaks exposes Chinese espionage unit

Filed under: China, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

Strategy Page points out that it’s not just American and allied secrets that have been exposed by WikiLeaks:

Chinese Cyber War units have been plundering foreign government and military online data for over five years now. But thanks to Wikileaks, and several other sources, the identity and location of the main Chinese Cyber War operation is now known. The Chinese Chengdu Province First Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (1st TRB) is a Chinese Army electronic warfare unit located in central China (Chengdu), and is the most frequent source of hacking attacks traced back to their source. The servers used by the 1st TRB came online over five years ago, and are still used. The Chinese government flatly refuses to even discuss the growing pile of evidence regarding operations like the 1st TRB.

The 1st TRB is part of the Chinese Army’s Third Department, which is responsible for all sorts of electronic eavesdropping. But given the praise showered on the 1st TRB, a lot of valuable data has apparently been brought to Chengdu, and then distributed to the appropriate industrial, diplomatic or military operations. The hacking operation has been so successful, that it has obtained more staff and technical resources. As a result, in the last five years, detected hacking attempts on U.S. government and corporate networks has increased by more than six times. Most of these hacks appear to be coming from China. Not all the hacking is done by 1st TRB personnel. A lot of it appears to be the work of Chinese freelancers, often working for pay, but sometimes just to “serve the motherland.”

Reuters has a special report on “Byzantine Hades”:

According to U.S. investigators, China has stolen terabytes of sensitive data — from usernames and passwords for State Department computers to designs for multi-billion dollar weapons systems. And Chinese hackers show no signs of letting up. “The attacks coming out of China are not only continuing, they are accelerating,” says Alan Paller, director of research at information-security training group SANS Institute in Washington, DC.

Secret U.S. State Department cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to Reuters by a third party, trace systems breaches — colorfully code-named “Byzantine Hades” by U.S. investigators — to the Chinese military. An April 2009 cable even pinpoints the attacks to a specific unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army.

Privately, U.S. officials have long suspected that the Chinese government and in particular the military was behind the cyber-attacks. What was never disclosed publicly, until now, was evidence.

U.S. efforts to halt Byzantine Hades hacks are ongoing, according to four sources familiar with investigations. In the April 2009 cable, officials in the State Department’s Cyber Threat Analysis Division noted that several Chinese-registered Web sites were “involved in Byzantine Hades intrusion activity in 2006.”

April 18, 2011

Happy thought of the day

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 15:43

Darlene Storm offers this cheery little nugget of information (from a post back in December):

Dear Americans: If you are not “authorized” personnel, but you have read, written about, commented upon, tweeted, spread links by “liking” on Facebook, shared by email, or otherwise discussed “classified” information disclosed from WikiLeaks, you could be implicated for crimes under the U.S. Espionage Act — or so warns a legal expert who said the U.S. Espionage Act could make “felons of us all.”

As the U.S. Justice Department works on a legal case against WikiLeak’s Julian Assange for his role in helping publish 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables, authorities are leaning toward charging Assange with spying under the Espionage Act of 1917. Legal experts warn that if there is an indictment under the Espionage Act, then any citizen who has discussed or accessed “classified” information can be arrested on “national security” grounds.

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

March 24, 2011

China’s “sexy spies” score another intelligence goal

Filed under: China, Japan, Military, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:52

Strategy Page says that the Chinese are “probably the most enthusiastic, and successful, users of this technique these days”:

China is widely known to use sex to obtain secrets from foreigners, inside and outside of China. Four years ago, Japan uncovered a widespread Chinese effort to use sex to steal military technology. Attractive Chinese female intelligence agents in Japan were marrying members of the Japanese armed forces, and then using that access to obtain military secrets. The situation was complicated by the military attempts to keep these “embarrassing incidents” secret. The government was particularly anxious to keep the Americans in the dark about all this, since the Chinese apparently got their hands on Aegis anti-aircraft system technology via their sexy spies.

Actually, most of the Chinese agents don’t have to marry Japanese troops. Just putting out usually does the trick. In Japan, the military doesn’t get much respect, and many of the bases are in backwaters. So the troops are pretty lonely. It’s not unusual for Chinese women to be in the country, as many come, legally or illegally, looking for jobs. The set-up is perfect for using the old “honey pot” (sexual entrapment) routine to extract military secrets.

The military geeks are the most sought after, as these guys have access to the most valuable military secrets. Geeks tend to be least experienced with women, and most vulnerable to a clever, and shapely, Chinese spy. Military commanders are not sure if they have the problem under control, but now that the situation is out in the open, there will be more efforts to tighten up security. As the Japanese expected, the Americans were not amused. And the Chinese honey pot scandal was apparently one reason for refusing to sell F-22s to Japan. To make matters worse, part of the Japanese cover-up involved prosecuting the Chinese spies on immigration, not espionage, charges.

March 17, 2011

Industrial espionage, Chinese style

Filed under: China, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:38

Another good post at Strategy Page on the recent uptick in detection of Chinese industrial spies in the United States, and how this may not be a result of more successful anti-espionage efforts by the FBI or CIA — it may just be a by-product of stepped up efforts by China’s intelligence services:

For over two decades, China has been attempting to do what the Soviet Union never accomplished; steal Western technology, then use it to move ahead of the West. The Soviets lacked the many essential supporting industries found in the West (most founded and run by entrepreneurs), and was never able to get all the many pieces needed to match Western technical accomplishments. Soviet copies of American computers, for example, were crude, less reliable and less powerful. Same with their jet fighters, tanks and warships.

China gets around this by making it profitable for Western firms to set up factories in China, where Chinese managers and workers can be taught how to make things right. At the same time. China allows thousands of their best students to go to the United States to study. While most of these students will stay in America, where there are better jobs and more opportunities, some will come back to China, and bring American business and technical skills with them. Finally, China energetically uses the “thousand grains of sand” approach to espionage. This involves China trying to get all Chinese going overseas, and those of Chinese ancestry living outside the motherland, to spy for China, if only a tiny bit.

This approach to espionage is nothing new. Other nations have used similar systems for centuries. What is unusual is the scale of the Chinese effort. Backing it all up is a Chinese intelligence bureaucracy back home that is huge, with nearly 100,000 people working just to keep track of the many Chinese overseas, and what they could, or should, be to trying to grab for the motherland. It begins when Chinese intelligence officials examining who is going overseas, and for what purpose. Chinese citizens cannot leave the country, legally, without the state security organizations being notified. The intel people are not being asked to give permission. They are being alerted in case they want to have a talk with students, tourists or business people before they leave the country. Interviews are often held when these people come back as well.

Those who might be coming in contact with useful information are asked to remember what they saw, or bring back souvenirs. Over 100,000 Chinese students go off to foreign universities each year. Even more go abroad as tourists or on business. Most of these people were not asked to actually act as spies, but simply to share, with Chinese government officials (who are not always identified as intelligence personnel) whatever information was obtained. The more ambitious of these people are getting caught and prosecuted. But the majority, who are quite casual, and, individually, bring back relatively little, are almost impossible to catch.

February 27, 2011

Sunday book post

Filed under: Books, Economics, History, Media, Military, Wine — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:09

No, not my books: I’ve written lots, but they’re all technical manuals for software products the vast majority of you will never have heard of, and wouldn’t want to read about even if you had. I mean books I’ve read recently that I consider to be very good. I’ll categorize for convenience (both yours and mine):

Science Fiction and Fantasy

  • Darwin’s Watch: The Science of Discworld III, Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. An entertaining romp through (real) science placed within a fictional context. I read the first Science of Discworld book and quite enjoyed it, and this one is possibly even better. The Discworld, riding happily balanced on the backs of the four great elephants, who are in turn supported by the shell of the great turtle, has very different scientific principles than our own “exotic” roundworld. The most amusing part of the book is the wizards of the Unseen University attempting to ensure that Charles Darwin writes the “correct” book on roundworld. You’ll learn more science than you expect . . .
  • I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett. The fourth of the Tiffany Aching sequence in the Discworld series. Although written for a younger audience, Pratchett’s sense of humour and brilliant presentation make this book eminently readable for all ages.
  • Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold. The latest adventure of Miles Vorkosigan deals with the political and social implications of cryogenic preservation. No soaring battles in space, no stunner shootouts, no alien invasions. Sounds deadly dull, I realize, but I don’t think Lois could write a boring shopping list. It perhaps doesn’t stand alone quite as well as it might, but even if you haven’t read any of the other books in the series, I think you’ll find this worth reading.

History

  • The Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign, John A. English. A book that undermines several widely held beliefs about the efficiency and capability of the Canadian First Army in 1944-45. Between incompetent, scheming generals and political interference, the Canadian Army was less than the sum of its parts, and the importance of training methods and doctrine are highlighted (that is, the faulty training methods in use probably added to the casualty lists in combat). Field Marshal Montgomery didn’t like or trust General Harry Crerar, but was forced to keep him in command due to Canadian government sensitivities. Montgomery’s view of Crerar almost certainly was reflected in the roles assigned to First Canadian Army after the Normandy landings.
  • The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, Edward N. Luttwak. A fascinating book about the differences between the Byzantine empire’s military and political goals and practices and those of the Roman empire from which it descended. Unlike Rome, the Byzantines were never the “superpower” of their part of the world, and their survival often depended on carefully constructed alliances, allies-of-convenience, and outright bribery of “enemies of their enemies”. Although not well remembered in the west, the survival of Byzantium almost certainly saved central Europe from conquest by the armies of the Caliph during the initial expansion of the Muslim empire. Byzantine armies rarely had much technological or doctrinal advantage over their opponents, so war had to be conducted with the key concept of retention of force: ambush, raid, counter-attack, feint, and misdirection became specialties because they offered (relative) effectiveness at lower risk of outright defeat.
  • In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire, Adrian Goldsworthy. A selection of mini-biographies of some of the greatest generals of the Roman empire. What is amazing, in reading about some of their careers, is how little actual military instruction Roman officers received, yet how effective the army could be in spite of that. Being an army officer was viewed as just part of the normal public service — in fact, it would have been problematic for a Roman patrician to remain with the army for an extended period of time, as it would slow down his progress through the civil government ranks.
  • The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, Christopher Andrew. If you wanted a thrilling account of the exciting and dangerous life of counter-espionage, you need to stick to works of fiction. The actual life of an MI5 officer is apparently much less James Bond and much more careful investigation, observation, and data correlation. Not that it isn’t an interesting career, but perhaps the “double oh” agents will get their own book (just kidding).

Economics

  • The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson. I enjoyed reading this one far more than I expected to: the author has a knack for carrying you through the less interesting bits without boring or lecturing you. The evolution of the modern monetary system, and the heroic roles played by unlikely characters in the process.
  • The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Matt Ridley. It’s easy to find depressing statistics and dreary anecdotes. Ridley’s view is that progress is a good thing, and that we’re enjoying a golden age even if we don’t realize it right now.

Biography

  • Robert A. Heinlein: In dialogue with his century Volume 1, William H. Patterson, Jr. I’ve been a huge fan of Heinlein’s works since I read Starship Troopers at about age 11. This biography more than met my expectations: I’d always regretted never having met Robert Heinlein, but between this book and Heinlein’s own autobiographical writings (Tramp Royale and Grumbles from the grave) I feel I’ve gotten as close to knowing him as possible — until the publication of Volume 2, anyway.
  • Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, Christopher Hitchens. A lively appreciation of Thomas Paine’s most influential work, and much detail on his life. Paine was far from being the disreputable bomb-throwing anarchist his enemies painted him to be, but he also wasn’t the plaster saint his fans might imagine.

Wine

  • Billy’s Best Bottles: Wines for 2011, Billy Munnelly. Still the best annual wine guide for the everyday wine drinker in Ontario. If you like an occasional bottle of wine, but don’t want to study dozens of books in order to make a decision on what to buy, this is the book for you. He likes more “rustic” wines than I do, so I don’t find his recommendations in that category to be as useful, but he does a great job of sorting through the plethora of $10-20 wines available at the LCBO and tells you which ones are worth buying (and when to serve them).

February 18, 2011

The internet in China: hidden powers of persuasion

Filed under: China, Government, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:52

A look at how the internet in China has the power to (sometimes) punish corrupt officials and influence the government:

Corruption and viral marketing has provided the Chinese government with a powerful tool for controlling public opinion. It all began when Chinese companies realized that they could hurt competitors by planting damaging rumors on the Internet. This, even in China, is illegal. But the corruption in China being what it is, there was little risk of getting the police to hunt down and punish the perpetrators. This was partly because the marketing firms, hired by companies to burnish their image, or defame competitors, was careful to have other small outfits get on the Internet to actually do the work, and be careful to not be traceable. So the cops, when forced by companies to do something (often because the owner of the offended firm was well-connected politically), were stymied at first. But the police, declaring it a national security issue, eventually discovered how this was done. But this did not stop all these negative campaigns. To defend themselves, companies that were attacked by these Internet disinformation campaigns, fought back.

This use of negative tactics soon fell out of favor, as all those tarnished companies lost sales. So these Internet based opinion manipulation turned to praising your own products. About this time, the government discovered what was going on, and began to use these marketing companies, and their subcontractors, to change opinions towards government policies. There was a pressing need for this, because all this Internet opinion manipulation had started out, over the last decade, as a popular uprising against government corruption, mistreatment and media manipulation. This “online army” was not organized, except by outrage at government, or individual, wrongdoing. For example, many government officials, and their high-spirited offspring, injure or steal from ordinary citizens, and get away with it. These officials have enough political clout to make the police leave them alone. But once the online army gets onto these stories, everyone in the country knows, and is angry. There are over 400 million Internet users in China, a country of 1,400 million. When a lot of people on the Internet get angry enough, the story, and anger, explodes through the Chinese Internet community. China carefully monitors Chinese Internet use, and tries to block unwelcome information or discussions. But when the outrage on a particular item becomes too large, it’s better to just arrest and punish the guy whose misbehavior got the online army going in the first place.

Who knew that sockpuppeting would be such a valuable online tactic in China? It might not just be limited to China, however:

If the Chinese wanted to use this tool in other countries, they would require posters who are familiar with the language and culture of the target population. That’s difficult skill to acquire, especially for at least a few hundred posters required (to hit, regularly, hundreds of message boards, chat rooms and so on). Done right, you can shift opinions among millions of people in a few days. Done wrong, you fail. And if you’re operating in a foreign country, you might get found out. But the opportunity is there.

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