utilize the materials that have been provided to you in order to support your response. Responses should be a minimum of 250 words and include direct questions. You may challenge, support or supplement another student’s answer using the terms, concepts and theories from the required readings. Also, do not be afraid to respectfully disagree where you feel appropriate; as this should be part of your analysis process at this academic level.

Forum posts are graded on timeliness, relevance, knowledge of the weekly readings, and the quality of original ideas. Sources utilized to support answers are to be cited in accordance with the APA writing style by providing a general parenthetical citation (reference the author, year and page number) within your post, as well as an adjoining reference list.

Respond to Calvin:

The Centrality of Intelligence.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued a cheesy and irritatingly cliched response during the aftermath of 9/11 when he said during a Defense Department news brief, “You don’t know what you don’t know” (DoD, 2002). To an extent he is right, however, his delivery was the most poorly and ridiculously stupid attempt I have witnessed in a lifetime. It is on par with “it is what it is” and “it’s neither here nor there”. However, as irritating as the saying is, it is true. Without intelligence, nothing productive will occur; or as witnessed on the morning or 9/11, a great deal will occur. The latter is about the worst outcome of not having intelligence. America had the information but, did not have the capacity to process it into intelligence. Therefore, the data about the pieces of information that puzzled the operation into focus sat in an archive as terrorists boarded planes that fateful morning. As for personal experience, I generated a target information packet in Iraq during my ODA’s 2005 rotation which seized several caches of weapons, numerous cells of terrorists and undoubtedly saved countless lives. It was all based off of a single source that walked in. Yes, it could have been an ambush, but we prepared for that. When I asked the informant his intentions, he said he loved playing spy. Simple enough. We took him on target with us and told him if he double crossed us, we would leave him on the target and drive off and let them sort him out. Thankfully everything went to plan because of well placed, timely, and accurate intelligence. Without it, it would have been another night of gym time and movie watching in a combat zone.

Cyber Terrorism and Intelligence.

This is a rather simple question demanding an in-depth answer. As I type on this keyboard (connected to the internet) a hacker in Crimea is online, bouncing through Tor servers until he hits my IP address. He jiggles the door knob so to speak, uses a low-tech firewall breach and he is in my relatively secure router. Said hacker now activates hacker tools against my system and the screen locks. I have 12 hours to give a bitcoin ransom to an email address or loose everything on my hard drive. This is a selfish example, but change the dynamics to my house being the pentagon and the hacker being in mainland China, the stakes become very real. Intelligence about this hacker, the route he took, the servers he crossed, what his signature was is all important to prevent a subsequent breach on another Department of Defense system.

In another real-world instance, the hospital’s records were locked up electronically, here in Pinehurst this May, not 1 mile from my house. Baltimore, in June, went through a month-long siege before it was eventually able to spend over 5 million USD to hire cyber experts to trace the city’s cyber network, map out the hackers responsible and painstakingly remove finger by finger the electronic stranglehold placed upon the city. Sources state the $80,000 ransom wasn’t paid, but not paying it tallied over $18 million dollars in damages. Some may see this as a foolish outcome, but with Baltimore’s antiquated cyber status, there was no guarantee that the hackers would not turn around and attack the next day. Painful, yes. Intelligence execution, yes. The intelligence part of this situation is that a critical vulnerability in Microsoft software, famously exploited in 2017’s WannaCry ransomware attacks, was still present in the city of Baltimore’s computer systems at the time of the attack (Freed, 2019). This fact was previously broached to the city officials with little concern given in return. That nonchalance and inaction cost the city much more than it would have if they would have taken action. If they would have listened to the intelligence bulletin, they could have avoided the embarrassment and inconvenience.

References:

DoD. 2002. “News Transcript: DoD News Briefing – Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers,

United States Department of Defense.” United States Department of Defense.” https:// archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2636. (accessed 16 September 2019).

Freed, Benjamin. 2019. “Baltimore approves $10 million for ransomware recovery.”

Statescoop. https://statescoop.com/baltimore-city-council-approves-10-million-ransomware-recovery/. (accessed 16 September 2019).

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