Other Helpful Links

Explore additional resources and links curated for intelligence professionals.

OTHER HELPFUL LINKS

September 2023

Introduction to Social Media Investigation: A Hands-on Approach by Jennifer Golbeck

Social media as an investigative device is in its infancy and not well understood. This book presents an overview of social media and discusses special skills and techniques to use when conducting investigations. The book features hands- on tutorials and case studies and offers additional data-gathering techniques. If you’re interested in using social media as an investigative tool, Introduction to Social Media Investigation will show you how! Social networks and social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, are some of the most popular services on the Web, with hundreds of millions of users. The public information that people share on these sites can be valuable for anyone interested in investigating people of interest through open, public sources.

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Online Brand Protection: Proven Strategies for Protecting Intellectual Property Rights in a Constantly Changing Digital Age by Joshua Hopping

There is a lot riding on your company’s brand name. Not only is it who you are, it is the one thing that everyone knows about you. By understanding the value of your brand name, you can protect it from cybercriminals who seek to take advantage of your friends, family, and customers. Rather than waiting for the infringers to attack your company, you can do something about it. With over 18-years of online brand protection experience, Joshua S. Hopping outlines proven concepts and strategies that will help you develop an online brand protection program that supports your overall corporate mission and goals. A Brand Protection Toolkit is included with charts and checklists necessary in planning out a comprehensive and strategic program.

In this entertaining and thoughtful book, Joshua Hopping takes us through the fundamentals of brand protection. He reflects on his own real-life experiences and the lessons he has learned whilst pursuing a brilliant career that has seen Joshua advise some of the world’s leading brands on the strategies that they can employ to enhance protection – for the benefit of the consumer and the business owner … l commend this book to all seeking to broaden their knowledge of brand protection and how best to support creativity and innovation whilst protecting the consumer from harm. for more Info

G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner): J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

We remember him as a bulldog–squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls–but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people–many of them communists or racial minorities or both– did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.

A revelatory, behind-the-scenes look, The Spymasters recounts seven decades of CIA activity and elicits predictions about the issues–and threats—that will engage the attention of future operatives and analysts. Including eye-opening interviews with George Tenet, John Brennan, Leon Panetta, and David Petraeus, as well as those who’ve just recently departed the agency, this is a timely, essential, and important contribution to current events. Know more

The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future by Chris Whipple

Only eleven men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world’s most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities—spying, espionage, and covert action—take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a brake on rogue presidents, starting in the mid-seventies with DCI Richard Helms’s refusal to conceal Richard Nixon’s criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.

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North Korea Fails for Second Time to Launch Spy Satellite  

North Korea failed for the second time in about three months to put a spy satellite into orbit when its rocket had troubles soon after launch, dealing a blow to Kim Jong Un who wanted a reconnaissance probe to keep an eye on US forces.

North Korea launched a rocket at 3:50 a.m. Thursday, August 24, in a southward direction that failed a few minutes into flight, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Parts of the rocket appeared to crash down about 600 kilometers (375 miles) east of the Philippines, Japan’s top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said. Residents in the southern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa were warned to take shelter, according to a tweet from the Japanese prime minister’s office, although the alert was later lifted.

Pyongyang’s state media put out a short dispatch saying “the flights of the first and second stages of the rocket were normal, but the launch failed due to an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight.”

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China, Russia and Iran are engaged in foreign interference in New Zealand, intelligence agency says  

China, Iran and Russia are engaged in foreign interference in New Zealand, the nation’s domestic intelligence agency said Friday after making its threat assessment report public for the first time.

In the report, Director-General of Security Andrew Hampton said the Security Intelligence Service sees enormous value in sharing more of its insights publicly.

The agency had previously taken a secretive approach. It decided to change course after it and other agencies were criticized for focusing too much on the perceived threat from Islamic extremism and being blindsided when a white supremacist shot and killed 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in 2019.

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NYPD’s Security Robot Service in Subways  

Knightscope has announced that the City of New York and the New York Police Department (“NYPD”) launched the Knightscope K5 security robot service at a press conference in a Manhattan subway station with the support of the Metrpolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”).

The first two weeks will be spent on training, configuration and setup protocols for the autonomous robot to navigate followed by patrol activities between the hours of 12:00am and 6:00am.

“Today we are launching a pilot program to test the Knightscope K5 security robot,” said Mayor Eric Adams, City of New York. “The NYPD must be on the forefront of technology and be 2 steps ahead of those utilizing technology to hurt New Yorkers.”

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Review to weigh Australian intelligence delivery on security, prosperity and values  

Australia’s intelligence agencies will be subject to an independent review led by Dr Heather Smith and Richard Maude.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese has announced a periodic review of Australia’s National Intelligence Community (NIC) and the government agencies comprising it to ensure they are well placed to “serve the national interest”.

Albanese said the independent review would examine how the agencies were fulfilling the national security priorities, including safeguarding Australia’s sovereignty in an increasingly uncertain security environment.

The NIC’s capacity to meet these needs in sovereignty and changing circumstances will also be a focus of the review.

“Our intelligence agencies underpin our national security objectives, including helping to safeguard our sovereignty in an increasingly uncertain security environment,” Albanese said.

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Exposed: the Chinese spy using LinkedIn to hunt UK secrets  

A single Chinese spy is using LinkedIn profiles to try to lure thousands of British officials to hand over state secrets in exchange for large sums of money and lucrative business deals, The Times has learnt.

The intelligence officer for Beijing’s main spy agency created a string of aliases and fake companies to target security officials, civil servants, scientists and academics with access to classified information or commercially sensitive technology.

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6 Best Threat Intelligence Feeds to Use in 2023  

Threat intelligence feeds are continually updated streams of data that inform users of different cybersecurity threats, their sources, and any infrastructure impacted or at risk of being impacted by those threats.

These feeds are often in a standard format like STIX/TAXII so they can be integrated with EDR, SIEM, firewalls, threat intelligence platforms, and other network security tools, offering an additional source of real-time or near-real-time threat information to monitor for indicators of compromise (IoCs), malicious domains and other cyber threats. As a bonus, many of these tools are free to access and have specialized feeds that focus on different industries and sectors.

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Retailers Are Rapidly Scaling Surveillance of Australian Consumers — Why This Is a Red Flag  

Australian retailers are rolling out mass surveillance solutions to combat shoplifting, but a poor regulatory environment could mean high risks associated with data security and privacy.

IT professionals across sectors that interact with consumers, and retail in particular, need to make themselves aware of the implications of surveillance campaign because, while there are many legitimate uses that surveillance is being used for, there’s also the concern that poor data shepherding processes could lead to inadvertent misuse by third parties.

At a time when Australians are more sensitive to the use of their data than ever, this carries with it a real reputational and potential regulatory risk to businesses. Essentially, consumers expect to be able to trust what businesses are doing to safeguard the data they’re collecting from Australian consumers.

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Charting the Depths: The World of Subsea Cables  

Data may be stored in the “cloud,” but when it comes to sending and receiving data, a lot of that action is actually happening along the depths of the ocean floor.

Hidden beneath the waves, these subsea cables account for approximately 95% of international data transmission.

These maps, by Adam Symington, use information from TeleGeography to show the distribution of subsea cables around the planet.

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Visualizing the BRICS Expansion in 4 Charts  

BRICS is an association of five major countries including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Distinguished by their emerging economies, the group has sought to improve diplomatic coordination, reform global financial institutions, and ultimately serve as a counterbalance to Western hegemony.

On Aug. 24, 2023, BRICS announced that it would formally accept six new members at the start of 2024: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In this graphic, we provide a data-driven overview of how the BRICS expansion will grow the group’s influence and reach.

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Health security intelligence capabilities post COVID-19: resisting the passive “new normal” within the Five Eyes  

This paper spotlights lessons for health security intelligence across the ‘Five Eyes’ countries. The COVID-19 pandemic and recent worldwide patterns related to climate change have highlighted the crucial supporting role intelligence analysis may play in comprehending, planning for, and responding to such global health threats. In addition to the human lives lost, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed serious national security concerns, notably for economic, societal, and in some cases, political stability. In response, a greater emphasis must be placed on intelligence. The paper has three goals. First, it outlines the major thematic areas where key ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence communities’ (ICs) skills were tested in supporting the management of COVID-19: 1) the origins of SARS-CoV-2, 2) disinformation campaigns, and 3) early warning systems.

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Countering Russian Disinformation: The Power and Importance of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)  

In the modern digital age, where information spreads at the speed of light, and disinformation campaigns have a broader reach than ever, the ability to discern fact from fiction becomes paramount for the international community. As geopolitical tensions simmer, notably between the U.S. and Russia, the battle isn’t just in the traditional domains of land, air, sea, or space but in the information domain as well. The weaponization of information has emerged as a potent tool, and the United States has realized the importance of open source intelligence (OSINT) as an effective countermeasure, especially against Russian disinformation campaigns.

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Chinese Spies Are Targeting Access, Not Race  

On Aug. 3, 2023, the U.S. Justice Department arrested U.S. Navy sailors Jinchao Wei and Wenheng Zhao for illegally transmitting restricted military information to China. In the Southern District of California, Wei’s mother allegedly encouraged him to spy for China, and Chinese authorities allegedly provided the 22-year-old sailor with between $10,000 and $15,000 for information about Navy ships’ weapon capabilities, power structures, potential vulnerabilities, and movements. In a separate case in the Central District of California, Zhao allegedly sent a Chinese intelligence officer “operational plans for a large-scale military exercise” and specifically disclosed “the location and timing of naval movements, amphibious landings, maritime operations, and logistics support.”

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Stop, Think and Protect Yourself against Online Scams | BTN High  

Every year, Aussies lose millions of dollars to online scams. We explore the types of scams catching young people out, and how to avoid them.

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EverydaySpy Podcast Episode 16: China on Track to OUTPACE USA in SPACE  

You know what it’s like to work too hard, stay up too late, and push yourself a little too far. Burnout is not fun. But it is also predictable and preventable when you know what to look for. The signs aren’t as obvious as you might think! Sit with Jihi and me as we tell you how we learned to identify and avoid burnout in the field running multi-week and multi-month operations. And while you’re at it, you can learn about Jihi’s super nerdy fascination with the US Space Force!

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The Resources Hub contains research, training courses and links that have been prepared by others. The opinions expressed in the articles, training programs and  linked items  are the authors’ own views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers. 

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