Top 5 Things Only Spies Used To Do (But Everyone Does Now)

There has been a good bit of recent evidence that the gap between what spies do and what we all do is narrowing -- and the spies are clearly worried about it.

GEN David Petraeus, Director of the CIA, started the most recent round of hand-wringing back in March when he gave a speech at the In-Q-Tel CEO Summit:

"First, given the digital transparency I just mentioned, we have to rethink our notions of identity and secrecy...We must, for example, figure out how to protect the identity of our officers who increasingly have a digital footprint from birth, given that proud parents document the arrival and growth of their future CIA officer in all forms of social media that the world can access for decades to come."

Richard Fadden, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), added his own thoughts in a speech only recently made public:

"In today's information universe of WikiLeaks, the Internet and social media, there are fewer and fewer meaningful secrets for the James Bonds of the world to steal," Fadden told a conference of the Canadian Association of Professional Intelligence Analysts in November 2011. "Suddenly the ability to make sense of information is as valued a skill as collecting it."

Next I ran across a speech given by Robert Grenier, a former case officer, chief of station and 27 year veteran of the clandestine service, given at a conference at the University of Delaware.  In it, he describes the moment he realized that the paradigm was shifting (and not in his favor):

"Grenier said he came to realize the practice of espionage would have to change when he received a standard form letter at a hotel overseas, while undercover, thanking him for visiting again.  When he realized electronic records now tracked where he had been for certain date ranges, he said he knew the practice of espionage was going to have to change.  “It was like the future in a flash that opened up before my eyes,” Grenier said."

(Note:  While I could not embed the video here, the entire one hour speech is well worth watching.  The part of particular relevance to this post begins around minute 8 in the video.   This is, by the way, fantastic stuff for use in an intelligence studies class).

Finally  (and what really got me thinking), one of my students made an off-handed comment regarding his own security practices.  I needed to send him a large attachment and I asked for his Gmail account. In response, he gave me his "good" address, explaining that he only used his other Gmail address as a "spam account", i.e. when he had to give a valid email address to a website he suspected was going to fill his in-box with spam.

That's when it hit me.  Not only is it getting harder to be a traditional spy, it is getting easier (far easier) to do the kinds of things that only spies used to do.  The gap is clearly closing from both ends.

With all this exposition in mind, here is my list of the Top 5 Things Only Spies Used To Do (But Everyone Does Now) -- Don't hesitate to leave your own additions in the comments:

#5 -- Have a cover story.  That is precisely what my student was doing with his spam account.  In fact, most people I know have multiple email accounts for various aspects of their lives.  This is just the beginning, though.  How many of us use different social media platforms for different purposes?  Take a look at someone you are friends with on Facebook and are connected to on LinkedIn and I'll bet you can spot all the essential elements of a cover story.  Need more proof?  Watch the video below:


The only reason we think this ad is funny is because we intuitively understand the idea of "cover" and we understand the consequences of having that cover blown.

#4 -- Shake a tail.   It used to be that spies had to be in their Aston Martins running from burly East Germans to qualify as someone in the process of "shaking a tail."  Today we are mostly busy running from government and corporate algorithms that are trying to understand our every action and divine our every need, but the concept is the same.  Whether you are doing simple stuff like using a search engine like DuckDuckGo that doesn't track you or engaging "porn mode" on your Firefox or Chrome browser, or more sophisticated stuff like enabling the popular cookie manager, NoScript, or even more sophisticated stuff like using Tor or some other proxy server service to mask your internet habits, we are using increasingly sophisticated tools to help us navigate the internet without being followed.

#3 -- Use passwords and encrypt data.  Did you buy anything over the internet in the last week or so?  Chances are good you used a password and encrypted your data (or, if you didn't, don't be surprised when you wind up buying a dining room set for someone in Minsk).  Passwords used to be reserved for sturdy doors in dingy alleyways, for safe houses or for entering friendly lines.  Now they are so common that we need password management software to keep up with them all.  Need more examples? Ever use an HTTPS site?  Your business make you use a Virtual Private Network?  The list is endless.

#2 -- Have an agent network.  Sure, that's not what we call them, but that is what they are:  LinkedIn, Yelp, Foursquare and the best agent network of all -- Twitter.  An agent network is a group of humans who we have vetted and recruited to help us get the information we want.   How is that truly different from making a connection on LinkedIn or following someone on Twitter?  We "target" (identify people who might be useful to us in some way), "vet" their credentials (look at their profiles, websites, Google them), "recruit" them (Easy-peasy!  Just hit "follow"...), and then, once the trust relationship has been established, "task" them as assets ("Please RT!" or "Can you introduce me?" or "Contact me via DM").  Feel like a spy now (or just a little bit dirtier)?

#1 -- Use satellites.  Back in 2000, I went to work at the US Embassy in The Hague.  I worked on a daily basis with the prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal For the Former Yugoslavia.  That collaboration, while not always easy, bore results like the ones that led US Judge Patricia Wald to say, "I found most astounding in the Srebrenica case the satellite aerial image photography furnished by the U.S. military intelligence  (Ed. Note:  See example) which pinpointed to the minute movements on the ground of men and transports in remote Eastern Bosnian locations. These photographs not only assisted the prosecution in locating the mass grave sites over hundreds of miles of terrain, they were also introduced to validate its witnesses’ accounts of where thousands of civilians were detained and eventually killed."  It is hard to believe that only 12 years ago this was state of the art stuff.

Today, from Google Earth to the Satellite Sentinel Project, overhead imagery combined with hyper-detailed maps are everywhere.  And that is just the start.  We use satellites to make our phone calls, to get our television, and to guide our cars, boats and trucks.  We use satellites to track our progress when we work out and to track our packages in transit.  Most of us carry capabilities in our cell phones, enabled by satellites, that were not even dreamed of by the most sophisticated of international spies a mere decade ago.

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If this is today, what will the future bring?  Will we all be writing our own versions of Stuxnet and Flame?  Or, more likely, will we be using drones to scout the perfect campsite?  Feel free to speculate in the comments!

How To Replace "Class Participation" With "Professionalism" (Brilliant Idea!)

Sometimes you go to a conference and come away energized - full of new thoughts and ideas.  And sometimes you go to a conference and are lucky to come away with just one new idea.  The American Association of University Professor's Annual Conference in DC a few weeks ago was more of the latter than the former for me -- but that one idea was a real doozy!

I had been paired serendipitously with Dr. Alice Armstrong, a computer science professor from Shippensberg University, on a pedagogy panel.  While I gave my presentation on "The 5 Myths Of Game-based Learning" (more on this later this week) to the, shall we say, "modest" crowd that had assembled for the 0830 start time, Alice really engaged both me and the crowd with her approach to instilling professional standards in her students (It all revolves around the chart below -- but more on that in a moment).

Alice (and her co-author, Dr. Carol Wellington) were facing a serious problem.  Their capstone class, like many capstone classes, asked their students to pursue an independent, long term project.   Despite their best efforts to keep these students in the game, they were still facing failure and incomplete rates that were (combined) hovering around 33%.

Their analysis of this problem indicated that the difficulties were not technical or knowledge based - the students had the skills to do the projects.  Instead, the problems were behavioral; sticking with a schedule, staying in touch with their technical mentors, meeting intermediate deadlines, etc.  Solving this problem seemed difficult if not impossible.

Now comes the brilliant part...

Their solution to the problem was to separate the course grade into two components.  The first part is your standard, old grading system based on how well the students did the various assignments.  Like any standard course grade, you start with a zero and then, as tests and assignments accumulate, your grade emerges as a function of the average of how well you did on those tests and assignments.

The second part is where they did something different and very, very cool.  The second half of the grade is a "professionalism" grade.  Students start with 100% and can only lose points for being "unprofessional." 

I will define "unprofessional" in a second but think for a moment just how clever this is.  In the first place, it does away with the nebulous "class participation" grade.  In the second place, it emphasizes something that faculty in applied professions, like law, medicine, engineering, architecture, computer science and intelligence, value dearly -- professionalism.  Third (and I love this one), it mimics the employer's opinion of an employee.

Think about it:  You just got hired by a company or agency.  You were selected to fill a slot over a bunch of other qualified applicants.  The assumption is that you are the best available candidate for that job.  Because you are new, you are going to be watched and because you are being watched you are going to have chances to disappoint - to make the boss wonder if he really did hire the best candidate - not just with respect to your knowledge but also with respect to your behavior.  It may not be particularly fair, but it is true.

Talking about it is all fine and good, but how do you make it real in the classroom?  If you are like me, you have probably seen a number of potential flaws in this approach.  Here is once again where our friends at Shippensburg impress.  Look at the list below.  I am hard pressed to find much that is objectionable about it.  Lateness, missing appointments, etc.  Those are things we are probably counting off for anyway.

To get the final grade for each student, Alice and her colleagues multiply the content and professionalism scores.  Look at the chart near the top of this post again:  This effectively means that the best you can ever do is the lower of the two grades and that, quite often, your overall grade will be less than the average of your two grades.  Alice and her colleagues believe that this is the key innovation in this approach.

I have to disagree with that a bit.  I think the key innovation is not in the specifics but in the approach itself.  By focusing on professionalism as an attribute that you are expected to have and can only lose, Alice and her colleagues have changed its psychological value.  Loss aversion is a well understood effect and Alice reported that her students responded as any good psychologist would expect:  They hated to lose professionalism points!

Regardless why it works, it certainly seems to be working.  They cut their failure and incomplete rates in half.  They are so happy with the system that they are pushing in down their curriculum to their freshman classes (there they do give students the opportunity to earn points back, though).  One of the most important endorsements of the process actually came from outside the university:  The computer science department's industry advisory council loves it.

I am thinking about implementing some aspects of this system in my own classes.  While I think the Shippensburg system is pretty harsh, I can understand their reasoning.  I would not want half or more of my points tied up with issues like lateness and missing deadlines, though.  Frankly, those kinds of things have  rarely been a problem in any of my classes here at Mercyhurst. 

More important to me is the point of such a system:  To send a signal that professionalism matters and that it is something you are expected to have and can only lose.  Getting away from the more wishy-washy "class participation" grade and moving towards something that is both important and helps the students is a strong step in the right direction, in my opinion.

Best Professional Development Event For Intel Professionals This Year

That's right, the Institute of Intelligence Studies is sponsoring a professional development conference for its alumni, students and faculty this summer from 8-11 July at Mercyhurst University.

And you can register here!

This is not an alumni "weekend", "retreat" or an "escape".  It is not "homecoming".  This is a premiere opportunity to hone your skills as an intelligence professional at the same place where you all got your start -- Mercyhurst.

We are bringing in top notch speakers (many of which are former classmates!) and are going to offer an extraordinary opportunity to network both inside and outside your chosen field (Quick:  How many Mercyhurst intel alums currently work in the banking industry?  In energy?  In almost any field you can name?  You will be surprised at the number!) and across the generations (We have been doing this for 20 years - I know, I find it hard to believe myself!).

If you need more enticement, the faculty will all be here to bring you up to speed on our current research activities (AKA "What we have learned about intel since you've been gone...") and where we are going in the future.  With over 1000 alumni, 100's of research projects, dozens of full and part time faculty, and the opportunities represented by the new building, these are results you will want to know about.

This isn't just about us, though.  We also want to learn from you, too.  Our program is 20 years old this year and it is time to plot our course for the next 20 years.  What are the problems you are having?  What research do you need done to improve your ability to provide actionable intelligence to the decisionmakers you support?  What skills and abilities do the intelligence analysts of tomorrow need today?  Getting your input at this conference is crucial.

If you are a current student or alum you can register here to attend.  I personally look forward to seeing each and every one of you!

Geospatial Analysis Of Gerrymandering In Pennsylvania (An Advanced Analytic Techniques Project)

One of my students, Karl Gustafson, used an interesting combination of geospatial and political data to create a video (see below) that examines some historic cases of gerrymandering in Pennsylvania.  He used this as background for looking into what appears to be some pretty clear cases of gerrymandering in the making.


While the production quality on the video is none too slick, Karl does a good job of using a series of overlays, a clear, direct script and the features of Google Earth to explain what gerrymandering is and how it has been used ion the past and how it is currently being used to literally re-shape Pennsylvania politics.

You can see Karl's evaluation of the methods and processes he used here.

DC Based CI Courses Now Open For Registration (Shameless Self Promotion)

How would you like to take counterintel courses for graduate credit from some of the most experienced CI professionals in the world?  Now you can...

Mercyhurst University has been teaching counterintelligence courses in the DC area for a number of years.  Traditionally, we have done this in coordination with a government or private partner.  Last year, though, we opened these classes up to qualified students throughout the DC area.

These courses (there are three of them) make up our Graduate Certificate in Counterintelligence.  All of the classes are accredited, of course, and are taught one per quarter for three quarters.  If you want the certificate, you would need to take all three and take them in series.  If you are just interested in learning more about the CI field, then you could opt to take just the first course -- it is entirely your call.

The first course in this series will be offered in early September and run for approximately 10 weeks.  The course is not offered online and will meet once a week in the evening at a location in the vicinity of Tyson's Corner.  There are no pre-requisites other than a bachelors degree from an accredited university.

The courses are taught by Ray Batvinis, Bob Stephan and Tim Almon.  Stephan is the author of Stalin's Secret War and has over 20 years experience with CIA, DIA and the USAF; Batvinis spent 25 years at the FBI working on CI issues at the highest levels, Almon spent 25 years at the FBI before becoming the Director of Counterintelligence and Security Programs on the National Security Council Staff for Presidents Clinton and Bush.

Because of their experience and contacts, one of the unique aspects of these classes are the kinds of guest speakers they can draw.  For example, they have been able to bring together Plato Cacheris and John Martin (the defense attorney and the federal prosecutor in the Robert Hanssen case) for a one-of-a-kind roundtable.

This brief note cannot do either this course or the guys teaching it justice.  If you want more information, please do not hesitate to contact the director of our online and distance learning programs, Linda Bremmer, at 814 824 2170 or lbremmer at mercyhurst dot edu.

Registration is now open!