I just finished reading Obama's Wars while traveling to and from GEOINT 2011 (31 Oct-4Nov) in the middle of which the mid-term Congressional elections dramatically shifted power in the House of Representatives from the Democrats to the Republicans and made getting 60 votes in the Senate a near mathematical if not political long shot. Since returning from New Orleans we have also had the close call "printer cartridge" bomb plot and President Bush's book Decision Points released. All have important things to say about the state of and future intelligence, but so did Tish Long in her GEOINT Keynote Address.

Multinational Experiment 6 sends one concrete solution directly into Afghanistan and creates inroads into coalition collaboration concepts that are being integrated into individual nations' military and political doctrine.

Part of the USS Cole has found new life in a field in New Jersey. Engineers at the Vice Adm. James H. Doyle Jr. Combat System Engineering Development Site (CSEDS) Aegis Technical Representative (TECHREP) in Moorestown refurbished the SPY-1B/D antenna that was installed on the ship when it was attacked by terrorists in 2000.

An explosive ordnance disposal specialist with the U.S. Army credits a popular treasure-hunting game called geocaching for his keen eye and ability to seek out improvised explosive devices.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is establishing 15 virtual meeting centers across the United States for use by government personnel. Scheduled to open in 2011, the centers will be available to representatives from all federal agencies, military and civilian, and should help reduce greenhouse emissions and travel.

Firesheep is a great new plugin that works in the Firefox browser. It is easy for you to install, easy to run, and gives you, and just about anyone else, the power to do pure evil using just your browser and a laptop. With this post I'll explain some of this evil and offer some thoughts on what it means for CTOs.

The intelligence community (IC) is a $75 billion submarket within the federal complex. This alone is staggering. Being close to Washington DC, we tend to forget just how much money this really is. If this figure were a nation's gross domestic product (GDP), it would be the 60th largest country in the world and larger than 2/3 of all nations and their respective GDP output (there are currently 181 nations in the world).

Quote of the Day: “Cyberspace mirrors the maritime world both in the way it serves us and in the peril it brings.”—Rear Adm. Danilo M. Cortez, AFP, acting flag officer in command, Philippine Navy