Aegis In Iraq
WP has a status report detailing Aegis’ pseudo-independent efforts at counterinsurgency in Iraq – including intelligence, influence winning charity, and an organizational border-blurring center, which seems to be running into problems:
the center was originally envisioned as “a fusion organization for all of the information gathered among the private security companies.” The information would be useful to both the military and thousands of private security contractors who operate on Iraq’s supply routes and face the same insurgent threats.
But Holly said the usefulness of the center has been limited because each time a company provides intelligence, it is classified secret by the military and not distributed.
Tanji, of course, weighs in.
Targeted Malware
Register – Low cost machines (often hijacked) identifying, targeting and initiating attacks on senior executives –
As well as targeting senior execs, the attack is being directed against relatives of the intended target, for example a spouse or child of a chief exec.
Slightly Wet In Mumbai
Heh. Mumbai is a mess right now, as a result of the active monsoon.
I managed to get in on a morning flight out of Bangalore that was taking advantage of a 12 hour lapse in the rain last night.
Pilot was bringing the aircraft in for a landing, but a cloud broke over the runway, and moments before touching down he fired the engines and we “took off” again. First time that has happened for me. (Fun part was the view as we took a large low-altitude circle around the city.)
Back in Mumbai – more private sector meetings/interviews. Looking forward to speaking with members of Deeshaa – namely Atanu Dey and Rajesh Jain.
Also following up on the Bangalore expedition (which revolved around the computing networks that have and are being pieced together in rural areas, hoping to look at what role these systems can play in reacting to system pertubations).
And finally, keeping an eye out for how subcommunities and individuals are taking care of them and theirs in a very wet Mumbai.
Phil On Maoists
Not to be missed, but a good primer on the Indian Maoist threat written by Phil of Pacific Empire in the March of this year.
The Maoists in North Eastern India are interesting because they have directly been targeting the flows of globalization (embodied in the form of Special Economic Zones) by destroying critical nodes on critical systems.
Maoist “Bandh”
Forbes – Been watching this closely, not mentioned in this article is that railway lines have also been cut –
Maoist rebels in east India have torched a railway station and kidnapped rail staff, police said today, as a blockade aimed to stop government plans to establish special economic zones entered a second day, its cost hitting an estimated at 1.1 bln rupees.
The strike in the impoverished states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar has cost the state some 600 mln rupees, or 15 mln usd, officials said. It has crippled transportation and brought iron and coal mining in the mineral-rich state to a halt.
Shops and commercial establishments kept their shutters down, causing estimated losses of about 500 mln rupees, Agence France-Presse reported. Schools and colleges were closed and government offices registered low attendance, the agency said.
Sidenote: Anyone else find it interesting that Maoists have evolved well beyond the Maoist model of warfare?