This US National Intelligence Council memo dated 14 September 2011 provides US talking points for a forthcoming NATO meeting and includes the assessment that the threat presented by Anonymous and hacktivist activity is “minimal”: see the Intercept article Western Spy Agencies Secretly Rely on Hackers for Intel and Expertise, 4 February 2015.

NSA closely monitored the 2004 spread of avian influenza in preparation for a possible pandemic. "As our IC colleagues have said, containing the threat of infectious disease comes down to 'detection, detection, detection. SIGINT is probably going to get it first,'" the author writes.

Announcement of a seminar about Islamist groups in Central Asia.

Three linguists received awards for their contributions in establishing standards and in working on Russian and South American targets.

Leadership changes in Analysis and Production are announced.

Personnel changes in SID Analysis and Production.

Announcement of a seminar on Putin’s Russia.

This undated GCHQ presentation introduces the FLYING PIG and HUSH PUPPY tools: see the Der Spiegel story Prying Eyes: Inside the NSA’s War on Internet Security, 28 December 2014.

This undated NSA presentation sets out the network-mapping tool Treasure Map, and supplies information on some of the agency’s collection access points: see the Intercept article New Zealand Launched Mass Surveillance Project While Publicly Denying It, 15 September 2014.

The NSA's signals intelligence national intelligence officer for Latin America explains why the Bush administration has identified Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as a threat to democracy.

After two decades of development, China is on the brink of mass-producing mobile ICBMs with the range to target the entire U.S. "China is seeking to establish a credible and survivable nuclear deterrent, and will likely adhere to its long-standing 'no first use' policy."

An article describes the current state of U.N. peacekeeping operations in sub-Saharan Africa and predicts growth in missions and personnel. There is no mention of NSA or SID participation.

An "outstanding" DIA analyst finds valuable SIGINT leads on Russian underground facilities by combing open-source literature like "newspapers, government decrees, and obscure websites." This sort of research may have helped identify the government organizations responsible for managing a long-studied underground facility at Yamantau Mountain in Russia's Ural Mountains.

The assistant deputy director for customer relationships describes his first month on the job.

The NSA provides the U.S. Strategic Command with “intelligence on space control and surveillance operations, information operations, computer network operations and space campaign planning.”

This 2010 NSA presentation describes Project Camberdada, an attempt to subvert popular antivirus software by means of surveilling email traffic: see the Intercept article Popular Security Software Came Under Relentless NSA and GCHQ Attacks, 22 June 2015.

(Repost) Raul describes, for the benefit of Digital Network Intelligence analysts who run into weird jumbles of characters such as "D", how HTML special characters work.

Raul describes, for the benefit of Digital Network Intelligence analysts who run into weird jumbles of characters such as "D", how HTML special characters work.

Four open positions in the Analysis and Production division have been filled.

Presents a hypothetical scenario in which 15 coworkers meet at a restaurant to bid farewell to an employee. If an adversary happened to be at a nearby table listening in, what would they learn?

The SIGINT National Intelligence Officers Council predicted the most critical intelligence issues for the U.S. and SIGINT between 2006 and 2010. Most alarming was risk of a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction.

A new assistant deputy director comes to SID from a long career at the CIA.

A target’s Information Space, related to the technology the target uses, is what produces SIGINT. But analysts should also understand their targets’ Conceptual Space, to get inside their heads and understand their cultural references.

These classified annexes to the Obama administration’s Cyberspace Policy Review were not published with the rest of the report in May 2009 and acknowledge that cyber defence initiatives have civil liberties implications: see the New York Times article Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border, 4 June 2015.

This NSA presentation from 9 June 2011 shows the scale of the agency’s collection of SMS messages (codenamed Dishfire) and describes the operation of the Prefer analysis tool: see the Guardian article, NSA collects millions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweep, 16 January 2014.

Raul describes to Digital Network Intelligence analysts how to deal with damaged data. First, he recommends trying to understand how the intercepted data was damaged and fix the problem so it doesn't happen in the future. ("Remember, damage doesn't just happen, something causes it and it is definitely much better to prevent it than to try and fix it.") Then he goes through various techniques to discover where problems in damaged files are and how to attempt to repair them.

The deputy director for Analysis and Production announces what he hopes will be the last large-scale changes in senior leadership positions within A&P.

Report from the April 2004 SIGDEV conference, held in Hawaii.

Reminder: Presenters from the consulting firm Eurasia Group will speak about their work on global political risk analysis.

Presenters from the consulting firm Eurasia Group will speak about their work on global political risk analysis.