We talk about security and the current state of the security system (police, intelligence services, and the military).
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Show Notes
What is security
- 00:02:05 What is security: Security VS Safety.
- Security: unexpected events that go back to an actor,
- Safety: maintaining a status.
- 00:07:20 Entropy: things decay. Security is not a natural state, but
must be maintained. - 00:09:10 Evil people: psychpaths, predators.
- 00:09:50 Circumstances: acting irrationally.
- 00:10:25 Hackers: Red Hats, joy of overcoming security systems.
- 00:11:11 WASP Privilege: no exposure to threats, stuff works most of
the time, no incentive to learn about security.
Systems
- 00:12:29 High trust society VS low trust society: Low trust comes
with high cost and less functional societies. - 00:16:16 Symptoms of societies with low trust: different
environments are what make them. - 00:16:50 Universal core values of humans: self-preservation,
protecting family and friends, private zones, no drama. - 00:18:05 High trust society needs maintenance, will get eroded
quickly by few “bad actors”. - 00:19:05 How can you turn a low security, low trust environment into
a high security, high trust environment? Parallel developments also
possible: high security, low trust societies. - 00:19:40 Trust builds from history of interactions.
- 00:20:13 To change, bad memories must die (social memory). See
Thomas Kuhn (1962): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 00:22:10 Western states want to make people dependent on security
(stateism) and increase state control. Thus, individuals externalize
security, and state is presented as the White Knight. - 00:25:15 Are we being played/gamed/manipulated by the state and
state actors? - 00:27:38 Just doing our jobs.
- 00:29:50 Machiavellianism: concepts how states can work.
- 00:31:20 Hegelian concepts: totalist and collectivist states and
politics. - 00:33:20 Look at systemic issues.
Institutions
- 00:33:30 Inspecting institutions: 1) Police.
- 00:39:00 Policemen’s selection bias: everyone is a potential
criminal or at least a suspect. - 00:40:20 Documentation work of police activity by example of firing
weapons. - 00:42:30 Bureaucracy can work.
- 00:47:30 Police in uniform VS civilian police: both are for peace
preservation. - 00:48:00 Military is directed outwards.
- 00:49:00 Carl von Clausewitz: war is the extension of politics
[original: war is the continuation of politics by other means]. - 00:49:39 Border guards are the middle layer between military and
police (control of territorial boundaries VS maintaining territorial
integrity VS maintain security within the borders).
Intelligence services
- 00:50:00 Intelligence services:
- Classification: Intelligence service for proper and covert action
- 00:51:00 Similarities and differences to Journalism: Are
intelligence services also ad-driven? - 00:51:48 Intelligence Agencies report only news that can be
actionable. - 00:53:40 Domestic and Foreign Intelligence Services.
- 00:54:20 Objective reporting: Not mission driven, but report driven.
- 00:54:41 Two classes of intelligence services: Report requests
coming out of intelligence circle, or mission driven services
(Bundesverfassungsschutz, for example). - 00:56:30 FBI: police organization plus intelligence aspect.
- 00:57:05 Intelligence services are about information, other services
are about action. - 00:57:40 Staatsschutz and German Intelligence: police is for prevent
and investigate crimes. - 00:59:05 Forensics is for police, subversive or maybe illegal
actions are for intelligence work. In Germany, it’s clearly
seperated; in USA, not so much. - 01:02:15 CIA: Considered as Intelligence Agency. Gather information
is their mandate, not catch criminals. - 01:05:10 Sending in intelligence to change things: huge toolkit to
act available. - 01:05:50 Intelligence and Military Covert Actions are not Security,
but political action. However, it‘s a security issue for the other
side.
International organisations
- 01:06:47 International Security Organizations (Europol, Interpol).
No police powers, limited investigation powers. - 01:08:45 Working groups: example SIS (communicating warrants in EU).
- 01:09:58 Organizations: example Le Circle (high-ranking intelligence
chiefs), Munich Security Forum (conference with high-level security
chiefs). - 01:15:00 Why is their image so skewed in the public? (The „Spy
Story“) - 01:18:00 Rubicon Series (2010)
- 01:19:25 CSI Series (2000) - all about forensic analysis of crime
scenes, but in reality it‘s not the dominant part, only few
questions can be answered. - 01:21:28 Playbook crime following the standard model VS outliers.
- 01:22:55 Being secretive about methods means keeping the advantage
from opponents: intelligence agencies VS intelligence agencies from
other countries; police VS criminals. - 01:23:40 Sources 1) Scientific Fields: Criminalistics, Criminology.
(Education Material for people that train police, manuals and
coursework can be brought on Amazon, also check out libraries). - 01:25:34 Sources 2) Reports: Indictments, Warrants (a lot are
public, depending on country). Caveat: contains successes and legal
processes only. - 01:27:08 Sources 3) Private Conversation with Policemen,
Investigators, Intelligence People to get a more accurate picture
about their work.
Public private partnerships
- 01:29:39 Private Security Services.
- 01:30:45 Cybercrime Investigations: Takedown of Cyberpunker 2 (200
servers in a German bunker). - 01:32:25 Private Companies helping the police in Cybercrime
Investigation. - 01:32:40 Analyzing digital evidence: Given to a lab from a private
company. (Cyberforensics, not done by police) - 01:34:18 White-Collar Crime: Fraud, Commercial Fraud cases etc.
Corporate Investigators for hire: Forensic Accountants, etc. (Police
work only for special investigator power, or force powers.) - 01:37:10 Corporations can use private security services when police
are bound legally (for example, in bribing), then sanatize the data
and give it to the police. - 01:41:28 Informal communication lines… like in every other
industry. (But with special privileges: Police, Military,
Intelligence) - 01:43:04 Presumably Cardinal Richelieu: „If you give me (three, or
two) six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will
find (seven reasons) something in them which will hang him.“, this
quote might be originated by memorialist Françoise Bertraut de
Motteville (1723), and was later paraphrased. - 01:44:46 Real-life cases have a lot of ambiguity going on. It‘s a
work of probabilities, not a binary process. - 01:45:45 Can you cover up a crime as a non-corrupt policeman?
- 01:46:50 Private Security Services exploit the ambiguity of
policework (someone bringing you from outside a full case, only
verification needed, negative evidence often gets lost). - 01:48:21 Political Aspect: which crimes are deemed important?
- 01:49:20 Lobbying and capital power: Intellectual Property Crimes.
- 01:50:44 Industry identifies perpretators and delivers them to
police. - 01:50:58 Filesharing: Machine investigating and filing reports,
backchanneling, automated sting operation (example, IP-Echelon). - 01:56:08 Private Agencies provide: Analysis of evidence, production
of leads, investigation. - 01:56:26 Money Laundering: not based on investigative results, but
on information provided by for example NGOs (example, Transparency
International). - 01:59:28 Chain Analysis Companies produce risk scores for
Cryptocurrency Adresses (public keys). - 02:01:05 Face recognition to identify suspects: example, Clearview
AI (finding people software) - 02:02:20 Police relies on outside, unchecked influence: Private
Actors (non-illegmitate).
Private Intelligence
- 02:03:25 Recap of Episode:
- What outside input is influencing the police
- Policy definition
- Intelligence field
- 02:04:22 Tax crimes: special investigators who actively try to find
criminals. - 02:04:39 Organized Crime: preventitive task of police (dismantling
organizations, Staatsschutz). - 02:05:35 Civil Disobedience: infiltration by police and private
companies. - 02:07:00 Private Security: 3 categories
- private intelligence services
- private security services
- private military contractors.
- 02:09:38 Private Intelligence is information gathering.
- 02:09:53 Private Intelligence VS corporate espionage.
- 02:11:11 First example.
- 02:15:00 Why is there so much cheap spy tech for sale?
- 02:19:53 Second example: credit suisse incident.
- 02:21:12 Some serious health concerns for the operators and
middlemen (in-betweens). - 02:24:05 Birds of a feather flock together: blurry lines of
corporate, state, and private decision makers (different sides of
the law). - 02:26:29 Book/Thesis: Stephan Blancke (2011): Geheimdienstliche
Aktivitäten nicht-staatlicher Akteure (private intelligence
activities by non-state actors) - 02:27:11 Private inflitrators, informants and agent provocateurs.
- 02:28:10 Extinction rebellion and very active activists.
- 02:30:30 Capture bounties.
- 02:32:45 A quiet business: private infiltration intelligence
services (IMSI-catchers) are often ex police, ex military etc. - 02:34:40 Sharing information services between intelligence: 4 eyes,
14 eyes. - 02:38:05 HCPP and game theory: will the cryptoanarchists ever get
something done? - 02:39:00 Today’s security system is like antique byzantine, easy to
understand from outside, inside not easy to understand- even for the
players themselves. - 02:40:25 Ross Ulbricht and Silk Road made agents run with money—is
it the only case, only in this direction? - 02:42:00 State systems’ marketing: “protect and serve” by angels?
But, ACAB is also wrong. - 02:45:55 Take personal responsibility for own security.
Outlook
- 02:48:40 Developments/outlook: technologies that make globalization
possible, organizational technologies, reporting and communication. - 02:50:25 Old days: reporting was sampling (today: big data, AI).
- 02:51:00 New incentive structures: financial markets. Old: financial
markets were not global, slow. Today: Global financial markets mean
indirect profit from activities like war, markets can be complex,
distributed, longer reach. - 02:52:50 Even dumb criminals can use smart technologies (Dropgangs).
- 02:54:00 The mastermind/ intelligent criminals VS random criminals:
attribution becomes problematic (witness problem, no review
pointers). - 02:57:24 Book: Evan Ratliff (2019): The Mastermind. Drugs. Empire.
Murder. Betrayal. (Paul LeRoux)
Wrap up
Reading Recommendations
- Thomas Kuhn (1962): The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- Machiavelli
- Hegel
- Carl von Clausewitz
- Rubicon Series (2010)
- Stephan Blancke (2011): Geheimdienstliche Aktivitäten
nicht-staatlicher Akteure (private intelligence activities by
non-state actors) - Evan Ratliff (2019): The Mastermind. Drugs. Empire. Murder.
Betrayal. (Paul LeRoux)
Discuss
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