Recommended High-Profile Daily Military Technology Video!

Dear blog readers,

Continuing the "Travel Without Moving" blog post series where I used to feature a high-profile publicly accessible satellite imagery for a variety of high-profile locations throughout the years I've decided to share a highly recommended video which is basically a THAAD demonstration video which you should watch and enjoy in case you're interested in learning more about modern military technology.

Stay tuned!

Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - North Korea Missile Launch Pad

Seems like it's North Korea's most active PR month given the public outbreak due to their unsuccessful launch of an intercontinental missile, so in these Travel Without Moving series I decided to feature the launch pad, originally came across it, nowhere else but at Cryptome's well sorted photo gallery of the event. Whereas the U.S is activating diplomatic ties in order to put more pressure on North Korea's tests, China and Russia among the rest of the superpowers seems to be teasing the U.S in a way only they can afford to -- let's don't forget the financial incentives for Russia to enrich Iran's uranium altogether. As far as Kim Jong Il is concerned, in between fueling growth in the infrastructure necessary to maintain a regime, he enjoys making secret meetings with ex-comrades while travelling to Moscow with his armoured train, as he's afraid of flying.

Previous series, related posts :
Travel Without Moving - Typhoon Class Submarines
Travel Without Moving - Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center
Travel Without Moving - KGB Lubyanka Headquarters
Travel Without Moving - Korean Demilitarized Zone
Travel Without Moving - Georgi Markov's KGB Assassination Spot
Travel Without Moving - Scratching the Floor

North Korea - Turn On the Lights, Please
Who Needs Nuclear Weapons Anymore?
Who's Who in Cyber Warfare?
Is a Space Warfare Arms Race Really Comming?
EMP Attacks - Electronic Domination in Reverse Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - Erasmus Bridge

Catching up with last week's Travel Without Moving shot, this one isn't intelligence of military related, but a marvelous engineering achievement, Erasmus Bridge -- perhaps the perfect moment to demonstrate my amateur photographer skills while tripping around. I will definitely share more shots from cons and life, the way I experience it, anytime now. And meanwhile, you can take a peek at the latest addition to the Eyeball Series, the North Korean Missile Launch Furor -- catching up with a conventional weaponry doctrine is anything else but a milestone.

Google Earth and Google Maps continue making the headlines as a "threat" to national security, where the key points remain the balancing of satellite reconnaissance capabilities between developed and developing nations, the freshness of the data, and it's quality. Sensitive locations can indeed be spotted, and then again, so what? And, with the launch of Geoportail.fr the French government aims at achieving transparency, rather than overhyping this common sense "insecurity". Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - Georgi Markov's KGB Assassination Spot

In the spirit of the previous hot spot in the Travel Without Moving series, here's another one, this time Georgi Markov's KGB Assassination spot. Georgi Markov was killed in London, in 1978, using a tiny pellet fired from an umbrella containing 0.2 milligram dose of poison ricin.

You may also find this Time Out's briefing on London's espionage locations interesting. Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - KGB Lubyanka Headquarters

Yet another hot spot in this week's Travel Without Moving series - this time it's Lubyanka Square's KGB Headquarters. There are still lots of Cold War sentiments in the air among yesterday's and today's super powers and you just can't deny it. Today's FSB, the successor to the KGB, is taking a very serious approach towards counter-intelligence, and offensive scientific intelligence practices in a much more synergetic relationship with the academic world compared to years ago. While the CIA is undisputably the most popular foreign intelligence agency, and more of a front end to the NSA itself from my point of view, the KGB still remains reponsible for very important and "silent" moments in the world's history.There were moments in the very maturity of the Cold War, when both, the CIA, and the KGB were on purposely disinforming their operatives in order to keep them motivated and fuel the tensions even more, but compared to the CIA with its technological know-how, KGB's HUMINT capababilities didn't get surpassed by technologies. Among the key success factors for the intelligence agency was the centralized nature of the command of chain, total empowerment, common and obsessive goal, and clear enemy.

Today's trends mostly orbit around :

- information sharing, that is less complexity among different departments and agencies
- win-win information sharing among nations
- offensive and defensive CYBERINT, harnessing the power, or protecting against the threats posed by the digital era
- automated and efficient mass surveillance practices- eliminating "safe heavens"

In case you really want to go in-depth into what has happened during the last couple of decades, Vasilli Mitrohih's KGB Archives are worth reading. And the true-retro gamers can take the role of "Captain Maksim Mikahilovich Rukov, recently transferred to the Department P from the GRU after three years' duty to investigate possible corruption inside the KGB (after a former agent turned private eye was found murdered). However, as the plot progresses, Rukov finds himself investigating a party hardliner anti-perestroika plot that threatens the life of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev" while playing KGB - Conspiracy game. Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - Korean Demilitarized Zone

Continuing the travel without moving series, the Korean Demilitarized Zone remains a hot spot with North Korea publicly stating its ambtions of joining the nuclear club. How big of a threat is the statement anyway? I believe it's a desperate move from the North Koreans' side, while trying to put itself on the world's map again -- and the news of course.


What they lost was the momentum, one that Iran greatly took advantage of. Think about it, as the U.S's War on Terror is like any"product concept", it inevitably passes through introduction, growth, maturity and decline stages in respect to public relations. Abu Ghraib's offensive PSYOPS case, a national disaster in between, Muhammad's cartoons, and NSA's fiasco seemed to further strenghten the momentum of announcing their intentions without fear of having the U.S in their backyard -- smart move fully taking advantage of the situation and definitely resulting in a future dimplomatic solution.



While North Korea is presumably hoping to improve the nation's dignity and reputation as scietifically sophisticated enough to be recognized, building nuclear weapons when the central statistical bureau releases reports of people dying out of starvation reminds of the best Cold War strategy game scenario I ever played.


No real army for the regime, but sneaky partisans everywhere, no roads, no buildings, but nuclear bombs and cruise missiles in every city, as well as income distribution model based on the "model of leftovers", thus, riots and lack of any production capabilities. I remember watching a documentary where a soldier was trying to broadcast over the border, and of course, North Korea's jammers in action. Censoring news, obsessive self-regulation practices, total denial of problems, and keeping everyone in a twisted reality for as long as necessary is a daily practice -- still, there are capitalists trying to operate business ventures there.



What the international community could possibly do is not to lose touch with these people, and constantly "ping" their diplomacy while trying to achieve bargain deals -- the problem is that even Asian countries find North Korea a spooky place. Kim Jong-il is not a mad man, but a man looking for attention, give him some without having him "envision" a conventional weaponry phrase in his country's history. Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center

It's a small world -- and a busy one, this post was supposed to appear the previous week so here it goes. There are certain places you just can't miss on the world's map, and the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center is one of them. Remember the typical massive gate in the War Games movie, or in pretty much any other military/intelligence thriller you've watched? Try this one. Nuke it, EMP it, it's supposed to stand tall, yet it remains a visible sensitive location for you to enjoy without moving. The other day I came across to a report that I somehow missed in relation to various threats -- if any -- posed by Google Earth. "Google Earth Study: Impacts and Uses for Defence and Security" is worth the read :



"The Google Earth study on the impacts and uses for defence and security is aimed at answering a number of questions. What are the technical features, the reliability and limits of GE data and software, regarding international security regulations? Which confidence in data, real dangers of a pernicious use, or impacts of such an easy access to imagery is there on users or the geographical information market? What are the new applications stemming from GE, which services can be derived from this application, or what are the ways to integrate GE into an information system?"



Stay tuned for the upcoming 0day sights from around the world. Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - Scratching the Floor

You don't really need a reconnaissance satellite to spot this, it's precisely the type of "sight" you can see for yourself on daily basis -- but he's still moving isn't he? :) Continue reading →

Travel Without Moving - Typhoon Class Submarines

In previous posts "Security quotes : a FSB (successor to the KGB) analyst on Google Earth", "Suri Pluma - a satellite image processing tool and visualizer", "The "threat" by Google Earth has just vanished in the air" I talked about various issues related to satellite imagery and security.


Moreover, I'm also actively covering various emerging Space Warfare issues, and with the recent speculation that the Okno ELINT complex in Tajikistan is becoming Russian and different "schools of thought", there's a lot to come for sure. Google Maps/Earth did not only restart the real estate industry, it made the world a smaller place, a more competitive one, and hopefully a safer one if security counts here.



As of today, I decided to start posting a weekly section, the "Travel Without Moving" series, presenting interesting and publicly obtained imagery of sights that somehow made me an impression. The other day I came across to a (perhaps scraped by now) Typhoon Class Submarines at GoogleSightseeing.com -- the largest and quietest types of submarines.



That's perhaps the perfect moment to mention the cool pictures of a Soviet Underground Submarine Base in the Nuclear Submarine Base that "Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Balaklava was one of the most secret towns in Russia. 10km south eas of Sevastopol on the Black Sea Coast, this small town was the home to a Nuclear Submarine Base." Take a tour for yourself! Continue reading →