Deep Intellect

Here is a question for you kids, how do you decide that other species are intelligent? :)

Love

Baba

Deep Intellect
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6474/

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Deep Intellect

Inside the mind of the octopus

by Sy Montgomery

Published in the November/December 2011 issue of Orion magazine

Photograph: Brandon Cole

ON AN UNSEASONABLY WARM day in the middle of March, I traveled from New Hampshire to the moist, dim sanctuary of the New England Aquarium, hoping to touch an alternate reality. I came to meet Athena, the aquarium’s forty-pound, five-foot-long, two-and-a-half-year-old giant Pacific octopus.

For me, it was a momentous occasion. I have always loved octopuses. No sci-fi alien is so startlingly strange. Here is someone who, even if she grows to one hundred pounds and stretches more than eight feet long, could still squeeze her boneless body through an opening the size of an orange; an animal whose eight arms are covered with thousands of suckers that taste as well as feel; a mollusk with a beak like a parrot and venom like a snake and a tongue covered with teeth; a creature who can shape-shift, change color, and squirt ink. But most intriguing of all, recent research indicates that octopuses are remarkably intelligent.

India's Intelligence framework to fight terrorism

A great article on the challenges facing India's counter terrorism intelligence framework. I quote the conclusion:

Difficulties like these and the tepid response of the state governments to a 2007 Supreme Court directive ordering improvements in the functioning of police and intelligence agencies continue to bedevil India’s attempts to fashion an effective counter-terrorism strategy. Meanwhile terrorist groups continue to display a marked advantage in adapting to newer technologies and modes of operation, allowing them to function more quickly and quietly than the Indian intelligence community.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Thomas Friedman's take on Iran's take on USA

I like Thomas Friedman, he does the vision thing. And his latest column is just brilliant. The short term thinking on part of the politicians is just breathtaking. Read and weep!

December 5, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Intercepting Iran’s Take on America
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

There are two intelligence analyses that are relevant to the balance of
power between the U.S. and Iran — one is the latest U.S. assessment of Iran,
which certainly gave a much more complex view of what is happening there.
The other is the Iranian National Intelligence Estimate of America, which —
my guess — would read something like this:

To: President Ahmadinejad

From: The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence

Subject: America

As you’ll recall, in the wake of 9/11, we were extremely concerned that the
U.S. would develop a covert program to end its addiction to oil, which would
be the greatest threat to Iranian national security. In fact, after Bush’s
2006 State of the Union, in which he decried America’s oil addiction, we had
“high confidence” that a comprehensive U.S. clean energy policy would
emerge. We were wrong.

Our fears that the U.S. was engaged in a covert “Manhattan Project” to
achieve energy independence have been “assuaged.” America’s Manhattan
Project turns out to be largely confined to the production of corn ethanol
in Iowa, which, our analysts have confirmed from cellphone intercepts
between lobbyists and Congressmen, is nothing more than a
multibillion-dollar payoff to big Iowa farmers and agro-businesses.

True, thanks to Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Congress decided to increase the
miles per gallon required of U.S. car fleets by the year 2020 — which took
us by surprise — but we nevertheless “strongly believe” this will not lead
to any definitive breaking of America’s oil addiction, since none of the
leading presidential candidates has offered an energy policy that would
include a tax on oil or carbon that could trigger a truly transformational
shift in America away from fossil fuels.

Therefore, it is “very likely” that Iran’s current level of high oil
revenues will last for decades and insulate our regime from any decisive
pressures from abroad or from our own people.

We have to note that obtaining open-source intelligence in America has
become more difficult, because traditional news shows have become more
comedic and more comedic news shows more authoritative.

For instance, CNN’s nightly business report is hosted by a man named
“Dobbs.” Real journalists come on his show and present transparently
propagandistic stories about immigration and trade and then he fulminates
about them, much the way our ayatollahs used to do about “Satanic Americans”
on late-night Iranian TV. So viewers have no real idea what’s happening in
the U.S. economy.

Meanwhile, at 11 p.m., something called “The Daily Show,” which appears on
Comedy Central, has fake journalists presenting what turns out to be the
real news.

Yes, our last I.N.I.E. in 1990 concluded that after the collapse of
communism, America was on track to become the world’s sole superpower and
most compelling role model for Muslim youth — including our own. We were
wrong. We now have “high confidence” that America is on a path of
self-destruction, for three reasons:

First, 9/11 has made America afraid and therefore stupid. The “war on
terrorism” is now so deeply imbedded in America’s psyche that we think it is
“highly likely” that America will continue to export more fear than hope and
will continue to defend things like torture and Guantánamo Bay prison and to
favor politicians like Mr. Giuliani, who alienates the rest of the world.

Second, at a time when America’s bridges, roads, airports and Internet
bandwidth have fallen behind other industrial powers, including China, we
believe that the U.S. opposition to higher taxes — and the fact that the
primary campaigns have focused largely on gay marriage, flag-burning and
whether the Christian Bible is the literal truth — means it is “highly
unlikely” that America will arrest its decline.

Third, all the U.S. presidential candidates are distancing themselves from
the core values that made America such a great power and so different from
us — in particular America’s long commitment to free trade, open immigration
and a reverence for scientific enquiry wherever it leads. Our intel analysts
are baffled that the leading Democrat, Mrs. Clinton, no longer believes in
globalization and the leading Republican, Mr. Huckabee, never believed in
evolution.

U.S. politicians seem determined to appeal either to the most nativist
extremes in their respective parties — or to tell voters that something
Americans call “the tooth fairy” will make their energy, budget, educational
and Social Security deficits painlessly disappear.

Therefore, we conclude with “high confidence” that there is little
likelihood that post-9/11 America will, as they say, “get its groove back”
anytime soon.

Who needs nukes when you have this kind of America?

God is Great. Long Live the Iranian Revolution.


All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Israel's Military Intelligence Performance in the Second Lebanon War

An interesting report crossed my in-box, which compared the intelligence performance of Israel during the Second Lebanon War. Broadly speaking, it did very well in the strategic aspects but failed miserably on the tactical aspects, therefore letting Hizbollah escape without the overwhelming defeat which is usually the fate of Israeli opponents.

The author points to two aspects. The first and frankly admirable aspect is that of Hizbollah, it has amazing security protocols, which made it impossible for israeli intelligence to penetrate the organisation. Compartmentalisation of information was taken to an insane level, the communications security was top class (no evesdropping on their comms), and very worryingly, have a very good counter-intelligence activity. The fact that Israeli soldiers were using mobile phones was stupid, and Hizbollah is reported to have hacked into the mobile phone network, tracked their movements and in many cases, ambushes were setup. Also, by knowing their movements, they hid their rockets!

On the Israeli side, they did not have human agents inside Hizbollah, the Christian Maronites were not used, high turnover of israeli officers within the services, lower priority given to tactical intelligence gathering over strategic reporting, and sadly, even when they did have reports, they did not distribute them effectively or efficiently to the ground forces. End result? well, we all know it.

Now India and Israel are collaborating closely, but I wonder if the Israeli forces read the Kargil report from a few years back? Here is a good overview of that report and here is another. Here is a good conference review on the conflict. I strongly believe that the intelligence agencies should review and read these again.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!