Happy Festivus!
We will be back in the New Year.
Monthly Archive for December, 2010
PSYCHOPATHS AMONG US
Dr. Robert Hare claims there are 300,000 psychopaths in Canada, but that only a tiny fraction are violent offenders like Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olsen. Who are the rest? Take a look around
This is an excellent article recounting Dr. Hare’s ground-braking work that now makes it easier to recognise psychopaths.
During the Second World War, the British Royal Navy constructed a series of sea forts for an advanced line of defense against inbound air raids and potential sea invasions from the Axis powers. The Maunsell Sea Forts still stand today, silent and abandoned a few meters above the North Sea. One, however, remains inhabited, now a nation of its own referred to as the Principality of Sealand.
This “country” was established by a pirate broadcaster in 1967. In 2007 the Principality was up for sale.
I recently encountered a very strange person who claimed to be a citizen of Sealand. He even had a passport and a noble title.
Reading the following articles about Canadian criminal record searches should give you an understanding of how Canada’s criminal records are stored and searched.
Two concise article on conducting a surveillance:
Recognising that a subject is likely carrying a pistol is a necessary surveillance skill, even in Toronto.
Color is used to highlight how the gun moves and how the gun reveals itself, short visual noun-verb sentences that indicate the key signs that help detectives to spot someone carrying a hidden handgun. Click on the image to get a clearer view or go to the original article.
The explanation of how this graphic was developed with the help of Detective Robert T. Gallagher of the NYPD makes interesting reading.
The following articles should help you understand the WikiLeaks and Assange odyssey. They are selected to illustrate Assange’s agenda and the backstory of the sex charges.
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WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety (By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA, Published: October 23, 2010, New York Times)
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Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To destroy this invisible government”
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TIME’s Julian Assange Interview: Full Transcript/Audio
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Are the Sex Charges Against Assange Bogus?
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Non-Surprise: Assange’s Accuser Linked To CIA
Karen Blakeman’s Blog has an interesting article on removing unwanted references in Google and social media.
Removing information about you from Google
…you cannot make Google remove information you do not like except in very specific circumstances, for example copyrighted material on YouTube, images of you or your house on Street View.
…oft cited example of how not to tackle bad publicity is that of Nestle. (Just Google Nestle social media fail or Nestle social media disaster.) “Nestle fails at social media
Ontario Police Check Backlog Frustrates Many
Previously, the criminal database was only checked for a close match to the surname and date of birth of applicants.
If this doesn’t bring up a hit, the new system now checks for matches to the sex and birthdate of the applicant only.
If there’s a match, finger prints have to be sent to the RCMP.
“The reason behind that is because some provinces don’t link previous criminal records to a name change,” said Marc LaPorte, a spokesperson for RCMP Ontario. “It’s a more rigorous check.”
This helps identify those who have changed their name after being pardoned for a sexual offense when checking the pardoned sex offender portion of the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC). The delays due to the new policy are country wide on all Vulnerable Sector Checks.
Effective August 4, 2010, The Minister of Public Safety’s new Ministerial Directive Concerning the Release of Criminal Record Information by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) governs the use and disclosure of criminal record information maintained by the RCMP. This new directive replaces the previous ministerial directive, which was in effect since 1987.
The new policy is located at: http://www.cpic-cipc.ca/English/crimrec.cfm.
Early in my career I was part of a surveillance crew. Every day I would go out and follow people. Sometimes I worked alone, sometimes in a car or cab with two other guys, sometimes as part of a multi-vehicle team.
It takes a long time to integrate a new guy into a surveillance crew. If he is experienced, it will take about 6 months. I have not seen any really good training schools for this in North America. I think the reason that such schools don’t exist here is that it takes too long to teach the fundamentals and this would cost a lot of money for lodging, cars, and instruction. In Canada, learning to conduct surveillance is definitely on-the-job training.
Let’s start with some definitions. Continue reading ‘Surveillance Tradecraft’
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report for 2010 outlines an interesting event that has significant bearing on business continuity. It seems that China rerouted 15% of all the Internet traffic through Chinese servers for 18 minutes on 8 April 2010. They did this by having their servers announce that they provided the quickest route for messages. Of course, the Chinese deny any responsibility for this.
The Chinese government is clearly experimenting with using the Internet as part of an asymmetrical warfare strategy, as are other countries. Where does this leave your business should a spate of cyberwarfare break-out? Your company operations might be located thousands of miles from any real battlefield, but a war that brings down the Internet or isolates your company from its customers could spell disaster.
Have you examined how you might maintain your relationship with customers and suppliers without the Internet? Do you have any idea what logistical and financial resources will be required to maintain those relationships? Have you identified the point where you would cease operations and seek bankruptcy protection should the Internet cease to operate?
These are uncomfortable questions, but they have to be asked. In February the former U.S. intelligence chief, told congress that the U.S. would lose a cyberwar if one broke out today. He said, “We’re the most vulnerable, we’re the most connected, we have the most to lose.” Unfortunately, the same can be said of Canada which routes much of its Internet traffic through the United States.
The CBC has created a search engine of sorts for WikiLeaks material. You can also search by tag, which are codes that indicate topics discussed in the cable. Most often, each cable has more than one tag.
Dyed hair and false beards are childish. Mere physical traits are of little use for identification. Context or ‘atmosphere’ are what matters.
If your subject gets into entirely different surroundings from those in which he was first observed — and this is the important part — really plays up to the new surroundings and behaves as if he had never been out of them, then he would be invisible to even the cleverest Private Investigator.
A fool tries to look different; a clever man looks the same and is, at the same time, different.
The deceiver assumes the new role by actually becoming the person he is impersonating. He is quietly absorbed into his new surroundings. In essence, the person you are seeking may be hiding in plain sight.
In Plain Sight
When he’s out and about near his Denver home, former Broncos quarterback John Elway has come up with a novel way to travel incognito—he wears his own jersey. “I do that all the time here,” the 50-year-old Hall of Famer told me. “I go to the mall that way. They know it’s not me because they say there’s no way Elway would be wearing his own jersey in the mall. So it actually is the safest thing to do.” (Source: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1175387/4/index.htm)