22. January 2008 by Revelator.

In our world the OPSEC chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical risk analysis systems that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial risk conditions, the behavior of chaotic OPSEC systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial vulnerability conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic OPSEC chaos, or simply OPSEC chaos.

Chaotic behavior has been observed in the laboratory in a variety of systems including intelligence collection, oscillating chemical reactions, logistical black holes, administrative SNAFU’s, fluid dynamics, operations planning, and mechanical/magneto-mechanical devices. Observations of chaotic OPSEC behavior on the battlefield include the dynamics of unencrypted satellite comms in the solar system, the time evolution of the magnetic field of adversarial bodies, radical population growth in ecology, the dynamics of the threat potentials in neurons, and molecular vibrations. Everyday examples of chaotic OPSEC conditions include the OPSEC Coordinators meeting, the OPSEC Staff Assistance Meeting, and the “Sprinkle some OPSEC on this plan” verbal order.

Systems that exhibit mathematical OPSEC chaos are deterministic and thus orderly in some sense; this technical use of the term OPSEC chaos is at odds with common parlance, which suggests complete disorder. A related field of physics called quantum OPSEC chaos theory studies systems that follow the laws of quantum risk mechanics. Recently, another field, called relativistic vulnerability chaos, has emerged to describe systems that follow the laws of general vulnerability relativity.

As well as being orderly in the sense of being deterministic, chaotic OPSEC systems usually have ill defined statistics. And this is why no one will protect items on your Critical Information List, everyone will say exactly what they aren’t supposed to say when out on the town and everyone will whine when you mention that it is time for their OPSEC brief. OPSEC Chaos – ain’t it a bitch.

Keep the Faith!

Revelator

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22. January 2008 by Revelator.

Folks, it’s all OPSEC. I just couldn’t resist a quote from an old co-worker of mine. Our friend and frequent contributor Kirk Dunaway has some great guidance for you here. Having sat next to Kirk for over two years I can tell you that I personally have averted many a disaster by taking his advice. Read and heed!

Tips from a guy who has been asked to look at a lot of peoples computer problems…

OPSEC? Well, ish. I can throw words like vulnerability, intent, survey and OPSEC measures at this, to justify the fact that I am submitting something on the fringe of OPSEC to this blog, but I just thought I would pass along some free advice.

1. Cannot stress the importance of anti-virus software. There are many offered, at various costs (from free to $$$), just make sure you have it on there. The major differences are some offer better protection but are slower, some are faster but protect less and some fall in the middle. My advice is to stay with recognizable name brands if you are not sure.

2. Firewalls really do work! A computer, by default, listens and accepts all kinds of traffic, regardless whether you are using that type of traffic or not. Bad guys use these typically unused traffic types to attack your system. A firewall shuts down that vulnerability. Of course, there is some pain at first (yes, let me check my email, and remember!!! Yes, please, I want to access the internet!!!), but once set up it is relatively invisible. The protection it provides is very valuable. There are hardware firewalls, but I still recommend loading a software firewall on your system (free or $$$).

3. There are adware identifying software programs available, if you are concerned with someone tracking your surfing habits. Load up and scan away.

4. Currency is huge. Anti-virus, operating system, firewall, etc, are of little use against the latest badware if your system software is not up to date. By all means set up whatever you can to automatically update. If you do not automatically update, at least manually update once a week. If you do automatically update, perform a manual update once a month to make sure automatic update picks up everything.

5. Spend a few bucks, buy an external USB hard drive at least as large as your computer hard drive, and copy off important stuff once a month. You can export your browser favorites and email contacts (and emails, if you know where to look), then copy everything over manually. Or you can buy backup software to do it all for you. But regardless, bad viruses do disable computers, and hard drives fail, so keep that 2nd copy in case you have to start over.

6. Put an entry in your email contact list that contains your own email address. Like “ZZZZME”, so it can be ignored at the end. But then if you are infected, and some virus is sending itself out using the contact list in your email, you will know.

7. Turn off your computer when not in use. Most bad guys know we do not use our computers at night, so that’s when they use them. Shut it down, and reduce your window of vulnerability.

8. If you think you have been infected, and you have current virus software, shut down your system. Disable your network connection (unplug or turn off wireless access point). Now power up, and keep pressing the “F8” key while booting up. This will eventually give you a boot menu. Select “Safe Mode”, and when it comes up run a thorough virus scan. Your virus software should be able to clean any bad stuff in Safe Mode. If not, call in the cavalry.

9. If you think you have been infected, and you do not have current virus software, try an online virus scanner (like the free one from TrendMicro) to see if you can repair it.

Anyway, these tips could save you from a couple hundred bucks getting your computer cleaned to losing your hard drive (and how many years worth of digital pictures?). Oh yea, critical information, risk, and threats.

Kirk out.

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22. January 2008 by Revelator.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

August 28, 1963

Keep the Faith!

Revelator

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