New Business Processes for Situational Awareness

About a year and a half ago, I published a post singing Google Reader's praises. Then, Google discontinued it. A few months later, I discussed Feedly. I like Feedly, and I've loaded it with a lot of RSS feeds. One challenge I run into is that Feedly's website isn't really compatible with my Kindle Fire. Feedly has an app for the Kindle Fire, and I may try it at some point, but LinkedIn Pulse (or, rather, a version from before LinkedIn bought Pulse) is an inextricable inclusion on my Kindle.

I configured Pulse a while ago, but it's needed some adjustment for a while. What I've decided to do is to use Pulse as a sort of "Feedly Lite". When I'm out and about, or if I'm away from the house overnight and don't want to take a laptop with me, I can use Pulse on my Kindle to keep abreast of major news items. I'll leave some of the more in-depth stuff (particularly the stuff that only updates occasionally) solely in my Feedly feed for review when I'm on a laptop. So, what have I prioritized for my "Feedly Lite" Pulse feed?

Global
BBC News - World (RSS)
CNN.com - WORLD (RSS)
BBC News - NE Scotland, Orkney & Shetland (RSS)
Michael J. Totten's blog (RSS)
Michael Yon - Online Magazine (RSS)
1913 Intel (RSS)
BBC Newshour podcast (RSS)
BBC Global News Podcast (RSS)

MENA
BBC News - Middle East (RSS)
CNN.com - WORLD/Middle East (RSS)
al Jazeera English (RSS)
Times Of Oman (RSS)
Oman Observer (RSS)
Kuwait Times (RSS)
Arab Times (RSS)

Strategery
Spacewar.com (RSS)
Small Wars Journal (RSS)
The Long War Journal (Site-Wide) (RSS)
War on the Rocks (RSS)
War is Boring - Medium (RSS)
WIRED » Danger Room (RSS)
WIRED » Threat Level (RSS)
Kevin Hanrahan (RSS)

Leisure
Musings from a Stonehead (RSS)
xkcd.com (RSS)
AmazingSuperPowers (RSS)
Ctrl+Alt+Del (RSS)
Wondermark (RSS)
Terminal Lance (RSS)
Romantically Apocalyptic (RSS)
Penny Arcade (RSS)
Explosm.net (RSS)
GoComics.com - Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis (RSS)
Filibuster Cartoons (RSS)

Pulchritude
Open Source IMINT (RSS)
APOD (RSS)
Flickr: The U.S. Army (RSS)
Flickr: Official U.S. Navy Imagery (RSS)
Flickr: United States Marine Corps Official Page (RSS)
Flickr: Defence Images (RSS)
Flickr: Callum McKain (RSS)
Flickr: chimpaction (RSS)
Flickr: Orkneyjar (RSS)

Sometimes, a thorough news review with Feedly can take around an hour. With this Pulse setup, I can get caught up in fifteen or twenty minutes. It took a bit of work to get it all sorted out, but it should hopefully be worth it.

Achievement Unlocked: Security+

Although I tend to lean in the physical security direction, more and more physical security professionals are required to hold credentials reflecting the growing importance of network security. In November, I bought the Kindle edition of the CompTIA Security+: Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-301 Study Guide by Darril Gibson. (Gibson's website is here.) I've obviously been quite busy since November, but I've chipped away at the book, and spent the last couple of weeks studying. This morning, I went to my local testing center to take the CompTIA Security+ exam, and passed with a score of 825 (the minimum score is 750, the highest possible score is 900). I'm pretty excited, but there's no rest for yours truly: my next goal is to finally get my Physical Security Professional certification. Just as my Security+ certification quantifies my network security training and experience, I want to do the same for my physical security background. My goal is to get that completed by the end of June, but I may try to give it a good push in May.

Middle Eastern News Articles of Note

Every now and again, the Internet inundates me with a few really good articles about strategy and intelligence, and particularly about the Middle East. There have been some really good ones this week, and I wanted to share.

For those who are interested in espionage, strategy, and the relationship between intelligence and international politics, there's a really interesting set of articles on those topics. Prominent journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed in two articles (1, 2) that the Syrian chemical weapons attack in which President Obama's "red line" was crossed was actually orchestrated by a group of Syrian rebels and Turkish intelligence agents in order to compel the United States to involve itself in the conflict. Two articles detail the technical (Seymour Hersh's Volcano Problem) and political (Turkey's Syria Policy: Why Seymour Hersh Got it Wrong) reasons why Hersh's claims are extremely unlikely.

In yesterday's Arab Times (a Kuwaiti English language newspaper), there was an article entitled Amiri Diwan urges all off tape case; a corresponding article in the Kuwait Times seems to have been deleted. The Arab Times article didn't go into detail about the alleged contents of the tape, which drew my interest. Al Jazeera remedied that: Kuwait orders media blackout on 'coup' video. Go check it out.

General David Petraeus and CNAS fellow Vance Serchuk had a brilliant op-ed in the Washington Post on Wednesday: U.S. needs to plan for the day after an Iran deal. As the article notes in its concluding paragraph:

All too often in U.S. foreign policy, we set a strategic objective and pursue it doggedly — only to be insufficiently prepared for the consequences when we achieve our goal.

Finally, and also on the topic of Iran, the OSIMINT blog has a good article about expanding Iran-Pakistan border security, which discusses recent developments in the long-term insurgency in the Balochistan region. Go have a look.

Heartbleed Vulnerability: Which Passwords to Change

A pretty heinous online security gap has been identified this week. Mashable has put together a list of which websites have been affected. Best get to changing your passwords in order to protect your data and identity.

UPDATE: The xkcd webcomic has a fantastic comic about the Heartbleed vulnerability. Go have a look. If you haven't changed any passwords yet, get to it - I changed four yesterday.