Morell says that it is now time for him to spend more time with his family.

“I am passionate about two things in this world – the Agency and my family. And while I have given everything I have to the Central Intelligence Agency and its vital mission for a third of a century, it is now time for me to give everything I have to my family,” said Morell.

In his time at the CIA, Morell served as the Presidential Briefer, Associate Deputy Director, Director for Intelligence, Deputy Director, and Acting Director.

“I will miss many things about this Agency and about the job that I have been blessed with for the last three years. But most of all, I will miss the people – the talented and dedicated officers on the senior leadership team, my colleagues on the Deputies Committee with whom I have spent countless hours in the Situation Room, and, most of all, the CIA workforce – the heroes of this place, the people at the pointy end of the spear, the patriots who do the work of keeping the country safe every day.”

Morell has been appointed to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board – a kind of retired intelligence officers’ club that helps advise the White House on important security matters.

“As much as I would selfishly like to keep Michael right where he is for as long as possible, he has decided to retire to spend more time with his family and to pursue other professional opportunities. In many respects, Michael has come to personify the strengths and qualities of this great organization, and it is difficult for me to imagine CIA without Michael’s exceptionally sharp mind, tremendous energy, and absolute dedication to mission. But I am comforted by the fact that Michael will be able to spend more time with his wonderful family,” said CIA Director John Brennan.

The CIA announced that Avril Haines will be replacing Morell as Deputy Director. She formerly served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council. She will be the first woman to hold the position.

For a little background information, the GCSB is essentially the CIA in New Zealand. They are a task force dedicated to the interception of information from terrorists, criminals and the like. They are required to have a warrant when intercepting foreign information, but New Zealand law says that the organization is not allowed to spy on domestic citizens or residents.

Prime Minister Key revealed that he had not been made aware of any ongoing investigation into the Dotcom case. It’s required by New Zealand law that any GCSB operation be signed off by the Prime Minister. Key said that he had not been informed of the GCSB’s involvement in the Dotcom case until today.

Warrants have been an ongoing issue in the Dotcom case since the beginning. The legality of the warrant used by police during the raid on Dotcom’s mansion had been called into question numerous times since his arrest, but a judge finally declared the warrant illegal in late June.

In response to the allegations that the GCSB acted illegally, Prime Minister Key has opened up an investigation into the matter. He doesn’t believe that the organization intentionally violated the law with their actions, but he wants to know the extent of their actions.

Dotcom’s U.S. lawyer, Ira Rothken, is also requesting the investigation look into U.S. involvement. He told Bloomberg that Dotcom’s legal team wants to know if the “U.S. was aiding or abetting domestic spying in New Zealand.”

For his part, Dotcom has been tweeting about the revelation that he had been subject to illegal surveillance:

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

BREAKING NEWS: @JohnKeyPM issues statement: The NZ equivalent of the CIA has spied on me UNLAWFULLY.

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11 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

I’m now a real life James Bond villain in a real life political copyright thriller scripted by Hollywood & the White House.

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

I welcome the inquiry by @JohnKeyPM into unlawful acts by the GCSB. Please extend the inquiry to cover the entire Crown Law Mega case.

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10 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

Copyright is now officially a matter of National Security in New Zealand.

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9 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

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Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom

Illegal restraining order. Illegal search warrant. Illegal removal of evidence to the US. Unlawful surveillance by the GCSB. To be continued

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5 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

[h/t: NZ Herald]

“This is about preparing the battlefield for another type of covert action,” said one former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, who added that Flame and Stuxnet were elements of a broader assault that continues today. “Cyber-collection against the Iranian program is way further down the road than this.”

The Flame virus was first revealed last month when Iranian officials detected a cyber attack on its oil refineries. The United States was not too happy that Israel decided to launch this phase of their attack without notifying American officials. In doing so they have effectively wiped out a virus that has been quietly doing its job for 5 plus years.

The Flame virus seems to be a precursor to the now infamous Stuxnet virus that directly effected almost 1,000 centrifuges and caused them to spin out of control. The damage occurred gradually, over months, and Iranian officials initially thought it was the result of incompetence.

“The scale of the espionage and sabotage effort is proportionate to the problem that’s trying to be resolved,” the former intelligence official said. “Although Stuxnet and Flame infections can be countered, it doesn’t mean that other tools aren’t in play or performing effectively.”

It is not yet clear the extent of the United Staes’ involvement in the development in making the virus, but it is believed that the U.S. relied on its 2 top spy agencies: The C.I.A. and the N.S.A.. The NSA, known mainly for its electronic eavesdropping and code-breaking capabilities, has extensive expertise in developing malicious code that can be aimed at U.S. adversaries, including Iran. The CIA lacks the NSA’s sophistication in building malware but is deeply involved in the execution of the cyber-campaign.

The disruptions from the Americans and Israelis has led the Iranians to ask a Russian security firm and a Hungarian cyber-lab for help.

So it looks as though any questions about Iran’s true intentions are already known by our government because this virus has been sending back info for years. The U.S. will know the day Iran gains the ability to build a nuclear weapon and they will put a stop to it.

The fears stem from an operation last year in which the CIA acted with Dr. Shakil Afridi, who used the vaccine campaign as a means to try and flush out Osama bin Laden with a door-to-door drive in Abbottabad. Dr. Afridi has been convicted for his part in the operation and was sentenced to 33 years by a tribal court.

Polio is still heavily prevalent in Pakistan, most notably in the North Waziristan tribal belt; this is where Pakistani officials are focusing their crackdown since the U.S. drone strikes. Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur says no vaccines will be given until he gets assurances that the drone strikes will cease.

Polio ran rampant in Pakistan last year; almost 200 new cases were reported last year, the highest amount at that time in the world. UNICEF says 143,000 of the area’s 161,000 children were reached by the last round of vaccinations earlier this year, which were given from June 4th to the 6th, but the ban on the upcoming round will hamper all their work.

The CIA has come under fire in recent years by aid workers for their use of health care providers in their operations, saying it only leads to undue suspicion towards the people who really just want to help.

Dr. Muhammad Sadiq, the North Waziristan surgeon general, said he had received Taliban orders to cancel the vaccination drive and is only carrying out his duty.

“Under these circumstances, we cannot continue,” he said in a telephone interview.

Richard F. “Dick” Stolz joined the CIA in 1950, and quickly began working his way through the ranks. After serving in Cold War hot spots throughout Eastern Europe, he eventually became chief of Soviet operations during the 70′s. In 1965, while serving as chief of station in Moscow, Stolz was labeled as “persona non grata” by the Russian government, which led to him being removed from the country shortly thereafter. He officially retired from the organization in 1981 following President Ronald Reagan’s appointment of William Casey as head of the CIA.

In the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal, Stolz was asked to come out of retirement to help get the CIA back on its feet. “He was the kind of person that would help me restore confidence and credibility in the agency,” explained former FBI director William H. Webster, who became head of the CIA around that time. “I felt that Dick’s background in intelligence had been superb, and his personal character and the respect he had within the agency were A number one.”

From 1988 until his second retirement from the CIA in 1990, Stolz served as deputy director of operations. He was also among the first individuals at the agency to understand the importance of counterterrorism and counter-narcotics operations. Stolz was also instrumental in guiding operations in a new direction following the conclusion of the Cold War.

Stolz is survived by his wife, three children, and seven grandchildren.

Virtual Heroes is in turn licensing the technology to U.S. government agencies through the establishment of the Unreal Government Network (UGN). UGN projects underway include training programs designed to help intelligence offices remain objective in the field when assessing a situation as well as crime scene simulations for FBI officers.

Other applications include medical training in civilian and combat scenarios as well as visualization tools for weapons developers.

Though monetary details were not given for most of the programs, The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is said to have paid Virtual Heroes over $10 million in a multi-year contract to develop training software for intelligence officers.

Up until now, Virtual Heroes has developed Moonbase Alpha, a “serious” game that uses current NASA technology to help the user repair equipment on a fictitious moon base. They have also release Zero Hour: America’s Medic, a training simulation that prepares first responders for a “mass casualty incident” like an earthquake or terrorist attack.

This comes after a speech given by Col. Robert White, deputy commander of the Combined Arms Center – Training, at an Army conference in Orlando earlier this week, in which he details the importance of video games in combat training.

“One of my responsibilities is setting the future course for training in the Army,” White said. “And as you all know, gaming has a significant role in that future. Every leader struggles with limited time, dollars and resources. Those same leaders know it’s better to practice something first before you do it for real in live training. Live training is where our highest risk and greatest expense comes from.”

Col. White applauded gaming for its ability to take decision making scenarios to the individual soldier, and the ability to cost effectively complete scenarios multiple times it insure maximum retention.

With the realism present in modern games, it should be no surprise that games are being used in training simulations. The only problem will be attaining those lifelike graphics on a budget that is considerably less than what commercial game developers can afford.

The Onion is not to be mistaken for “real news”. But, sometimes things are funny because they have this ring of truth to them. We stop for just a moment to wonder if they just might be true after all.

One lawmaker even went so far as to post a story on his Facebook wall from The Onion about Planned Parenthood building an “AbortionPlex”. He riled up Facebook friends and had a righteous old time until someone pointed out that the whole thing was a fabrication.

This particular story is about Facebook. What if…? What if it turned out that Facebook was a CIA program? What if we were all posting stuff about ourselves voluntarily that we would never allow someone to take from us otherwise? What if the joke is on us?

After years of secretly monitoring the public, we were astounded so many people would willingly publicize where they live, their religious and political views, alphabetized lists of all their friends, personal email addresses, phone numbers, hundreds of photos of themselves, even status updates about what they were doing moment to moment. It is a dream come true for the CIA.

Indeed, Facebook is such a treasure trove of information on people that it is even lusted after by employers who want to know what they’re hirelings are up to. Jailbirds planning to break out announce it on Facebook. And, families air their dirty laundry for millions of people to see.

What if…?

CIA’s ‘Facebook’ Program Dramatically Cut Agency’s Costs

Reuters is reporting that in a meeting with software vendors on Tuesday, the CIA’s top tech officer, Ira Hunt, told vendors that the agency was changing the way they do business. The way the CIA had done business before was that they would buy all of a vendor’s product through enterprise licensing agreements.

The new way of doing business will see the agency paying for what services they need based on what is required at the time. This will reportedly allow the CIA to take advantage of “emerging capabilities early on.”

Another reason for the change is simple money saving practices. It’s no secret that the U.S. government is slashing spending across the board and the CIA needs to find ways to cut spending just like every other government agency.

The CIA uses software from companies like Oracle Corp, SAP AG and HP that help them look through data for potential threats or other information that may be beneficial to the administration.

When Hunt presented the CIA’s new stance to vendors, he assured them that the agency wasn’t trying to screw over any of the companies. He even offered to let the companies involved take a peek at their operations to make sure they weren’t being swindled.

At the same conference, it was said that current tools can’t keep up with the amount of data being collected by drones and sensors. It’s quite probable that this is a major reason for the change in policy as well. Applying a pay-as-you-go system would allow the CIA to adopt new technologies at a much faster rate.

What you’re seeing is a screenshot of what happens when you try to access the CIA’s website — CIA.gov — as of the time of this posting. As per usual, Anonymous is taking credit for the takedown.

No, the outage probably won’t last for a long period of time, but even if Anonymous is erroneously taking credit for the site being down, the connection is being interrupted by some entity. As the news of this particular takedown spreads, it will inevitably lead back to the “is Anonymous helping when they do things like this,” and while that’s valid, the ease at which they, or whatever entity they are covering for, accomplishes these takedowns says a great deal.

For one, these nuisances, even if they are using tools developed by “real hackers,” have a knack for taking down big targets and doing it in a very public manner:

Furthermore, these takedowns are making an absolute mockery of the security the United States government uses to “protect” their multitude of sites. This isn’t a small, random government department being temporarily removed from the Internet, it’s the CIA, perhaps one of the most infamous, most powerful acronyms in world, especially the one we currently reside in.

And Anonymous, or whatever group they are covering for/taking credit for, is toying with their secure web presence.

The only problem is, the CIA has many more resources than these hacker groups do, and if they find out who is responsible, we’ll probably never find out about it, but the world will, in all likelihood, have one less hacker to worry about.

H/t to Boing Boing for the heads up.

Science has found a way, according to MSNBC, to convert the sugars in a cockroaches belly into electricity through a fuel cell. Once fuel cells are shrunk enough to be non-invasive to cockroaches, they can be implanted to power sensors or recording devices.

Daniel Scherson, a chemist at Case Western Reserve University, explains how the nightmare fuel will be powered. A rechargeable battery is inserted alongside a biofuel cell that would store the small amount of energy it generates.

“If you want to be futuristic, one may use the energy stored to try to control the neurological system of the cockroach and then you might be able to (control) the cockroach (with) a joystick,” Scherson told MSNBC.

The alarming research points to a future of cockroach spies. Controllable cockroaches scurrying around being not only disgusting, but also spy equipment from the CIA.

Looking deeper into the research, the scientists reveal that a cockroach’s diet is the main power source behind the electricity it can generate. This makes other forms of harnessing electricity, such as through movement, obsolete.

The fuel cell developed by the team uses a series of reactions by enzymes to break down the sugar into electricity. The first enzyme breaks down the sugar produced by the cockroach into two simpler sugars. The second enzyme oxidizes the two simple sugars. This releases electrons that are funneled together to electrodes.

The team tested it by inserting prototype electrodes into the belly of a female cockroach. The biofeul cell 0.2 volts of electricity. While not a huge amount, it’s the first baby step to the creation of robot cockroach monsters.

The scientists have noble goals for now with this new found technology. They hope to equip social insects like bees or ants with sensors that can detect dangerous chemicals.

The battery operating at 0.2 volts is enough to send a message by a few inches. Theoretically, you could line up a bunch of ants and play a wicked game of telephone to spy on potential criminals.

This does bring into question what science will do once they develop true robot cockroaches or ants that can’t be killed by radiation or big guns. The world will not end with zombies, but rather robot cockroaches. Regardless, the technology is still pretty impressive. It just terrifies me.