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Jang Song-thaek, the Torch Group and Kiribati passports

After processing a few data about DPRK and trying to understand the dots I begin to understand (I try to!) more and more the reasons why Jang was executed. And it becomes clearer for me how to understand information in this grey zone of dynasties, elites, princelings, cliques, departments in special ministries...There are some parallels to the former Soviet bloc and Western analysts can expect of course more action of this kind. Maybe one can compare this to a mafia operation getting out of control. But disturbance is not good for business. And so one can read the Chinese media about the consequences. I can´t believe that a few Kiribati passports will be the end of the story: I guess that the guys from the North will be able to get some very other passports for doing business...

Information sharing

Anybody who is interested in information sharing inside intelligence organisations should listen to a very interesting speech by Sean Dennehy, who was involved in the development of Intellipedia. You can find it here. Well, instead of the boring national media coverage here in Germany there are many useful and valuable discussions and papers about this and similar projects on the international level.

Reading and thinking...

Obviously there is a lack of serious analysis of the current leaks from Edward Snowden and the so called “scandals” about hacked mobiles from governmental officials as the German chancellor or other more or less important persons around the globe. It is a real problem to let the media – despite their in parts brave role in the NSA-case – or the intelligence agencies themselves explain the How and Why of surveillance and monitoring communication. Terms from the intelligence sector are too often mixed with conspiracy theories. Technical definitions are described as if there would have never been any statement about them before. E.g. “Spiegel Online” writes that the Merkel mobile would be on the NSA watch list since 2002. The article points to an ominous unit called "Special Collection Service" (SCS), almost as if the world would hear for the first time from SCS. But it was – beside many, many others – “The Spiegel”, who wrote 2001 about the KGB spy Robert Hanssen : “ Für

DPRK Drug Trade. Very first steps in an amazing case....Work in progress!

I was feeding the beast: Saved all contacts and pictures from social networks, stored them well :) The first graph is only a snapshot of a few information, there is a lot more coming. Problems of connections, distributions or segmentation will be solved soon.   Maybe there are some dots to be connected right here: I realise again: Checking Hong Kong Directories is difficult for an outsider, but using some kind of an investigative dashboard, tools, and talking to some people on the ground is useful.

Lustig...

...ist es, die Zugriffe auf den eigenen Blog zu verfolgen: Google machts möglich und mit ein wenig Gefrickl sieht man auch hablbwegs, wer sich welche Postings mit welchem Betrübssystem von wo aus ansieht. Ich grüsse also Dich, "unbekannter" Besucher und komme zu einem (ähnlichen?) Thema: Die privaten Geheimdienste. In Deutschland dauern ja einige Dinge länger und so erstaunt es mich nicht, dass erst jetzt dieses Thema so ausgebreitet - und in Kürze auch wieder verschwunden sein wird. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung macht daraus einen "Geheimen Krieg" und stellt dazu witzige und interessante, kleine Reportagen ins Netz. Was mir aber auffällt: Das ist nichts besonders Neues und ich habe den leisen Verdacht, dass man sich auch mit der stolz präsentierten sogenannten Datenbank an einem Vorbild vergangener Jahre orientiert hat: "Top Secret America" der Washington Post ging bereits 2010 an den Start. Naja, möglicherweise gab es einen Verweis der Süddeutschen Zeitun

North Korean intelligence collection

Beside some interesting meetings and events in the past the North Korean intelligence agencies in Europe – sitting in their embassies or using front companies and international organisations as a cover – have to fight on different subjects: Not only looking for business, special materials and cash flow they have to deal with „imperialistic agents“ and „liars“ from human right groups. Refugees, which are of course „tricked“ into Western countries by the „satan“ in Washington, the media, the „gangster clique“ in Seoul and other bad boys, are travelling around and telling the people stories which are more or less untold inside North Korea.  As every other country in the world the North Koreans are looking abroad for maybe problems, which can be dissidents, refugees or activists. While Russian intelligence tries to monitor e. g. Greenpeace in Europe (and elsewhere), North Korea looks for people in Europe (and elsewhere) which are interesting for them. This can be family members, w