jpelecanos

Who are those programmers's handler? Is it Bureau 121 of the Reconnaissance General Bureau?

How closely does the KAPO (Estonian Internal Security Service) monitor e-Estonia?

This article reminded me of what Bruce Greenwald said in an interview [0]:

If you look at a company like Deere, making equipment is a small part of what they do. A lot goes into putting it to work and making sure it works. A lot of the company is driven by local software. Because the equipment lasts longer, the secondhand markets are a big deal. Those markets are local. For financing, you need local information so you can know the good risks. Imagine that in Illinois, 90% of the tractors and harvesters and seeders are made by Deere. Who will have the best service? Which second-hand market will be the most dense and therefore easiest to sell? Who will have the best information and financing? Deere. Kubota will have a hard time trying to break into that market. And Deere, even if it temporarily suffers in sales, has a service base that means it’s not going to compete on price.

[0] http://www.barrons.com/articles/bruce-greenwald-channeling-g...

Is the Unit 8200 involved in this operation?

For whom do those hackers specifically work for (SVR, GRU, or Spetssvyaz)?

Based on the article, it seems that the German government combined foreign and signals intelligence into one agency, the BND. In the US, however, Truman separated them into the CIA [0] and the NSA [1], respectively. Thus, is there a specific reason for BND's dual role?

[0] https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

[1] https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/tru...

Is the Forsvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) or National Defence Radio Establishment involved in implementing Sweden's cashless society?

Do you mean Cyprus? I agree that due to their 2012-2013 financial crisis [0], I also assume that Cypriots would be wary of this.

[0] http://www.lse.ac.uk/fmg/dp/specialPapers/PDF/SP232-Final.pd...

Based on his bio [0], Khosrowshahi seems like a more apt CEO pick for Airbnb instead of Uber. Thus, I think that someone with a more extensive experience in the transportation industry such as Kathryn Marinello (CEO of The Hertz Corporation) [1] or David Abney (CEO of UPS) [2] is more suitable for the job.

[0] http://www.expediainc.com/brands/dara-khosrowshahi/

[1] http://ir.hertz.com/executive-officers?item=108

[2] https://pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.pag...

Recently, Waymo and Lyft launched a self-driving vehicle partnership [0]. With Trump nomination of Derek Kan (Lyft General Manager in Southern California) to serve as Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy [1], would it ease Waymo path towards autonomous car supremacy?

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lyft-waymo-collaboration-...

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/06/presi...

Would this verdict affect Joint Cipher Bureau's SIGINT ops?

The images reminded me of Jacob Cheung's Cageman (1992) [0]. Additionally, this video [1] is a decent supplementary material to the article.

[0] https://letterboxd.com/film/cageman/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le6nE6yAwFM

This is probably off-topic, but I'm wondering how aggressive is China's GSD (General Staff Department) domestic SIGINT ops compared to U.S.'s NSA or Russia's Spetssvyaz/Special Communications Service?