Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

cipherbrief

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Dead Drop

The Dead Drop logo: red on white background.

NOUN

  1. A location to secretly pass information without a face-to-face meeting.

Each week we hope to give our readers tidbits of gossip from the world of national security and intelligence. The Dead Drop is a source of fun or intriguing news you can’t get anywhere else.

Got a tip for us? Email us at  thedeaddrop@thecipherbrief.com  and share the scoop. We promise to protect our sources and methods.

Below is our recent intelligence collection:

Dead Drop: October 25 - 31

THE HUANG CONNECTION: Talk about an awkward name coincidence. An alleged Chinese spy and her apparent target reportedly share the same last name, although they aren't related. According to a New York Times investigation, Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, was identified by U.S. intelligence agencies as an alleged Chinese intelligence asset. She was a senior executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, a company suspected of helping China circumvent U.S. restrictions on advanced Nvidia AI chips. According to the reporting, U.S. intelligence discovered that Huang had [...] Read More

Dead Drop: October 18 - 24

NOC NOC, WHO’S THERE? The Washington Post, citing half a dozen people familiar with the plan, reports that the Defense Department is building its own [...] More

Dead Drop: October 11 - 17

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW, BEIJING? We were interested to learn that the Pentagon uses more than 568,000 wireless phone lines that are covered by a $2.67 [...] More

Dead Drop Archive

Dead Drop: October 4 - 10

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR BEIJING? When we told you a few weeks ago about the F-35 parts that took a wrong turn to Hong Kong, nobody could say how it [...] More

Dead Drop: Sept 27 - October 3

CANOE SEE ME NOW? The Pentagon's newest border sentry is 11 feet long, weighs 340 pounds, runs on sunshine and has never once asked for overtime. [...] More

Dead Drop: September 20 - 26

WHO’S YOUR DADDY? According to the Justice Department, Lee Reiber, 55, CEO of Virginia-based Oxygen Forensics, was arrested in Idaho on a federal [...] More

Dead Drop: September 13 - 19

GOLDEN IWO JIMA: We’ve never heard anyone suggest that the Iwo Jima Memorial needs a little more bling. But that didn’t stop President Trump from [...] More

Dead Drop: September 6-12

RUSSIA PRACTICES CABLE-CUTTING, GETS CAUGHT MID-REHEARSAL: Russia's GUGI, a secretive Russian military unit whose entire job is apparently finding [...] More

Dead Drop: August 30 - September 5

AD-VERSARY DENIED: Per Reuters, the Air Force has disabled advertising identifiers on military computers and mobile phones, while U.S. Special [...] More

Dead Drop: August 23 - 29

A NOT-SO-SECRET REUNION -- The NSA is reportedly calling some of its former top hackers back to Fort Meade tomorrow — both a reunion and recruiting [...] More

Dead Drop: August 16 - 22

PRINCE OF THE AIR — Blackwater founder Erik Prince has reportedly launched an air defense company offering both hardware and operational management [...] More

Dead Drop: August 9 - 15

THIS DOESN'T REALLY WORK BOTH WAYS -- The Washington Post includes excerpts from reporter Joby Warrick’s new book about Carlos the Jackal, the [...] More

Dead Drop: August 2 - 8

UNCLE SAM'S EMPTY QUIVER, FULL PRISONS? According to the Washington Post, President Trump's patience "boiled over" at Camp David last Friday when he [...] More

Dead Drop: July 26 - August 1

DON’T YOU HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS? It used to be that embarrassing mistakes that popped up during public presentations just kinda got forgotten about, [...] More

Dead Drop: July 19 - 25

DIRTY LAUNDRY BEAR: The Russians have apparently discovered a new way to air other people's dirty laundry. The NSA, FBI, CISA and a long roster of [...] More