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Dead Drop

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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: September 13 - 19

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE CHATBOT: Russia, China and Iran-linked operators are increasingly using commercial AI chatbots for intelligence and military work, according to Anthropic's new threat report. Anthropic says Russian operators used its Claude chatbot in a cyber-espionage campaign targeting military and diplomatic organizations, while Iran-linked operators used Claude to compile targeting handbooks on U.S. Navy forces in the Middle East, pulling together ship positions, military photos, transponder data and satellite imagery. Other users turned to the chatbot for drone and missile [...] Read 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 Archive

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

Dead Drop: July 12 - 18

FOR BETTER OR WORSE – According to reporting from MS NOW, (not the president’s favorite network) two Atlanta-based FBI intelligence analysts were [...] More

Dead Drop: July 5 - 11

YOU WANT ME TO RIDE WHERE? General Tony Thomas (Ret.), former Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command doesn’t seem to have slowed down much in [...] More

Dead Drop: June 28 - July 4

PARDON ME? Word around Washington is that President Trump is thinking about whether he wants to issue 250 new presidential pardons to mark the [...] More

Dead Drop: June 21 - 27

SILENCING THE GENERALS: A bipartisan chorus in Congress is demanding to know why Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed out more than twenty [...] More

Dead Drop: June 14 - 20

A NEW REALITY SHOW AT ODNI? The leadership page of the ODNI website now officially reflects William J. Pulte as Acting Director. This, as CNN reports [...] More

Dead Drop: June 7 - 13

HOW INTELLIGENT WAS THAT? Just before President Trump yanked the Acting Director of National Intelligence gig from Mar-a-Lago member Bill Pulte this [...] More