Dead Drop: November 24

LED BY HACKS, NO DOUBT: The (South) Korean news agency Yonhap reported this week that North Korea is conducting a “rare inspection” of its military’s “General Political Bureau” due to the “impure attitude” of its top officials. South Korea’s intelligence service also reported that “(Pyongyang) has devised a system whereby party organs report people’s economic hardships on a daily basis.” As a result, it has “banned any gatherings related to drinking, singing and other entertainment and is strengthening control of outside information.” Apparently, no drinking, singing or other entertainment will be allowed until morale improves.

MCMASTER’S VOICE: BuzzFeed had a story this week that, IF TRUE, would be huge. They reported that National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster mocked the president’s intelligence at a private dinner in July. BuzzFeed said they had “five sources with knowledge of the conversation.” They allege McMaster dismissed the president as an “idiot” and a “dope” with the intelligence of a “kindergartner.” Remember when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was accused of breaking bad on his boss? The story was picked up everywhere. In the case of the McMaster allegation – Breitbart (no fan of the general) played it up big…but few other media outlets repeated the allegation. Why? Mediaite reported that “Twitter Smells Something Fishy” about the story, noting that the McMaster dinner was with Safra Catz, the CEO of Oracle – and that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who McMaster fired as NSC senior director for intelligence in August, now works for Oracle. So they hint there may be some score settling going on. We don’t know, but folks we know who are close to McMaster tell us trashing the boss sure doesn’t sound like him.

BAH HUMBUG: Sad word late last week that the CIA has decided to break with (recent) tradition and not invite the news media to its annual holiday party. Politico reported that CIA Director Mike Pompeo has decided to not include members of the news media on the guest list at the posh annual event. Reporters and CIA officers traditionally enjoyed sidling up to each other at the strictly off-the-record event. But in the current environment, mixing “fake news” purveyors with quasi-clandestine government employees apparently was a bridge too far.

THE GAME OF THE PEACOCK THRONES: The Justice Department achieved a pyrrhic victory this week when it announced the indictment of Behza Mesri, an Iranian national who previously worked for the Iranian military. Mesri was charged with stealing video, scripts and plot summaries of The Game of Thrones and other programming from HBO. The Iranian hacker allegedly tried to extort $6 million of bitcoin from HBO in exchange for not releasing the material.

FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney had a colorful way of describing the crime: “In the simplest of terms, he lurked in the alleyways of the Internet, identified the vulnerabilities of his victim, and pickpocketed their information from thousands of miles away. After he had successfully identified their proprietary secrets, he held their future for ransom.”

The bad news is that Mesri is on the loose in Iran and not likely to be extradited. The acting U.S. attorney said, “He will forever have to look over his shoulder until he is made to face justice.” We’re guessing Mesri is not losing too much sleep over that threat.

POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting/weird stuff we discovered:

• Blooming Crazy? You know how some folks claim their plants grow better if they play music to them? Well, there is a gardener in Australia who says plants return the favor. She hooks up a device to geraniums and says there are electrical impulses, like musical notes, blooming forth. Why are we telling you this? Because the Aussie gardener credits her discovery on the research of “a former CIA interrogation expert by the name of Cleve Backster who experiments with plants attached to a polygraph machine in the late sixties.” According to the Australian ABC network, plants “are capable of both feeling pain and in possession of extrasensory perception.” We thought the report from down under was pulling our leg – but this 2013 New York Times magazine piece confirms the roots of CIA-vet Backster’s interest in communicating with plants.
• Guess the Code Name: The New York Times wrote this week about Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), someone they say “the Kremlin likes so much it gave him a code name.” According to the Times, the FBI and senior members of the House Intelligence Committee warned Rohrabacher in 2012 that the Russians were trying to recruit him as an asset. The lengthy story details the congressman’s contacts with the Russians and their surrogates going back many years – but omits one key detail we’d like to know. What is Moscow’s code name for him? Submit your guesses here: [email protected].
• Lost in Space: The fine folks at Muckrock.com have used FOIA to obtain an 824-page, 1984 CIA report titled, “Geomagnetic Factors in Subjective Telepathic , Precognitive and Postmortem Experiences.” Near as we can figure, it is an (exhaustive) report on whether solar flares interfere with your ESP – when you are dead. If you have been looking for something fun to read over the holiday weekend – this probably isn’t it.

NETWORK NEWS: Not a day goes by when members of The Cipher Brief Network aren’t making news. Here are just a few examples from this week:

• Why Putin Keeps Outsmarting Trump: Former Acting and Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin, writing in Politico says, “when the Art of the Deal meets the KGB, the KGB will always win.”
• General Becomes a Captain: Former CIA and NSA Director General Mike Hayden was honorary co-captain for his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers during their recent game against the Tennessee Titans.
• Fitness Report: Former DNI James Clapper is extensively profiled in GQ in a story titled: “James Clapper on Donald Trump, Russia, and the First Line of His Obituary.” The article mentions CNN’s Don Lemon’s asking Clapper if he questioned Trump’s fitness – and the answer “Yes, I do.”

WHAT’S ON THEIR NIGHTSTAND?

Carmen Medina, former CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence and author of Rebels at Work: A Handbook for Leading Change from Within:

“I’m currently reading a graphic novel (yes, lots of pictures), Heretics: The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy, because we keep making the same mistakes over and over again.”

SECURITY QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“The actions of the Trump campaign, taken together with the multi-faceted Russian attack that included cyber-attacks, cyber theft, propaganda, disinformation, attempted espionage, use of trolls, bots and non-attributable advertising and content creation, suggest that we need more than just a legal or partisan approach to face the challenge. Instead, we need to work with our foreign partners to develop a response, and a non-partisan 9/11-type Commission to look at how we can be better prepared in the future.”

–John Sipher, former member of the CIA’s senior intelligence service

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at[email protected].