The first day of the SARMA conference was absolutely mind blowing. The commute down from Olney to Arlington, however, was a challenge in itself. We woke up around 4:30 in the morning to beat the morning DC traffic and arrive at the conference in time for registration and breakfast. We actually ended up getting there a little early even after dealing with bad directions from a rouge Tom Tom GPS device.

As undergraduate students, it was an amazing opportunity to see the current problems and issues that the industry faces. The knowledgebase of the professionals that attended was rich from the years in their respected fields. The seven students representing Penn State’s SRA club were the only undergraduates at the conference. During the welcome speech, Edward J. Jopeck, SARMA’s president , recognized the the club for taking the initiative to attend the conference and formally introduce us to the SARMA members.

He briefly touched base on the importance of passing on the lessons learned and knowledgebase to future generations, so that new professionals would start where the more experienced security and risk professionals would stop. He essentially stressed the need for upcoming professionals to completely absorb the current knowledge of the industry before they enter the workforce. Hopefully this relationship between the SRA club and SARMA will continue to grow in the future years and also highlight the immense value of exchanging information between SRA students and their professional counterparts.

Regional Risk: A Coordinated Effort

Christopher Geldart, the Director of the Office of National Capital Region Coordination in FEMA, gave a plenary session shortly after the welcome speech about regional risk assessment, analysis, and mitigation in the national capital region (DC area). The office’s main focus is to promote the education of risk analysis to decision makers and also serve as a pilot program to eventually develop a regional risk analysis program that can be refined and altered to suit the individual needs of other regions in the US. The NCR worked in cooperation with strategic and regional leaders to determine their deepest concerns, and then use that information alongside with empirically based models, black boxes, analytical processes, historical data, and probabilities to create a scatter plot graph of likelihood (Y) versus consequences (X). Decision makers would then be able to use this graph to make informed decisions based on process’s mitigation options and recommendations. The Office of NCRC still has a lot of groundwork to cover in the successful development and implementation of this program.

Challenges for the Infrastructure Risk Analysis Community

The second plenary session was presented by Brandon Wales, Deputy Director of the Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC) from the DHS. He manages the day to day operations of a $150 million program to monitor and analyze the threats and risks posed to the Nation’s critical infrastructure and key resources by man-made and natural hazards. HITRAC has emerged as one of the leading providers of classified and unclassified, infrastructure-related threat and risk analysis to Federal, State and local authorities, and the private sector. Below is an overview map of the panel session.

Keynote Speaker

The Honorable Joel B Bagnal, the Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, gave a compelling overview of the Department of Homeland Security’s history since it stood up in 2002.

Cyber Warefare and Governments’ Awakening

Paul Kurtz, COO of Good Harbor, and recognized cyber security and homeland security expert, discussed the recent events in cyberspace that has led to an awakening in the government and gave way to a classified executive directive resulted in the creation to many programs to address the cyber security situation. This was my personal favorite technical session for the day. Paul Kurtz had a lot to say about the government’s plans on protecting the nation’s cyberspace, but he also kept the session informal enough to allow discussion between him and the attending SARMA members. One of the big debates in this session was the responsibility that the US government had to private industries when they had intelligence or information on a imminent or future cyber attack on company’s critical infrastructure asset that could result in the harm (physical or economic) to the company’ s customers. Paul cited the Pan Am Flight 103 incident in 1989. The US Government knew about the impending attacks, but chose to not disclosure the information so they would not undermine their sources or reveal their capabilities. Congress eventually enacted legislation to promote sharing relevant information about possible or ongoing attacks with private sector on an ad hoc basis. Below is an overview map of the panel session.

Risk Methods for Security and Intelligence Analysis

The speaker for the third and final technical session of the day never showed, so newly hired SRA Professor William McGill gave a back-up presentation on his Graduate dissertation entitled, “Risk Methods for Security and Intelligence Analysis.” Professor McGill developed an interface with sound mathematical underlying equations to make risk assessments that would easily be presentable to decision makers. I look forward to taking his SRA 311 class on risk management. He will actually be officially presenting a technical session on Thursday.

I apologize for not being able to live blog on the first day of this conference. It took a good portion of the morning to get internet access sorted out at George Mason University. Tomorrow I will be to post live updates throughout the day.

Also, you can find more information about the SARMA conference at Russ Beck’s blog and IST Building.

STAY TUNED FOR ONGOING COVERAGE OF THE SARMA CONFERENCE!

You can also follow my twitter account as well.

The Security Analysis and Risk Management Association will be hosting their 2nd annual conference at George Mason University of Law in Arlington, Virgina tomorrow. The Security and Risk Analysis Club will be formally introduced by Edward J. Jopeck, the Chairman of SARMA, at the welcome meeting in the morning. Hopefully, we will get some publicity for the club and Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology.

I drove down this afternoon with Caroline Furey and Panos Koutsikos to stay the night at Chris Wisor’s house, another SRA club member, in Olney, MD. Another group of club members met up with us from State College, PA. The conference will last three days and bring the top security and intelligence professionals from the government and private industries under one roof.

There are nine different panel sessions each day (in three, one-hour slots). Deciding which of the three sessions to see will be a tough decision, but the seven of us attending the conference will split up for each session so we can cover all of the events. They all seemed interesting, and many of the speakers are renowned experts in their respected fields. You can check out the schedule of events to see what is available.

I’ll be live blogging throughout the conference, so expect daily updates. Russ Beck, the Director of Intelligence for SRA and fellow blogger, will also be live blogging.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is a Department of Defense combat support agency and an important member of the United States Intelligence Community. With over 12,000 military and civilian employees worldwide, DIA is a major producer and manager of foreign military intelligence. We provide military intelligence to warfighters, defense policymakers and force planners, in the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, in support of U.S. military planning and operations and weapon systems acquisition.

The Defense Intelligence Agency lists all of their student opportunities on one page.

Scholarships

The Undergraduate Training Assistance Program is aimed at funding your undergraduate degree, provide internships, and ultimately give full-time employment to after graduation. Tuition and required fees are paid up to $18,000. You will have an internship every summer. Health insurance, life insurance and retirement are also included. Upon graduation, you will be placed in job according to your abilities and skills.

Eligibility Requirements

• College class standing of freshman or sophomore
• A minimum cumulative of GPA of 3.0 for
  Demonstrated leadership abilities as evidenced by extracurricular student activities, a high degree of civic involvement, volunteer work, or part-time employment
• US citizenship of applicant and all members of the immediate family. Please be aware that security clearances can not be granted to applicants who hold dual citizenship. All finalists must pass a drug
  screening test. All applicants conditionally selected for internships and all DIA employees are subject to initial and periodic counterintelligence (CI)-scope polygraph tests.
• Financial need as demonstrated by the household income ceiling of $70,000 for a family of four and $80,000 for a family of five or more
• Additional requirements which may include written assessment exercises and interviews telephonically or in person may be required for finalists

DEADLINE: November 1st

All applications can be submitted here

Internships

The DIA has two undergraduate internships programs available. The Academic Semester Internship Program (ASIP) and the Summer Internship Program (SIP) offer rising college seniors a chance to do a summer or semester internship within the agency. Both of the programs have the same general requirements. The ASIP is only offered in the following localities: Washington, D.C., Huntsville, AL, Tampa, FL, Miami, FL, Omaha, NE, Scott Air Force Base, IL, and Colorado Springs, CO.

Eligibility Requirments

• Completion of 90 semester hours or its equivalent at the time of participation in the program.
• A minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale or its equivalent at the time of application.
• US citizenship of applicant and all members of the immediate family. Please be aware that security clearances can not be granted to applicants who hold dual citizenship. All finalists must pass a drug screening test. All applicants conditionally selected for internships and all DIA employees are subject to initial and periodic counterintelligence (CI)-scope polygraph tests.
• Please note that the security clearance processing and drug screening test can not be conducted while the applicant is overseas.
• All applicants conditionally accepted for internships, and all DIA employees are subject to initial and periodic counterintelligence (CI) scope polygraph tests, and drug tests.

DEADLINE: November 1st (summer) March 1st (semester)

All applications can be submitted here

The first place to start looking for IC scholarships is the United States Intelligence Community student opportunity webpage . It can serve as a portal to the popular programs currently available. Upon my own investigation of this site, I found that all of the links to the agencies were broken. They display the correct links in the text, but the links are incorrect. I have the working hyperlinks listed here:

• Central Intelligence Agency
• Defense Intelligence Agency
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• National Security Agency
• Office of Naval Intelligence

As I said in my earlier post, the great advantage of securing an IC scholarship/internship is having the government not only pay for the majority of your undergraduate degree, but also provide annual internships until graduation. After graduation, the agency will have a job with you name on it. You get to work with some of world’s most intelligent and driven individuals, and as FBI veteran Joe Koletar briefly mentions in his FBI Career Guide book, you can pull the “secret agent card” on dates. Don’t become blinded by the monetary figures and promised glory. A job in the IC is not for the light-hearted. Expect work in the IC to be challenging, competitive , and stressful. An IC agency may pay for your college degree and provide you internships, but in return, you owe them several years of your life.

The IC offers many different types of scholarship and internship programs targeted at different class standings and skill-sets. I will broadly cover the scholarships that I think would be most relevant. In the first installment of six, I have researched the Central Intelligence Agency.

CIA

Scholarships

The CIA has a program entitled, the Undergraduate Scholarship Program. It offered to anyone who meets serveral requirements:

• US citizenship
• 3.0/4.0 scale high school or college GPA or higher
• Financial need as demonstrated by the household income ceiling of $70,000 for a family of four, and $80,000 for a family of five or more
• Meet the same employment standards as permanent employees, successfully completing both security and medical processing
• Available to work in the Washington, DC area during your periods of employment

This scholarship includes health, dental and vision insurance, life insurance, and retirement; and up to $18,000 per calendar year for tuition, mandatory fees, books, and supplies. You must be able to work in the DC area every summer, and upon graduation must work for the CIA approximately 1.5 the amount of time you held the scholarship.

DEADLINE: July 15 - November 1
To apply for this position visit the Undergraduate Scholarship Program page.

Internships

The CIA has several programs each focused on different skill-sets. Like the scholarship, they have some universal eligibility requirements:

• American citizenship
• GPA of 3.0
• Eligible to be granted a security clearance
• DC-based location
• Work either a combination of one semester and one summer internship or two 90-day summer internships
• Haven’t used illegal drugs within the last 12 months

Analysis

Analysis undergraduate interns work on teams with our full-time analysts. They research, analyze, write, and brief on international political, military, economic, scientific, technical, and leadership developments. In addition to their analytic responsibilities, undergraduate interns become familiar with the Agency and Intelligence Community by participating in a range of meetings and projects.

National Clandestine Service

The National Clandestine Service Internship Program is designed to give a limited number of talented undergraduate students the opportunity to work in supporting the NCS mission of collecting human intelligence on critical international developments. The NCS intern will be part of a unique world of important events and meaningful accomplishments.

Network Engineer

Support Services trainee program seeks motivated undergraduate students to serve internships in a team environment working with customers and network engineers to design, develop, and implement new network architectures and enhancements to the Agency’s networks. These projects span technologies in local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), and video teleconferencing. Responsibilities include hardware and software integration, analysis, testing, documentation, problem resolution, requirements definition, and project documentation. Candidate will also participate in engineering reviews, staff meetings, and other activities, which will increase their network understanding and the issues and challenges facing a telecommunications service provider.

Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance Internship

The Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) is the National Reconnaissance Office’s research, policy analysis, and history component. CSNR products and activities help define and explain the discipline, practice, and history of national reconnaissance. CSNR functions are intended to help provide NRO leadership with a historical context and conceptual focus for its policy and programmatic decisions. CSNR also responds to today’s reality of an increasingly open NRO, and helps to inform and educate the national reconnaissance community.

The CSNR internship program seeks qualified candidates for undergraduate and graduate student internship opportunities. The CSNR internship offers candidates a wide range of work assignments. Interns will assist in CSNR’s three program areas: Research, Studies and Analysis; History; and Recognition, Exhibits and Outreach. CSNR interns perform classified and unclassified research for briefings, presentations, oral and program histories, policy decision risk assessments, and a variety of other products. The CSNR internship is an excellent academic and professional opportunity for students in the fields of political science, history, international affairs, or similar areas of study.

Open Source Officer (co-op)

Open Source program seeks motivated undergraduate students pursuing degrees in a variety of liberal arts degree programs to work as Open Source Officers (OSO). OSOs are the Intelligence Community’s foreign media experts. They use foreign language and area knowledge to review and assess foreign open media sources, which include Internet sites, newspapers, press agencies, television, radio and specialized publications. OSOs collect intelligence from these media and deliver high-impact products to policymakers, negotiators, military planners, and analysts throughout the US foreign affairs community. Undergraduate co-ops will use their foreign language skills and area knowledge to contribute to the drafting of informational and analytic products; edit translated materials for grammatical accuracy; and to conduct foreign website searches.

DEADLINES FOR INTERNSHIPS: Open Until November 1 (co-op is different )

Apply by by submitting your resume.

Everyone has been asking me about CyberCIEGE, even the people that are helping out at the Future Forum table (tomorrow). The SRA Club has had if for over a semester, and everyone should know what it is by now. Here is the description from the Naval Postgraduate School:

CyberCIEGE enhances information assurance education and training through the use of computer gaming techniques such as those employed in SimCity™ and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. In the CyberCIEGE virtual world, users spend virtual money to operate and defend their networks, and can watch the consequences of their choices, while under attack.

In its interactive environment, CyberCIEGE covers the significant aspects of network management and defense. Players of this video game purchase and configure workstations, servers, operating systems, applications, and network devices. They make tradeoffs and prioritization decisions as they struggle to maintain the ideal balance between budget, productivity, and security. In its longer scenarios, users advance through a series of stages and must protect increasingly valuable corporate assets against escalating attacks.

As the end of the semester approaches, underclassman begin to switch gears. Instead of writing term papers, doing group projects, or studying for tests, students will begin to fill out scholarship applications, write essays, and get professor recommendations. For those students that are in the SRA major (or security-related majors), the US Intelligence Community and the US State Department offer a wide variety of all-inclusive scholarships depending on your class standing and skill sets. Along with paying your tuition bills, an IC scholarship will give you internships every summer and in most cases a top secret clearance. Upon graduation you will already have a job secured. If your interested in becoming an intelligence professional, going after a IC Scholarship is a smart move. Over the next several weeks, I will be researching different types of scholarship programs that the well-known alphabet soup agencies offer, and I’ll post what I find here.

Russ Beck is another aspiring blogger like myself who hopes to make an impact in the security and intelligence blogosphere. He is also a fellow undergraduate of mine at Penn State’s College of IST. Today was his official launch date, and he currently has one post. I am sure that he will soon get his blog running on a regular basis and explore some compelling topics.

GlobalSecurity.org is a company based out of Alexandria, VA that serves as a hub for security and intelligence news. They are considered one of the leading sources for developing news stories in the intelligence and military communities. The site attracts a large range of users all the way from retired military serviceman to AP reporters. Congressional members working in defense policy even use it as a research tool. A graph from the site shows that GlobalSecurity.org had an average of 15 million monthly page views in 2005. While the site may have a tacky appearance, the staff and senior fellows of GlobalSecurity.org are extremely qualified and credible subject matter experts.

GlobalSecurity.org organizes its content into six different categories: Military, Intelligence, Homeland Security, Space, and the Public Eye. Each section has recent articles about ongoing events, access to government documents, and links to various special interest areas within each category.

On top of providing these breaking news stories, GlobalSecuirty.org is rich in technical reference documents and reports. For example, you can find very reliable and accurate information about the different yields or delivery systems of the US Nuclear arsenal or find a complete overview of the military and intelligence operations throughout the world past or present.

I’ve really become an avid reader of this site over the past few months, and I highly reccommend it to anyone interested in security or intelligence news.

This is a cause and consequence paper that I did for my English class. I just thought that I would share.

“Tibet is Not Free! Tibet is Not Free!”

When China allowed the first foreign journalists back in Lhasa in a government-lead tour, on March 27, a sobering realization was reported to the rest of the free world. During the middle of an interview in the Jokhang Temple with the temple’s administrative head, a group of about thirty, young Tibetan monks surrounded the journalists and Chinese government officials. With tears streaming from their eyes, they shouted, “Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!” Before the journalists could even question the monks, the Chinese officials who were sponsoring the tour ushered the journalists away and quarantined the Temple for “investigation”. The thirty young monks have since been missing (Shai, Lhasa). By strategically starting prior to the upcoming summer Olympics, the recent outbreak of Tibetan civil unrest has brought the decades of Chinese oppression to an emotional climax. China has quickly responded with a strict crackdown on the protests and cut internet and media sources that carry the Tibetan cries for independence. These unfolding events highlight the reasons that Tibet has remained such a politically, socially, and religiously charged issue and also sheds light on the consequences that it has incurred for the fight of Tibetan sovereignty.

The root of the Tibetan independence issue began in 1950 when the newly formed People’s Republic of China claimed Tibet to be an integral part of China. The Dali Lama, the religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism, had recently assumed political leadership of the Tibetan government. Through measures of force, China annexed Tibet shortly after a Tibetan delegation signed the Seventeen Article Agreement which essentially ensured the “peaceful transfer of power.” The credibility of the People’s Republic of China’s claim to the Tibetan region is still controversial and widely disputed today (Moh). In respect to the 2008 riots, 1950 serves as a starting point of Tibetan people and PRC‘s relationship. Even after fifty years, Tibet’s brief period of independence is still a very vivid memory to the several generations of Tibetans that have grown up under the PRC’s rule.

During the 1950s, the PRC and Tibetan government maintained a peaceful but apprehensive relationship. Finally, after a failed rebellion in 1959, the Dali Lama was forced to flee to India where he created a government-in-exile and appealed to the international community for Tibet’s independence. The PRC quickly denounced the Dali Lama and installed the Panchen Lama, another Buddhist religious leader, as a figurehead (Moh). In a society where the Tibetan Buddhist religion reaches beyond social and moral code and into the political realm, the removal of the Dali Lama and China’s interference with the religious authorities incensed the Tibetan people. For several decades, the Chinese government actively oppressed the Tibetan Buddhist religion and slowly cut out integral parts of Tibetan culture. The Chinese government called it “cultural revolution,” but the Tibetan Buddhists called it “cultural genocide.”(Moh) Fifty years of religious oppression and interference has bottled up a lot of anger and frustration. This bottle was just waiting to be uncorked. In March 2008, the conditions were just right.

March 14, 2008 marked the largest and most controversial wave of protests that occurred in China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Four days after Buddhist monks demonstrated the anniversary of the 1959 failed uprising against Chinese rule, violent riots ravaged the streets of Lhasa, the traditional capital of Tibet. The demonstration about the unsuccessful revolution transcended into a fierce and renewed call for Tibetan independence and sovereignty after decades of being under China’s oppressive rule. Within several days, the riots and civil unrest spread to Lhasa’s surrounding providences. The Tibetan protesters mostly targeted the ethic Han Chinese, the majority of all Chinese, with violence and vandalism. Many businesses owned by ethic Han Chinese or government friendly Tibetans where destroyed. In swift show of force, the People’s Republic of China deployed thousands of security personnel and paramilitary forces to disperse the rioters and deter potential outbreaks. The security forces quickly enacted a military state of emergency and tightened physical security in Lhasa and the surrounding providences (Oster, “In China”).

China immediately ordered the expulsion of all foreigners from Lhasa and enforced a week-long media “blackout” of Tibet. News about the protests and the military crackdown slowly trickled out of China’s state-sponsored media (In China). While it has always been know for a heavily-censored media, China did not hesitate when it completely blocked video sharing sites such as YouTube to anyone in China. Video footage of the Tibetan riots and calls to action had surfaced on these video sharing sites. By blocking these Internet sites from China, the Chinese government effectively eliminated a vital link between Tibet and the rest of the world. The Western media reported this action as an infringement of free speech. The attempted control over what news goes in and out of Tibet has resulted in many conflicting reports of what exactly happened. The total extent of the riots and civil unrest is still not completely known. China’s official figures put the death toll at 22 in Lhasa, but the exiled Tibetan government puts the total death toll at 140 after taking into account of the riots in entire region of Tibet (Chinese). The battle between Chinese and international press over censorship and bias, has united various Western media conglomerates in an outcry. The ongoing Tibetan incident has consequently been widely publicized in the Western media.

Another one of the more interesting circumstances of this outbreak of civil unrest is the fact that China will host upcoming 2008 summer Olympic Games. The Olympics has always been synonymous with human rights, and the Tibetan protests couldn’t happen at a better time. China’s quick crackdown and clean-up of the situation is an attempt to alleviate and minimize the damage the Tibetan riots have caused China’s “unified” Olympic image. However, it might be possible that some countries will boycott the Olympics because of the protests and China’s mishandling of the situation.

A long-term effect of China’s strict crackdown could also be further oppression of Tibetan society and culture. Because Tibetan Buddhist monks were the originators of the protest, Tibetan Buddhism may face future repercussions from the Chinese government. China may end up fully suppressing the Buddhist religious culture and ultimately place stricter laws in response to Tibet’s civil unrest. Sadly, the only course of action that China will most likely take in response to the Tibetan protests will be to take away more individual freedoms. China’s decision to cut off various communication mediums between Tibet and the rest of the world is a precursor to this path of tyranny.

Tibet is a vivid illustration of a battle over religious, social, and political freedom. The sequence of events that paved the way to the 2008 Tibetan protests was set in motion nearly fifty years ago. The upcoming Olympics and the anniversary of a failed uprising provided the perfect opportunity to unleash the rage of over fifty years of oppression. The Chinese government has only responded to the recent Tibetan outcry with further oppression and cultural genocide. The March riots in Tibet, however, are proof, yet again, of what happens when a government oppresses a people, its religion, and its culture. Oppressors can’t expect the oppressed to endure in silence. While it is a crime against humanity to take away the right to practice a religion, take away the right of free speech, and forcefully take a “home” from an entire people, the real cost of Tibet’s campaign for independence and sovereignty is paid by the innocence people that have been swept away by the tide of the ongoing Tibetan revolution. This recent squall may not bring Tibet’s independence or even be the last storm of its kind, but when the waves finally settle and there is a free Tibet, the damage inflicted by the generations of oppression and resulting conflict will be able to heal.

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