Gen. Paul Nakasone, Chief of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, raised influence operations and ransomware as national security threats that require U.S. government attention. Speaking at the 2021 Mandiant Cyber Defense Summit, Gen. Nakasone highlighted the increasing use of social media accounts by nation-states and the role of deepfakes in disinformation efforts...Read More

The final report from the Phoenix Challenge conference, held by the Information Professionals Association (IPA) and the University of Maryland Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) on April 13, 2021, has been posted for IPA members on the IPA website. To join IPA, go to: https://information-professionals.org/join-ipa/. For existing IPA members, please follow the...Read More

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Program Manager Dr. Joshua Baron wrote recently in Defense One on the opportunity the United States has to counter digital authoritarianism by proliferating technologies that enable global digital freedom. In “Fight Digital Authoritarianism by Giving People the Tools to Counter It,” Baron says the Department of Defense should move...Read More

Information Professionals Association (IPA) founding board member Austin Branch, along with colleagues at the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) Adam Russell, Devin H. Ellis, and Lt. Gen. Ed Cardon (U.S. Army Ret.), co-authored a timely piece with the Modern War Institute at West Point, making the case that the...Read More

Information Professionals Association (IPA) Vice President and Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, recently published in the Unifying Themes in Complex Systems X, Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Complex Systems. The co-authored article, “Process Mining Organization Email Data and National Security Implications,” presents an analysis of corporations (or any organization) as emergent, self-organizing...Read More

The Center for New American Security (CNAS) released a report in late May 2021 urging the U.S. Department of Defense to adopt a strategy of “degradation dominance” to maintain advantage in the techno-cognitive confrontation against China and Russia. In “More than Half the Battle: Information and Command in a New American Way of War,” author...Read More

Two researchers from the University of California at San Diego recently found that social science studies with higher numbers of citations were also more likely to fail to replicate results. In an effort to determine whether the popularity of a social science study was related to its validity, they gathered data on 80 papers from three...Read More

With the creation in 2019 of the new 16th Air Force, the first Information Warfare (IW) numbered force in the military service, U.S. Air Force organizations are rolling out a series of live exercises and training programs aimed at increasing proficiency around the “convergence” of global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber, electronic warfare, and information...Read More

The Information Professionals Association (IPA) and the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) re-launched Phoenix Challenge with a virtual conference on April 13, 2021. Videos from the event are now available to IPA members on the IPA website. To join IPA, go to: https://information-professionals.org/join-ipa/. For existing IPA members, please follow...Read More

Members of Congress, former U.S. military commanders, and a private sector coalition are urging President Biden and the U.S. intelligence community to step up their efforts to combat disinformation and foreign malign influence that threatens U.S. democracy. Independent clarion calls from stakeholders appear to be prompting action, with the following reported in just the last...Read More