Extremists in the Military | Israel’s Cyber Warning Shot | Energy Storage & Hydrogen

“Facebook’s Business Model Is Poison & Its Algorithms Amplify Misinformation”: Digital Forensics Expert Testifies (Tim Hinchliffe, The Sociable)
“Zuckerberg is hiding the fact that he knows that hate, lies, and divisiveness are good for business”: Dr. Hany Farid

White Supremacists Openly Organize Racist Violence on Telegram, Report Finds (Gianluca Mezzofiore and Katie Polglase, CNN)
White supremacists have migrated to Telegram because it is less active in moderating content than other social media networks, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and other researchers. Hundreds of white supremacists channels share everything from manuals on how to manufacture 3D guns to praise for mass killers.

In 2016, Putin Didn’t Expect Trump to Win. Now, He Needs Him to (Jackson Diehl, Washington Post)

·  “Vladimir Putin is suffering through his worst year in two decades in power. The coronavirus is raging across Russia, which has reported more than half a million cases and 8,100 deaths and is suspected of hiding many more. The economy is crashing so steeply that the government failed to issue a monthly gross domestic product report in May for the first time in 15 years. Putin’s foolish launching of an oil price war with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made a bad recession worse.”

·  “Forced to postpone a referendum that would allow him to remain in office until 2036, Putin is now going ahead with it on July 1, and no doubt it will be rigged to produce the right result. But his poll ratings are the lowest they have been since he was installed as Boris Yeltsin’s prime minister and successor in 1999.”

·  “Putin needs help. He badly needs a win. He needs, specifically, the reelection of President Trump. In ways both more blatant and more subtle than in 2016, he is trying to make it happen.”

·  “A reelected Trump could be expected to continue his campaign to restore Russia as a member of the Group of Seven nations, providing Putin with an enhanced global platform. He could pull the United States out of NATO once and for all. And he could advance Putin’s most important geopolitical goal, returning Ukraine to Russia’s sphere of influence, while opening the way for the lifting of U.S. and European sanctions on the Russian economy.”

·  “So yes, Putin will do what he can to help Trump. … In 2016, he didn’t expect Trump to win. Now, he needs him to.”

Answer to Energy Storage Problem Could Be Hydrogen (NREL)
Hydrogen has the greatest potential among technologies for seasonal energy storage in the future, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

“Digital Twins” Can Help Monitor Infrastructure and Save Us Billions (Mojtaba Mahmoodian et al., The Conversation)
Urban infrastructure – bridges, roads, railways, pipelines, power transmission towers and so on – must be inspected regularly to operate safely. Imagine if we used advanced technologies available to us, such as wireless sensors, mobile apps and machine learning, to remotely inspect and maintain this infrastructure. This could eliminate the need for regular daily inspections, save time and money for engineers and asset owners, and reduce the risks of working on job sites.

“Sorry, We’re Closed”: Applying Business Models to Failed Terrorist Organizations (Keith W. Ludwick, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism)
The application of specific, business organizational models to understand terrorism remains absent in the literature. This article argues business models can apply to understanding terrorist organizational behavior. Two traditional organizational models are integrated with two terrorist organizations to examine their leadership and management. These two business models successfully demonstrate which elements of terrorist group organization potentially lead to their failure, specifically a lack of concern for administrative functions. This paper more broadly suggests specific models within business organizational theory offer an insight into future growth or decline of a terrorist organization.

Information Warfare: Iran Receives A Warning Shot (Strategy Page)
Iran has confirmed that Israel has a formidable Internet defense capability. Iran knew that Israel has established a separate CDU (Cyber Defense Unit) within their C4I Corps back in 2016 but were not yet aware of how effective that new operation was.