CYBER ESPIONAGE

Traditionally, answers to the question “What causes a security breach in the intelligence community?”  have tended to focus on individual-level factors including an individual’s economic circumstances and/or psychological health.  But less emphasis has been focused on understanding other factors including organizational and management patterns which might create patterns of treason or information theft.  This paper seeks to go beyond ‘orthodox’ explanations of treason and information theft through treating them less as idiosyncratic problems which exist only within the security community.  Instead, this paper suggests that deviant behavior patterns within the intelligence community can be understood through borrowing from the literature on public administration and management.  This literature provides three alternate models for identifying and exploring organizational factors which serve to encourage or allow individual corruption and mismanagement – a ‘deviant behavior within organizations’ approach; a corruption approach and a ‘white collar crime’ approach.  This new explanatory framework has implications for the future practice of counterintelligence.

China is one of the most pervasive actors conducting global cyber espionage, activities that have resulted in two indictments by the U.S. Department of Justice. One thing is clear-if a target or subject area is in China's strategic interest, it is likely that some level of cyber espionage is being levied against that target, as well as any organization involved in that subject. While reporting by the many countries bordering the Arctic on Chinese cyber-espionage has been limited, given China's high interest in the Arctic, and its espionage proclivities, China's activity may well be either undetected or under-reported. China's Arctic Aspirations-An Under-Reported Cyber Espionage Hot Spot? C hina has vociferously promoted itself as a legitimate "Arctic State"-it included the region in its strategic planning for the 2011 Twelfth Five-Year Plan, [1] and in a 2018 publication delineating its Arctic Policy. [2] China further demonstrated its commitment via a series of economic opportunities to attain influence in this area of rising strategic, economic, environmental, and maritime importance. Incorporating the Arctic into its strategic documents underscores China's elevation of this region to a national-level priority. The Arctic falls squarely within China's long-term global leadership and economic power goals and presents an opportunity to enhance China's presence in less-emphasized areas of the world, particularly where neither the US nor Russia have dedicated much time or attention. As it did in Africa, Beijing is resorting to its win-win playbook, [3] enticing local states via economic engagement and financial investment in return for support for Chinese projects.

• Having carried out activities related to cyber defence and internet censorship until 2010, Iran has concentrated on
operational cyber capabilities since 2010.
• The National Internet Network project which the Iranian government has begun to build since the 2000s, has
been an important step for the isolation in Iran’s cyber domain. The national internet policy, which has sparked
debates on censorship across the country and the world, has been one of the most prominent practices of Iran
regarding its domestic cyberspace.
• Iran’s cyber policies and the cyber organizations which it has built within the scope of these policies are being
watched with interest in the regional and international arena. The practices adopted by the Iranian government
in the cyber domain as a consequence of its exposure to the cyberattacks conducted by the US and Israel, in
particular, have been an important milestone for Iran in this field.
• Regarded as the turning point in the building of Iran’s cyber capability, the Stuxnet attack has led Iran to lean
towards offensive cyber operations.
• As a result of the fact that Iran was perceived as a cyber threat by Israel at the regional stage and by the US in the
international arena, the cyber policies of Iran were distinctively shaped in the context of the cyber espionage
operations. The advanced cyber actors and the Iranian hacking groups supported by various government agencies
have been the main actors of the cyberattacks considered to be of Iranian origin.
Keywords: US, Iran, Israel, Intelligence, Cyber Security, Cyberattack

The emerging of new technology is making easier for people to access things in seconds just like the platform of the internet as it has become a crucial part of everyone's life. It enables people to share information worldwide very fast. But the most challenging here is the security of systems as cyber-crimes are increasing day by day. Cyber threats are now very complex and evasive. Though many organizations have come forward with various solutions using different tools as privacy is a major concern for the data amount is very large to handle nowadays and regular updates are required to confront such attacks. This paper focuses on an analysis of cybersecurity and its challenges with the application of different strategies implementations. keywordscybersecurity, cyber-crimes, attacks, IoT, block chain.

Our investigation into the GOSSIPGIRL Supra Threat Actor (STA) started with a REPLICANT FARM signature name that tentatively links the cryptonym GOSSIPGIRL to Flame. From there, 1 we investigated MiniFlame and Gauss-two families related to the Flame platform-without finding any indication of succession to Flame's operations. Our investigation continued onto Stuxnet and Duqu but the altogether disappearance of Flame never sat right with us. Flamer: Urgent Suicide (Symantec) 2 Sometime in late May 2012, researchers witnessed an attempted cleanup of the remaining Flame infections. Whatever command-and-control servers the attackers still had control of (as many had been sinkholed by researchers) began to distribute a SUICIDE module and were then themselves scrubbed. The SUICIDE module was a particularly clunky way of burning down operations as it gave researchers a full list of the components and directories that the operators sought to delete-possibly something they rushed to develop. By all accounts, this was considered the death of Flame. However, during our investigation into the GOSSIPGIRL Supra Threat Actor (STA) cluster, we found ourselves wrestling with Flame once again, in a way we hadn't expected.

The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti or Committee of State Security) was the preeminent Soviet intelligence agency and Soviet equivalent of the American CIA.
During the later Soviet period, the KGB served as organization primarily responsible intelligence and counterintelligence matters. Although the NKVD was tasked with internal security, the KBG role in political security and counterintelligence was so broad that its operations often touched on internal security matters. Even Soviet border guards were eventually placed under KGB supervision.

The head of the KGB enjoyed an important position in the totalitarian regime hierarchy. In 1967, Andropov, then head of KGB and later Soviet premier, described the role of the KGB and other state security bodes as engaged in "a bitter and stubborn battle on all fronts, economic, political, and ideological.

The KGB and Western intelligence services played a continual deadly game of "cat and mouse" (both as pursuers and the pursued) throughout the Cold War. KGB officers and operatives played an important role in the attempt to overthrow the government of the first (and last) president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev and was essentially abolished or devolved into successor agencies after the failure of the anti-Gorbachev putsch and the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

The KGB's culture continue to heavily influence Russian politics and policy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, former KGB officer Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, became President of the successor, Russian Federation.  Moreover, the following Russian Federation agencies were created from within the KGB: the Federal Security Service (FSB); the Federal Agency of Government Intercommunication, which is responsible for communications between top state officials; the Guard Service, which guards top state officials; and the Outer Intelligence Service, which collects and processes all data coming from abroad.

Some of the bizarre disinformation created by the KGB and regurgitated anti-U.S. critics, still survives as urban myth or folk legend. For example, documents in the KGB archives now provide evidence that KGB operatives mounted a disinformation campaign laden with pseudo scientific "proofs" and language that was designed to influence third-world nations that the United States had deliberately created the AIDS virus in the laboratory to use as a biological weapon.  (download to read more)

[Author's note: in 2016 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA, and DIA united in approving an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) concluding that "Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on U.S. presidential elections" including the 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign. The ICA conclusion -- based on evidence known by 29 December 2016 and offered with generally high confidence was that Russian hacking, along with propaganda and disinformation efforts (including the creation and dissemination of fake news), were undertaken with the direct knowledge and approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials.  Read more at https://www.academia.edu/30817272/_The_Bear_Gets_a_BOGO_The_ICA_on_Russian_Meddling_in_the_2016_U.S._Presidential_Election ]

= A NEW DIGITAL VERSION [E-BOOK] OF THIS WORK IS AVAILABLE IN KINDLE STORE | WWW.AMAZON.COM  THIS CONTENT IS SUPLYIED AS A COURTESY TO STUDENTS AND RESERCHERS. IF ADDITIONAL MATERIAL IS NEEDED, PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR AT HEDI@ENGHELBERG.COM =



"LETTER TO READERS

“WE HAVE TO CONSIDER TERRORISM AS THE USE OF DEATH AS A POLITICAL WEAPON”  [HEDI ENGHELBERG]

Dear Reader,
My name is Hedi Enghelberg.  Since 1999 I have been working to promote public and government agencies awareness to a new threat of these times: The Cyber Terrorism and all its flavors manifested today in our cybernetic-machine-dominated economical, political, social and private life.
I have lectured in many occasions about this subject in important organizations, and in 2003 I wrote one of the first books written in this subject called Cyberterrorism, ISBN 980-07-8518-3.

Most important for these pages is to get the message across and make the public conscious about this danger (CYBER TERRORISM) that will affect us all. This danger will not be eliminated until strong legislation is put in place, respected and enforced. Some 80% of the computing systems we use dally, especially based on early version of the Windows programs*, and other very vulnerable software will have to be reformed and security systems reinforced. Many users have already ditched Windows in favor of Mac, Google OS/Chrome, or Linux as they want to remain productive for longer period of time, virus and Cyber Fraud free. BUT THEY ALL (OPERATIONAL SYSTEMS & SMART PHONES) HAVE UNPATCHED VULNERABILITIES. THEY ALL HAVE! The Cloud Computing will not solve all our problems, as many of the MS systems and early code scripts have been inherited into the cloud.

Terrorism is a tactic, at many levels and in many forms. Every day we register new attacks, by the thousand and the tens of thousands, under different forms of cyber terrorism, cyber crime, cyber fraud, cyber sabotage and economical espionage. The list of targets and points of origin is too long to be listed.
Under the veneer of the good things that internet brings to us all, there are negative and evil forces at work, all the time.
Without any doubt, we have to be conscious that an electromagnetic pulse attack will put all the IT systems on an industrial country out of work for some time, and can be used as a pre-emtive attack.

We are a decade after 9/11 and the main discussion is still centered on individual liberties, the Bill of Rights and the need for more security and how both will work together and influence each other. We don’t have to sacrifice liberty for security but counter-terrorism activities are here to stay!

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. We are currently revising and updating the English version of this book with Gail Tenzer as the translator of the original 2003 published Spanish book.
We would like to present you the book, and have your brief opinion about this very important, clear and present danger asymmetric war, represented by cyber terrorism.
"

*RUSA AWARD. K Lee Lerner was a substantial contributor to Science and its Times, the critically-acclaimed and RUSA award-winning series edited by Neil Schlager and published by Thomson | Gale.

Across the eight volumes in the series, K. Lee Lerner's contributions regarding the history of science and include articles titled: Science in the Ancient and Classical Worlds 2000 BC-699 AD; Astrology and Astronomy in the Ancient World; Medieval Science, Religion, and Astronomy; Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation; Enlightenment Age Advances in Dynamics and Celestial Mechanics; Eighteenth Century Astronomers Argue the Existence of God; The Cavendish Experiment Quest for a Gravitational Constant; Unification Nineteenth Century Advances in Electromagnetism; Einstein's Theories of Relativity; Development of Quantum Mechanics; QED Quantum Electrodynamics (QED); Arguments against Hidden Variables in Quantum Systems; A World Within: The Search for Subatomic Particles; The Development of RADAR and SONAR; Continental Drift and the Theory of Plate Tectonics; Life cycles of the stars; Nucleosynthesis and Stellar Evolution Bind Humanity to the Cosmos; Great Barringer Meteor Crater; Hubble Space Telescope; The Development of Radio Astronomy; Black holes; and Quasars- Beacons in the Cosmic Night.
K. Lee Lerner's contributions regarding the history of mathematics include articles titled: The Moscow and Rhind Papyruses; Eratosthenes calculates the circumference of Earth; Renaissance Advancements in Notation Enhance the Translation and Precision of Mathematics; Emergence of the Calculus; The Elaboration of the Calculus; Credit for Calculus - The Newton Leibniz feud; Mathematics and the Eighteenth Century Physical World; The Specialization of Mathematics and the Rise of Formalism; Establishment of the Field's Medal in Mathematics; Kepler's sphere-packing conjecture is finally proved; Bootstrap Statistics; Efron's Development of the Bootstrap; and Use of Number Theory in Cryptology.
Lerner's contributions regarding contemporary issues and developments in science and mathematics include articles on Relativity theory; Evolution and Evolutionary Mechanisms; Lysenkoism A Deadly Mix of Pseudoscience and Political Ideology, and an article related to cultural Science Wars
Also included among K. Lee Lerner's contribution to SAIT are volume/section overviews and conceptual framing essays, including: Science: A new understanding of nature 1900-1950; Mathematics. The organization of the mathematics community, 1900-1950; Mathematics. An overview of mathematics, 1950-2000. (download to read more)

Cyber Security is a modern challenge for governance. As the public and private sectors continue to deliver goods through digital means, the cyber domain will only continue to expand and become more relevant to the field of governance. This new domain poses threats to governance in the form of cyber warfare, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, and cybercrime, and creates new vulnerabilities such as Critical Infrastructures and Big Data. As the cyber domain cuts across national borders and is not congruent with national boundaries, the European Union will be identified as the scope of this research. This study aims to answer the question of how the European Union’s Cyber Security is currently being governed.
Through an extensive analysis of the actors involved in securing the EU’s Cyber domain, it was concluded that the EU’s Cyber Security is governed through a governance framework that is an International Security Network that operates cross-borders, is Type II Multi-level governance with task-specific jurisdictions, intersecting memberships, with no limit to the number of jurisdictional levels, has a flexible design, and uses a Multistakeholder approach engaging civil society, private sector and public sector organizations.
The second part of this research aims at operationalizing the Cyber Security Governance framework to reveal how the Cyber Security threats and vulnerabilities are protected. This study has concluded that all three organizational sectors, public, private and civil society have a unique role in protecting the EU’s Cyber Security. The EU institutions have a coordinating and capacity building role, the private sector is responsible for securing and maintaining the hardware and software components it distributes, and civil society is responsible for advocating Human Rights within the Cyber Security discourse. This research then provides policy recommendations, suggestions for further research and the limitations of the study.

Cybersecurity is a global challenge as Cyberspace is never risk free. Cybersecurity ensures the attainment and maintenance of the security properties of the digital infrastructure and services against relevant security risks in the cyber environment. Currently web applications are highly functional and rely upon two-way flow of information between the server and browser. New technologies in Web applications have brought with them a new range of security vulnerabilities and new possibilities for exploitation. WebGIS is an effective way for disseminating geospatial data and geo-processing tools through internet. WebGIS is similar to the client/server architecture and the server-side geo-processing components will store, process and serve the data to the client/browser, during which Database server, Application server and a web server will be involved. The networking infrastructure in WebGIS environment plays a critical role in the security of the data centres. This paper presents the architecture of WebGIS environment, role of networking components, traits of Cybersecurity and portrays various defence mechanisms that aid in Cybersecurity in WebGIS environment.

June 2013. The South China reports that US intelligence agencies have been hacking networks around the world. Der Spiegel publishes information showing that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been bugging the European Union’s offices. Edward Snowden, an ex-agent of the NSA, has stolen 1.7 million classified documents from this organization . These files exposed a relatively novel type of espionage done through telecommunications networks and now commonly referred to as digital surveillance or cyber espionage.

For the first time, jurists have access to extensive first-hand materials documenting modern intelligence gathering practices. The provocative revelations of Snowden revitalized an old debate in legal academia: is espionage legal under international law, given the absence of a specific interdiction? Arguments have flown from both sides with some commentators calling for a multilateral treaty. Nonetheless, this legal debate seems to happen in a vacuum from the realities of the stakeholders in the cyber-realm.

This paper explores the hypothesis that the actual state of the debate is unlikely to lead to concrete solutions, which is particularly worrying given the features of digital extraterritorial surveillance. Legal scholars are indeed acutely ill-equipped to comment on a technological debate that is so intensely influenced by international political relations. Taking this into consideration, the author proposes an interdisciplinary journey in which computer sciences and foreign relations are intertwined to provide thoughts on reframing the legal debate surrounding cyber-espionage regulation in international law.

The paper begins with a thorough discussion of the Snowden revelations and the reactions it prompted in the international community. It continues with a reflection on the way the right to privacy can be involved in shaping a consensus on digital espionage. The author then studies the technical aspects of digital surveillance and the role of the private sector in developing as well as selling software designed for espionage purposes.  This is followed by a discussion on the relationship between extraterritorial digital surveillance and cyberwar through a study of the notion of power in the Internet. Building on this comprehensive background, the paper ends with some thoughts towards avenues that are left unexplored by the actual arguments regarding the legality of cyber-espionage.

[submitted as a written sample as part of a Doctor of Civil Law proposal for topic]

The current consensus is that there is a worldwide gap in skills needed for a competent cybersecurity workforce. This skills gap has implications for the national security sector, both public and private. Although the view is that this will take a concerted effort to rectify, it presents an opportunity for IT professionals, university students, and aspirants to take-up jobs in national security—national intelligence as well military and law enforcement intelligence. This paper examines context of the issue, the nature of the cybersecurity skills gap, and some key responses by governments to address the problem. The paper also examines the emerging employment trends, some of the employment challenges, and what these might mean for practice. The paper argues that the imperative is to close the cyber skills gap by taking advantage of the window of opportunity, allowing individuals interested in moving into the cybersecurity field to do so via education and training.

The global cybersecurity discourse has never proven more fragmented than in the aftermath of the failure of the last United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security. This discourse stands trapped in long-lasting and seemingly crystallized normative stances between “the West” and “the East,” yet it also calls upon the international community to regulate a wide spectrum of phenomena, ranging from thefts of digitally-stored trade secrets to large-scale pervasive attacks, which may soon reach the threshold of armed attacks. If one situates the major cybersecurity players on a sliding scale between freedom and control over cyber content and infrastructure, the mainstream stance would place the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, China, and Russia in that order. Nonetheless, this scale is in practice more complex, in part due to the influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional security forum which has witnessed major rebalancing after the membership expansion in June 2017. This paper scrutinizes India’s contribution towards a possible fragmentation of the “Eastern” cybersecurity discourse based on hard laws and state assertiveness, and the consequent disruption of the constructivist East-West binary dialectic about cyberwarfare, cyberterrorism, cyber espionage, and online data protection. By simultaneously negotiating its sub-alterity and rejecting its subalternity, India holds the potential to reshape an otherwise almost-coherent “cyber East.”

Much attention has been focused on the potential consequences of cyber attacks against critical infrastructure and the use of cyber weapons as an asymmetric equalizer. However, as a capability considered to be under the larger umbrella of an information operations (IO)/information warfare (IW) campaign, how significant a weapon is cyber for the strategist in an information environment? As observed in recent IO/IW campaigns targeting U.S. elections in 2016 and 2020, lack of any discernable disruptive cyber attacks may have provided an answer to this, as a cyber power purposefully elected not to implement attacks. Instead, cyber espionage was used, and even at that, played a minor complementary role in the larger effort. This calls into question the efficacy of cyber as an instrument of IO/IW, and the true nature of its role in more strategic soft-power operations. This paper argues that cyber is at best a supportive enabler of campaigns where information is the catalyst to achieve strategic results, reducing cyber attacks as tools best used for signaling, punishment, or implemented in first strike scenarios.

The global cybersecurity discourse has never proved more fragmented than in the aftermath of the failure of the last United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security. This discourse stands trapped in long-lasting and seemingly crystallized normative stances between “the West” and “the East,” yet it also calls upon the international community to regulate a wide spectrum of phenomena, ranging from thefts of digitally-stored trade secrets to large-scale pervasive attacks, which may soon reach the threshold of armed attacks. If one situates the major cybersecurity players on a sliding scale between freedom and control over cyber content and infrastructure, the mainstream stance would place the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, China, and Russia in that order. Nonetheless, this scale is in practice more complex, in part due to the influence of the Sh...

The U.S.-China bilateral agenda is dominated by issues like trade, intellectual property rights, monetary policy, human rights and security issues. However, given the fact that critical national infrastructures and the private sector are increasingly dependent on digital assets, cyberspace has become an important aspect of their bilateral relationship. The purpose of this paper is to define the nature of U.S.-China relationship in cyberspace and identify issues that cause conflict between Washington and Beijing. For both sides, cyberspace is a realm where they exercise power politics in order to pursue their national interests. The two global competitors have different positions on most of the issues that relate to cyberspace. Fear and uncertainty are present in cyberspace for both Washington and Beijing. Nevertheless, they also have common goals. The level of interdependence between them is high and avoiding misperception and escalation is a mutual priority. Therefore, both sides are trying to avoid mistrust and conflict in cyberspace and establish some cooperative mechanisms. Based on previous practice from nuclear diplomacy, both sides are in the process of identifying diplomatic tools (e.g. confidence building measures, Track II diplomacy and simulations) in order to avoid unnecessary tension in cyberspace.

The study is dedicated to the activities of the People's Republic of China in cyberspace, taken to acquire American military and civil technologies. The author claims that China is currently the only country that could challenge the global domination of the United States. However, to obtain the status of the hegemonic state, Beijing would need to build a solid coalition, supporting China on the international arena, but also reduce the economic distance between Beijing and Washington.

The article presents the nuances of cyber espionage versus cyberattacks that are becoming more pervasive in the national security context. It defines the differences between the two, and proposes a method of analyzing cyber operations to properly categorize them. Then, using an extended hypothetical and several real-life examples, it illustrates how dangerous cyber operations can be, and the need to properly define them so as to respond most effectively.

Debido a la ventaja que representa el internet para países y actores con una adecuación militar acelerada, o con pocos recursos,  es innegable.
Además de los planes que China lleva hoy en día en materia de militarización del ciberespacio, también presenta, en connivencia con hackers civiles, una estrategia de robo de información por medio de ciberataques y ciberespionaje a gran escala, con la intención de conocer y robar la tecnología necesaria para proseguir con el proyecto de transformación nacional.

The emerging of new technology is making easier for people to access things in seconds just like the platform of the internet as it has become a crucial part of everyone's life. It enables people to share information worldwide very fast. But the most challenging here is the security of systems as cyber-crimes are increasing day by day. Cyber threats are now very complex and evasive. Though many organizations have come forward with various solutions using different tools as privacy is a major concern for the data amount is very large to handle nowadays and regular updates are required to confront such attacks. This paper focuses on an analysis of cybersecurity and its challenges with the application of different strategies implementations. keywords-cybersecurity, cyber-crimes, attacks, IoT, block chain.

During our research into the GossipGirl Supra Threat Actor (STA) cluster, we discovered a previously unknown relationship exemplified in an early Stuxnet component –built in part on the Flowershop malware framework. While other known versions of Stuxnet were partially linked to the Flame platform (a.k.a. Flamer, SkyWiper) or the ‘Tilded1 Platform’ (a.k.a. DuQu), this older component shares code with Flowershop –an even older malware framework active as early as 2002. In an interesting show of longevity, this Stuxnet component –which we’ve dubbed Stuxshop–​ is configured to communicate with known Stuxnet command-and-control (C&C) servers and even includes logic to suppress dial-up prompts for disconnected (or possibly airgapped) machines

Curiosity is a funny thing. The need to know what something is can gnaw at us, making us hold onto a problem beyond what's considered reasonable. That sentiment is at the heart of the discovery of Duqu 1.5, a missing link in the development of the legendary Duqu threat actor laid bare by unrelenting curiosity. In a meeting with the lead of an Incident Response team, our friend confided that he was befuddled and frustrated. One of the venues under his team's purview showed signs of infection. Anomalous network connections to a sole IP kept occurring from different machines on the network but despite having collected forensic artifacts , there was no clear indication of 1 what caused the outbound connections. The mysterious event happened some time before our conversation and despite what standard practice might dictate, the IR lead had kept the forensic artifacts stored away, insisting that there was something there to be found. He was right.

Words are the scaffold of our thinking. They allow us to climb conceptual heights, survey the land, to map concepts, and guide our understanding through conventional and unconventional pathways while retaining a semblance of structure and order.

The origins of digital espionage remain hidden in the dark. In most cases, codenames and fragments of stories are all that remains of the ‘prehistoric’ actors that pioneered the now- ubiquitous practice of computer network exploitation. The origins of early operations, tools, and tradecraft are largely unknown: official documents will remain classified for years and decades to come; memories of investigators are eroding as time passes; and often precious forensic evidence is discarded, destroyed, or simply lost as storage devices age. Even ‘Moonlight Maze,’ perhaps the oldest publicly acknowledged state actor, has evaded open forensic analysis.

3-5 September 2015, Warwick Business School, Shard Building, London

Keynote speakers: Prof. Phyllis Lassner (Northwestern University), Dr Rosie White (Northumbria University) and Prof. James Chapman (University of Leicester)

2015 will mark the 100th anniversary of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, one of the spy genre’s most influential novels. With its roots in the 19th century, the genre evolved and diversified throughout the 20th century, providing, as Michael Denning writes, a ‘cover story’ that has rendered ‘the political and cultural transformations of the twentieth century into the intrigues of a shadow world of secret agents’. Capturing the ever-evolving zeitgeist of cultural and political anxieties, the genre has encompassed (and exploited) ‘hot’ wars and ‘cold’, and most recently a global War on Terror.

In the same year that Buchan introduced Richard Hannay to the world, writers from William le Queux to Henry Aumonier were also fine-tuning an already-established tradition. Over the last hundred years, the heroic spy has undergone a series of re-inventions as an action-adventure hero for the modern age across all forms of popular media. While in the 30s and 40s, Graham Greene and Eric Ambler reintroduced literary realism, ‘Sapper’ maintained the heroic tradition; in radio, Dick Barton: Special Agent thrilled over 20 million daily BBC listeners with stories of international derring-do. Amid the existential paranoia of the 1960s, the secret agent became one of the dominant pop culture icons of the 1960s, from books (John le Carré; Len Deighton) to television (The Avengers; The Man from UNCLE) and film (Dr No; Quiller Memorandum) combining terror and absurdity. Since 9/11, the ‘War on Terror’ has introduced a new range of explosive anxieties, from 24 to Bourne to Homeland. But recently these too have given way to a more psychological and reflective tone. Moreover, as the strictures of the Official Secrets Act begin to wane, scholars are increasingly able to explore the degree to which fact merges with fiction in these texts.

This conference aims to provide a timely forum for a retrospective discussion of the genre’s development and evolution across multiple media, exploring neglected and under-discussed areas of its long history, along with a consideration of where it is today and potential future developments.

Proposals for 20-minute papers are invited from scholars in fields such as literature, film studies, television studies, history, politics and international relations, and security and intelligence studies, on any of the following (or related) topics:

• Genre origins and definitions
• ‘Romance’ and ‘realism’: Relevant distinctions?
• Pre-Edwardian espionage romance
• Surveillance, civil liberties and voyeurism
• Single white, male? Deconstructing expectations
• Spy hero/spy villain: Beyond cliché and caricature
• History and politics
• World Wars, Cold War, War on Terror – generic continuity and change
• Politics and propaganda
• National identity and the espionage genre
• Psychoanalytical approaches: Spying on the self/spying on the other
• Disguise, pretence, deception
• Conspiracy and dystopian genres – alternative forms of spy fiction?
• Marginalised authors
• Stage representations
• Aesthetics of espionage – visuals, music, locations, pop, noir, ‘reality effects’
• The infiltrations of espionage into non-genre contexts (Charles Dickens, Ian McEwan, Mary Braddon, etc.)

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words by 15 February 2015, along with a cover sheet stating your name, university, contact information, plus a brief biographical paragraph about your academic interests. Submissions and enquiries can be sent to SOSConference2015@gmail.com

Organisers:  Toby Manning (The Open University), Joseph Oldham (University of Warwick) and Emma Grundy Haigh (Goldsmiths)

O livro “O Escândalo da Espionagem no Brasil”, escrito pelo ex-Oficial de Inteligência brasileiro Jorge Bessa, versa sobre os impactos do Caso Snowden para as políticas interna e externa do Brasil, bem como investiga psicologicamente o próprio delator estadunidense. Trata-se de uma análise feita por um “insider” dos serviços de Inteligência. Além de explicar o caso em si, o autor defende, qualitativa e empiricamente, a hipótese principal de que a espionagem internacional não é um advento ori-ginário da Era da Informação. Mais que isso, Bessa busca demonstrar que todo o alarde provocado pelas denúncias de vigilância em massa dos “Cinco Olhos” deveria ser menos midiatizado e mais ponderado por quem, de fato, trabalha com o assunto, a saber: os contraespiões. Por fim, sinaliza para uma reformulação política e legislativa do próprio serviço secreto brasileiro, no intuito de melhor prepará-lo para os desafios e as ameaças cibernéticas deste novo século.