A very insightful overview. What caught my attention is the "active" disruption of foreign cyber threats. This suggests that Canada has been moving more and more to offensive capacity.
Linguist-analysts were a very important part of CSE from the earliest days. The focus at the time was on hiring personnel who had a solid understanding of Russian and other Soviet bloc languages, and training those who did not have those skills.
CSE's needs shifted dramatically as the Cold War wound down in the late 1980s, when the organization began to hire dozens of linguist-analysts who had superior skills in various other languages.
As Wesley Wark noted, CSE experienced a surge of employees after the 9/11 attacks on Washington DC and New York City. Managers at that time determined that, as in the other Five Eyes countries, there was a much greater need for analysts who could understand the communications habits of identified hostile actors (especially designated terrorist organizations). This entailed a greater need to understand telecommunications patterns.
However, the need for these important skills was sometimes conflated with a push to retrain linguist-analysts which, according to some observers, may subsequently have undermined the organization's capacity to retain people who comprehend foreign languages and understand the foreign cultural and political contexts that affect the actions of targeted entities.
Today, CSE, like other elements of the Government of Canada's intelligence community, arguably needs to devote greater attention to the cultivation and retention of staff who possess the in-depth linguistic and cultural skills required for properly interpreting foreign intelligence collected by the organization.
Interesting report. Thanks. As far as "CSE assisting the Alberta government in fending off digital foreign interference threats in the course of the October referendum on secession" goes I seriously hope they're paying attention to that. One of the difficulties is that the Alberta government is part of the problem.
A very insightful overview. What caught my attention is the "active" disruption of foreign cyber threats. This suggests that Canada has been moving more and more to offensive capacity.
Linguist-analysts were a very important part of CSE from the earliest days. The focus at the time was on hiring personnel who had a solid understanding of Russian and other Soviet bloc languages, and training those who did not have those skills.
CSE's needs shifted dramatically as the Cold War wound down in the late 1980s, when the organization began to hire dozens of linguist-analysts who had superior skills in various other languages.
As Wesley Wark noted, CSE experienced a surge of employees after the 9/11 attacks on Washington DC and New York City. Managers at that time determined that, as in the other Five Eyes countries, there was a much greater need for analysts who could understand the communications habits of identified hostile actors (especially designated terrorist organizations). This entailed a greater need to understand telecommunications patterns.
However, the need for these important skills was sometimes conflated with a push to retrain linguist-analysts which, according to some observers, may subsequently have undermined the organization's capacity to retain people who comprehend foreign languages and understand the foreign cultural and political contexts that affect the actions of targeted entities.
Today, CSE, like other elements of the Government of Canada's intelligence community, arguably needs to devote greater attention to the cultivation and retention of staff who possess the in-depth linguistic and cultural skills required for properly interpreting foreign intelligence collected by the organization.
Interesting report. Thanks. As far as "CSE assisting the Alberta government in fending off digital foreign interference threats in the course of the October referendum on secession" goes I seriously hope they're paying attention to that. One of the difficulties is that the Alberta government is part of the problem.
A fine overview of CSEC and its latest report.