Me and Stratfor

As everyone knows, I'm a big fan of this private intelligence firm. That's why I get a sense of satisfaction when I see implication in their analyses before the point them out. For example,

Saudi Arabia will, of course, also benefit from a larger foothold in the growing Indian energy market. King Abdullah also will seek to increase Saudi influence over India's enormous Muslim population.

I immediately thought "Wait. Does this mean a spread of radical Wahhabism into India? India's already playing the US and the Russians of each other for its benefit. Will this puch them closer to us, through a common jihadist foe? Or will it just increase anti-Americanism in India reducing our influnce with that country?"

I was glad to see I was asking the right questions.

Increased ties between India and Saudi Arabia will likely result in a large influx of Muslim charities, literature and cultural exchanges from the Arabian Peninsula to the subcontinent. Both India and China are greatly concerned about Riyadh's gaining influence with the two countries' Muslim populations given the potential Wahhabi-jihadist threat this could spawn within their borders. Though New Delhi will approach expanded relations with Riyadh with caution due to fears of this potential influence on its own Muslim population, the desire for oil will likely trump concerns of religious intrusion.

This happens more than often in my cybersecurity research—well, not often enough. I go through roughly fifteen stories a day and I see links between stories and trends that the individual sources don't quite pick up on. It annoys me that I don't have the time to dig deeper, come up with my own analysis, and add it the the product. There have been several times I made a right forecast no one else picked up on. In 2002/2003, some antivirus company talked about botnets, when juvenile hackers were just using them to knock each other off IRC. An antivirus researcher dismissed their behavior as merely a game. A highly unethical game, what with the computer crime and all, but not disruptive. I remember thinking, "Someday, hackers are going to use this to fight wars with each other for money and malicious, rather than mischievous, crime. Now, botnets are the basic infrastructure behind the spam and phishing industries, as well as DDoS extortion.

I called it.

But I have no proof. I might as well be the Fisherman's Christ and Lake Lucerne, arms outstretched, calling the believers to hear of God's Grace, and how he caught a fish that was "thiiiiiis biiiiiiig". I think adding my own analysis to my daily report would make it a better product, but the operation is already understaffed and strained to just barely working as it is. So, I content myself with seeing some trends then letting go.

Perhaps this is something I'm waiting for. A trend I can jump on and make my own, and catch the glory and hopefully better career opportunities.

I see Stratfor is hiring. This would be a dream job for me. But I'm not ready to move out of the Upper Valley yet, even though I'm not quite sure why I'm still here. I'm not in a position in life to just throw caution to the wind and relocate. I hope, within a year a two, I'll know what I want to do and find the opportunity I'm looking for.