CIA, Inc: Espionage & the Craft of Business Intelligence

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CIA INC, Business Intelligence Primer

Entertaining, but not what I expected

The real thing.

Bad day or bad book?

An Intelligence Pro's Rapid Primer on Modern Espionage

CIA, Inc: Espionage & the Craft of Business Intelligence
F. W. Rustmann
Manufacturer: Potomac Books Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1574883887

Book Description

Every major government on earth recognizes the value of intelligence and employs an intelligence service to collect it for them. Businesses should be no different. Knowing how to gather information about the strength of your competitors, being able to anticipate their next move, and preventing them from stealing your secrets are critical keys to success in the new economy. Executives, entrepreneurs, and business school students must realize that the success of their companies partially depends on their effectiveness in the realm of business intelligence. This book teaches the principles of intelligence and counterintelligence, using the CIA’s methods as a model for the business world.

CIA, Inc., explores the major aspects of business intelligence, including competitor intelligence, risk analysis, business and market analysis, counterintelligence, background investigations, due diligence, and security surveys. F. W. Rustmann draws on his experience as a CIA operations officer and a pioneer in the field of corporate intelligence to describe the collection, analysis, authentication, and reporting of intelligence.

Customer Reviews:

CIA INC, Business Intelligence Primer.......2003-11-13

I profited from studying the book. The book presented easy to follow intelligence principles and methods with unique complementary stories. The discussion of business intelligence, recruitment of spies, legal issues, source protection, CIA case officer, targeting, employee vulnerabilities, importance of in-depth background investigations and terrorism was informative, enlightening and helpful. The book showed the dangers, failures, successes and trade craft problems that exist in the intelligence and business community. It give examples from Vietnam era to present day situations. An innocent, who knew no better, would gain insightful information for survival in the world of intelligence.

The book came across as sincere and truthful.

Entertaining, but not what I expected.......2003-08-28

Rustman, an ex-CIA veteran, has written an entertaining, although not practical book, on espionage and business intelligence. My first problem with this book is the title. The topics of Espionage and Business Intelligence shouldn't be used together. Espionage is what a hostile government or a business rival does to another country or company. Business Intelligence is an all-encompassing term that includes the practices of competitive intelligence and counterintelligence. Espionage is both unethical and illegal; competitive intelligence is both ethical and legal.

This is one of many books written by an author who believes his exploits in the CIA somehow translate into practical lessons for the business world. Trouble is, they don't. If you're interest is in spies and spying, then you'll enjoy this book. If however, you have an interest in learning how to stay one step ahead of your competition, there are far better books to read than this one.

The author discusses such topics as bugs, wiretaps, and audio ops and countermeasures. These topics are better covered by persons that have a private investigative background or a technical countermeasures background rather than an intelligence background. When these topics are described in the book, the author does not tell us how to foil these attacks. A better approach would have been to describe the attack method and offer a solution.

The glossary is pretty good but the list of computer databases and information services is lacking in content.

Not a bad book, but one that is recommended only for those with an interest in spies and spying.

The real thing........2003-07-21

A retired CIA couter terror operative informed me this is the real deal. The author is not using his real name. He did not know who wrote it, but that it right on.

Bad day or bad book?.......2003-02-22

While I could not more agree with the previous reviewers as to the entertaining style of the book, I must say that after finishing it I could not shake the feeling I'd been duped by an ex-CIA agent who was looking to make a little money on the side by writing folksy recollections of his service time. If you're interested in reading about TLAs and other acronyms, this book is for you. If you want a spy novel, this might be for you, too, but don't expect any gunfire or semi-automatic weapons discharge, casinos with mixed drinks, double agent Halle Berry's, or anything remotely related. This book tells gut-level stories in a manner befitting Mark Twain, almost, and remembers once in a while to try and tie CIA-type spying into corporate intelligence by dropping short chapter sections on things like the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 and to make sure the reader is fully aware that Europe, China, and Japan have no qualms about stealing our corporate secrets. Oh, and for those of you who would like to take some tips on having a book qualify as "competitive intelligence", be sure to confuse the term business intelligence with competitive intelligence. And make sure that you watch carefully for the nepotism angle since the author's daughter gets a shot at outlining some web sites for gathering intelligence (and not many at that), though it's impossible to tell where her writing begins and his ends due to the consistency of voice in the narrative.

Finally, I'm still smirking at the jacket cover photo. Man, how serious can it get? Especially for a book that sheds such little light into competitive intelligence except to put a bug in your ear (pun intended) to watch out for bugs, how to determine if you're paranoid or really being bugged, or how to give your agents code names like the CIA does.

An Intelligence Pro's Rapid Primer on Modern Espionage.......2002-04-12

If anyone wants to get a rapid primer on how modern espionage relates to the national and international business world, this is an excellent book to read. It is surprising what this veteran CIA officer, a highly respected core member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), has been permitted to say by the Agency about various operations. To this jaded reader/reviewer, in the profession for fifty-odd years, I particularly liked that the author told his stories in an entertaining, straight-from-the-shoulder fashion, warts and all, telling what worked, what did not work. There are no maudlin reminiscences or ego-stroking, occasionally present in personal memoirs. Rustmann makes the connection between his experiences, for example in bugging a foreign embassy, to the needed preventive and protective actions by US business. The book is recommended reading for corporate officers, but even quite apart from its message to business, it is also a public primer on the crafts of human intelligence and counterintelligence, from the recruitment of spies to collection operations and analysis, from the threat posed by foreign (or competitive) economic intelligence collection in the US (particularly from minorities with "dual" loyalties) to the protection of information and the detection of espionage operations. In the end one realizes that in business, just as with terrorism (also discussed), we are still living in an jungle, in which the uninformed and unwary may pay a heavy price. Rustmann's book is recommended reading for corporate professionals, but also for students and members of the public who want to know more about US and foreign espionage operations from a highly reputable professional.

CIA, INC.: Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence

Average customer rating:

An fair introduction to the subject
Good Beginning to the study of Business Intelligence

CIA, INC.: Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence
F. W. Rustmann
Manufacturer: Potomac Books Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1574885200

Book Description

Customer Reviews:

An fair introduction to the subject.......2006-08-10

This book is a reasonbale first read for those who know little about spying, the world of intellegence and what it could be used for in the real (not cloak and dagger) world. The main emphasis is on how spying techniques (not illegal ones, mind you) can be applied in business, though this is not a book of tradecraft - the author repeated says that corporate human intellegence should be left to professionals. Given the serious financial reprecussions of violating one's non-disclosure agrements, I'd say that's good advice. A good read, skip the war stories if the topic at hand isn't of that much interest to you personally.

Good Beginning to the study of Business Intelligence.......2003-12-10

Rustmann's book is an attempt to cover the world of intelligence in business. There are numerous books out there about competitive intelligence and a few about economic or corporate espionage, but none that really do the subject justice. This book does a good job of starting to look at the subject and is recommended as an introduction. Unfortunately, the definitive work in this area has yet to be written for the public.
I found this book lagged in parts and digressed into the inevitable war stories that intelligence practitioners find so interesting. I did not find they added much to the book.

CIA, Inc.: Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence. (book review): An article from: Security Management

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CIA, Inc.: Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence. (book review): An article from: Security Management
Mark Beaudry
Manufacturer: American Society for Industrial Security
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Security Management, published by American Society for Industrial Security on August 1, 2002. The length of the article is 365 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: CIA, Inc.: Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence. (book review)
Author: Mark Beaudry
Publication: Security Management (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2002
Publisher: American Society for Industrial Security
Volume: 46 Issue: 8 Page: 120(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

This is a revised and updated edition of this comprehensive reference book, which brings together in one volume the essential vocabulary of banking and insurance as well as the money, commodity, and securities markets. It provides succinct, authoritative explanations of more than 2,000 terms used in Financial markets across the world today

Book Description

This volume had its origin in a symposium on the Reproduction and Development of Cartilaginous Fishes that was held at the annual meetings of the American Elasmobranch Society and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Charleston, South Carolina in 1990. The cartilaginous fishes, class Chondrichthyes, are a large and diverse group of fishes that include approximately 900 to 1100 living species of sharks, skates, rays and ratfishes. Throughout their history, which dates back at least 400 million years, they have been a successful major component of the marine ecosystem. The chondrichthyan fishes occupy a pivotal position in comparative and evolutionary studies of vertebrate reproduction and development. They are the oldest surviving group of jawed vertebrates and they possess both the adult vertebrate Bauplan and the vertebrate program of embryonic development. The major features of the female reproductive system, including its embryonic origin, structure, physiological function, and biochemistry, apparently were established early in vertebrate evolution and are fully developed in chondrichthyan fishes. These features of the female reproductive system have been retained during the evolution of the other classes of vertebrates. Much the same can be said for the male reproductive system. Moreover, viviparity, placental nourishment of developing embryos, and the hormonal regulation of these events made an initial appearance in this group. The 22 articles presented in this volume bring together a wide variety of complementary research by investigators from seven countries, allowing us to broaden the scope and implications of our studies while identifying opportunities for future research. The appearance of a volume on the reproduction and development of cartilaginous fishes is quite opportune. The continued existence of these fishes, which survived the great extinction events of Earth's history, is now threatened by overexploitation unless immediate steps for their conservation are undertaken. Knowledge of their reproduction and development not only is an end in itself, but is of critical importance in devising successful conservation and resource management strategies.

Customer Reviews:

Helped me to think about the aftermath of nuclear war.......2002-08-02

I am not an expert in this topic. Therefore, I need books like this to help keep me informed. This book was very helpful to me.

The book is really very concise, and very digestible, considering its subject matter. I want to let you know that this volume describes the aftermath of a MAJOR nuclear exchange. Not that any nuclear exchange could ever be called "minor," but this book deals with an all-out, total, full scale war scenario. It tries to take a scientific look at what the effects of a full scale exchange between the former Soviet Union and the U.S. might have been like. The effects postulated here, for the most part, are VASTLY worse, for the planet as a whole, than what could happen in a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, for example. Still, the old weapons are still out there, and it might be worth getting a copy of this to stay informed. We never know what the future may bring.

In chapters that average only about ten or eleven pages, the author walks us through many relevant scenarios. Chapter One is sort of an intoduction, laying the groundwork for later discussions. It helps us understand exactly what a "megaton" is, for example, by comparing megatonnage to the firepower employed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This chapter also describes the computer modeling used in these forecasts; the basic idea of "nuclear winter" and how it might be brought about; and related issues such as fallout, EMPs, catastrophic damage to the ozone layer, and chemical disturbances in the Earth's atmosphere resulting from dispersal of chemical-laden smoke. Uncertainties in the computer models are also discussed. Chapter Two provides an overview of the world's nuclear arsenals, as of 1985. It talks in some detail about "targeting strategy" at the time, and about the possibility of escalation, etc. Chapter Three goes into the immediate effects of a nuclear exchange -- firestorms, shock waves, etc. Chapter Four sounds odd at first glance -- it is entitled "Smoke and Dust." But in the reading of the chapter, we are led to understand the huge significance of smoke and dust in nuclear war scenarios. They are every bit as important to understand as actual fallout. The huge amounts of smoke and dust released by urban explosions would be expected to remain in the atmosphere for some time, blocking out the sun, and leading ultimately to the nuclear winter sceario. Chapter Five goes into more detail, about nuclear winter issues affecting climate and weather. Chapter Six helped me to understand the damage to our ozone layer, which would stem from war of this nature. It also goes into problems which would arise from the release of huge quantities of toxic gas, from attacks on chemical plants, manufacturing centers, refineries, etc. Chapter Seven is about what most of us would expect from a book like this -- radiation and fallout. Chapter Eight is mostly about the way plants would probably respond to war. I mean "plants" as in living components of the biosphere which undergo photosynthesis, not automobile manufacturing plants, for example. The basic message of this chapter is that MANY plants would perish in the sunless months after a major nuclear war, with predictable effects upon our atmosphere. Chapter Nine takes this issue one step further, and discusses problems which would be expected to arise in the realm of agriculture. This chapter helps make it clear that famine would be at least as severe a problem, after a nuclear war, as radiation would be. Not only would the post-war economic chaos make modern agrochemicals impossible to come by, but most plants would simply be killed by summertime frosts, radiation, and lack of sunlight. In an all-out war, these problems would mean the death of MOST people who had survived the initial blasts and radiation fallout. Chapter Ten is about broader ecosystem responses to nuclear war, and gets into problems that would arise in the animal kingdom, oceanic ecosystems, etc. Chapter Eleven is about the human response to all this, and gets into likely psychological problems, economic effects, disruptions in communications, famine, and responses to global, severe cold weather.

Another book which you might want to know about, which goes over a lot of the same territory, is Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich's "The Cold and The Dark." It, too, is a detailed survey of scientific forecasts of nuclear winter.

Lydia Dotto created "Planet Earth in Jeopardy: Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War" at the behest of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, (SCOPE), in 1986. It is intended to reach a popular audience, but should not be considered to be "dumbed down." Still, if you are interested in finding the original, highly technical reports which provided the background scenarios for this book, look for "The Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War," which is a two volume set. The first volume is subtitled "Physical and Atmospheric Effects," and the second volume is subtitled "Ecological and Agricultural Effects." These two volumes came out in 1985, under the imprint of John Wiley and Sons. The main authors of that report were T.P Ackerman, P.J. Crutzen, M.A. Harwell, T.P. Hutchinson, M.C. McCracken, A.B. Pittock, C.S. Shapiro, and R.P. Turco. It is a distillation of research conducted by hundreds of scientists, all over the world, over a period of many years.

While recognizing that these studies are, (thank God), essentially speculative in nature, it is good to at least be aware of what these scientific speculations are. I don't understand why so few people are aware of this important book. Please get a copy, and ask your neighbors, friends, co-workers and family to get copies as well.

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BEST BOOK EVER

Earth Science Challenge (Science Jeopardy Series Ser)
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BEST BOOK EVER.......2007-09-09

We use a jeopardy template on power point and this book has made it so easy to whip up a jeopardy review game. This book has been passed around my department and everyone loves it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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This book provides the reader with a comprehensive introduction to high energy electron diffraction and elastic and inelastic scattering of high energy electrons, with particular emphasis on applications to modern electron microscopy. Starting from a survey of fundamental phenomena, the authors introduce the most important concepts underlying modern understanding of high energy electron diffraction. Dynamical diffraction in transmission (THEED) and reflection (RHEED) geometries is treated using a general matrix theory, where computer programs and worked examples are provided to illustrate the concepts and to familiarize the reader with practical applications. Diffuse and inelastic scattering and coherence effects are treated comprehensively both as a perturbation of elastic scattering and within the general multiple scattering quantum mechanical framework of the density matrix method. Among the highlights are the treatment of resonance diffraction of electrons, HOLZ diffraction, the formation of Kikuchi bands and lines and ring patterns, and application of diffraction to monitoring of growing surfaces. Useful practical data are summarised in tables including those of electron scattering factors for all the neutral atoms and many ions, and the temperature dependent Debye-Waller factors given for over 100 elemental crystals and compounds.

$Recent Developments in Thin Film Research: Epitaxial Growth and Nanostructures, Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction (European Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings)$
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Recent Developments in Thin Film Research: Epitaxial Growth and Nanostructures, Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction (European Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings)
G. Ritter , C. Matthai , O. Takai , A.M. Rocher , A.G. Cullis , S. Ranganathan , and K. Kuroda
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The ICAM'97 symposium on "Recent Developments in Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction of Thin Film Structures" was presented at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997. . More than 60 participants representing 10 countries met to discuss the recent developments related to the study of crystalline structure of thin films: first stages of growth, morphology, strains and their relaxation. The aim of this symposium was to discuss the applications of both electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction in thin film studies.

X-ray diffraction is a non-destructive method giving very accurate information in reciprocal space for the determination of crystalline data. Many of the contributions were concerned with following such growth processes such as epitaxy of metals and semiconducting materials, measuring the average strain and the structure and the morphology of the films.

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A passionate supporter of abolition and women's rights, Louisa May Alcott championed these causes in gothic tales of interracial romance and in newspaper articles published during the Civil War. Drawn from her service as a nurse in a Union hospital as well as from her radical abolitionist activities, these writings allow Alcott to comment boldly on unstable racial identities, interracial sex and marriage, armed slave rebellion, war, and the links between the bondage of slaves and the conditions of white womanhood. A comprehensive introduction situates Alcott and her family within the network of antebellum reformers and unmasks her personal and literary struggles with the boundaries of race, sex, and class.

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