November Chapter Meeting

Agenda

Dr. Gregory Carpenter serves as the Chief Security Officer at Knowledge Bridge International and holds the title of Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in London and was named the National Security Agency’s Operations Officer of the Year. He is on the Board of Directors for ATNA Systems, an advisor for RedSeer Security, a Senior Advisor for ARIC, Inc., and a member of the Special Operations Medical Association. Dr. Carpenter has also been on the International Board of Advisors for the Mackenzie Institute and as advisor for EC-Council University.

Prior to his current role, Dr. Carpenter held various senior military and civilian positions, including Vice President for Cyber Operations, Chief of Security Testing, Chief Operations Officer, Counterintelligence Division Chief, Chief of Special Space Operations, and Functional Team Lead for Electronic Warfare. He has served as an international advisor for the Mackenzie Institute and an advisor council member for EC-Council University.

With a 27-year career in the U.S. Army, Gregory is a retired army officer. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree, a Master of Science degree, and a Doctorate in Public Health. His professional certifications include Certified Information Security Manager, Lean Six-Sigma Black Belt, and ISO-9000 lead auditor.

Title Talk: Tough Adversary? Don't Blame Sun Tzu

Abstract: Years ago, when I started working at the NSA, I said to myself, now I can see what’s really happening and what needs to be done to address our adversaries and put an end to cybercrime. Well, I was sure wrong. I worked in a few different offices and participated in hundreds of operations, only to find frustration time and time again. What happened? What was it that we just couldn’t put our finger on? Yes, we were successful in addressing criminal activity. Yes, we could successfully negotiate the contested cyberspace domain. But adversarial activity kept popping up on our radar. It was Whack-A-Mole 2.0. Was it the technologies we used? No, we had state-of-the-art capabilities. Was there a lack of technical training amongst operators? No, again, taxpayers coughed up plenty, and they got their money’s worth. I concluded that it was strategy; it was philosophy. Sure, we had all the technical capabilities in the world, but we were using everything wrong. I was in the Information Warfare Support Center. We were supposed to know what to do and how to do it! So, I started studying not only traditional but contemporary philosophy as well. I gained access to curricula in China, Russia, and the USA. This presentation informs the attendees of the adversarial philosophy taught in the military academies in China and Russia, which is taken from their curricula and papers published in various journals and practice today.