CIPHER BRIEF EXPERT Q&A — Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is scheduled to appear in a U.S. courtroom on Monday for the first time since being brought to New York to face narco-terrorism charges. The brief hearing will formally begin what is expected to be a lengthy legal battle overContinue Reading
OPINION — Venezuela presents a long-standing challenge tied to narcotics trafficking and transnational criminal networks. For years, the country has functioned as a major transit hub for illicit drug flows, money laundering, and organized crime, with direct consequences for U.S. domestic security and for stability across the Western Hemisphere. TheseContinue Reading
EXPERT OPINION / PERSPECTIVE — Reports from Moscow suggest that U.S. representatives Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are “optimistic” about the prospect of results from their discussion with Kremlin officials this week. But after months of fruitless negotiations, if they are optimistic about achieving a negotiated solution to Russia’s invasionContinue Reading
CIPHER BRIEF EXPERT INTERVIEW — Economic grievances in Iran have sparked demonstrations for a fifth straight day, with protests surfacing in Tehran and multiple provincial cities as inflation, a collapsing currency, and worsening living conditions fuel public anger. Reports from state-linked media, local officials, and rights groups confirm new clashesContinue Reading
EXPERT OPINION – The recently leaked 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine is nothing short of an appeasement that satisfies the maximalist demands of the aggressor in the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is nothing short of the side on the verge of victory (eg, theContinue Reading
BOOK REVIEWS & RECOMMENDATIONS — Welcome to our annual holiday book review and recommendations list, where we highlight some of the terrific books that have been reviewed and featured in The Cipher Brief in recent months. Since our summer newsletter, we’ve covered and reviewed more than 35 books – oftenContinue Reading
Yō Taichi, Yumiri Hanamori, Jun Fukuyama, more join cast for film opening on December 26…Read MoreContinue Reading
Recent benchmarks from Ars Technica show that SteamOS’ performance advantage over Windows 11 largely evaporates and sometimes reverses on devices with discrete graphics. Moreover, Valve’s Linux distro and compatibility layer appear to worsen performance issues on GPUs with just 8GB of VRAM.Read Entire Article…Read MoreContinue Reading
Tiny Core Linux is one of the smallest and fastest Linux distributions, with a base image of just 24 MB. It boots quickly, runs entirely in RAM, and includes only the essentials, letting users add features through modular extensions. Like Tiny11 on Windows, Tiny Core Linux embraces an “only whatContinue Reading