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Alastair Crooke   Become a fan   Fmr. MI-6 agent; Author, 'Resistance: The Essence of Islamic Revolution' Email Posted:  08/27/2014 11:56 am EDT  Updated:  10/27/2014 5:59 am EDT BEIRUT -- The dramatic arrival of Da'ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed -- and horrified -- by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia's ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, "Don't the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?" It appears -- even now -- that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite "fire" with Sunni "fire"; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da'ish's strict Salafist ideology. Other S...

Maybe I'm courting disaster, but my cheapskate approach to security has paid off so far. Here's my secret. by  Rick Broida    @cheapskateblog June 25, 2014 5:18 AM PDT Declan McCullagh/CNET I'm the on-call tech guy for family members, and most of my "repair" jobs involve clearing out malware infestations. You know the kind: hijacked browsers, rampant pop-ups, seriously impaired computer performance. The irony is that there's usually some kind of security software running on their machines, be it McAfee, Norton, or the like. But after hearing me mutter under my breath about  PEBKAC errors , I get the inevitable question: "Well, what security software do  you  use?" Nothing. Crazy? Crazy like a fox, thank you very much. This has been my modus operandi for years, and I swear on a stack of Wikipedias I've never had a single issue. No viruses, no spyware, no rootkits, no browser hijacking. No identity theft, no ke...