Brandon Karpf
A Discipline of Seeing
I write what I know and what I want to learn.
Weekly. 59 pieces in the archive. Each one argues a thesis I would defend in a boardroom and shows the analytical work that got there.
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12-minute read
The National Reflex
The internet has no borders. Our defense of it has nothing but.
1-minute read
GPS has no backup, and the jamming just moved to orbit. (Source: T-Minus Space-Cyber Briefing)
Brandon joins T-Minus to break down new evidence that GPS jamming has moved from cheap ground devices into space, and to argue that position, navigation, and timing is critical infrastructure with no resilient fallback.
5-minute read
The $1,000 Quote and the $50 Fix
A furnace, a fog lamp, and the tax you never knew you were paying.
11-minute read
The Backup Was Always a Clock
Navigation was always a timekeeping problem. GPS just hid it, and the hiding is failing.
11-minute read
Which One Is Right?
Part 3 of 3. Nine states on the board, seven trades, and the two clean-looking calls fall apart. Tokyo is choosing this quarter.
4-minute read
Everybody's Racing to Orbit. Nobody's Funding the Radio.
A single GPU needs a fire hydrant of bandwidth to reach its neighbor. The best satellite link flying today is a garden hose.
7-minute read
Moscow Built It First
Part 2 of 3. Russia confirmed it the other week. China has confirmed it for a year. North Korea refuses to.
4-minute read
Eleven Years to the Minute
I went to watch the Class of 2026 commission. I ended up back in my own choker whites.
6-minute read
Two Sentences on Telegram
Part 1 of 3. Iran ordered its cyber proxy to stand down, in public, on a feed anyone could read.
1-minute read
Japan leans in to the cyber fight. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon joins CyberWire Daily to examine Japan's pivot from cyber isolationism to active defense, and to reframe space security as a question of critical infrastructure interdependence.
9-minute read
The First Island Kill Chain
A hundred miles from Taiwan, three flags rehearse an integrated missile salvo, anchored by Japan.
8-minute read
The Mythos Deferral
We (re)invented a governance vehicle last week. Its name is the Concert.
11-minute read
Who's Minding the Store?
The case for rebuilding CISA as America's cyber defense protocol.
15-minute read
The Monks and the Machine
AI offensive security tools represent the printing press moment for a cybersecurity industry that spent thirty years treating symptoms. The correct response is gratitude.
1-minute read
RSAC talked AI while Iran talked targets. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon joins CyberWire Daily to examine why the cybersecurity community is underreacting to Iranian cyber threats against US critical infrastructure, even as CISA's workforce collapses and the nation is 30 days into active conflict.
14-minute read
The Quiet Rearmament
National security strategist Brandon Karpf on how Japan built the world's third-largest military the way it gardens: quietly, precisely, totally.
2-minute read
Your Board Deserves a Number
Like a toddler with his favorite crayon, we've been answering the most important question in cybersecurity with a color.
17-minute read
Spaceballs the Datacenter 2: The Search for More Bandwidth
Five business models for orbital GPU datacenters. Only one survives the math. It's not the one Musk is pitching.
7-minute read
The Impossible Seat
How the military operation against Iran is stress-testing Japan's security architecture, with implications for China deterrence and the March 19 Trump-Takaichi summit.
1-minute read
The basics broke telecom. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon joins CyberWire Daily to examine why sovereign cloud is accelerating in Japan and Taiwan and what it means for U.S. cloud architectures and capital investment.
11-minute read
3D Printing Cyber: The AI Phase of Offense Industrialization
A single threat actor used commercial AI to compromise 600+ FortiGate devices across 55 countries in five weeks. Offense industrialization just entered phase two.
10-minute read
IOCs Are Dead. Long Live IOCs.
Ninety percent of C2 servers die in five days. The average threat intel indicator arrives 33 days late. The IOC economy is collapsing. What replaces it?
42-minute read
Spaceballs the Datacenter!
A satirical, math-driven teardown of the xAI–SpaceX data center-in-space premise—SWaP, heat rejection, and the physics that make Mega Maid look reasonable.
1-minute read
When encryption meets enforcement. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon joins CyberWire Daily to unpack the accelerating challenges of space traffic management and why fragmented tracking systems now demand automation and policy clarity.
11-minute read
Taiwan, Maneuver Warfare, and the Industrialization of Cyber Conflict
After a week in Taipei, Brandon examines how IOC extinction, industrial offense, trust failure, and the sovereignty paradox converge. Static targets die. Obfuscated targets survive.
8-minute read
The Business of Containment: Governing the Offensive Cyber Enterprise
The offensive cyber market is an uncontrolled experiment in containment. Brandon outlines a constitutional blueprint for private firms to align profit with lawful purpose and avoid the 'valueless' fate of NSO Group.
3-minute read
The Savage Hue: Gratitude Against all Odds
Vermont Royster feared nuclear annihilation. We fear the algorithm. A reflection on 'And the Fair Land,' the shift from atomic dread to synthetic anxiety, and why the American experiment remains worth fighting for.
1-minute read
Inside job interrupted. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon analyzes the democratization of electronic warfare, where cheap commercial technology threatens the trillion-dollar maritime economy.
6-minute read
The Internet Keeps Crashing Because We Tried to Gentrify a Jungle
The internet keeps breaking. Why? We traded the resilience of a jungle for the fragility of a walled garden. An analysis of how centralization, Logic Bombs, and the death of Fate Sharing created a digital road to serfdom.
9-minute read
The AI Has Eaten the Pen
AI writing is intellectual junk food. It's sterile, mediocre, and timid. This is an analysis of the 'Nine Ringwraiths' of synthetic text and how to fight back.
2-minute read
The First Agentic Cyberattack Is Here. It’s A Liar. That's An Opportunity.
Anthropic’s GTG-1002 disclosure proves autonomous attack agents are real—and their hallucinations can be weaponized for active defense.
2-minute read
The Shutdown Ends Tonight. CISA Renewal Still Won't Move.
The shutdown (likely) ends tonight. CISA renewal? Still dead.
1-minute read
UKSA adds to its space tracking capabilities. (Source: T-Minus Space Daily)
In his October T-Minus segment, Brandon warned that more than half of GEO satellite traffic—including sensitive corporate, infrastructure, and law-enforcement data—is still flying in clear text and demanded accountability across industry and government.
1-minute read
How many anti-satellite weapons are currently in orbit? (Source: T-Minus Space Daily)
Brandon warned that within the next 12 months we’ll see clear signs of preparation for a Viasat-scale cyberattack on satellite infrastructure—likely by Russia—and urged the entire space sector to go shields up.
1-minute read
The November that never ended. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon unpacks the cybersecurity ecosystem and market in Japan.
1-minute read
Listening In on the listeners. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon joined Maria Varmazis to discuss space infrastructure.
1-minute read
Rocket Lab boosts semiconductor manufacturing. (Source: T-Minus Space Daily)
Brandon joins T-Minus Space Daily to explain how recent developments in orbital data centers, edge AI, and optical laser communications signal a future shift of global internet infrastructure from terrestrial fiber networks to space-based systems—potentially redistributing wealth and strategic value from equatorial hubs like Singapore to polar regions such as Greenland.
1-minute read
A free speech showdown. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon discussing his experience with fake North Korean IT job applicants.
1-minute read
A dark web titan falls. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon joined The CyberWire Daily Podcast to explore how space-based telecom architectures could play a critical role in securing agentic AI systems.
1-minute read
Darknet drug marketplace closed for business. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon Karpf warns that agentic AI systems—autonomous AI-to-AI networks communicating at machine speed—create profound new cybersecurity risks through exposed metadata, and suggests using the space segment as a secure relay layer to obscure organizational intent and protect digital infrastructure.
1-minute read
Brute force and broken trust. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon explains how the DoD’s new agile software acquisition reforms—and rapid iteration in satellite communications systems—could transform space-based telecom cybersecurity by enabling dynamic, “moving target” defenses.
1-minute read
Cracked and Nulled taken down. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon sat down with venture leader Ellen Chang to link the dismantling of Cracked and Nulled, fresh DeepSeek exposure, and Washington’s renewed appetite for national privacy law to the way dual-use founders should scale inside BMNT’s H4XLabs.
1-minute read
Hacking the bureau. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon speaks with Maria Tranquilli, Executive Director at Common Mission Project, about the origins and impact of Hacking for Defense, and how universities can get involved.
1-minute read
Future-proofing finance: FS-ISAC’s blueprint for cryptographic agility. (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon sat down with FS-ISAC Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer Mike Silverman to unpack the Building Cryptographic Agility white paper and what financial institutions must do now to prepare for post-quantum threats.
1-minute read
When AI goes offline. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon speaks with Mike Silverman, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at the FS-ISAC discussing cryptographic agility. You can learn more in their new white paper 'Building Cryptographic Agility in the Financial Sector.'
1-minute read
Digital Mindhunters: a novel look at cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon hosted author and advisor Dr. Bilyana Lilly to explore how her thriller “Digital Mindhunters” uses fiction to explain real AI-enabled information warfare playbooks and the human choices that still shape deterrence.
1-minute read
Mission possible? Navigating tech adoption in the DoD. (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon interviewed BMNT founder Pete Newell about “mission acceleration,” why defense innovation is a people problem more than a tech problem, and how to move operator-validated ideas through the Pentagon’s maze.
1-minute read
Steve Blank, national security, and the dilemma of technology disruption. (Part 2 of 2) (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon closed his two-part conversation with Steve Blank by focusing on how the Gordian Knot Center maps bureaucratic bottlenecks, mobilizes private capital, and helps the DoD out-innovate pacing threats like China.
1-minute read
Steve Blank, national security, and the dilemma of technology disruption. (Part 1 of 2) (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon opened the series by having Steve Blank diagnose why the U.S. national-security enterprise struggles with disruptive tech, from China’s pacing advantage to the cultural antibodies inside large commands.
1-minute read
The playbook for outpacing China. (Source: CyberWire Research Saturday)
Brandon joined Research Saturday to sit down with Kevin Lentz of the Global Disinformation Lab and walk through a threatcasting report that maps how Indo-Pacific allies can counter China’s gray-zone cyber moves through 2035.
1-minute read
The impact of CISO Circles and cultivating a security culture. (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon brought together AWS’s Danielle Ruderman and Texas A&M CISO Adam Mikeal to show how CISO Circles turn peer mentoring into real security culture change across higher education and the enterprise cloud.
1-minute read
From secret chats to public spats. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon speaks with Danielle Ruderman, Senior Manager for Worldwide Security Specialists at AWS, and Adam Mikeal, CISO at Texas A&M. They spoke about CISO Circles, security challenges faced in higher education, and fostering the culture of security. Brandon spoke with Danielle and Adam at AWS’ re:Inforce 2024.
1-minute read
Quantum-proof and ready: NIST unveils the future of encryption. (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon sat down with NIST mathematician Dustin Moody to unpack FIPS 203–205, the first finalized post-quantum encryption standards, and what CISOs must do before quantum harvesters arrive.
1-minute read
Cybersecurity on the ballot. (Source: The CyberWire Daily Podcast)
Brandon speaks with CJ Moses, CISO at Amazon, about partnership and being a good custodian of the community in threat intel and information sharing at re:Inforce 2024.
1-minute read
Streamlining the US Navy's innovation process: A conversation with Acting CTO Justin Fanelli. (Source: CyberWire Special Edition)
Brandon interviewed Acting Navy CTO Justin Fanelli about the service’s Innovation Adoption Kit, what it takes to brief the Atlantic Council’s commission, and how to plug industry directly into fleet problem statements.
1-minute read
Cybersecurity and Space with Brandon Karpf (Source: Inter Astra)
Brandon joined Inter Astra to trace his journey from the Naval Academy to N2K and explain why the space sector must professionalize cybersecurity just as aggressively as launch and payload ops.
1-minute read
House Armed Services Committee concerned with state of Navy cyber readiness (Source: FedScoop)
Brandon was quoted in FedScoop’s coverage of House lawmakers forcing the Navy to stand up a dedicated cyber warfare designator after years of warnings that cryptologic structures weren’t delivering ready teams.
1-minute read
Rethinking Navy Manpower In Light of the COVID-19 Response (Source: USNI Blog)
Brandon used the Navy’s COVID-19 posture as a live-fire experiment to show which manning, training, and equipping processes are truly essential—and which ones hemorrhage cyber talent.
1-minute read
Train Navy Officers for Cyber Lethality (Source: USNI Proceedings)
Brandon’s USNI Proceedings article calls out the Navy’s lack of a tactical cyber career path and lays out a six-month training pipeline that would keep cryptologic warfare officers lethal.
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