Talk:Stratfor

Broken Link

The (current) second reference link, http://www.stratfor.com/corp/Corporate.neo?s=CIA, doesn't work. It was a reference for the fact that the CIA is one of Stratfor's customers. If anyone could find evidence for that, it would be helpful. Worldthoughts 20:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

I'm not disputing that this article could do with a criticism section, but the material that was there just isn't it. It is a company that specialises in making predictions - but this by no means suggests that they're always going to turn out correct. They're an intelligence company, not a group of psychics. Any company in their field is inevitably going to be wrong sometimes, so this is hardly a helpful criticism.

The second paragraph is equally suspect. It tries to pin some sort of vague blame on them for being a commercial operation, and then makes the allegation that they have been unwilling to revise predictions without any evidence whatsoever. Only the last point may have some validity, and even that needs a source before going in the article. Rebecca 05:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

We should include something on the early stratfor position on Israel, as I put earlier: "Stratfor have also predicted an Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon on 17/18 July 2006, which did not happen." - we should now add a statement that this invasion did in fact happen, but several weeks after stratfor's prediction. Stratfor's briefings on this issue are available on the subscriber section of their site.

Anent a criticism section, is there any information available about how responsive Stratfor may be to ideology-driven manipulation? For example, the recent claim that an Iranian scientist was assassinated by Israeli intelligence could be used for political advantage even if its actuality remains in doubt or it is shown likely to be false. It seems unlikely the Stratfor or similar organizations are or consistently will be guided by principles of caution, veracity and completeness or that their sources and methods can consistently be identified, tested and verified. Judgment of Stratfor should not rest solely on its proportion of correct predictions, but also on bias, hidden agendas, secret influences, deliberate deception, vulnerability to agents provocateur, etc. Myron 08:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but given the fact that the article mentions some of Stratfor's predictions post-9/11, I believe that blown predictions of the past must be fair game. I was at one time subscribed to Stratfor's free newsletter, and I definitely recall them predicting (with something like 75% probability) that China was going to make a direct military move against Taiwan (either outright attack or seizure of islands such as Quemoy & Matsu) in the 2000-2005 years. Unfortunately, that was several email accounts ago and the message is long since gone. Can anyone provide some verification for that? 24.131.195.247 12:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well-Received by Its Audience

I removed the statement that Stratfor's reports are generally well-received by its audience.

This statement is somewhat unverifiable. Presumably, Stratfor would keep its client list confidential, so it is not really possible to have a completely independent analysis of customer opinions. Such a survey would need to be conducted by Stratfor itself, and then Stratfor would need to place those results here, which wouldn't be allowed because it would amount to original research. Therefore, the statement is essentially unverifiable and should probably be left out of the article until a reliable source for such a statement exists.

A second reason for removing the statement is that it's somewhat unnecessary to begin with. Most of Stratfor's products are sold to clients. If the reports were not well-received by the audience, they would likely stop paying for them. The fact that Stratfor continues to function as a business implies that their products are well-received by their clients. However, I think that this sort of deduction does not, in and of itself, justify such a statement in the article, because it amounts to speculation.

Therefore, because the statement is somewhat unverifiable, somewhat unnecessary, and amounts to speculation, I have removed it from the article. Cheers --DavidGC 00:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hacked

According to cryptome at http://cryptome.org/0005/stratfor-hack.htm and zerohedge at http://www.zerohedge.com/news/stratfor-hacked-200gb-emails-credit-cards-stolen-client-list-released-includes-mf-global-rockef, stratfor was hacked and their client list, credit card numbers and 200 GB of emails have been leaked. I'm not updating the main article because I don't know if these sources are acceptable and am not current enough with the protocols to feel comfortable doing so. Tiffany78 (talk) 05:56, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Tiffany78 & others- I posted a comment about Stratfor being hacked and referenced the wsj article before I read this discussiom. -- their web site is now down, which IMO should be enough of a "smoking gun". Feel free to delete my edits if you don't agree. --67.87.231.208 (talk) 02:09, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Google News just linked me to huffington, washington post, wallstreet hournal, CNAT, USA today, etc etc but i have not seen a "smoking bullet" to verify credibility. http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=dwtIN-bCjD49wBM6n8VYb7lVMkVMM&hl=en&topic=t&ned=us --Arkbg (talk) 21:03, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

BBC here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16330396 Andy Dingley (talk) 01:51, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

ok AnonNews.org top links to this pastebin providing a strong motive reason to indicate that this hack was not in line with AnonymousLegion, could very well just be a troll spin. http://pastebin.com/8yrwyNkt

Emergency Christmas Anonymous Press Release

-------------------------------------------

12/25/2011

THE STRATFOR HACK IS NOT THE WORK OF ANONYMOUS

Stratfor is an open source intelligence agency, publishing daily reports on data collected from the open internet. Hackers claiming to be Anonymous have distorted this truth in order to further their hidden agenda, and some Anons have taken the bait.

The leaked client list represents subscribers to a daily publication which is the primary service of Stratfor. Stratfor analysts are widely considered to be extremely unbiased. Anonymous does not attack media sources. In this excerpt from Time, there is a brief description of how Stratfor analysts uncovered a possible US backed coup in Iraq preceding the US invasion.

"In the past month Stratfor has drawn attention to a carefully assembled open-source report that asserted that last month's attack on Iraq wasn't intended just to punish Saddam Hussein for blowing off U.N. weapons inspectors. By sorting through thousands of pieces of publicly available data--from Middle East newspapers to Iraqi-dissident news--Stratfor analysts developed a theory that the attacks were actually designed to mask a failed U.S.-backed coup. In two striking, contrarian intelligence briefs released on the Internet on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Stratfor argued that Saddam's lightning restructuring of the Iraqi military, followed by executions of the army's Third Corps commanders, was evidence that the coup had been suppressed. Predictably, U.S. officials said the report was wrong."

Stratfor has been purposefully misrepresented by these so-called Anons and portrayed in false light as a company which engages in activity similar to HBGary. Sabu and his crew are nothing more than opportunistic attention whores who are possibly agent provocateurs. As a media source, Stratfor's work is protected by the freedom of press, a principle which Anonymous values greatly.

This hack is most definitely not the work of Anonymous.

We are Anonymous

We do not forgive

We do not forget

Expect us

Pasting an unsigned hack-post into the Wikipedia Discussion section is precisely what one might expect Sabu to do. And dumping into the public domain analyses which Stratfor keeps for its high-paying corporate and government clients and not for the general public or poor students is also the sort of thing Sabu and/or Anonymous might do. So is dumping both corporate emails and poor student-clients' e-addresses something Sabu and/or Anonymous might do.

As a university student, I have access to peer-review-journal documents not available to the general public without paying 35 dollars or more. Dumping all that material into the public domain is something Anonymous might consider doing. Free information is common theme with Anonymous/Sabu. Unfortunately, so is indiscriminate dumping of poor and rich peoples' e-addresses. They are not the most responsible Robin-Hoods, but I see nothing un-Anonymous in the Stratfor exploit. JohndanR (talk) 16:24, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that it appears Anonymous may have acquired more than just client data. 200 gigs is quite a haul for a few thousand client-data fields:

"Anonymous said the client list it posted was a small slice of the 200 gigabytes worth of plunder it stole from Stratfor and promised more leaks." --Cassandra Vinograd, Associated Press; Monday, December 26. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/25/MNK51MGUMH.DTL#ixzz1hf15rgL4 JohndanR (talk) 16:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

ok, reasonable counterpoint. i just brought up the possible discression for balance sake :) --Arkbg (talk) 07:42, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

i was reading about the last statement, where the author claims that the charities could suffer damages, does anyone know if theres real evidence to support that? i think its a rather important fact about this situation. im not sure if "Mikko"s background can necessarily be considered unbiased http://campaigns.f-secure.com/brain/mikko.html --Arkbg (talk) 07:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The article currently states that Friedman resigned as CEO via an e-mail that was also stolen and made public. According to Reuters, Stratfor says that that e-mail is a fraud ( source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/27/wikileaks-stratfor-idUSL5E8DR01320120227 ). I'm going to remove that statement from the article as it is, at best, currently disputed. Also, while I like ZeroHedge (the source for the disputed claim) as much as the next guy, perhaps for an issue that's as clouded in uncertainty and prone to conspiratorial rumors as this one, one that involves Stratfor, Wikileaks, possibly Anonymous, etc., we might stick to sources that are a little less prone to conspiracy theories. MikeNM (talk) 09:50, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

"At the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, STRATFOR made its "breaking news" paragraphs, as well as some notable analyses predicting likely actions to be taken by al-Qaeda and the Bush administration, available freely to the public."

Maybe I'm just not reading it right but I can't figure out what this sentence means. Whose breaking news paragraph's did they make? Did they 'make' them as in 'get coverage' or did they create them. If the former, that's a weasel word and should be substituted.--Senor Freebie (talk) 09:22, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

It's quite clear to me, maybe you just need to read it again. The word "made" here is part of the phrase "made available freely to the public". It's saying that they made something available, not that they made (as in manufactured) something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.144.247.254 (talk) 21:28, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. It is a grammatical and meaningful sentence (unlike some I have seen in Wikipedia). If you have difficulty understanding it, try diagramming it, as was taught in school. ---Dagme (talk) 14:56, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Broken Reference

The reference number 6 (pastebin), last retrieved on 24th december, doesn't exist anymore. (the server says "unknown pastebin id") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.16.121.217 (talk) 14:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Removed it. Pastebin shouldn't be cited anyway, not a reliable source. Equazcion ^(talk) 14:20, 29 Feb 2012 (UTC)

Accuracy

There should be at least a discussion--if not a section--on the accuracy of their reports. Old copies of Stratfor reports will make compliling this section easier. I could only find reports dating back to may 2011. Paramecium13 (talk) 23:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Comparing old reports to these emails would probably constitute original research. A section on accuracy does seem appropriate but it would have to be based on external coverage of that topic in reliable sources. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:42, 29 Feb 2012 (UTC)

Correction, I thought I was commenting on the email leak. Still, the same holds true for writing about the accuracy of their reports in general. There would need to be talk of it in external sources. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:45, 29 Feb 2012 (UTC)

Citing the Guardian for Amy Goodman

In the last citation under "2012 Leak" it says, "The Guardian referred to the first published leaks of Stratfor material as peering in to an 'intelligence-industrial complex'."

Shouldn't we clarify that this is a commentary article written by Amy Goodman and not necessarily the views of the Guardian? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NorwegianNotepad (talk • contribs) 00:03, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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A semi-famous former employee of Stratfor goes unmentioned.

I ran a CTRL+F of the page and there are no mentions of geopolitical author Peter Zeihan. As the company has the staff to keep this page tidy for them, perhaps his departure was less amicable than it appears? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.240.65 (talk) 20:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Name of company

I'm not really sure if it's Strategic Forecasting Inc. or Strategic Enterprises LLC. Does anyone knows? PhotographyEdits (talk) 21:55, 13 September 2022 (UTC)