True Patriot Love - March 10, 2026


The Iran War’s Hidden Battlefield： AI Surveillance, Cyber Espionage & China’s Intelligence Ship


Episode Stats

Length

15 minutes

Words per Minute

165.4014

Word Count

2,629

Sentence Count

79

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, as we are several days now into a war in Iran, the Middle East is torn apart in many
00:00:12.820 directions. And while missiles are flying and airborne attacks are taking place, we have not
00:00:20.200 as of yet seen troops on the ground. But that's probably because a lot of this was very carefully
00:00:26.600 planned from the beginning and then it makes you wonder what is going on in the background that
00:00:32.760 could be aiding iran in this war uh to talk to me about this and more our very own brian isted hey
00:00:38.920 brian buenos dias buenos dias yes you are uh in a different part of the world right now and i can
00:00:46.440 tell by your tan uh that you're getting into the outdoors maybe you can give us some insight uh
00:00:51.960 we're hearing rumors that the initial attack on the headquarters in iran um was very well
00:01:00.680 calculated maybe as an expert in that field and and uh cyber security and uh cyber warfare what
00:01:09.800 what do you think or could you explain to us what occurred there that made it so easy to make this
00:01:17.160 assassination? Great question. So Israel, through the IDF and the work of their 8200
00:01:26.760 signals intelligence interception unit, did probably the most impressive display of
00:01:34.380 long-term planning while hacking the CCTV traffic cameras of the Iranian streets and infrastructure.
00:01:44.840 So what it's looking like is for a period of two plus years, the IDF through, again, 8200 signals interception capabilities tracked the real time movements of dozens of the Iranian senior leadership in military, in politics.
00:02:02.080 Any senior official that had anything to do with Iranian strategy or leadership was essentially tracked through CCTV cameras that the IDF had hacked to relay information in real time, also using super advanced what we'll call AI facial recognition.
00:02:23.100 So you don't have to have someone sitting there watching a monitor giving you sort of human assets of relaying the information that you're seeing on a screen.
00:02:33.300 They're using AI and facial recognition to track and portray what's called a pattern of life for all of these folks.
00:02:40.440 So this is probably, that I'm aware of, the most impressive, massive-scale, long-term, two-plus-year operation where they were able to, again, develop a pattern of life on these people, hacking into their CCTVs remotely and figuring out the time to strike several of them at the same time, including Khamenei, who they took out on day one with this extremely impressive operation.
00:03:06.960 Pattern of life, what does that involve?
00:03:08.520 so you're looking at things like what time does this gentleman go to work what route does he take
00:03:14.740 how many guards does he have with him does he is it the same time every day is it is it different
00:03:20.020 time monday wednesday friday so eventually with enough intelligence gathering enough monitoring
00:03:24.540 you can figure out exactly what the pattern of this person's life is maybe it's all mixed up
00:03:30.740 for two weeks and then back to normal for one week and then another so even though you could
00:03:35.380 be trying to throw off any kind of surveillance using counter surveillance techniques, you're
00:03:40.140 still going to develop some kind of pattern, especially over two plus years. So this is,
00:03:45.840 again, this is nothing short of unbelievable use of intelligence gathering remotely using these
00:03:52.740 cyber tools that the IDF was able to hack in. Again, I'm not choosing sides here on this at
00:04:00.080 all. I'm just... No, just an impressive feat of espionage. It's unbelievable, unbelievable.
00:04:04.680 what other surveillance do you think the idf has been using uh in preparation for this i think it's
00:04:10.840 like you i think it's incredibly impressive that over two years i'm sorry you can lose track even
00:04:16.600 if for a six-month period you are paranoid about being surveyed i think that you would probably
00:04:25.480 forget about it you would let your guard down you would get back to a pattern of living what other
00:04:30.600 kind of, I guess, pattern recognition or tracking is done that the IDF has been using?
00:04:39.140 Well, that's just it. I don't really know exactly, but the articles that I was able to get my hands
00:04:44.700 on were saying the use of AI, like I said, and facial recognition, any type of biometric that
00:04:51.260 they were able to capture of an individual so that all of this data could be sort of monitored
00:04:55.420 and aggregated in real time by artificial intelligence, supercomputers, you know what
00:05:01.120 I mean, able to relay that to humans on the ground or, you know what I mean, the receiving
00:05:07.300 end of this aggregate information so they can build up what's called a package on these
00:05:11.820 members that they're following.
00:05:14.000 And you don't need people to be interpreting this information anymore.
00:05:17.580 You can get such hyper accurate and realistic portrayals of this through just the filtering
00:05:23.500 of software that, like I've been out of the intelligence game for about six years, almost
00:05:28.900 six years now. And this is, I never read anything like this before in any of the reporting that I
00:05:33.700 had access to. The IDF has always been one of the most, if not the most advanced, along with the US
00:05:38.780 and the UK, in terms of their SIGINT collection capabilities. But this is next level now with
00:05:44.260 the help of AI. And there's almost nothing that can't be done, in my opinion. Okay, let's go to
00:05:49.340 the other side of the fence for a minute. What is Iran using to get intelligence? We're hearing
00:05:55.020 it's Russia, it's China. How does that operate? How are they given such up-to-the-minute info,
00:06:02.900 and what do you think that has in the way of impact on the theater of war here?
00:06:08.740 Really good question. So I'm just going to read the title of the article that I found on
00:06:12.940 DefenseSecurityAsia.com. So China deploys 30,000 ton, forgive me mispronouncing here,
00:06:19.360 Liu Wang-1 floating supercomputer to Gulf of Oman plane intelligence ship now watching U.S.-Israel
00:06:26.060 Iran war from 6,000 kilometers. So they're at sea with a supercomputer. This ship is a 30,000 ton
00:06:34.700 essentially floating supercomputer that's sitting in international waters that's being protected by
00:06:39.780 a cruiser and I think another warship because this this ship would have almost no defensive
00:06:45.160 or offensive capability. It's literally just a signals intelligence collecting device where
00:06:50.820 it's completely changing the battle space for the benefit of Iran because they're able to provide
00:06:55.740 insanely accurate and detailed and thorough reporting of U.S. again patterns of life
00:07:02.500 patterns of strategy where are they launching missiles from how long does it take to you know
00:07:08.560 mean reload the missiles where are they refueling where are their logistics supports uh when planes
00:07:14.560 are coming from long range out of necessarily the sensors of iran now this ship is able to pick it
00:07:19.040 up so they're assisting non-kinetically the iranian forces through this just unbelievable
00:07:25.280 intelligence gathering machine floating 6 000 kilometers away in international waters which
00:07:31.760 brings into question should the us be um lack of a better term i guess frustrated by the efforts of
00:07:40.240 china in this ability to lend them assistance would they fire on this ship i certainly hope
00:07:47.680 not because that would definitely result in an escalation that now brings china into the war
00:07:52.160 kinetically so again i'm not a subject matter expert on the uh dimensions of the battle space
00:07:58.800 and all the fronts here, but this is an absolute game changer for Iran to be real-time monitoring
00:08:05.200 with the most precise instruments that China is able to provide them from that far away.
00:08:10.080 This is a pretty high-tech war so far. A lot of it being fought from far away,
00:08:15.600 dropping pinpoint, super accurate bombs, missiles being thwarted by a dome of protection. There's a
00:08:23.600 lot of technology uh being used out there that doesn't have much to do with boots on the ground
00:08:30.160 uh but it is amazing to me with which uh with the pinpoint accuracy that's being used so far
00:08:39.120 it looks like by and large the infrastructure the above ground infrastructure of iran is really
00:08:45.600 taking a hit here can they make a comeback using this information can they i to me it feels like
00:08:52.720 they're just going to be able to sustain a war longer with this information but could it put them
00:08:58.720 in a sort of a winning advantage winning advantage i'm not sure um they are using brilliant tactics
00:09:08.000 like i i saw one report that said that they're painting the silhouettes of planes and helicopters
00:09:15.600 and various pieces of expensive equipment onto large pieces of tarmac so that the us is using
00:09:21.600 multi-million dollar missile strikes wasted on the painting of a ship. There's a great saying
00:09:29.160 that I happen to agree with, and it's called the first casualty of war is the truth. So there's
00:09:33.980 really no telling what is actually going on there other than the smattering of reporting that we're
00:09:40.720 getting. I usually tend to look at non-mainstream sources, because if you listen to what, for
00:09:45.980 instance, Israel is saying about the IDF, they have suffered no casualties as of yet. So I don't
00:09:51.100 think that the things that most people have access to bear any resemblance on reality and i would
00:09:56.560 urge people to definitely double triples check your sources you know what i mean make up your
00:10:02.260 own mind on what you're seeing and don't listen to any one source or believe any one piece of
00:10:06.660 information like if this really does interest you go down some holes here and figure it out
00:10:11.100 to come back to your original question like is is this going to result in iran winning this war
00:10:15.660 i i really don't think so i don't know but you're you hit the nail on the head saying that the
00:10:20.540 technology and the signals interceptions and the cyber changing of this battle space is unlike
00:10:26.880 anything that we've ever seen before. And Iran is using a very interesting strategy of trying to
00:10:32.920 deplete U.S. missile capabilities and numbers by, you know what I mean, like I said, painting
00:10:40.520 something interesting on the ground or just firing so many missiles that the dome defense missiles
00:10:45.840 end up running out. And then you've got China in the background saying, well, how long is it going
00:10:49.660 to take them to to restock these missiles where is it coming from can we intercept this it's it's
00:10:55.340 it's unbelievable it's like watching a movie of world war three in real time it's really
00:11:00.160 both entertaining and scary yeah it is a very scary space right now uh on that front um you
00:11:08.000 know the other thing that i wanted to point out was i'm seeing a lot of ai propaganda out there
00:11:12.880 I saw a B-52 bomber being pulled through the streets of Tehran.
00:11:16.980 I don't think when something comes from 60,000 feet in the air, it looks like it's intact and can be towed around a city.
00:11:27.140 So immediately I thought, oh, this is AI.
00:11:30.320 And sure enough, you go to the comments and the source of it is AI.
00:11:33.560 I think that there's a lot of propaganda in this, the AI technology and technology overall
00:11:40.520 is playing a part in this war, even if it's just to create a populist opinion one way or the other.
00:11:49.720 No, you're 100% accurate. There's always been, propaganda has existed in war since the beginning
00:11:55.400 of time but the ability now to to uh to distribute it and have it reflected so seemingly accurately
00:12:04.760 or realistically is again unlike anything we've ever seen it started a little bit a few years ago
00:12:10.440 with the onset of the ukraine russia conflict and there was a lot of ai and a lot of misinformation
00:12:15.480 disinformation floating around about that but even just in the last few years the advances of ai and
00:12:20.600 deep fakes and things that the intelligence community when i was there were taking very
00:12:24.360 seriously uh in terms of their ability to dissuade or persuade people one way or another um like i'm
00:12:31.480 i'm kind of at a loss for words to explain the impact that this is going to have because i don't
00:12:35.400 think anyone really knows but like like i said you got to be real careful about what you see and what
00:12:40.200 you believe because it's so easy for almost anyone now to create something that's hyper realistic
00:12:46.440 let alone you know what i mean a state-backed actor that has the most sophisticated tools
00:12:50.680 possible at their disposal to try to distribute information to swing the public opinion one way
00:12:55.880 or another and it's again it's we've never seen anything like this so it's uh you're you're good
00:13:01.640 government as good as mine we've got governments now that have an interest in so many platforms
00:13:06.120 out there that even the delivery mechanism by which you get this content by the way this is
00:13:11.080 not ai that's really brian i'm really mike uh so although ai would say that to cover up uh
00:13:18.040 I would have made myself handsomer.
00:13:19.820 I've got the right, same.
00:13:21.920 And I would have added a couple of more fingers.
00:13:24.860 But having said that, it is something I think that is on the horizon.
00:13:29.380 It's a little bit freaky to watch a war unfold where there's not a whole lot of news on the streets right now, on the battlefield.
00:13:37.480 A lot of it is being done and shown to us in really, you know, cell phone footage.
00:13:42.960 the country is without internet so we're not getting a live feed of what's happening there
00:13:48.340 what we are receiving right now pretty much is all propaganda whether it's from a news source
00:13:55.180 from one or other of the players in the battle but it's hard to know that we're getting any real
00:14:00.640 information yeah no that's exactly right and people the folks watching this at home really
00:14:07.720 need to be careful about where they're getting their information from and including this you
00:14:11.740 know what I mean? Double check everything I'm saying, everything you're saying. Nothing should
00:14:14.800 be taken at face value. It's a time when this unprecedented level of sophisticated technology
00:14:21.840 is able to basically brainwash people. And it sort of started more or less with COVID, in my opinion.
00:14:28.660 It's a whole other podcast I'm sure I'll do soon. But this has been planned for a long time. The
00:14:33.880 use of these tools and executing them now is part of a strategy. Absolutely. Later in the week,
00:14:40.020 we're going to visit AI and the impact that it can have on a battlefront and the people watching
00:14:47.640 at home. And I hope you'll join us for that. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Look, Brian,
00:14:55.520 thanks very much. I appreciate this. A lot of great shows right now in the network with Brian
00:15:00.140 and some great guests. Oh, my gosh. Sam Cooper, Gary Clement. It goes on and on and on. His guests
00:15:07.040 are just uh incredible and the shows uh they run deep and go long and i think that you guys will
00:15:11.920 really enjoy them please don't hesitate to go and take a look right now brian thank you appreciate
00:15:17.120 it thank you very much and i got a couple more gems coming up real soon too so keep an eye out
00:15:22.880 i know you do yeah your line of connectivity is amazing so thank you and thank you for joining us
00:15:29.920 don't forget to subscribe tell a friend about what we're doing here
00:15:33.200 at tpl tplmedia.ca you can download the app for either android or the iphone and listen
00:15:40.560 when rim makes a comeback uh we'll get one going for the blackberry see you next time