The SPECIAL PROJECT FOR EXAMINING CATASTROPHIC TECHNOLOGICAL EXISTENTIAL RISK

(a.k.a. The SPECIAL PROJECT for EXTORTION, CATASTROPHE, TECHNOCYBERCRIME AND EXISTENTIAL RISK)

A Special Project consisting of 17 cells, each operated by a key specialist and looking at how the future technology can be utilised by bad actors for gain, chaos, …. or simply terrorism.

If you have expertise in AI, CRISPR or other modern technologies,  you might be able to join Spectre.

Where does the name come from ?

We took inspiration from SPECTRE (the “Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion”) a fictional very-organised crime organisation, originally created by Kevin McClory and featured in the 007 James Bond Novels and led by Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Our element SPECTER has an evil mindset and therefore seeks to work out how the Black Hats will do and then publishes ideas for the White Hats to develop countermeasures for. White Hats think about how to stop Black Hats…but their mindset is “Good” – we change that dynamic.

Our SPECTER consists of 17 specialist areas which discuss bad actor schemes and there is a monthly 1 hour reporting window to highlight each group’s dastardly thinking. (This 1 hour per month creates a deadline for reporting devious thinking and also means that little time is wasted when it can be otherwise put to “better use”). Periodically someone in the executive is permitted to disclose a scheme to create terror and concern in the general populus, ahead of the group relevant group being tasked to

SPECTRE It first appeared in the novel Thunderball (1961), consisting of 21 individuals, 17 of whom operating day-to-day criminal affairs via 17 individual non-overlapping cells and where the cell heads appear to be the top of the tree, thus protecting Spectre and where each person in the executive operating a cell is known to the other members of the executive operating committee only by a number (except that Blofeld knows the real identity of each person). (Emilio Largo is the second in command and it is clear in both Thunderball and Never Say Never Again that if something were to happen to Blofeld, Largo would assume command. A scientist Kotze (specialist in chemistry, medical issues and physics) and an electronics/computer expert (Maslov) were also included in the group for their expertise on scientific and technical matters and to provide independent assessments for Blofeld on reports given by the cells.).
Spectre members are drawn from the world’s most notorious organisations — theNazo Gestapo, USSR SMERSH, Tito’s OZNA, the Italian Mafia, the French Corsican “Unione Corse”, Turkish heroin-operation KRYSTAL, Chinese Tong/Triads (later Red China), Japanese Yakuza and Black Dragons, . (The three from KRYSTAL are all former members of RAHIR, an intelligence agency previously run by Blofeld).
The remaining three members are Blofeld himself and two scientific/technical experts who make their debut in Thunderball and all governed by the strict codes of loyalty and silence, and the hard retributions to the individual and their familites for any violation, with Blofeld’s modus operandii being to to focus attention on an innocent member, making it appear his death is imminent, only to suddenly strike down the actual target when that person is off guard.
SPECTRE’s main strategy is to instigate conflict between two powerful enemies, namely USA and Russia, later USA and China, hoping that they will exhaust themselves and be vulnerable when it seizes power, alternatively being able to make huge sums from stock markets by creating sudden “unexpected” orchestrated events where Spectre works both with, and against, both sides of the Cold War.
SPECTRE sometimes operates behind a charitable front in Paris, (reflecting the 007 Universal Exports front) aiding refugees named “FIRCO” (Fraternité Internationale de la Résistance Contre l’Oppression) and another charitable fromt of “IBASP” (“International Brotherhood for the Assistance of Stateless Persons”). firco.paris @ gmail.com?

Except for Blofeld and Largo, members are typically referred to by number rather than by name, with the numbers initially assigned at random and then rotated up by two digits on a once-a-month basis to prevent detection,; for example, if a SPECTRE operative is titled ‘Number 1’ in the present month, the security system will designate them ‘Number 3’ in the next month, ‘Number 5’ in the following month and so forth. However, in the EON films the number indicates rank within the organisation: Blofeld is always referred to as ‘Number 1’ and Emilio Largo, in Thunderball, is ‘Number 2’. This particular example of numbering is perhaps deliberately borrowed from revolutionary organisations, where members exist in cells, and are numerically defined to prevent identification and cross-betrayal of aims. By deliberately drawing attention away from the true leader of the organisation, he is protected by masquerading as a target of lower importance, and the structure of the organisation is also obscured from intelligence services.

The merciless killing of assistant Helga Brandt where she is dropped into a pool of Piranha in You Only Live Twice, for failing to kill James Bond, is used to show Red Chinese agents that they should not mess with Blofeld.

Thunderball was released in 1965 and an adaptation of the 1961 novel by Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory from an original story conceived by Kevin McClory, and Fleming, assisted by Jack Whittingham.
Although planned by Bond film series producers Broccoli and Saltzman as the first Bond 007 firm in the new franchise, Thunderball was bogged down in a legal dispute in 1961 in the UK when collaborators McClory and Whittingham sued him shortly after the 1961 publication of the novel, claiming he based it upon the screenplay the trio had written for a cinematic translation of James Bond. The lawsuit was settled out of court and Broccoli and Saltzman, fearing a rival McClory film, allowed McClory to retain certain screen rights to the novel’s plot and characters, (including eventually, Kevin McClory was given the full rights to SPECTRE and the Thunderball story) and for McClory to receive sole producer credit on this film with Broccoli and Saltzman instead serving as executive producers. The film was exceptionally successful: its worldwide box-office receipts of $141.2 million (equivalent to $1,365,200,000 in 2023) exceeded not only that of each of its predecessors but that of every one of the next five Bond films that followed it. It was these rights that allowed “Never Say Never Again” to be produced by McClory, featuring Sean Connery, in 1983 – right in the middle of the Roger Moore 007 era, Never Say Never Again being essentially a varied and updated version of Thunderball.
A further version, again updated, and rumoured to have involved 007 chasing down SPECTRE again in 1999/2000 entitled Millennium (with a lead Spectre agent being a “retired 007” turned bad, although at the end of the firm during a critical scene when the new 007 is about to be killed by the old 007, the retired 007 shows that he had not turned evil but working deep cover for MI5 to penetrate SPECTRE) was mooted by McClory and Sony – but although the original settlement was in England and therefore created worldwide rights, there were US concerns about the 2nd term US copyright code and whether US rights reverted to Fleming’s widow. (English legal advice was that as the copyright arose in England, the 2nd term US rights didn’t apply, but US advice was understandably different). As a result, Sony pulled out and the remake “Millennium” was shelved.

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