Exclusive: Inside Darpa's Secret Afghan Spy Machine by Noah Shachtman at Wired's Danger Room. BLUF: "The Pentagon's top researchers have rushed a classified and controversial intelligence program into Afghanistan. Known as "Nexus 7," and previously undisclosed as a war-zone surveillance effort, it ties together everything from spy radars to fruit prices in order to glean clues about Afghan instability... But those efforts are drawing fire from some frontline intel operators who see Nexus 7 as little more than a glorified grad-school project, wasting tens of millions on duplicative technology that has nothing to do with stopping the Taliban."