Archive for the 'War' Category
U.S. Data Hack May Be 4 Times Larger Than Previously Acknowledged
June 22nd, 2015Via: CNN: The personal data of an estimated 18 million current, former and prospective federal employees were affected by a cyber breach at the Office of Personnel Management – more than four times the 4.2 million the agency has publicly acknowledged. The number is expected to grow, according to U.S. officials briefed on the investigation. […]
Popular Security Software Came Under Relentless NSA and GCHQ Attacks
June 22nd, 2015Via: First Look: The National Security Agency and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, have worked to subvert anti-virus and other security software in order to track users and infiltrate networks, according to documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The spy agencies have reverse engineered software products, sometimes under questionable legal authority, and monitored web […]
.mil Follies: How to Blow $6 Billion
June 18th, 2015This is chicken feed compared to the F-35 catastrophe. Via: Ars Technica: But the program meant to fix the mess, called the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), instead became a massive 15-year software and hardware development mess of its own, involving five sub-programs and multiple multi-billion dollar contracts. It has been a financial disaster for […]
More U.S. Troops to Iraq
June 11th, 2015Via: CNN: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said Thursday that the U.S. military strategy in Iraq could require opening multiple outposts at Iraqi bases near the front lines of battle, which would mean sending hundreds of additional troops to the region to help fight ISIS. Dempsey told reporters aboard a […]
Hackers Have Personnel Data on Every U.S. Government Employee
June 11th, 2015Via: AP: Hackers stole personnel data and identity numbers for every federal employee, a government worker union said Thursday, saying that the cyber theft of U.S. employee information was more damaging than the Obama administration has acknowledged.
Israel Built, Exploded ‘Dirty Bombs’
June 9th, 2015Via: AP: Israel built and exploded so-called “dirty bombs,” explosives laced with nuclear material, to examine how such explosions would affect the country if it were to be attacked by the crude radioactive weapons, the Haaretz daily newspaper reported Monday. Israeli defense officials and scientists refused to comment on the report when reached by The […]
A Compilation of Robots Falling Down at the DARPA Robotics Challenge
June 6th, 2015Yes! Robots can reliably imitate the behavior of falling-down-drunk humans. Go team! Via: IEEE: On Thursday, the day before the competition was to officially start, DARPA allowed the teams to conduct a dress rehearsal, putting their robots through the course to see how they’d do. During that dry run, not many robots fell over, so […]
Reporter Says Pentagon Agreed to Give Up Docs If He Never Submits Another FOIA Aequest
June 6th, 2015Via: Washington Post: Leopold: The Office of Net Assessment (ONA) is the Pentagon’s in-house think tank. They spend millions and millions of dollars putting together reports — reports that they contract out about perhaps some futuristic warfare, or what the situation in the Middle East is going to look like with regards to oil. I […]
Data Hacked from U.S. Government Dates Back to 1985
June 5th, 2015Via: Reuters: Data stolen from U.S. government computers by suspected Chinese hackers included security clearance information and background checks dating back three decades, U.S. officials said on Friday, underlining the scope of one of the largest known cyber attacks on federal networks. The breach of computer systems of the Office of Personnel Management was disclosed […]
Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS)
May 28th, 2015Via: Nature: Technologies have reached a point at which the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades. The stakes are high: LAWS have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms. Autonomous weapons systems select and engage targets without human intervention; […]
