President Romney Can Thank Obama for His Permanent Robotic Death List
October 25th, 2012Via: Wired:
It’s a good thing that Mitt Romney endorsed President Obama’s counterterrorism agenda. Should he win the election in two weeks, Romney will inherit an institutionalized, bureaucratic machine for using lethal robots to target and kill suspected terrorists and their allies. Killing Osama bin Laden was a one-time event; this “Disposition Matrix” is Barack Obama’s real national-security legacy.
The Matrix, as detailed in a blockbuster Washington Post expose, is a master list maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center of suspected terrorists around the world, matched with methods for dealing with them. Most often, that means killing them; and most often, that means using an expanding fleet of armed drones to do so, taking off from hubs in the Arabian Peninsula, eastern Afghanistan and Djibouti’s Camp Lemonnier. Despite bin Laden’s death and the supposed disruption of al-Qaida’s old leadership, the Matrix keeps adding names, as fast or faster than the drones drop bodies.
Related:
U.S. to Keep Adding Names to Kill Lists
Obama Moves to Make the War on Terror Permanent
DARPA’s Pet-Proto Robot
October 25th, 2012Via: DARPA:
In this video, the Pet-Proto, a predecessor to DARPA’s Atlas robot, is confronted with obstacles similar to those robots might face in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). To maneuver over and around the obstacles, the robot exercises capabilities including autonomous decision-making, dismounted mobility and dexterity.
Large Cash Transactions Banned In Mexico
October 24th, 2012Via: Forbes:
Outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon has signed into law a ban on large cash transactions. The ban will take effect in about 90 days and it is part of a broader effort to control monetary flows within the country.
Under the law, a Specialized Unit in Financial Analysis operating within the Attorney General’s Office will be created to investigate financial operations “that are related to resources of unknown origin.”
For real estate transactions, cash payments of more than a half million pesos ($38,750) will be forbidden and, for automobiles or items like jewelry, art, and lottery tickets, cash payments of more than 200,000 pesos ($15,500) will be forbidden. The law carries a minimum penalty of five years in prison.
U.N. Calls for ‘Anti-Terror’ Internet Surveillance
October 24th, 2012Via: Cnet:
United Nations report calls for Internet surveillance, saying lack of “internationally agreed framework for retention of data” is a problem, as are open Wi-Fi networks in airports, cafes, and libraries.
The United Nations is calling for more surveillance of Internet users, saying it would help to investigate and prosecute terrorists.
A 148-page report (PDF) released today titled “The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes” warns that terrorists are using social networks and other sharing sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Dropbox, to spread “propaganda.”
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Today’s U.N. report was produced in collaboration with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, which counts the World Bank, Interpol, the World Health Organization, and the International Monetary Fund as members.
Russia Broadens Definition of Treason
October 24th, 2012Via: Financial Times:
Russia has broadened its definition of treason, in a move prompting fears that state authorities will have a new weapon to clamp down on the press and non-governmental organisations.
The law was passed on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament, one of several pieces of legislation overseen by President Vladimir Putin and seemingly designed to clamp down on political opposition.
The changes and additions to an existing law on state secrets will make it illegal not only to pass on state secrets but also to receive, transmit or publicise them.
“It is a very worrying situation, you could become a traitor or a spy without even knowing it,” said Igor Kolyapin, head of the Nizhny Novgorod-based Committee Against Torture.
“Anyone who does not have access to state secrets does not, by definition, know what is secret and what isn’t. How thus can they thus be understood to carry responsibility for this?”
The legislation strengthens an existing treason law and makes it a crime to divulge sensitive information not just to foreign governments, but to international organisations.
It also makes it easier to prosecute treason cases – formerly prosecutors had to show “hostile intent”, but that has been substituted for easier to prove criteria where they merely have to show a threat to state security.
Under the new legal definition, someone providing the European Court of Human Rights information on abuses in Russia, for example, could be prosecuted for revealing state secrets, said Pavel Chikov, head of Agora, the human rights group.
“Even the transmission of information on election fraud could be construed as state treason,” he said.
Related: Russian Activist Told ‘Confess or Your Children Die’
CHAMP – Lights Out
October 24th, 2012In other news, Panetta warns of “cyber Pearl Harbor”. *wink*
Via: Boeing:
Cruising fast over the Western Utah Desert, a lone missile makes history at the Utah Test and Training Range. The missile, known as CHAMP, or Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project may one day change modern warfare, by defeating electronic targets with little or no collateral damage.
On Oct. 16th at 10:32 a.m. MST a Boeing Phantom Works team along with members from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate team, and Raytheon Ktech, suppliers of the High Power Microwave source, huddled in a conference room at Hill Air Force Base and watched the history making test unfold on a television monitor.
Artist’s rendering shows a CHAMP flying over a target
CHAMP approached its first target and fired a burst of High Power Microwaves at a two story building built on the test range. Inside rows of personal computers and electrical systems were turned on to gauge the effects of the powerful radio waves.
Seconds later the PC monitors went dark and cheers erupted in the conference room. CHAMP had successfully knocked out the computer and electrical systems in the target building. Even the television cameras set up to record the test were knocked off line without collateral damage.
A Bandwidth Breakthrough
October 24th, 2012This is a big deal.
Via: Technology Review:
Academic researchers have improved wireless bandwidth by an order of magnitude—not by adding base stations, tapping more spectrum, or cranking up transmitter wattage, but by using algebra to eliminate the network-clogging task of resending dropped packets of data.
By providing new ways for mobile devices to solve for missing data, the technology not only eliminates this wasteful process but also can seamlessly weave data streams from Wi-Fi and LTE—a leap forward from other approaches that toggle back and forth. “Any IP network will benefit from this technology,” says Sheau Ng, vice president for research and development at NBC Universal.
Several companies have licensed the underlying technology in recent months, but the details are subject to nondisclosure agreements, says Muriel Medard, a professor at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and a leader in the effort. Elements of the technology were developed by researchers at MIT, the University of Porto in Portugal, Harvard University, Caltech, and Technical University of Munich. The licensing is being done through an MIT/Caltech startup called Code-On Technologies.
U.S. Navy: Laser Arsenal Is Just Two Years Away
October 24th, 2012Also, click through for a must-see picture of the BIOSwimmer, which looks like it was invented by SPECTRE.
Via: Wired:
“On directed energy” — the term for the Navy’s laser cannons, “I’d say two years,” Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, the chief of the Office of Naval Research, told Danger Room in a Monday interview. The previous estimate, which came from Klunder’s laser technicians earlier this year, was that it will take four years at the earliest for a laser gun to come aboard.
“We’re well past physics,” Klunder said, echoing a mantra for the Office of Naval Research’s laser specialists. Now, the questions surrounding a weapon once thought to be purely science fiction sound almost pedestrian. “We’re just going through the integration efforts,” Klunder continued. “Hopefully, that tells you we’re well mature, and we’re ready to put these on naval ships.”
Klunder isn’t worried about the ships generating sufficient energy to fill the laser gun’s magazine, which has been an engineering concern of the Navy’s for years. “I’ve got the power,” said Klunder, who spoke during the Office of Naval Research’s biennial science and technology conference. “I just need to know on this ship, this particular naval vessel, what are the power requirements, and how do I integrate that directed energy system or railgun system.”
That’s a relief for the Navy. It means that the Navy’s future ships probably won’t have to make captains choose between maneuvering their ships and firing their laser weapons out of fear they’d overload their power supplies.
But shipboard testing is underway. Klunder wouldn’t elaborate, but he said that there have been “very successful” tests placing laser weapons on board a ship.
DHS Moving X-ray Body Scanners from Large Airports to Smaller Ones
October 24th, 2012Via: CNBC:
The Transportation Security Administration is removing full-body, X-ray scanners from major U.S. airports, and shipping them to less busy locations.
Iran Threatens to Halt Crude Exports If Sanctions Intensify
October 23rd, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
Iran will suspend all oil exports, pushing global crude prices higher, if the U.S. and Europe tighten sanctions further on the OPEC member’s economy, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi warned.
“If you continue to add to the sanctions, we will stop our oil exports to the world,” he said at a news conference in Dubai. “The lack of Iranian oil in the market would drastically add to the price.”
