Wikileaks: Amazon Atlas
October 11th, 2018Via: WikiLeaks:
Today, 11 October 2018, WikiLeaks publishes a “Highly Confidential” internal document from the cloud computing provider Amazon. The document from late 2015 lists the addresses and some operational details of over one hundred data centers spread across fifteen cities in nine countries. To accompany this document, WikiLeaks also created a map showing where Amazon’s data centers are located.
U.S. Army 1983: “Be Intellectually Prepared to React to Possible Encounters with Intelligent, Non-Corporal Energy Forms When Time-Space Boundaries Are Exceeded”
October 10th, 2018This is a U.S. Army Intelligence document on Hemi-Sync and Itzhak Bentov’s Stalking the Wild Pendulum.
The source document is “Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process,” CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf, which you can find on CIA’s Electronic Reading room.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700210016-5
19 More ‘Fast Radio Bursts’ Found
October 10th, 2018Via: Space:
A huge haul of newfound fast radio bursts (FRBs) may help astronomers finally start to get a handle on these mysterious and powerful blasts from deep space.
A new study reports the detection of 19 previously undiscovered FRBs, including the closest one to Earth and the brightest one ever seen. The results boost the total tally significantly; just three dozen or so FRBs had been known previously, with the first detection coming in 2007.
FRBs are brief (millisecond-long) but intense emissions of radio light, which can pack as much energy as our own sun produces over the course of nearly a century. Their source is the topic of much discussion and debate. For example, some researchers have suggested that FRBs could be generated by advanced alien civilizations, though most astronomers favor natural explanations, such as fast-spinning neutron stars.
Air Force Awards Launch Vehicle Development Contracts to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, ULA
October 10th, 2018Via: SpaceNews:
The U.S. Air Force announced on Wednesday it is awarding three contracts collectively worth about $2 billion to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems and United Launch Alliance to develop launch system prototypes.
The funding is for the development of competing launch system prototypes geared toward launching national security payloads. Each company will receive an initial award of $181 million, $109 million of which are identified in the announcement as fiscal year 2018 funds.
…
Asked why SpaceX did not make the cut, Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions, said the company is an “important member of our launch team” and can choose to bid again in phase 2.
“Not getting LSA funds does not prevent them from competing,” Roper told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He did not confirm whether SpaceX in fact submitted a bid for this OTA. “We only talk about the awardees,” he said. “We think all three awardees are going to be highly competitive to getting us to launch capability that meets national security space requirements ahead of the congressionally mandated 2022 date to get off the Russian RD-180 engine.”
Too Fat to Fight
October 10th, 2018Via: Army Times:
It’s well known at this point that just under 30 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 ? the prime age to join the Army ? aren’t eligible to join.
But beyond that, almost a third of those who sit down with a recruiter to take the first steps are immediately disqualified.
Why? Because of their weight.
“Out of all the reasons that we have future soldiers disqualify, the largest – 31 percent ? is obesity,” Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army Recruiting Command, said Wednesday at AUSA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
A freshly published study, “Unhealthy and Unprepared” concludes that America’s rising numbers of overweight youth are going to have real impacts on the military’s ability to maintain effectiveness.
GM Appoints Ex-CIA Deputy Director, Co-Vice Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations to Its Board
October 10th, 2018More connections than a switchboard, including an NSC role where, “She had oversight responsibility for covert action programs and special reconnaissance missions,” and In-Q-Tel.
Via: CNBC:
General Motors appointed a former deputy director of intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency to its board on Wednesday.
Jami Miscik is the chief executive and vice chair of Kissinger Associates, a political consulting firm founded by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. She has held various top roles at the firm since 2009. Before that, she worked at Lehman Brothers and Barclays.
“Jami is a seasoned leader with experience in assessing the geopolitical and macroeconomic climate,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra in a news release. “Her unique and extensive background in intelligence, security and risk analysis and mitigation will add significant insights to GM’s board and the company’s overall strategy.”
Miscik is also on the board of Morgan Stanley and is the co-vice chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.
Related: The Ascendancy of Black World Participants Continues at GM
Financial Accounts May Be “Modified” to Shield Classified Programs
October 9th, 2018Not a new policy: missingmoney.solari.com
Via: Federation of American Scientists:
In an apparent departure from “generally accepted accounting principles,” federal agencies will be permitted to publish financial statements that are altered so as to protect information on classified spending from disclosure.
The new policy was developed by the government’s Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) in response to concerns raised by the Department of Defense and others that a rigorous audit of agency financial statements could lead to unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
In order to prevent disclosure of classified information in a public financial statement, FASAB said that agencies may amend or obscure certain spending information. “An entity may modify information required by other [accounting] standards if the effect of the modification does not change the net results of operations or net position.”
Agencies may also shift accounts around in a potentially misleading way. “A component reporting entity is allowed to be excluded from one reporting entity and consolidated into another reporting entity. The effect of the modifications may change the net results of operations and/or net position.” See Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, FASAB, July 5, 2018 (final draft for sponsor review).
In response to an earlier draft of the new standard that was issued last December, most government agencies endorsed the move to permit modifying public financial statements.
“The protection of classified information and national security takes precedence over financial statements,” declared the Central Intelligence Agency in its comments (submitted discreetly under the guise of an “other government agency”).
“It is in the best interest of national security to allow for modification to the presentation of balances and reporting entity in the GPFFR [the publicly available General Purpose Federal Financial Report],” CIA wrote.
But in a sharply dissenting view, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General said the new approach was improper, unwise and unnecessary.
It “jeopardizes the financial statements’ usefulness and provides financial managers with an arbitrary method of reporting accounting information,” the DoD OIG said.
“We do not agree that incorporating summary-level dollar amounts in the overall statements will necessarily result in the release of classified information.”
Tesla Model 3 Is #1 Top Selling American Car In USA
October 9th, 2018Via: CleanTechnica:
Tesla’s production and sales growth is stunning. It is one of the most dramatic manufacturing stories in US history, let alone 2018. The sales records and eye-warping bar charts are in multiple important categories, not just in the electric vehicle space.
However, one story I haven’t seen highlighted yet is that the Tesla Model 3 was the #1 top selling American car in September.
The only three cars that sold more than this American success story were the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, and Honda Civic.
Related: Tesla Model 3 Achieves Lowest Probability of Injury of Any Vehicle Ever Tested by NHTSA
China’s Dystopian Social Credit System
October 8th, 2018Interesting take.
In short, everything is so F-ed up in China, the implementation of the social credit system will be no different. The good news is that it might never work, or, if it does work in some capacity, it will quickly break down, like everything else in China.
To me, the most horrifying aspect of this is how much of it sounds like U.S. airports!
Via: ADV China:
Google Exposed User Data, Feared Repercussions of Disclosing to Public
October 8th, 2018Via: Wall Street Journal:
Google exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of users of the Google+ social network and then opted not to disclose the issue this past spring, in part because of fears that doing so would draw regulatory scrutiny and cause reputational damage, according to people briefed on the incident and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
As part of its response to the incident, the Alphabet Inc. unit on Monday announced a sweeping set of data privacy measures that include permanently shutting down all consumer functionality of Google+. The move effectively puts the final nail in the coffin of a product that was launched in 2011 to challenge Facebook Inc. and is widely seen as one of Google’s biggest failures.
