US preparing a 'world' for cyber war games

from inewp.com: With the help of several organizations including Lockheed Martin Corporation, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency and nearly 500 million U.S. dollars, the United States government is currently constructing a virtual platform in which the government can simulate cyber wars and its own offensive capabilities in the cyber world without touching the actual Internet. The progress of the project, called the National Cyber Range, will be mainly overseen by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense which had a hand in the creation of the Internet. True to its mission statement, DARPA intends to “prevent technological surprise to the U.S., but also to create technological surprise for its enemies” with the construction of the National Cyber Range. The Pentagon has put forth proposals to label cyber-attacks on the government to be acts of war. In recent years, cyber scares such as Stuxnet, Agent.Btz, Anonymous and the hack into the International Monetary Fund has prompted the Obama administration to reconsider policies regarding cyber space. A Cyber Pilot system is also being developed to classify and monitor cyber threats ranging from “destructive” to “government cyberwarfare”.

onboard for 100 year starship

Director of Technology Tactical Office at DARPA, David Neyland makes recruitment pitches in search of those who want to do basic scientific research. A Universe Today article notes, "DARPA is known for its brand of 'blue sky science' where the scientific research they do might not have apparent and initial real-world applications." Is the reason the research remains a black project for many years? An explanation of the name is provided in the article, "..Neyland has been working with NASA Ames Director Pete Worden on the concept and Neyland said they chose the name not because they actually want to send a starship on a 100-year mission to space – although that would be the ultimate goal — but they want to capture the imagination of folks who normally wouldn’t think of doing research and development and tag them with something they would be excited about. " The 100 Year Starship Study website requests paper abstracts to stimulate basic research that hopefully lead to future research projects. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for research scientists.

Another conference, "38th IFPA-Fletcher Conference on National Security Strategy and Policy," brings DARPA's research into the light. Neyland's presentation provides insight, "Some people may be familiar with the F117 having come out of the Have Blue program, but not everybody realizes the things like launch vehicles, the Taurus and the Pegasus, the Global Hawk, the Predator, the A160 today, a number of these things came as DARPA program." Neyland makes a similar recruiting pitch at the conference held last year in Washington DC. and it's clear the research leads to new weapons. The presentation is of interest as it makes DARPA more accessible and a little less in the shadows after reading. I'm still uncertain whether you want to actually climb onboard?

hologram goggles on drawing board

Noah Schactman gets it right, "death-from-above-on-demand," in Danger Room article, "Darpa's Hologram Goggles Will Unleash Hell". Chain of command can be a cumbersome and dangerous process in targeting and authorizing air strikes by drones. DARPA believes it has the answer, "...give a single guy on the ground a direct data link to the drone (or manned plane) circling above".

Vuzix, an eyewear company, given a million dollars to develop a display where a computer tracks what the soldier, wearing the display, is viewing. The display built into sunglasses, will hopefully, couple a microdisplay with a glass optical waveguide. Light from the display travels down the glass and captured on holographic film then directed to the eye! If it works, it will be very small, 3mm thick. Vuzix executive Stephen Glaser notes, will "..allow us to design the display right into a pair of sunglasses, so no one will know you are even wearing a display".

easy bake oven of the robot apocalypse

Navy puts scare into writers at the Danger Room with references to "programmable materials". DARPA research includes a self-folding orgami that can turn into a small boat or plane. It may not seem threatening to have printed circuits fold into paper-like boats or planes? It's still worrisome that DARPA believes swarms of mini-bots can mimic the appearance of a human being with little more than computing power of a laptop and 3-D Desktop manufacturing. It's the same tech behind the 3-D object printer, Makerbot. "In the hands of intelligent robots, though, think of this more as the Easy-Bake Oven of the robot apocalypse."


A period of transhumanism approaches where "tranny" will mean a being or entity who has crossed and left humankind behind. Will there be new castes? A stratification of transhumans, cyborgs, cybots, almost humans and an underclass of unaltered humans? It's all about control. Programmable materials are desired as controllable by the elite. Human beings with spirits are not so easily controlled. Oligarchs care only about control, and if they have to, will wipe out the soul of mankind to maintain it!

when computers keep watch

computers that see you & keep watch over you
from nytimes: Hundreds of correctional officers from prisons across America descended last spring on a shuttered penitentiary in West Virginia for annual training exercises. Some officers played the role of prisoners, acting like gang members and stirring up trouble, including a mock riot. The latest in prison gear got a workout — body armor, shields, riot helmets, smoke bombs, gas masks. And, at this year’s drill, computers that could see the action. Perched above the prison yard, five cameras tracked the play-acting prisoners, and artificial-intelligence software analyzed the images to recognize faces, gestures and patterns of group behavior... "It was just too sensitive, and we didn’t want to go there," said Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google. "You want to avoid enabling stalker behavior."

computer mediated telepathy

Does this technology represent the point where man is despiritualized and assimilated? DARPA pushes Silent Talk program with four million dollar allocation, reports Danger Room. The research will attempt to decode EEG patterns for individual words and determine whether they can be generalized? Ultimately, the goal will be to transmit those EEG patterns over a limited range! Soldiers will broadcast their thoughts! You may think it sounds far out? Duke neuroscientists funded by the Pentagon, have trained a monkey named Idoya to walk upright on a treadmill and control a robot's movements in Japan by only her thoughts! Is this a product of Transhumanism movement? Will electode implantation result in a diminished spirituality or a despiritualized robo-sapien?

hundred years starship

NASA's Ames Research Center directer Pete Worden presented plans for space exploration mission to Mars at a recent conference in San Francisco, CA. The mission titled "Hundred Years Starship" will be a one way trip as studies show return trip would be too costly. "The strategy of one-way missions brings this goal within technological and financial feasibility." Worden is in negotiations with Larry Page, Google co-founder, to help fund the multi-billion dollar project. The project is out there as Worden contemplates, "...rather than make an environment on Mars like Earth, why don't we modify life ... including the human genome ... so it's better suited to [Mars]?" Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is also involved in turning the mission from science fiction to science fact.

defcon 6/24: more leaks & lawsuits

video: ellsberg says US might 'assassinate' wikileaks head*
wikileaks founder drops 'mass spying' hint*
the strange & consequential case of bradley manning, adrian lamo & wikileaks*
darpa taking fire for its cyberwar range*
judge rules dmca protects youtube in viacom lawsuit*

air force space plane: military launching robotic space vehicle

from ap: After a decade of development, the Air Force this month plans to launch a robotic spacecraft resembling a small space shuttle to conduct technology tests in orbit and then glide home to a California runway.

The ultimate purpose of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle and details about the craft, which has been passed between several government agencies, however, remain a mystery as it is prepared for launch April 19 from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

"As long as you're confused you're in good shape," said defense analyst John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org. "I looked into this a couple of years ago – the entire sort of hypersonic, suborbital, scramjet nest of programs – of which there are upwards of a dozen. The more I studied it the less I understood it."

The quietly scheduled launch culminates the project's long and expensive journey from NASA to the Pentagon's research and development arm and then to a secretive Air Force unit.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the X-37 program, but the current total has not been released.

The launch date, landing sites and a fact sheet were released by Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Angie I. Blair. She said more information would be released soon, but questions on cost and other matters submitted by e-mail weren't answered by Friday.


While the massive space shuttles have been likened to cargo-hauling trucks, the X-37B is more like a sports car, with the equivalent trunk capacity.

Built by Boeing Co.'s Phantom Works, the 11,000-pound craft is 9 1/2 feet tall and just over 29 feet long, with a wingspan of less than 15 feet. It has two angled tail fins rather than a single vertical stabilizer.

Unlike the shuttle, it will be launched like a satellite, housed in a fairing atop an expendable Atlas V rocket, and deploy solar panels to provide electrical power in orbit.

The Air Force released only a general description of the mission objectives: testing of guidance, navigation, control, thermal protection and autonomous operation in orbit, re-entry and landing.

The mission's length was not released but the Air Force said the X-37B can stay in orbit for 270 days. The primary landing site will be northwest of Los Angeles at coastal Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The significance of the X-37B is unclear because the program has been around for so long, said Peter A. Wilson, a senior defense research analyst for the RAND Corp. who several years ago served as executive director of a congressional panel that evaluated national security space launch requirements.

"From my perspective it's a little puzzling as to whether this is the beginning of a program or the end of one," Wilson said Friday in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

As NASA anticipated the end of the shuttle, the X-37B was viewed as a working prototype of the next-generation design of a fully reusable spacecraft, but the space agency lost interest and the Air Force picked it up, Wilson said.

"It's viewed as a prototype of a vehicle that could carry small payloads into orbit, carry out a variety of military missions and then return to Earth," he said.

The Air Force statement said the X-37 program is being used "to continue full-scale development" and orbital testing of a long-duration, reusable space vehicle.

Wilson sees the upcoming launch as "a one-shot deal."

He acknowledged that he does not know if there is a classified portion of the program but said there is no evidence of a second vehicle being built to follow the prototype. In aerospace, a prototype typically remains a test vehicle used to prove and improve designs for successive operational vehicles.

To fully function as a completely reusable launch system there would also have to be development of a booster rocket that is capable of landing itself back on Earth to be reassembled with the spacecraft, according to Wilson, who does not see any support for such an initiative.

Wilson also said the usefulness of payloads such as small military satellites is in question, which would undercut the need for the launch system.

The X-37B is now under the direction of the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office. Its mission is to speed up development of combat-support systems and weapons systems.

Operating since 2003, the office has worked on several things, including upgrading the air defenses around the nation's capital as an anti-terrorism measure and assessing threats to U.S. combat operations, according to an Air Force fact sheet.

NASA began the X-37 program in 1999 in a cooperative deal with Boeing to roughly split the $173 million cost of developing an experimental space plane. The Air Force put in a small share.

The X-37, initially intended to be carried into space by shuttles in 2003, was a larger version of the Air Force X-40A, a concept for a "Space Maneuver Vehicle" to put small military satellites in orbit. The X-40A was dropped from a helicopter in glide and landing tests but was never capable of actual space flight.

In 2002, NASA awarded Boeing a $301 million contract to complete a version of the X-37 to be used in approach and landing tests and begin designing an orbital version that would fly in 2006.

But in 2004 NASA turned the project over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Department's research and development arm. In 2006, the X-37 was put through captive-carry and drop tests using Mojave-based Scaled Composite LLC's White Knight, the jet that launched SpaceShipOne on the first private suborbital manned space flights.

The Air Force then began work on the X-37B, projecting it would fly in 2008. An Air Force News story at the time reported that the first one or two flights would check out the performance of the vehicle itself and then it would become a space test platform with unspecified components flown in its experiment bay.