6/23 defcon: strategies, taxes & trident tribunal

executive orders give pentagon new cyberwar guidelines*
officials 'expected to announce the entire strategy soon'*
ex-dhs chief warns of cyberwar with hackers*
cyber attacks grow more severe, frequent, say it practitioners*
bitcoin prices plummet on hacked exchange*
malware bitcoin theft a false flag on revolutionary currency?*
states look to internet taxes to close budget gaps*
righthaven loss: judge rules reposting entire article is fair use*
fbi seizes web servers, knocking sites offline*
$74m scareware ring raided in 'operation trident tribunal'*
winklevoss twins end appeal of facebook settlement*
google breaks billion-visitor barrier*
video: at new nyc hotel, a robot handles the luggage*

5/12 defcon: secret service, globalhell, expendables

cyberwarfare rules included in defense bill*
white house to unveil cyber security proposal*
US secret service takes to twitter*
after approving nbc buyout, fcc commish becomes comcast lobbyist;
fcc chairman applauds colleague departing to become fcc lobbyist*
obama meets with giffords, husband (and his identical astro-twin) in florida*
giffords aims to return for shuttle launch*
veteran of 90’s cyber gang 'globalhell' charged in swatting conspiracy*
find out if you're a target in biggest US bittorrent lawsuit ever*
comcast says they're not blocking pirate bay -
problem appears to be impacting several isp's*
broadband leads to drug abuse, say US boffins*
under look and key: pc iris scanner security device set to go on the market in months*

updates: google's blogger finally limps back into action after over 20+hrs of downtime (the media monarchy kingdom has recovered, but others are apparently not so lucky...)*
playstation network hack launched from amazon ec2*
dropbox lied to users about data security, complaint to ftc alleges*
netflix: metered broadband a pure cash grab -
company not pulling punches in per byte debate*
mo mercy for gary mckinnon: as obama prepares for uk visit, holder insists US will not bend on extradition*
vigilant guard '11: responders train for cyber attack on madison power grid*
video: california students jam out with musical robots*

3/10 defcon: supermoon, double sun, mirage men

extreme 'supermoon' to take place next week*
mystery of two suns in chinese sky leaves scientists puzzled*
does the sun have jupiter-sized companion star in far reaches of solar system?*
persistent evidence of a jovian mass solar companion in the oort cloud*
'mirage men' book on paranoia, technology, psyops & ufo's*
giffords plans to attend husband's space shuttle launch*
US probes 'anonymous' hacker threat over wikileaks soldier*
manning's father condemns treatment of imprisoned son*
zuckerberg's dog, 'beast', gets facebook page*
google is america's british east india company*
video: new robot has incredibly realistic facial expressions*

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!

aurora alert: year's largest solar flare

The largest so far this year, a category M6.6 solar flare is earthbound. A skywatcher alert has been issued for auroras in possibly lower as well as higher latitudes. Experts agree a cloud of radiation from a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), will hit the Earth's magnetic field on or about Feb. 15th. The source of the activity is sunspot 1158, which is expected to grow. Many thanks go to Oystein Lunde Ingvaldsen for his wonderful images like the one pictured. The captured Northern Lights image is from the present buffeting of the magnetosphere above Bo, a town in Norway. They are a wonder to behold!. You can enjoy more aurora pictures from another Norwegian, Bjorn Jorgensen, here.


update: solar flare jams radio, satellite signals*
largest solar flare in 4yrs could disrupt power grids, satellite communications*
dept of energy to spend $27m on 'sun shot'*
japan may send humanoid tweet-bot to space*

new surgical robot benefits patients through tiny incisions

from komu: A new surgical robot at University Hospital [in Columbia, Missouri] is benefiting patients in a small - but big way. The dual-console da Vinci surgical robot is used for minimally invasive surgeries such as general surgery, prostate surgery and other surgeries. Surgeons keep control of the robot at all times by using hand controls, and watch procedures through microscopic lenses. The lenses allow them to see exactly what they need in order to direct the robots hands. While surgeons are able to successfully do all of the surgeries the robots can, the robots are able to operate through tiny incisions. Patients benefit by having minimal scaring, shorter hospital stays, and less blood loss. While hospitals and patients have the choice to use these robots, surgeons at University Hospital say they have had a great experience and highly recommend them.

google developing fleet of autonomous vehicles

google cars drive themselves, in traffic
from nytimes: Anyone driving the twists of Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have glimpsed a Toyota Prius with a curious funnel-like cylinder on the roof. Harder to notice was that the person at the wheel was not actually driving. The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.

childless uk couple build robot child companion

from dvice: Meet Aimec, the creation of Tony and Judie Ellis, a robot building couple from South-East England. Aimec follows them around their 18th century country home, cracking jokes, laughing, and searching online for interesting things to tell its parents, just like a real kid. Aimec is also adept at imitating vintage robot voices, and is said to do a mean C-3PO. It even snores when you put it to sleep, and wakes up with a little stretch. The couple runs a robotics company called Conceptioneering out of their house, and made their fortune with a game called Cube World. Tony expects Aimec could be on the market within a year or two, selling for an impossibly low sounding $300.

defcon 5/20: dumb f*cks, spy planes & bar codes

facebook founder called trusting users 'dumb fucks'*
facebook alternatives: a look at 9 social networks you could switch to*
facebook scrambles to close hole exposing private data*
most browsers leave fingerprint that can identify users*
students to be given access to laptop spy photos*
will machines take over the world? the scientific turning point*
report: secret space plane likely an orbiting spy*
1st wedding performed by a robot*
where's jimmy? just google his bar code*
obama's regulatory czar pushes creepy plan for legally controlling internet info*
3,000 officers switch to cyberspace specialty*
hack attacks mounted on car control systems*
pakistan extends facebook ban to youtube*

defcon 4/29: global strike, space planes & electronic warfare

missing soviet nuclear electrocar found on the moon!*
lockmart supports nsa's 2010 cyber defense exercise*
ex-nsa official pleads not guilty to helping reporter*
air force launched secretive x-37b space plane:
'we don’t know when it’s coming back'*
US military launches top-secret robotic spacecraft*
launch of secret US space ship masks even more secret launch of new weapon*
chavez accuses US plane of 'electronic warfare'*
pentagon's mach20 glider htv-2 disappears, whacking 'global strike' plans*
police seize gizmodo's computers in lost iphone probe*
students struggle to go without media for 24hrs*

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.