Archive for the ‘surveillance’ category: Page 20
May 10, 2016
Draper Gets DARPA Contract to Improve Stealth Capabilities for Undersea Vehicles
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: government, military, robotics/AI, surveillance
I love contract season with the US Government because you get to see all of the cool projects being awarded.
CAMBRIDGE, MA — The U.S. military’s unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) depend on stealth as they conduct surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions in the deep oceans. With Global Positioning System (GPS) signals unable to penetrate the ocean’s surface, these UUVs can rely on inertial sensors to provide acceptable positioning information during short missions. On longer missions, however, inertial sensors accumulate error, forcing the vehicles to risk exposing themselves to enemies as they periodically surface to obtain a GPS fix.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is addressing this issue by funding the development of a small number of acoustic transmitters that can be anchored to fixed locations around ocean basins to serve as an undersea navigation constellation, according to a May 10 release by the Cambridge-based nonprofit company Draper.
May 6, 2016
Air Force wants swarms of small ‘kamikaze’ drones to defeat missiles
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: drones, economics, military, neuroscience, surveillance
Nice; let’s hope they hit the right target.
“I need a stealth bomber that’s going to get close, and then it’s going to drop a whole bunch of smalls – some are decoys, some are jammers, some are [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] looking for where the SAMs are. Some of them are kamikaze airplanes that are going to kamikaze into those SAMs, and they’re cheap. You have maybe 100 or 1,000 surface-to-air missiles, but we’re going to hit you with 10,000 smalls, not 10,000 MQ-9s. That’s why we want smalls.”
SAMs stands for “Surface-to-Air Missile,” and they’re one of the reasons that the Air Force has invested so much in stealth technology over the years: if a missile can’t see a plane, it can’t hit it. The problem is that the economics don’t quite work that way: it’s easier to make a new, better missile than it is to make an existing airplane even stealthier, and modern Air Force fighters serve for around 30 years each—longer if they’re bombers. Missiles are generally cheaper than airplanes, so anyone who wants to protect against aerial attack just needs to invest in a lot of missiles.
Continue reading “Air Force wants swarms of small ‘kamikaze’ drones to defeat missiles” »
Apr 15, 2016
Ghost in the Shell and the transhumanist future of sexuality
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: military, security, surveillance, transhumanism
The sky above Osaka Bay is saturated in light pollution teeming from the neon-soaked metropolis below. Military bi-copters circle in patterns between the antenna towers of Niihama City’s looming skyscrapers as they survey the scene of an ongoing domestic security operation. Kneeling from atop the edge of one of these towers is a figure; a mauve-haired saboteur of the state clad in a leotard, side holster, and leather jacket. Combat boots and leggings hiked just past her knees with her upper thighs left exposed. An external HD cable juts from a small input jack indented at the base of her neck.
Her pupils dilate, sifting through the visual noise of an embedded surveillance feed while combing the room below for suspicious movements. She detaches the cable at her subordinate’s signal, stands upright and removes her clothing. She leans over the edge of the building, a smirk streaking across her otherwise stoic expression. A rappel line heaves sharply, suspending her body directly adjacent to that of her target, who is now only a trigger pull from annihilation.
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Apr 7, 2016
US spy planes use AR software above major US cities and ‘target Muslim areas’
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: augmented reality, surveillance
Interesting
The software can be used by pilots to superimpose information onto pilots’ screens as they circle above areas, which include one San Bernardino mosque after the shooting last year.
Continue reading “US spy planes use AR software above major US cities and ‘target Muslim areas’” »
Oct 20, 2015
U.S. Plans $6 Billion Investment in Space Situational Awareness
Posted by Laura Samsó in categories: business, military, satellites, science, security, space, surveillance
Oct 20, 2015
Drone ‘Angst’ extends beyond backyard spying
Posted by Laura Samsó in categories: automation, counterterrorism, defense, disruptive technology, drones, ethics, military, privacy, surveillance
Jul 23, 2015
2015 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium | July 26–31, 2015 | Milan, Italy
Posted by Odette Bohr Dienel in categories: big data, complex systems, computing, food, information science, machine learning, mapping, space, surveillance, sustainability
Hosted by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2015 (IGARSS 2015) will be held from Sunday July 26th through Friday July 31th, 2015 at the Convention Center in Milan, Italy. This is the same town of the EXPO 2015 exhibition, whose topic is “Feeding the planet: energy for life”.
May 16, 2015
So, the NSA Has an Actual Skynet Program — Kim Zet Wired
Posted by Seb in categories: privacy, robotics/AI, security, Skynet, supercomputing, surveillance
We’ve suspected it all along—that Skynet, the massive program that brings about world destruction in the Terminator movies, was just a fictionalization of a real program in the hands of the US government. And now it’s confirmed—at least in name.
As The Intercept reports today, the NSA does have a program called Skynet. But unlike the autonomous, self-aware computerized defense system in Terminator that goes rogue and launches a nuclear attack that destroys most of humanity, this one is a surveillance program that uses phone metadata to track the location and call activities of suspected terrorists. A journalist for Al Jazeera reportedly became one of its targets after he was placed on a terrorist watch list. Read more
Nov 29, 2014
The Most Wanted Man in the World
Posted by Seb in categories: government, hacking, privacy, security, surveillance
The message arrives on my “clean machine,” a MacBook Air loaded only with a sophisticated encryption package. “Change in plans,” my contact says. “Be in the lobby of the Hotel ______ by 1 pm. Bring a book and wait for ES to find you.”
ES is Edward Snowden, the most wanted man in the world. For almost nine months, I have been trying to set up an interview with him—traveling to Berlin, Rio de Janeiro twice, and New York multiple times to talk with the handful of his confidants who can arrange a meeting. Among other things, I want to answer a burning question: What drove Snowden to leak hundreds of thousands of top-secret documents, revelations that have laid bare the vast scope of the government’s domestic surveillance programs? In May I received an email from his lawyer, ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, confirming that Snowden would meet me in Moscow and let me hang out and chat with him for what turned out to be three solid days over several weeks. It is the most time that any journalist has been allowed to spend with him since he arrived in Russia in June 2013. But the finer details of the rendezvous remain shrouded in mystery. I landed in Moscow without knowing precisely where or when Snowden and I would actually meet. Now, at last, the details are set.
