The US might not have had much success with cyberattacks against North Korea’s nuclear program , but that apparently hasn’t stopped officials from further efforts… not that they’re having much success. The New York Times has learned that then-President Obama ordered escalated cyberwarfare against North Korea in 2014 a bid to thwart its plans for intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, it’s not clear that this strategy has worked — and there may be problems if it does. The newspaper understands that Obama pushed both intelligence agencies and the military to “pull out all the stops” on cyberwarfare efforts to wreck missiles either before they launch or in the first seconds afterward. While evidence shows that North Korean missiles started floundering at a very high rate (the mid-range Musudan missile has an 88 percent failure rate) soon after, it’s not certain how much of that was due to American efforts versus the inherent riskiness of the missile designs. The US effort “accented the failures, ” according to the Times , but the launch rate has improved lately — and proper intercontinental missile tests might not be far off, if you believe North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. A large part of this comes from the natures of both the country and its missile efforts. North Korea is notoriously isolated from the internet (not to mention computing technology as a whole), and its missile systems are both mobile and shuffled around to confuse enemies. It’s not so simple as slipping malware into the computers at a fixed location, like with the Stuxnet attack against Iran — you need to find out where and when a launch will take place. President Trump hasn’t signaled if or how his administration might change this approach. Everything is still on the table, according to the Times . However, it might not want to press much harder. If a digital campaign is successful, it might give China, Russia and other nuclear-armed nations tacit permission to attack American nuclear launch systems. A belligerent country might be more tempted to launch a nuke if it knows that the US can’t respond in kind. Source: New York Times
See more here:
US hopes cyberattacks will stall North Korea’s missile program
Just a few days ago, Razer’s awesome Project Valerie laptops — the one with three 4K displays — were stolen. Now it looks like whoever stole them is trying to sell them. From a report: It turns out that the thief (or thieves) didn’t just nab one Project Valerie prototype. They actually got ahold of a pair. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan understandably wants them back, really, really badly. The company was willing to offer $25, 000 to anyone who could offer information that led to the prototypes’ return. So where did the laptops end up? Somewhere behind the Great Wall, apparently. Whoever has them isn’t trying to quietly fence them in some dark Beijing alleyway, either. They’ve actually been listed on the immensely popular Chinese e-commerce site Taobao — where they were spotted by writers at Engadget Chinese and Wccftech. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: The “reactionless” Electromagnetic Drive, or EmDrive for short, is an engine propelled solely by electromagnetic radiation confined in a microwave cavity. Such an engine would violate the law of conservation of momentum by generating mechanical action without exchanging matter. But since 2010, both the United States and China have been pouring serious resources into these seemingly impossible engines. And now China claims its made a key breakthrough. Dr. Chen Yue, Director of Commercial Satellite Technology for the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced on December 10, 2016 that not only has China successfully tested EmDrives technology in its laboratories, but that a proof-of-concept is currently undergoing zero-g testing in orbit (according to the International Business Times, this test is taking place on the Tiangong 2 space station). If China is able to install EmDrives on its satellites for orbital maneuvering and altitude control, they would become cheaper and longer lasting. Li Feng, lead CAST designer for commercial satellites, states that the current EmDrive has only a thrust of single digit millinewtons, for orbital adjustment; a medium sized satellite needs 0.1-1 Newtons. A functional EmDrive would also open up new possibilities for long range Chinese interplanetary probes beyond the Asteroid belt, as well freeing up the mass taken up by fuel in manned spacecraft for other supplies and equipment to build lunar and Martian bases. On the military side of things, EmDrives could also be used to create stealthier, longer lasting Chinese surveillance satellites. Read more of this story at Slashdot.