military – Tech Today w/ Ken May

America’s Fastest Spy Plane May Be Back — And Hypersonic

A Lockheed Skunk Works executive implied last week at an aerospace conference that the successor to one of the fastest aircraft the world has seen, the SR-71 Blackbird, might already exist. Previously, Lockheed officials have said the successor, the SR-72, could fly by 2030. Bloomberg reports: Referring to detailed specifics of company design and manufacturing, Jack O’Banion, a Lockheed vice president, said a “digital transformation” arising from recent computing capabilities and design tools had made hypersonic development possible. Then — assuming O’Banion chose his verb tense purposely — came the surprise. “Without the digital transformation, the aircraft you see there could not have been made, ” O’Banion said, standing by an artist’s rendering of the hypersonic aircraft. “In fact, five years ago, it could not have been made.” Hypersonic applies to speeds above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. The SR-71 cruised at Mach 3.2, more than 2, 000 mph, around 85, 000 feet. “We couldn’t have made the engine itself — it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago, ” O’Banion said. “But now we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation.” The aircraft is also agile at hypersonic speeds, with reliable engine starts, he said. A half-decade before, he added, developers “could not have even built it even if we conceived of it.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Congo Shuts Down Internet Services ‘Indefinitely’

On Saturday Engadget wrote: Authoritarian leaders are fond of severing communications in a bid to hold on to power, and that tradition sadly isn’t going away. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government has ordered telecoms to cut internet and SMS access ahead of planned mass protests against President Joseph Kabila, whose administration has continuously delayed elections to replace him. Telecom minister Emery Okundji told Reuters that it was a response to “violence that is being prepared, ” but people aren’t buying that argument. Officials had already banned demonstrations, and the country has history of cutting communications and blocking social network access in a bid to quash dissent. And today in the wake of deadly protests, Congo announced that the internet shutdown will continue “indefinitely.” The New York Times reports: At least eight people were killed and a dozen altar boys arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after security forces cracked down on planned church protests against President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to leave office before coming elections… Congolese security forces set up checkpoints across Kinshasa, and the government issued an order to shut down text messaging and internet services indefinitely across the country for what it called “reasons of state security.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Congo Shuts Down Internet Services ‘Indefinitely’

John Scalzi’s ‘Old Man’s War’ sci-fi series is headed to Netflix

Award-winning science fiction author John Scalzi famously chose military SF for his Old Man’s War series because it was a marketable sub-genre . Lucky for us that he did, as the eventual six-book series has been a critical and commercial success. According to a report from Deadline , Netflix has just acquired the first novel with intentions to make it into a film. In the Old Man’s War universe, set hundreds of years from now, older people are given a loaded choice. Either age and die on Earth or get healthy young bodies that are conscripted into the military to fight space aliens. Protagonist John Perry makes the obvious choice and becomes a high-octane space marine who ends up being pretty good at leading troops into battle. Of course, all is not as it seems, and Perry begins to piece together what’s really going on. The engaging story will likely make a good movie, provided it’s done right (looking at you, Ender’s Game ). The film is being produced by John Shestak Productions ( Air Force One , Dan in Real Life ) and Madhouse Entertainment . Source: Deadline

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John Scalzi’s ‘Old Man’s War’ sci-fi series is headed to Netflix

A Stable Plasma Ring Has Been Created In Open Air For the First Time Ever

New submitter mrcoder83 shares a report from Futurism: Engineers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have been able to create a stable plasma ring without a container. According to the Caltech press release, it’s “essentially capturing lightning in a bottle, but without the bottle.” This remarkable feat was achieved using only a stream of water and a crystal plate, made from either quartz and lithium niobate. The union of these tools induced a type of contact electrification known as the triboelectric effect. The researchers blasted the crystal plate with an 85-micron-diameter jet of water (narrower than a human hair) from a specially designed nozzle. The water hit the crystal plate with a pressure of 632.7 kilograms of force per centimeter (9, 000 pounds per square inch), generating an impact velocity of around 305 meters per second (1, 000 feet per second) — as fast as a bullet from a handgun. Plasma was formed as a result of the creation of an electric charge when the water hit the crystal surface. The flow of electrons from the point of contact ionizes the molecules and atoms in the gas area surrounding the water’s surface, forming a donut-shaped glowing plasma that’s dozens of microns in diameter. Caltech posted a video of the plasma ring on their YouTube channel. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A Stable Plasma Ring Has Been Created In Open Air For the First Time Ever

Air Force General: “We’d be dumb not to” fly on SpaceX’s reusable rockets

Enlarge / SpaceX launches the Air Force’s X-38B space plane in September, 2017. (credit: SpaceX) The increasingly warm relationship between the US Air Force and the rocket company SpaceX appears to be approaching full-on bromance levels. The latest words of lavish praise for SpaceX have come from Gen. John W. Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command, which oversees launch operations for the US military and national security sectors. In an interview with Bloomberg, Raymond said the potential savings from reusable rockets like the Falcon 9 booster now being flown and reflown by SpaceX are irresistible. “The market’s going to go that way. We’d be dumb not to,” he said. “What we have to do is make sure we do it smartly.” It would be “absolutely foolish” to not begin using them, Raymond said. Before the military can fly its satellites and other payloads on a previously flown booster, the US military has to certify that SpaceX’s “flight proven” boosters are reliable enough. That process already appears to be underway. “I don’t know how far down the road we’ve gotten, but I am completely committed to launching on a reused rocket, a previously flown rocket, and making sure that we have the processes in place to be able to make sure that we can do that safely,” Raymond told Bloomberg. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

What a Bump Stock Does, and Why People Want Them

Humans will always invent mechanical contrivances that help them solve particular problems. By shaping materials and assembling parts in novel ways, these contrivances increased efficiency, whether they’re eggbeaters, deli slicers or something more nefarious. Here we’re going to look at the bump stock, which Stephen Paddock used to murder 58 people and wound over 500 in Las Vegas, and why people desire them. The Difference Between Fully Automatic and Semi-Automatic With a bolt-action rifle, the operator pulls the trigger, firing a single bullet. The operator must then pull the bolt handle back to eject the shell casing, then move the handle forward to load the next round. With a semi-automatic rifle, the operator pulls the trigger, firing a single bullet. The recoil of the rifle then automatically ejects the casing and loads the next round. This is obviously far faster as the operator is not required to work a bolt handle. With a fully automatic rifle, the operator holds the trigger down and bullets are automatically fed into the barrel, firing for as long as the trigger is held down. This is a magnitude of order faster than semi-automatic operation. What a Bump Stock Does A bump stock replaces the standard stock on a semi-automatic rifle, and allows that rifle to slide backwards within the stock after each shot. Coupled with a forward handle grasped by the operator’s non-trigger hand, what then essentially happens is that the recoil of the rifle sends it backwards into the stock after a shot, and it then bounces back forwards, bumping the trigger into the operator’s stationary trigger finger. In other words, it renders the weapon automatic, firing bullets at a far faster rate than one could possibly pull the trigger. (By some estimates, between six and 12 shots per second. ) From a mechanical perspective, it is fiendishly ingenious. And incredibly deadly. How Do People Get Them? While machine guns are legal, bump stocks are perfectly legal and can be ordered online for as little as $100. That they are legal does not appear to make sense, but the Firearms Technology Branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has deemed them okay for technical reasons you can read in this letter posted by a bump stock retailer. Why do People Want Them? Automatic weapons are a boon to soldiers in combat. Where do they fit within the context of civilian life? Hunting? No. Even the most artless hunter would agree that fully automatic fire has no utility when one is killing an animal for food; venison isn’t much good when it’s riddled with 5.56mm rounds. Entertainment For some people, firing a fully automatic weapon presumably confers a thrill. This is why businesses like Machine Guns Vegas, a gun range that allows patrons to fire fully automatic weapons in a controlled environment, exist. “Machine Guns Vegas is the only Vegas-lounge experience that lets you fire the kind of kick-ass artillery you’ve seen in the hands of the highly-skilled SEAL and Delta Force teams, ” the company writes. From modern machine guns to historical handguns, you’ll get the real feel of what it’s like to clear a room with just a pull of the trigger. This isn’t a walk-in gun store or dimly-lit shooting gallery. Machine Guns Vegas is a sensory experience that will rock your thrill index with every shot you take. Following Paddock’s killing spree, even the co-owner of Machine Guns Vegas, Genghis Cohen, called for stricter gun laws. “One guy sat in a hotel room with 23 guns and managed to kill or injure 600 people, ” Cohen told The Guardian . “They say he was using 60 to 100 round magazines. Why does a 64-year-old man, who is not in the military or in the police department…need a gun that can basically fire fully automatically?” Cohen, who briefly closed the business after the shooting, was met with this: “The company has been targeted with ‘fuck you’ hate mail from seething gun enthusiasts who do not believe he should have closed for two days.” Fear It is important to note that there are otherwise law-abiding citizens in this country who actually believe that one day the government is going to attack them to take their weapons away by force. They believe this and will tell you so. Others cite the need to defend their homes and families, linking to YouTube videos of security footage capturing horrifically violent home invasions. Well-equipped weapons, they feel, will keep them safe. Something More Troublesome To understand the mindset of someone who wants to purchase bump stocks, let’s look at how Slide Fire, a bump stock manufacturer, markets them to its target audience. Listen carefully to the language: What is your reaction to that video? In my own limited experience, the people I have met that I could classify as hardcore gun enthusiasts, and their fervently anti-gun opponents, have little concept of the others’ beliefs. Without a grasp of these beliefs, however outlandishly one side views the other, I suspect that little can be accomplished within the sphere of reasoned debate or legislative adjustments. We will leave the topic of legislation to more politically-oriented websites. Here we looked at a technical solution to the “problem” of not being able to fire bullets fast enough. In the next entry, we’ll look at technical suggestions, supplied by design-minded readers, on how an attack like Paddock’s might be stopped in future.

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What a Bump Stock Does, and Why People Want Them

Russia Suspected In GPS-Spoofing Attacks On Ships

How did a 37-ton tanker suddenly vanish from GPS off the coast of Russia? AmiMoJo shares a report from Wired: The ship’s systems located it 25 to 30 miles away — at Gelendzhik airport… The Atria wasn’t the only ship affected by the problem… At the time, Atria’s AIS system showed around 20 to 25 large boats were also marooned at Gelendzhik airport. Worried about the situation, captain Le Meur radioed the ships. The responses all confirmed the same thing: something, or someone, was meddling with the their GPS… After trawling through AIS data from recent years, evidence of spoofing becomes clear. GPS data has placed ships at three different airports and there have been other interesting anomalies. “We would find very large oil tankers who could travel at the maximum speed at 15 knots, ” said a former director for Marine Transportation Systems at the U.S. Coast Guard. “Their AIS, which is powered by GPS, would be saying they had sped up to 60 to 65 knots for an hour and then suddenly stopped. They had done that several times”… “It looks like a sophisticated attack, by somebody who knew what they were doing and were just testing the system…” says Lukasz Bonenberg from the University of Nottingham’s Geospatial Institute. “You basically need to have atomic level clocks.” The U.S. Maritime Administration confirms 20 ships have been affected — all traveling in the Black Sea — though a U.S. Coast Guard representative “refused to comment on the incident, saying any GPS disruption that warranted further investigation would be passed onto the Department of Defence.” But the captain of the 37-ton tanker already has his own suspicions. “It looks like the Russians define an area where they don’t want the GPS to apply.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Russia Suspected In GPS-Spoofing Attacks On Ships

Mystery of Sonic Weapon Attacks At US Embassy In Cuba Deepens

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he’d walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room. Soon came the hearing loss, and the speech problems, symptoms both similar and altogether different from others among at least 21 U.S. victims in an astonishing international mystery still unfolding in Cuba. The top U.S. diplomat has called them “health attacks.” New details learned by the Associated Press indicate at least some of the incidents were confined to specific rooms or even parts of rooms with laser-like specificity, baffling U.S. officials who say the facts and the physics don’t add up. Suspicion initially focused on a sonic weapon, and on the Cubans. Yet the diagnosis of mild brain injury, considered unlikely to result from sound, has confounded the FBI, the state department and U.S. intelligence agencies involved in the investigation. Some victims now have problems concentrating or recalling specific words, several officials said, the latest signs of more serious damage than the U.S. government initially realized. The United States first acknowledged the attacks in August — nine months after symptoms were first reported. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mystery of Sonic Weapon Attacks At US Embassy In Cuba Deepens

60,000 Germans Evacuate While Officials Try To Defuse a WWII Bomb

More than 70 years ago the UK’s Royal Air Force dropped an 1, 100-pound bomb on Germany. They just found it. An anonymous reader quotes ABC: Residents in two German cities are evacuating their homes as authorities prepare to dispose of World War II-era bombs found during construction work this week. About 21, 000 people have been ordered to leave their homes and workplaces in the western city of Koblenz as a precaution before specialists attempt to defuse the 500-kilogram bomb on Saturday afternoon (local time). Among those moved to safety are prison inmates and hospital patients. Officials in the financial capital Frankfurt, meanwhile, are carrying out what is described as Germany’s biggest evacuation. Frankfurt city officials have said more than 60, 000 residents will have to leave their homes for at least 12 hours. Failure to defuse the bomb could cause a big enough explosion to flatten a city block, a fire department official said. “This bomb has more than 1.4 tonnes of explosives, ” Frankfurt fire chief Reinhard Ries said. “It’s not just fragments that are the problem, but also the pressure that it creates that would dismantle all the buildings in a 100-metre radius”… Police will ring every doorbell and use helicopters with heat-sensing cameras to make sure nobody is left behind before they start diffusing the bomb. Reuters notes that every year Germany discovers more than 2, 000 tons of live bombs and munitions, adding “In July, a kindergarten was evacuated after teachers discovered an unexploded World War Two bomb on a shelf among some toys.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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60,000 Germans Evacuate While Officials Try To Defuse a WWII Bomb

IRS Now Has a Tool To Unmask Bitcoin Tax Evaders

SonicSpike shares a report from The Daily Beast: You can use bitcoin. But you can’t hide from the taxman. At least, that’s the hope of the Internal Revenue Service, which has purchased specialist software to track those using bitcoin, according to a contract obtained by The Daily Beast. The document highlights how law enforcement isn’t only concerned with criminals accumulating bitcoin from selling drugs or hacking targets, but also those who use the currency to hide wealth or avoid paying taxes. The IRS has claimed that only 802 people declared bitcoin losses or profits in 2015; clearly fewer than the actual number of people trading the cryptocurrency — especially as more investors dip into the world of cryptocurrencies, and the value of bitcoin punches past the $4, 000 mark. Maybe lots of bitcoin traders didn’t realize the government expects to collect tax on their digital earnings, or perhaps some thought they’d be able to get away with stockpiling bitcoin thanks to the perception that the cryptocurrency is largely anonymous. “The purpose of this acquisition is to help us trace the movement of money through the bitcoin economy, ” a section of the contract reads. The Daily Beast obtained the document through the Freedom of Information Act. The contractor in this case is Chainalysis, a startup offering its “Reactor” tool to visualize, track, and analyze bitcoin transactions. Chainalysis’ users include law enforcement agencies, banks, and regulatory entities. The software can follow bitcoin as it moves from one wallet to another, and eventually to an exchange where the bitcoin user will likely cash out into dollars or another currency. This is the point law enforcement could issue a subpoena to the exchange and figure out who is really behind the bitcoin. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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IRS Now Has a Tool To Unmask Bitcoin Tax Evaders