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U.S. to reconsider use of drones in Pakistan
In the last twenty-four months, U.S. drones have killed some 1,000 militants — but also about 600 civilians; in an effort to shore up fraying relationship with Pakistan, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan said the United States would examine the continued use of drones in the war against the militants; Pakistani prime minister Asif Ali Zardari said the drone war has destabilized Pakistan and made political and economic reforms more difficult to accomplish
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Rebels may sell missiles to finance campaign
In a congressional testimony, General Carter Ham, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, underscored the threat from shoulder-fired missiles looted from Libyan arms depots; Gen. Ham estimated that 20,000 of these missiles may have been in Libya at the time of the uprising; carried and fired by a single fighter, these missiles travel at supersonic speeds from a shoulder-fired launcher toward the heat signature of an aircraft engine, where they detonate
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Report finds Coast Guard unprepared for BP oil spill
An internal review by the U.S. Coast Guard found that its response to the colossal Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year was hindered by its lack of preparation and reduced response capabilities; the 158 page review said that the government and private sector “demonstrated a serious deficiency in planning and preparedness for an uncontrolled release of oil from an offshore drilling operation”; in response to the review, R. J. Rapp Jr., the commandant of the Coast guard, said that his agency would pay greater attention to industry oil-spill response plans, begin preparing for future accidents, and conduct a study on the large use of chemical dispersants on the environment
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Hi-tech goggles to reduce number of friendly fire incidents
The modern battle-field is saturated with autonomous, remotely controlled platforms and weapons, and everything moves very fast; in addition, many of the engagements take place in close quarters; all these increase the risk of friendly fire; DARPA wants a small New York company to develop augmented reality goggles which will tell soldiers on the ground which air assets are nearby, bearing which weapons, thus resulting in more accurate destruction of enemy assets, less risk to friendly forces, and fewer civilian deaths
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New method for lifting latent fingerprints
A team of researchers at Nanjing University of Technology has developed a new process for especially rapid and simple detection of fingerprints; all it takes is a special nanofiber mat that is pressed onto the suspect surface and briefly treated with hot air — the fingerprints appear as red ridge patterns
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Anti-counterfeiting solution maker expands scientific teams
According to a 2011 report published by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), global counterfeiting losses are forecasted to grow to as high as $1.7 trillion by 2017; the economic impact of this on the U.S. economy alone is estimated to be $775 billion per year; there is thus a growing demand for anti-counterfeiting solutions, including SigNature® DNA from Applied DNA Sciences; the company is expanding its forensic scientific group
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Local police wear vests at all times to receive Justice funds
The Justice Department has said that it will withhold federal funding for local police departments to purchase body armor unless they make it a requirement that all uniformed officers wear the armor; last year, the Justice Department distributed $37 million to reimburse more than 4,000 local agencies across the country for the purchase of nearly 200,000 vests; the new requirement comes after a sharp increase in the fatal shootings of police officers while on duty; there was a 44 percent increase in the number of fatal police shootings last year and a recent study showed that 41 percent of police departments do not require officers to wear body armor
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DHS: U.S. unprepared for nuclear disaster
Confidential DHS report says the United States is ill-prepared for a nuclear disaster — either an accident or a terrorist attack; just one example: if a major nuclear bomb were to hit Washington, D.C., there would be a need for about 61,000 beds in intensive care units; there are, however, only 118,000 intensive care beds in the entire United States and, on any given day, only 9,400 are free.
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Spate of dry-ice bombs explosions in Long Beach, Calif.
A Long Beach officer is injured after an investigation of a dry-ice bomb left in an alley; a dry ice bomb is a homemade device that uses water, a bottle and dry ice, or frozen carbon dioxide; it can take anywhere from thirty seconds to an hour for a dry-ice bomb to rupture, depending on temperatures outside of the bottle
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New FBI database improves accuracy, speed
Police across the United States can now compare prints to the much larger FBI database of seventy million prints in about ten minutes for a high-priority case, a half-hour for routine cases; civil fingerprint checks, such as those done for employment background screening, used to take twenty-four hours but can now be done in as little as fifteen minutes
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Man smuggles 600 snakes, reptiles on bus
Acting on tip-off, police in Argentina searched the luggage of a bus passenger traveling from Santiago del Estero to Buenos Aires; the luggage contained 444 boas, vipers, and other snakes; 186 endangered tortoises; 40 lizards, and an armadillo
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New Zealand company to offer personal jet packs
A New Zealand company has successfully tested a jet pack, and will soon make it commercially available for about £50,000; in tests, the pack, which weighs less than 254 pounds, traveled 30 miles in 30 minutes on a full tank of fuel; it reached heights of up to 2,400 meters and top speeds of 60 mph; the company said the pack could be perfect for the emergency services, private users, and even the military
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Wastewater employee charged with terrorism after idling plant
A 43-year old waste water facility employee was the sole employee during the night shift at the massive Greenfield Water Reclamation Plant in Gilbert, Arizona; last Friday night, armed with a hand gun, the employee walked through the facility alone, methodically turning off major operating systems at the plant; left untreated, the sewage in the system would cause a buildup of methane gas, which could cause a huge explosion; after a 2-hour stand-off, the police arrested the man, allowing other employees to turn on the treatment systems; the employee is being held on a $250,000 bond, charged with terrorism
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Austin police officers equipped with wearable cameras
For years, law enforcement has relied on dash cams to record what happens when officers step out of their vehicles; now, that technology is being upgraded to the next level in the form of body cams police officers can wear
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Portable military barriers help Canadian city in flood fight
Canada is using a new technology to prevent flood damage in Manitoba; the one-meter-square wire cages can be unfolded and quickly filled with dirt or mud; they can also be linked for a long row that can be set up far quicker than it takes to sling sandbags; the barriers have been used by the U.S. military to protect embassies from terrorist attacks, and have also been used for flood protection in the United States
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More headlines
The long view
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Using Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.