Lab Leaks, Hacked Drones, Flawed Models, and Explaining UFO Sightings

If, on the other hand, SARS2 emerged from a lab, then the lesson is the opposite. Covid-19 would be, at the bare minimum, the direct result of our failure to heed prior warnings about the possibility of such an accident. Lab leaks are not uncommon, so making already dangerous viruses even more dangerous is a recipe for disaster. If, therefore, we want to avoid a pandemic from happening again, obviously we would need to curtail this research.

2. Hacked Drones and Busted Logistics Are the Cyber Future of Warfare
Bruce Schneier and Tarah Wheeler writes for Brookings:

“If you think any of these systems are going to work as expected in wartime, you’re fooling yourself.”

That was Bruce Schneier’s response at a conference hosted by U.S. Transportation Command in 2017, after learning that their computerized logistical systems were mostly unclassified and on the internet. That may be necessary to keep in touch with civilian companies like FedEx in peacetime or when fighting terrorists or insurgents. But in a new era facing off with China or Russia, it is dangerously complacent.

Any 21st century war will include cyber operations. Weapons and support systems will be successfully attacked. Rifles and pistols won’t work properly. Drones will be hijacked midair. Boats won’t sail, or will be misdirected. Hospitals won’t function. Equipment and supplies will arrive late or not at all.

Our military systems are vulnerable. We need to face that reality by halting the purchase of insecure weapons and support systems and by incorporating the realities of offensive cyberattacks into our military planning.

3. Sorry Sage, but Given Your Record on Modelling, Why Should We Listen to You over June 21?
Ross Clark writes in The Telegraph:

There have been many winners and losers from Covid, but there is one group who still seem to be counted among the former when they really deserve to be among the latter. They are the modelers: the scientists who have spent the past 15 months producing graphs showing gruesome forecasts of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. [Downing Street has treated modelers] like the oracles of ancient Greece, their models treated as scientific fact even when they have been shown to be wrong.

Their work has been used to take us into repeated lockdowns and, it seems, may yet deny us the chance to return to more or less normal life on 21 June.

….

Scientific modelling has its uses, but the problems arise when it is mistaken for observational fact. Models are really just crude approximations of the real world, involving multiple assumptions along the way. The models, inevitably, are only as good as those assumptions.

….

For all its failures, we seem to have developed a reverence for modelling… In the absence of useful information we tend to reach out for whatever is available – even if we know deep down that it is little better than guesswork…. We would do ourselves a favor if we came round to realizing what NHS trusts have belatedly done: that scientific modelling does not give us facts, just vague scenarios which we should be treating with great skepticism.

4. The Unclassified Version of the UFO Report is Hitting the Desks of U.S. Lawmakers
Peter Suciu writes in the National Interest:

Later this month, U.S. lawmakers will get to learn a bit more on what may be “out there,” as top intelligence and military officials are now scheduled to release a report addressing so-called “Unexplained Aerial Phenomena” or UAPs. The highly-anticipated unclassified report will provide insight into what is actually known about the UAPs – which are more commonly known still as UFOs.

It isn’t clear if the reports will shed any light on recent military encounters with UAPs as it relates to proof of contact with “extraterrestrial life.” However, the report – which was commissioned by Congress – has already garnered so much attention that speculation has run rampant on what it may actually reveal about the UAPs when it is finally released.

Originally slated to be released on June 1, the report is running late. There is already speculation that this is because of what is “known.” However, as the law directing intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense (DoD) to create the study was not technically binding, there has been leeway in when it will be released. The preparation of this report is notable however in that UFOs or UAPs have gained renewed interest in the public consciousness following the U.S. Navy’s release of once-classified videos of encounters with such UAPs in recent years.

Those “close encounters” haven’t been fully explained by military officials.