Howard Altman writes via The Drive: In an effort to protect those with information about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and increase the influx of reports about them, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc) has introduced (PDF) an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. "The amendment would establish a process within the government for reporting UAPs and provide whistleblower-like protections," Gallagher's spokesman Jordan Dunn told The War Zone Thursday morning. For a multitude of reasons, U.S. troops and government contractors have traditionally been reluctant to come forward with information about these incidents, regardless of their validity. Beyond that, there have also been long-standing allegations that the government and defense contractors could be hiding previous UFO-related programs and evidence. This would allow those with information to come forward without retribution. Some have even posited that language like that in Gallagher's amendment could lead to "UFO disclosure."

In essence, it says that regardless of any previous written or oral non-disclosure agreements "that could be interpreted as a legal constraint on reporting by a witness of an unidentified aerial phenomena," those with information about UAPs, more commonly known as UFOs, would not be violating federal classified information laws if they come forward. The amendment also calls for the head of the new Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), tasked with investigating UAPs on behalf of the Defense Secretary and Director of National Intelligence, to establish "a secure system" for receiving reports of "any events relating to" UAPs and any government or government contractor activity or program related to UAPs. The reporting system shall be administered by "designated and widely known, easily accessible, and appropriately cleared Department of Defense and intelligence community employees or contractors" as part of AOIMSG, which is a much enhanced and more deeply mandated effort that replaced the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.

Any information would first be screened "to prevent unauthorized public reporting or compromise of properly classified military and intelligence systems, programs, and related activity, including all categories and levels of special access and compartmented access programs, current, historical, and future." However, federal agencies and contractors working with the government would be precluded from taking actions, including suspending security clearances, for those who report UAP incidents and information. And those who are retaliated against "may bring a private civil action for all appropriate remedies, including injunctive relief and compensatory and punitive damages, against the Government or other employer who took the personnel action, in the United States Court of Federal Claims," the amendment states.

Airbus is conducting a very-high-altitude flight of its uncrewed Zephyr S solar-powered aircraft, a report from The Drive reveals. It is more than 17 days into the flight. Interesting Engineering reports: The Zephyr S aircraft, which has also been described as a drone and a pseudo-satellite, took off from the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona in June. It was built to stay airborne for long stretches, allowing it to serve as a sensor platform for the military. The Zephyr S was spotted on online flight tracking software after it took off from an airstrip at Yuma Proving Ground on June 15. The aircraft has since flown several patterns over the Yuma Test Range and Kofa National Wildfire Refuge.

Airbus has been running Zephyr S test flights over this area for some time, but according to the flight tracking data, the drone also started conducting runs to the southeast near Arizona's border and the southwest toward the Gulf of Mexico. On June 27, Zephyr S flew over the Gulf of Mexico before flying over the Caribbean Sea and then onto the airspace over the Central American country of Belize. Last week, the aircraft turned back towards the U.S. When the Zephyr S first flew in 2018, it remained in the skies for almost 26 days. Whether the latest flight will go on even longer than that world-record milestone is yet to be confirmed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: In May 2021, a celebration for Portsmouth, New Hampshire's new $17m water treatment facility drew local and national officials who declared the city's water free of toxic "forever chemicals." Firefighting foam from the nearby Pease air force base had polluted the water for decades with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and in recognition of the public health threat the US military funded the city's new filtration system. Officials said after implementing the upgraded filtration, testing no longer found detectable levels of PFAS chemicals in the water. They called the work in Portsmouth a "national model" for addressing PFAS water contamination. "We are here to celebrate clean water," Senator Maggie Hassan said at the time. But the water may not be clean after all.

A Guardian analysis of water samples taken in Portsmouth and from eight other locations around the United States shows that the type of water testing relied on by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- and officials in towns such as Portsmouth -- is so limited in scope that it is probably missing significant levels of PFAS pollutants. The undercount leaves regulators with an incomplete picture of the extent of PFAS contamination and reveals how millions of people may be facing an unknown health risk in their drinking water.

The analysis checked water samples from PFAS hot spots around the country with two types of tests: an EPA-developed method that detects 30 types of the approximately 9,000 PFAS compounds, and another that checks for a marker of all PFAS. The Guardian found that seven of the nine samples collected showed higher levels of PFAS in water using the test that identifies markers for PFAS, than levels found when the water was tested using the EPA method -- and at concentrations as much as 24 times greater. "The EPA is doing the bare minimum it can and that's putting people's health at risk," said Kyla Bennett, policy director at the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "PFAS are a class of chemicals used since the 1950s to make thousands of products repel water, stains and heat," notes the Guardian. "They are often called 'forever chemicals' because they don't fully break down, accumulating in the environment, humans and animals. Some are toxic at very low levels and have been linked to cancer, birth defects, kidney disease, liver problems, decreased immunity and other serious health issues."

"[W]hen it comes to identifying PFAS-contaminated water, the limitations of the test used by state and federal regulators, which is called the EPA 537 method, virtually guarantees regulators will never have a full picture of contamination levels as industry churns out new compounds much faster than researchers can develop the science to measure them," adds the report. "That creates even more incentive for industry to shift away from older compounds: if chemical companies produce newer PFAS, regulators won't be able to find the pollution."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The heads of UK and US security services have made an unprecedented joint appearance to warn of the threat from China. FBI director Christopher Wray said China was the "biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security" and had interfered in politics, including recent elections. MI5 head Ken McCallum said his service had more than doubled its work against Chinese activity in the last three years and would be doubling it again. MI5 is now running seven times as many investigations related to activities of the Chinese Communist Party compared to 2018, he added. The FBI's Wray warned that if China was to forcibly take Taiwan it would "represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen."

The first ever joint public appearance by the two directors came at MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London. McCallum also said the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party was "game-changing," while Wray called it "immense" and "breath-taking." Wray warned the audience -- which included chief executives of businesses and senior figures from universities -- that the Chinese government was "set on stealing your technology" using a range of tools. He said it posed "an even more serious threat to western businesses than even many sophisticated businesspeople realized." He cited cases in which people linked to Chinese companies out in rural America had been digging up genetically modified seeds which would have cost them billions of dollars and nearly a decade to develop themselves. He also said China deployed cyber espionage to "cheat and steal on a massive scale," with a hacking program larger than that of every other major country combined.

The MI5 head said intelligence about cyber threats had been shared with 37 countries and that in May a sophisticated threat against aerospace had been disrupted. McCallum also pointed to a series of examples linked to China. [...] The MI5 head said new legislation would help to deal with the threat but the UK also needed to become a "harder target" by ensuring that all parts of society were more aware of the risks. He said that reform of the visa system had seen over 50 students linked to the Chinese military leaving the UK. "China has for far too long counted on being everybody's second-highest priority," Wray said, adding: "They are not flying under the radar anymore."

Edge Autonomy announced a deal with the US Department of Defense (DoD) to produce an unspecified amount of long-endurance Penguin drones for the US Army. From a report: The company manufactures a range of light drones capable of carrying a range of payloads for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), as well as targeting. Edge Autonomy's press release indicates that the company has previously supplied its products to the DoD. However, it did not disclose the extent of either the new or existing orders. Penguin C, one of the models the company manufactures, has a payload capacity of 25 kilograms (55 pounds), a range of 180 kilometers (112 miles) and a payload-dependent endurance of up to 25 hours. While outwardly similar to the famous Bayraktar TB2, the Penguin is significantly smaller and occupies a different niche while retaining similar endurance.

On Tuesday Brendan Carr, a commissioner on America's Federal Communications Commission,warned on Twitter that TikTok, owned by China-based company ByteDance, "doesn't just see its users dance videos: It collects search and browsing histories, keystroke patterns, biometric identifiers, draft messages and metadata, plus it has collected the text, images, and videos that are stored on a device's clipboard. Tiktok's pattern of misrepresentations coupled with its ownership by an entity beholden to the Chinese Community Party has resulted in U.S. military branches and national security agencies banning it from government devices.... The CCP has a track record longer than a CVS receipt of conducting business & industrial espionage as well as other actions contrary to U.S. national security, which is what makes it so troubling that personnel in Beijing are accessing this sensitive and personnel data.
Today CNN interviewed Carr, while also bringing viewers an update. TikTok's China-based employees accessed data on U.S. TikTok users, BuzzFeed had reported — after which TikTok announced it intends to move backup data to servers in the U.S., allowing them to eventually delete U.S. data from their servers. But days later Republican Senator Blackburn was still arguing to Bloomberg that "Americans need to know if they are on TikTok, communist China has their information."

And FCC commissioner Carr told CNN he remains suspicious too: Carr: For years TikTok has been asked directly by U.S. lawmakers, 'Is any information, any data, being accessed by personnel back in Beijing?' And rather than being forthright and saying 'Yes, and here's the extent of it and here's why we don't think it's a problem,' they've repeatedly said 'All U.S. user data is stored in the U.S.," leaving people with the impression that there's no access.... This recent bombshell reporting from BuzzFeed shows at least some of the extent to which massive amounts of data has allegedy been going back to Beijing.

And that's a problem, and not just a national security problem. But to me it looks like a violation of the terms of the app store, and that's why I wrote a letter to Google and Apple saying that they should remove TikTok and boot them out of the app store... I've left them until July 8th to give me a response, so we'll see what they say. I look forward to hearing from them. But there's precedence for this. Before when applications have taken data surreptitiously and put it in servers in China or otherwise been used for reasons other than servicing the application itself, they have booted them from the app store. And so I would hope that they would just apply the plain terms of their policy here.
When CNN points out the FCC doesn't have jurisdiction over social media, Carr notes "speaking for myself as one member" they've developed "expertise in terms of understanding how the CCP can effectively take data and infiltrate U.S. communications' networks. And he points out that the issue is also being raised by Congressional hearings and by Republican and Democrat Senators signing joint letters together, so "I'm just one piece of a broader federal effort that's looking at the very serious risks that come from TikTok." Carr: At the end of the day, it functions as sophisticated surveillance tool that is harvesting vast amounts of data on U.S. users. And I think TikTok should answer point-blank, has any CCP member obtained non-public user data or viewed it. Not to answer with a dodge, and say they've never been asked for it or never received a request. Can they say no, no CCP member has ever seen non-public U.S. user data.
Carr's appearance was followed by an appearance by TikTok's VP and head of public policy for the Americas. But this afternoon Carr said on Twitter that TikTok's response contradicted its own past statements: Today, a TikTok exec said it was "simply false" for me to say that they collect faceprints, browsing history, & keystroke patterns.

Except, I was quoting directly from TikTok's own disclosures.

TikTok's concerning pattern of misrepresentations about U.S. user data continues.

"A metallic NATO is starting to take shape," writes the senior metals columnist at Reuters, "though no-one is calling it that just yet." The Minerals Security Partnership is in theory open to all countries that are committed to "responsible critical mineral supply chains to support economic prosperity and climate objectives". But the coalition assembled by the United States is one of like-minded countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany with an Asian axis in the form of Japan and South Korea. [Also the European Commission, as well as Finland and Sweden.]

It is defined as much as anything by who is not on the invite list — China and Russia.

China's dominance of key enabling minerals such as lithium and rare earths is the single biggest reason why Western countries are looking to build their own supply chains. Russia, a major producer of nickel, aluminium and platinum group metals, is now also a highly problematic trading partner as its war in Ukraine that the Kremlin calls a "special military operation" grinds on. A previously highly globalised minerals supply network looks set to split into politically polarised spheres of influence, a tectonic realignment with far-reaching implications. The United States and Europe have realised that they can't build out purely domestic supply chains quickly enough to meet demand from the electric vehicle transition....

The process was already well underway before the U.S. State Department announced the formation of the Minerals Security Partnership on June 14. U.S. and Canadian officials have been working closely as Canada fleshes out a promised C$3.8 billion ($3.02 billion) package to boost production of lithium, copper and other strategic minerals. European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic has just been in Norway to seal "a strategic partnership" on battery technologies and critical raw materials.
The article points out America's Department of Defense is already investing $120 million in a new plant for heavy rare earths separation — and has chosen an Australian company as its partner.

Shortly thereafter the Defense Department noted an online disinformation campaign against its new partner (according to U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant), disinformation which Reuters describes as "a pro-China propaganda campaign" using fake social media accounts to try to stir up opposition.

A flight test of a hypersonic missile system in Hawaii ended in failure due to a problem that took place after ignition, the Department of Defense said, delivering a fresh blow to a program that has suffered stumbles. Bloomberg reports: It didn't provide further details of what took place in the Wednesday test, but said in a statement sent by email "the Department remains confident that it is on track to field offensive and defensive hypersonic capabilities on target dates beginning in the early 2020s." [...] The trial marked the second unsuccessful test flight of the prototype weapon known as Conventional Prompt Strike. There was a booster failure in its first flight test in October, which prevented the missile from leaving the launch pad. The Conventional Prompt Strike weapon is envisioned to be installed on Zumwalt destroyers and Virginia-class submarines. "An anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset," Pentagon spokesman Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman said in the statement. "Program officials have initiated a review to determine the cause to inform future tests." he said. "While the Department was unable to collect data on the entirety of the planned flight profile, the information gathered from this event will provide vital insights."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: The day after Russia's February invasion of Ukraine, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner sent a letter (PDF) to Google warning it to be on alert for "exploitation of your platform by Russia and Russian-linked entities," and calling on the company to audit its advertising business's compliance with economic sanctions. But as recently as June 23, Google was sharing potentially sensitive user data with a sanctioned Russian ad tech company owned by Russia's largest state bank, according to a new report provided to ProPublica.

Google allowed RuTarget, a Russian company that helps brands and agencies buy digital ads, to access and store data about people browsing websites and apps in Ukraine and other parts of the world, according to research from digital ad analysis firm Adalytics. Adalytics identified close to 700 examples of RuTarget receiving user data from Google after the company was added to a U.S. Treasury list of sanctioned entities on Feb. 24. The data sharing between Google and RuTarget stopped four months later on June 23, the day ProPublica contacted Google about the activity.

RuTarget, which also operates under the name Segmento, is owned by Sberbank, a Russian state bank that the Treasury described as "uniquely important" to the country's economy when it hit the lender with initial sanctions. RuTarget was later listed in an April 6 Treasury announcement that imposed full blocking sanctions on Sberbank and other Russian entities and people. The sanctions mean U.S. individuals and entities are not supposed to conduct business with RuTarget or Sberbank. Of particular concern, the analysis showed that Google shared data with RuTarget about users browsing websites based in Ukraine. This means Google may have turned over such critical information as unique mobile phone IDs, IP addresses, location information and details about users' interests and online activity, data that U.S. senators and experts say could be used by Russian military and intelligence services to track people or zero in on locations of interest. Google spokesperson Michael Aciman told ProPublica that the company blocked RuTarget from using its ad products in March, and that RuTarget has not purchased ads directly via Google since then. "He acknowledged the Russian company was still receiving user and ad buying data from Google before being alerted by ProPublica and Adalytics," adds the report.

"Aciman said this action includes not only preventing RuTarget from further accessing user data, but from purchasing ads through third parties in Russia that may not be sanctioned. He declined to say whether RuTarget had purchased ads via Google systems using such third parties, and he did not comment on whether data about Ukrainians had been shared with RuTarget."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is "the first full-scale battle in which traditional and cyberweapons have been used side by side," reports the New York Times. But the biggest surprise is that "many of the attacks were thwarted, or there was enough redundancy built into the Ukrainian networks that the efforts did little damage... more than two-thirds of them failed, echoing its poor performance on the physical battlefield."

Microsoft president Brad Smith says the ultimate result is Russia's attempted cyberatacks get underreported, according to the Times: [A study published by Microsoft Wednesday] indicated that Ukraine was well prepared to fend off cyberattacks, after having endured them for many years. That was at least in part because of a well-established system of warnings from private-sector companies, including Microsoft and Google, and preparations that included moving much of Ukraine's most important systems to the cloud, onto servers outside Ukraine....

In many instances, Russia coordinated its use of cyberweapons with conventional attacks, including taking down the computer network of a nuclear power plant before moving in its troops to take it over, Mr. Smith said. Microsoft officials declined to identify which plant Mr. Smith was referring to. While much of Russia's cyberactivity has focused on Ukraine, Microsoft has detected 128 network intrusions in 42 countries. Of the 29 percent of Russian attacks that have successfully penetrated a network, Microsoft concluded, only a quarter of those resulted in data being stolen. Outside Ukraine, Russia has concentrated its attacks on the United States, Poland and two aspiring members of NATO, Sweden and Finland...

But Microsoft, other technology companies and government officials have said that Russia has paired those infiltration attempts with a broad effort to deliver propaganda around the world. Microsoft tracked the growth in consumption of Russian propaganda in the United States in the first weeks of the year. It peaked at 82 percent right before the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, with 60 million to 80 million monthly page views. That figure, Microsoft said, rivaled page views on the biggest traditional media sites in the United States. One example Mr. Smith cited was that of Russian propaganda inside Russia pushing its citizens to get vaccinated, while its English-language messaging spread anti-vaccine content. Microsoft also tracked the rise in Russian propaganda in Canada in the weeks before a trucker convoy protesting vaccine mandates tried to shut down Ottawa, and that in New Zealand before protests there against public health measures meant to fight the pandemic.
Russians successfully "sabotaged a satellite communications network called Viasat in the opening days of the war," notes the Washington Post, "with the damage spilling over into other European countries. But Ukraine, working with private tech companies, Western intelligence and its own expert software engineers, has quickly fixed most of the damage..."

"The close partnerships that have emerged between U.S. technology companies and Western cybersecurity agencies is one of the unheralded stories of the war...." "Cyber responses must rely on greater public and private collaboration," argues Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, in a new study... published Wednesday on Microsoft's "lessons learned" from cyber conflict in Ukraine. A White House cyber official explains the new cooperative approach this way: "Where companies see destructive attacks, that has driven partnerships with the intelligence community and other government agencies to see how best we can share information to protect infrastructure around the world." The tech world's sympathies lie with the underdog, Ukraine. That applies to giant firms such as Microsoft and Google....

Ukraine's cybersecurity defense benefited from an early start. U.S. Cyber Command experts went to Ukraine months before the war started, according to its commander, Gen. Paul Nakasone. Microsoft and Google became involved even earlier. Microsoft began monitoring Russian phishing attacks against Ukrainian military networks in early 2021, and through the rest of last year observed increasingly aggressive hacks by six different attackers linked to Russia's three intelligence services, the GRU, SVR and FSB, according to a Microsoft report released in April. Microsoft has spent a total of $239 million on financial and technical assistance to Ukraine, a company official said....

Google, a part of Alphabet, has also helped Ukraine fend off threats. Back in 2014, prompted by Russia's use of DDOS ("distributed denial-of-service") malware in its seizure of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Google began what it called "Project Shield." Software protected news sites, human rights groups and election sites against crippling DDOS floods of junk internet messages. Today, Project Shield is used by 200 sites in Ukraine and 2,300 others in 140 countries around the world, according to Jared Cohen, the chief executive of Google's Jigsaw unit.

Russia has levied dozens of cyber espionage campaigns in 42 countries since it invaded Ukraine in February, according to a new Microsoft report. From a report: The report says those efforts have targeted entities across six continents and primarily focused on NATO allies and groups supporting Ukraine. "The Russian invasion relies in part on a cyber strategy that includes at least three distinct and sometimes coordinated efforts -- destructive cyberattacks within Ukraine, network penetration and espionage outside Ukraine and cyber influence operations targeting people around the world," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in the report. The tech giant previously detailed Russian cyber operations against Ukraine itself during the invasion in April. Sixty-three percent of the observed Russian activity in the 42 countries beyond Ukraine targeted NATO members, according to the new report. The United States has been Russia's top target, but the company also noted a large amount of activity in Poland -- which borders Ukraine and has provided significant military and humanitarian assistance to the country -- as well as the Baltic states.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense plans to begin testing of a Medium Robotic Combat Vehicle (M-RCV) next year. New Atlas reports: Developed by the Ministry of Defense's Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D), the Tank and APC Directorate, and Israeli security industries, the robotic tank is based on a new robotic platform type BLR-2 made by Israeli firm BL. It features a 30-mm autonomous turret originally developed by the Tank and APC Directorate for the Eitan armored personnel carrier; the Elbit Iron Fist Active Protection System, which is a smaller, mountable version of the Iron Dome anti-projectile defense system; fire control and mission management systems; a robotic autonomous operations kit; and active and passive sensors for situational awareness.

In addition, the robotic vehicle carries a capsuled drone that it can deploy and retrieve for forward reconnaissance missions. It can also carry a variety of heavy loads, as well as an Israeli Aerospace Industries missile launcher and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Spike missiles. According to Elbit, the robot can operate in all weathers in a largely autonomous mode and can integrate with uncrewed battlefield arrays. Field tests in representative scenarios are scheduled to start in 2023. You can view the M-RCV in action here.

Unidentified operatives have been using the fitness tracking app Strava to spy on members of the Israeli military, tracking their movements across secret bases around the country and potentially observing them as they travel the world on official business. From a report: By placing fake running "segments" inside military bases, the operation -- the affiliation of which has not been uncovered -- was able to keep tabs on individuals who were exercising on the bases, even those who have applied the strongest possible account privacy settings. In one example seen by the Guardian, a user running on a top-secret base thought to have links to the Israeli nuclear programme could be tracked across other military bases and to a foreign country.

The surveillance campaign was discovered by the Israeli open-source intelligence outfit FakeReporter. The group's executive director, Achiya Schatz, said: "We contacted the Israeli security forces as soon as we became aware of this security breach. After receiving approval from the security forces to proceed, FakeReporter contacted Strava, and they formed a senior team to address the issue." Strava's tracking tools are designed to allow anyone to define and compete over "segments," short sections of a run or bike ride that may be regularly raced over, like a long uphill climb on a popular cycling route or a single circuit of a park. Users can define a segment after uploading it from the Strava app, but can also upload GPS recordings from other products or services.

Newsweek reports: Artificial intelligence has become one of Ukraine's most "effective tools" in identifying potential saboteurs amid the ongoing war with Russia, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The ministry issued a report Wednesday on law enforcement's anti-sabotage activities aimed at stopping people in Ukraine who may compromise the counteroffensive or aid Russia in its assault.

Officers have been using software on tablets to check if a person they view as "suspicious" is already listed in databases, including a police database of about 2 million people suspected of holding positions in paramilitary units from the far-right faction known as the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR)... The ministry said that Ukrainian police have been fighting against such saboteurs ever since Russia invaded Ukraine. "More than 123 counter-sabotage groups were set up, and at least 1,500 people were involved," First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yevgeny Yenin said in a statement, according to an English translation. "And the result was not long in coming: More than 800 people suspected of sabotage and intelligence activities were detained and handed over to the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) for investigation."

The report, citing Yenin, said that the police database on people with suspected ties to the LDPR alone contains a "huge amount" of operational information that law enforcement and partners have compiled. This includes more than 10 billion photos, it said...

Russia has also reportedly contended with sabotage from supporters of Ukraine within its borders.

America's federal agents "have begun questioning U.S. technology companies on how their computer chips ended up in Russian military equipment recovered in Ukraine," reports the Washington Post: Commerce Department agents who enforce export controls are conducting the inquiries together with the FBI, paying joint visits to companies to ask about Western chips and components found in Russian radar systems, drones, tanks, ground-control equipment and littoral ships, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive investigations. "Our goal is to actually try to track that back, all the way back to the U.S. supplier" to determine "how did it find its way into that weapons system," one Commerce Department official said of the probes....

It isn't clear which specific components are being probed. But investigators from a variety of countries have identified Western electronics in Russian weaponry found in Ukraine. Many of those components appear to have been manufactured years ago, before the United States tightened export restrictions after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. But others were manufactured as recently as 2020, according to Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a research group in London that has examined some of the parts....

CAR last month sent investigators to Ukraine to examine Russian weaponry and communications equipment, and reported finding components from 70 companies based in the United States and Europe. They found the parts in military radios, airborne defense systems and in remnants of cruise missiles that the Ukrainians recovered in various towns and villages, Damien Spleeters, one of the CAR investigators, said in an interview.
An associate professor of electrical/computer engineering at Purdue tells the Post "Most of the items they are listing are available through any commercial computer parts supplier or digital parts supplier."

But the Post spoke to a lawyer representing one of the contacted technology companies. "Among the questions federal agents are asking: whether tech companies sold their products to a specific list of companies, including middlemen, that may have been involved in the supply chain."

Jakub Kaminski is a robotics engineering graduate student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. With some volunteers he spent two months designing the perfect tourniquet for the battlefields of Ukraine, designed meet the highest medical standards — and then uploaded it to 3DPrintingForUkraine.com.

Now in less than 8 weeks "around 120 individuals and companies worldwide with 3D printers have accessed the design," reports the Washington Post. [Alternate URL here] "Together, they have made roughly 5,000 reusable tourniquets that are bound for Ukraine, where they will be stitched and sent off to the battlefield, Kaminski said..." Using digital files, people are designing supplies such as bandages, tourniquets, splints and add-ons to AK-47 guns.... [In February, as Russia began its invasion] people in the 3D-printing community talked with Ukrainian military officials, hospital administrators and charity organizations, trying to gauge what they could print quickly that would be most helpful. Tourniquets and bandages were repeated requests. Mykhailo Shulhan, the chief operating officer of a Ukrainian 3D-printing company in Lviv, said that as soon as the invasion began, he started researching how 3D printers helped in other conflicts....

These days, his company, 3D Tech Addtive, develops and prints an array of weapons accessories: AK-47 holsters so soldiers have a way to rest their guns; bullet magazines since empty cartridges often get thrown away instead of reused; carrying bags for grenades; and most recently, anti-reflective lenses for sniper scopes to reduce glare and prevent Ukrainian snipers from being seen. (All together, they have provided over 5,000 components to the front lines, Shulhan estimated....)

While most 3D printers create supplies to stop death or ease fighting conditions, others are focusing on rehabilitating soldiers. Brett Carey, a physical therapist in Hawaii, designs 3D printed splints that can be sent to fighters... Carey has created two digital designs for splints that have been uploaded online and 3D printed over 1,500 times. If injuries are advanced, he has people send him images of their injuries using EM3D — a 3D imaging app — which allows him to make a custom made splint which is then shipped to Ukraine...
The Post also got this quote from the robotics engineering student whose team designed the tourniquets.

"It's a beautiful thing," he said. "If you make people in Ukraine feel better, and enable people to help. ... This is something really special."

Researchers have found that being outside drastically reduces the risk of developing short-sightedness. From a report: In the early 1980s Taiwan's army realised it had a problem. More and more of its conscripts seemed to be short-sighted, meaning they needed glasses to focus on distant objects. "They were worried that if the worst happened [ie, an attack by China] their troops would be fighting at a disadvantage," says Ian Morgan, who studies myopia at Australian National University, in Canberra. An island-wide study in 1983 confirmed that around 70% of Taiwanese school leavers needed glasses or contact lenses to see properly. These days, that number is above 80%. But happily for Taiwan's generals, the military disparity has disappeared. Over the past few decades myopia rates have soared across East Asia (see chart 1 in the linked story). In the 1960s around 20-30% of Chinese school-leavers were short-sighted. These days they are just as myopic as their cousins across the straits, with rates in some parts of China running at over 80%.

Elsewhere on the continent things are even worse. One study of male high-school leavers in Seoul found 97% were short-sighted. Hong Kong and Singapore are not far behind. And although the problem is worst in East Asia, it is not unique to it. Reliable numbers for America and Europe are harder to come by. But one review article, published in 2015, claimed a European rate of between 20% and 40% -- an order of magnitude higher than that which people working in the field think is the "natural," background rate. For most of those affected, myopia is a lifelong, expensive nuisance. But severe myopia can lead to untreatable vision loss, says Annegret Dahlmann-Noor, a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital, in London. A paper published in 2019 concluded that each one-dioptre worsening in myopia was associated with a 67% increase in prevalence of myopic maculopathy, an untreatable condition that causes blindness. (A dioptre is a measure of a lens's focusing power.) In some parts of East Asia, 20% of young people have severe myopia, defined as -6 dioptres or worse (see chart 2 in linked story). "This is storing up a big problem for the coming decades," says Kathryn Rose, head of orthoptics at the University of Technology, Sydney.

In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the world appears to be at an inflection point. Foreign Affairs: Business leaders have declared the acceleration of deglobalization and sounded the alarm about a new period of stagflation. Academics have decried the return of conquest and hailed the renewal of transatlantic ties. And countries are rethinking almost every aspect of their foreign policies, including trade, defense spending, and military alliances. These dramatic shifts have overshadowed another profound transformation in the global energy system. For the last two decades, the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions has gradually reshaped the global energy order. Now, as a result of the war in Ukraine, energy security has returned to the fore, joining climate change as a top concern for policymakers. Together, these dual priorities are poised to reshape national energy planning, energy trade flows, and the broader global economy. Countries will increasingly look inward, prioritizing domestic energy production and regional cooperation even as they seek to transition to net-zero carbon emissions. If countries retreat into strategic energy blocs, a multidecade trend toward more energy interconnectedness risks giving way to an age of energy fragmentation.

But in addition to economic nationalism and deglobalization, the coming energy order will be defined by something that few analysts have fully appreciated: government intervention in the energy sector on a scale not seen in recent memory. After four decades during which they generally sought to curb their activity in energy markets, Western governments are now recognizing the need to play a more expansive role in everything from building (and retiring) fossil fuel infrastructure to influencing where private companies buy and sell energy to limiting emissions through carbon pricing, subsidies, mandates, and standards. This shift is bound to invite comparisons to the 1970s, when excessive government intervention in energy markets exacerbated repeated energy crises. The dawning era of government intervention won't be a bad thing, however, if managed correctly. Appropriately limited and tailored to address specific market failures, it can forestall the worst effects of climate change, mitigate many energy security risks, and help manage the biggest geopolitical challenges of the coming energy transition. The current energy crisis has refocused the world's attention on geopolitical energy risks, forcing a reckoning between tomorrow's climate ambitions and today's energy needs and offering a preview of the tumultuous era ahead. How governments respond to these challenges, brought into sharp relief by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, will shape the new energy order for decades to come.

"On Ukraine's battlefields, the simple act of powering up a cellphone can beckon a rain of deathly skyfall," reports the Associated Press. "Artillery radar and remote controls for unmanned aerial vehicles may also invite fiery shrapnel showers."

And the same technology can also be used to target navigation, guidance, and communications systems "to blind and deceive the enemy." This is electronic warfare, a critical but largely invisible aspect of Russia's war against Ukraine. Military commanders largely shun discussing it, fearing they'll jeopardize operations by revealing secrets.... It is used against artillery, fighter jets, cruise missiles, drones and more. Militaries also use it to protect their forces.

It's an area where Russia was thought to have a clear advantage going into the war. Yet, for reasons not entirely clear, its much-touted electronic warfare prowess was barely seen in the war's early stages in the chaotic failure to seize the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. [A former U.S. Army commander tells the AP "What we're learning now is that the Russians eventually turned it off because it was interfering with their own communications so much."] It has become far more of a factor in fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine, where shorter, easier-to-defend supply lines let Russia move electronic warfare gear closer to the battlefield.

"They are jamming everything their systems can reach," said an official of Aerorozvidka, a reconnaissance team of Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle tinkerers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. "We can't say they dominate, but they hinder us greatly." A Ukrainian intelligence official called the Russian threat "pretty severe" when it comes to disrupting reconnaissance efforts and commanders' communications with troops. Russian jamming of GPS receivers on drones that Ukraine uses to locate the enemy and direct artillery fire is particularly intense "on the line of contact," he said.
Later the article says Ukraine's Aerorozvidka has also modified camera-equipped drones "to pinpoint enemy positions and drop mortars and grenades. Hacking is also used to poison or disable enemy electronics and collect intelligence."

So far Ukraine has captured "captured important pieces of hardware — a significant intelligence coup — and destroyed at least two multi-vehicle mobile electronic warfare units." They've been aided by technology and intelligence from NATO members (including from satellites and surveillance aircraft). But the article also calls Elon Musk's Starlink "a proven asset." Its more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites provide broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Severing those connections is a challenge for Russia. It is far more difficult to jam low-earth orbiting satellites than geostationary ones.

Musk has won plaudits from the Pentagon for at least temporarily defeating Russian jamming of Ukrainian satellite uplinks with a quick software fix. But he has warned Ukrainians to keep those terminals powered down when possible — they are vulnerable to geolocation — and recently worried on Twitter about redoubled Russian interference efforts.
The article points out that to "stay nimble," Ukraine is also using cutting-edge technologies including software-defined radio and 3D printing.

schwit1 shares a report from Task & Purpose: A fan of the popular mechanized combat simulator 'War Thunder' shared the specs of China's Type 99 Main Battle Tank online in order to win an argument over the game. [...] The latest incident, first reported by the OSINTtechnical Twitter account, involves information in Mandarin on the penetrator section of a Chinese tank round along with a technical diagram. While many of the original images have been taken down, they were essentially the schematics for a Chinese tank munition, presumably revealed to the world so a video game could more accurately depict what would happen if a Chinese tank and an American tank -- or British, French, Russian, German or Israeli tank -- met in combat. And this isn't the first time these forums have become an outlet for technical leaks. [...]

The most recent leak, the latest leak, from someone with access to the latest technical manuals from China's People's Liberation Army, occurred because a user wanted the game's Chinese battle tanks to have better in-game stats. While most of the information about the Chinese tank round was already known, it was still apparently more important for one gamer to prove another gamer wrong on a message board than it was to consider the implications of publishing the technical details of military munitions online.

The video game developer, Gaijin Entertainment, banned the user, telling Kotaku that, "Our community managers immediately banned the user and deleted his post, as the information on this particular shell is still classified in China. Publishing classified information on any vehicle of any nation at War Thunder forums is clearly prohibited, and the game developers never use it in their work."