The US Air Force's first ever chief software officer has quit the job after branding it "probably the most challenging and infuriating of my entire career" in a remarkably candid blog post. The Register reports: Nicolas Chaillan's impressively blunt leaving note, which he posted to his LinkedIn profile, castigated USAF senior hierarchy for failing to prioritise basic IT issues, saying: "A lack of response and alignment is certainly a contributor to my accelerated exit." Chaillan took on his chief software officer role in May 2019, having previously worked at the US Department of Defense rolling out DevSecOps practices to the American military. Before that he founded two companies.

In his missive, Chaillan also singled out a part of military culture that features in both the US and the UK: the practice of appointing mid-ranking generalist officers to run specialist projects. "Please," he implored, "stop putting a Major or Lt Col (despite their devotion, exceptional attitude, and culture) in charge of ICAM, Zero Trust or Cloud for 1 to 4 million users when they have no previous experience in that field -- we are setting up critical infrastructure to fail." The former chief software officer continued: "We would not put a pilot in the cockpit without extensive flight training; why would we expect someone with no IT experience to be close to successful? They do not know what to execute on or what to prioritize which leads to endless risk reduction efforts and diluted focus. IT is a highly skilled and trained job; staff it as such."

Chaillan went on to complain that while he had managed to roll out DevSecOps practices within his corner of US DoD, his ability to achieve larger scale projects was being hampered by institutional inertia. "I told my leadership that I could have fixed Enterprise IT in 6 months if empowered," he wrote. Among the USAF's sins-according-to-Chaillan? The service is still using "outdated water-agile-fall acquisition principles to procure services and talent", while he lamented the failure of the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) to secure its required $20m funding in the USAF's FY22 budget. He was also quite scathing about the USAF's adoption -- or lack thereof -- of DevSecOps, the trendy name for efforts to make developers include security-related decisions at the same time as product-related decisions when writing new software. It appears the service wasn't quite as open-minded as its overseers in the wider DoD.

An anonymous reader shares a report: An anonymous reader Days before Christmas in 2015, Juniper Networks alerted users that it had been breached. In a brief statement, the company said it had discovered "unauthorized code" in one of its network security products, allowing hackers to decipher encrypted communications and gain high-level access to customers' computer systems. Further details were scant, but Juniper made clear the implications were serious: It urged users to download a software update "with the highest priority." More than five years later, the breach of Juniper's network remains an enduring mystery in computer security, an attack on America's software supply chain that potentially exposed highly sensitive customers including telecommunications companies and U.S. military agencies to years of spying before the company issued a patch.

Those intruders haven't yet been publicly identified, and if there were any victims other than Juniper, they haven't surfaced to date. But one crucial detail about the incident has long been known -- uncovered by independent researchers days after Juniper's alert in 2015 -- and continues to raise questions about the methods U.S. intelligence agencies use to monitor foreign adversaries. The Juniper product that was targeted, a popular firewall device called NetScreen, included an algorithm written by the National Security Agency. Security researchers have suggested that the algorithm contained an intentional flaw -- otherwise known as a backdoor -- that American spies could have used to eavesdrop on the communications of Juniper's overseas customers. NSA declined to address allegations about the algorithm.

Juniper's breach remains important -- and the subject of continued questions from Congress -- because it highlights the perils of governments inserting backdoors in technology products. "As government agencies and misguided politicians continue to push for backdoors into our personal devices, policymakers and the American people need a full understanding of how backdoors will be exploited by our adversaries," Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said in a statement to Bloomberg. He demanded answers in the last year from Juniper and from the NSA about the incident, in letters signed by 10 or more members of Congress.

California Bay Area space startup Astra "attempted its third orbital test flight today, sending its two-stage Launch Vehicle 0006 skyward from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska's Kodiak Island at 6:35 p.m. EDT (2235 GMT)," reports Space.com.

"The rocket suffered an anomaly about 2.5 minutes after liftoff, however, and the flight was terminated." Something appeared to be wrong from the beginning, as Launch Vehicle 0006 lurched sideways at the moment of liftoff rather than rise smoothly off the pad. But the rocket recovered and soared high into the Alaska sky, reaching an altitude of about 20.5 miles (33 kilometers) before shutting down, according to real-time data Astra provided during a webcast of the launch. The mission was terminated right around "max q," the point when the mechanical stresses on a rocket are highest. A camera mounted on Launch Vehicle 0006 appeared to show a piece of the booster breaking loose around that time.

"Although we did not achieve our primary objective today, our team will work hard to determine what happened here," Carolina Grossman, director of product management at Astra, said during today's launch webcast. "And as we dig into the flight data, we are optimistic about the future and our next attempt...." Initial analyses show that one of the rocket's five first-stage engines failed about 1 second after liftoff, for reasons that weren't immediately clear, Astra co-founder, chairman and CEO Chris Kemp said in a short postflight briefing this evening... "It was obviously not successful at putting anything in orbit, but it was a flight where we learned a tremendous amount of obviously things we need to look into as we prepare to return to Kodiak and fly again," he added...

[T]oday's launch was the first of two booked by the U.S. Space Force; the second was expected to lift off later this year, though that timeline could end up shifting a bit. Astra holds a number of other contracts as well: The company has signed deals for more than 50 launches that together represent more than $150 million in revenue, Kemp told Space.com last month... And over the long haul, the company plans to ramp up its launch cadence to an unprecedented level, potentially transforming humanity's access to space.

"Our next objective is monthly, then weekly, and finally daily space delivery," Astra co-founder and chief technology officer Adam London said...

sandbagger shares an excerpt from a MIT Technology Review article, written by Christopher Ankersen and Mike Martin: Despite their terrible human costs -- or perhaps because of them -- wars are often times of technological innovation. [...] But Afghanistan is different. There has been technological progress -- the evolution of drone warfare, for example. But the advances made by the US and its allies have not been as pronounced as those seen before, and they haven't been as profound as some experts have claimed. In fact, contrary to the typical narrative, the technological advances that have taken place during the 20 years of conflict have actually helped the Taliban more than the West. If wars are fought through innovation, the Taliban won. What do we mean? The West fought the war in much the same way from beginning to end. The first airstrikes in 2001 were conducted by B-52 bombers, the same model that first saw service in 1955; in August, the attacks that marked the end of US presence came from the same venerable model of aircraft. The Taliban, meanwhile, made some huge leaps. They began this war with AK-47s and other simple, conventional weapons, but today they have harnessed mobile telephony and the internet -- not just to improve their weapons and their command-and-control systems, but even more crucially, to carry out their strategic communications and their influence operations.

What accounts for this underwhelming and unevenly distributed technological gain? For the Taliban, the war in Afghanistan has been existential. Confronted with hundreds of thousands of foreign troops from NATO countries, and hunted on the ground and from the air, they had to adapt in order to survive. While the bulk of their fighting equipment has remained simple and easy to maintain (often no more than a Kalashnikov, some ammunition, a radio, and a headscarf), they have had to seek out new technology from other insurgent groups or develop their own. One key example: roadside bombs, or IEDs. These simple weapons caused more allied casualties than any other. Originally activated by pressure plates, like mines, they had evolved by the midpoint of the war so that the Taliban could set them off with mobile phones from anywhere with a cell signal. Because the Taliban's technological baseline was lower, the innovations they have made are all the more significant.

But the real technological advance for the Taliban took place at the strategic level. Acutely aware of their past shortcomings, they have attempted to overcome the weaknesses of their previous stint in government. Between 1996 and 2001, they preferred to be reclusive, and there was only one known photo of their leader, Mullah Omar. Since then, though, the Taliban have developed a sophisticated public affairs team, harnessing social media domestically and abroad. IED attacks would usually be recorded by mobile phone and uploaded to one of the many Taliban Twitter feeds to help with recruitment, fundraising, and morale. Another example is the technique of automatically scraping social media for key phrases like "ISI support" -- referring to Pakistan's security service, which has a relationship with the Taliban -- and then unleashing an army of online bots to send messages that attempt to refashion the image of the movement.

For the coalition, things were quite different. Western forces did have access to a wide range of world-class technology, from space-based surveillance to remotely operated systems like robots and drones. But for them, the war in Afghanistan was not a war of survival; it was a war of choice. And because of this, much of the technology was aimed at reducing the risk of casualties rather than achieving outright victory. Western forces invested heavily in weapons that could remove soldiers from harm's way -- air power, drones -- or technology that could speed up the delivery of immediate medical treatment. Things that keep the enemy at arm's length or protect soldiers from harm, such as gunships, body armor, and roadside-bomb detection, have been the focus for the West. The West's overarching military priority has been elsewhere: in the battle between greater powers. Technologically, that means investing in hypersonic missiles to match those of China or Russia, for instance, or in military artificial intelligence to try outwitting them. In closing, the authors say that technology "is not a driver of conflict, nor a guarantor of victory. Instead, it is an enabler."

"It also tells us that the battlefields of tomorrow might look a lot like Afghanistan," they add. "[W]e will see fewer purely technological conflicts that are won by the military with the greatest firepower, and more old and new technologies fielded side by side."

NASA hopes that commercial space stations will orbit Earth once the International Space Station eventually retires, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today at the 36th Space Symposium. Space.com reports: The space station, which was completed in 2011, could retire as soon as 2024. However, today, Nelson revealed that he expects the orbiting lab to last to 2030 and that NASA hopes it will be replaced by commercial labs in orbit. "We expect to expand the space station as a government project all the way to 2030. And we hope it will be followed by commercial stations," Nelson said during a "Heads of Agency" panel alongside other space leaders from around the world.

Now, while NASA hopes for commercial space stations to take over as the International Space Station nears the end of its tenure, China has already begun building its own space station. And, as NASA is prohibited from engaging in bilateral activities with China, this move by China is more competitive than collaborative. "Unfortunately, I believe we're in a space race with China," Nelson said during the panel. "I'm speaking on behalf of the United States, for China to be a partner. I'd like China to do with us as a military adversary, like Russia has done ... I would like to try to do that. But China is very secretive, and part of the civilian space program is that you've got to be transparent." Nelson pointed to Russia's longstanding history as a collaborator alongside NASA in space, despite ongoing political divides back on Earth.

Gen. James Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command, said that the warfighting force he leads has reached Initial Operational Capability and will need to double the size of its headquarters staff to achieve full operational capability. It also needs a permanent headquarters. Space News reports: U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, who was put in charge of Space Command a year ago, made the announcement Aug. 24 during a keynote speech at the 36th Space Symposium here. "We are a very different command today at IOC than we were at stand-up in 2019, having matured and grown into a warfighting force, prepared to address threats from competition to conflict in space, while also protecting and defending our interests in this vast and complex domain," he said. Dickinson said reaching initial operational capability is an important milestone for the two-year-old command. "It's an indication that we've moved out of our establishment phase."

The command is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, and supported by two field organizations: a Combined Force Space Component Command at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; and a Joint Task Force Space Defense at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado. [...] It was temporarily stood up at Peterson Space Force Base pending a basing decision by the Department of the Air Force. Former Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett announced in January that the Air Force had selected Huntsville, Alabama, as the new location for Space Command headquarters. Colorado lawmakers have since pushed back, claiming the decision was politically motivated and that the Air Force initially had recommended keeping Space Command at Peterson. [...] Dickinson said the command needs to have a permanent headquarters location sooner rather than later so it can move forward with its organization and plans.

The New Yorker looks at Cerebras, a startup which has raised nearly half a billion dollars to build massive plate-sized chips targeted at AI applications — the largest computer chip in the world. In the end, said Cerebras's co-founder Andrew Feldman, the mega-chip design offers several advantages. Cores communicate faster when they're on the same chip: instead of being spread around a room, the computer's brain is now in a single skull. Big chips handle memory better, too. Typically, a small chip that's ready to process a file must first fetch it from a shared memory chip located elsewhere on its circuit board; only the most frequently used data might be cached closer to home...

A typical, large computer chip might draw three hundred and fifty watts of power, but Cerebras's giant chip draws fifteen kilowatts — enough to run a small house. "Nobody ever delivered that much power to a chip," Feldman said. "Nobody ever had to cool a chip like that." In the end, three-quarters of the CS-1, the computer that Cerebras built around its WSE-1 chip, is dedicated to preventing the motherboard from melting. Most computers use fans to blow cool air over their processors, but the CS-1 uses water, which conducts heat better; connected to piping and sitting atop the silicon is a water-cooled plate, made of a custom copper alloy that won't expand too much when warmed, and polished to perfection so as not to scratch the chip. On most chips, data and power flow in through wires at the edges, in roughly the same way that they arrive at a suburban house; for the more metropolitan Wafer-Scale Engines, they needed to come in perpendicularly, from below. The engineers had to invent a new connecting material that could withstand the heat and stress of the mega-chip environment. "That took us more than a year," Feldman said...

[I]n a rack in a data center, it takes up the same space as fifteen of the pizza-box-size machines powered by G.P.U.s. Custom-built machine-learning software works to assign tasks to the chip in the most efficient way possible, and even distributes work in order to prevent cold spots, so that the wafer doesn't crack.... According to Cerebras, the CS-1 is being used in several world-class labs — including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and E.P.C.C., the supercomputing centre at the University of Edinburgh — as well as by pharmaceutical companies, industrial firms, and "military and intelligence customers." Earlier this year, in a blog post, an engineer at the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca wrote that it had used a CS-1 to train a neural network that could extract information from research papers; the computer performed in two days what would take "a large cluster of G.P.U.s" two weeks.

The U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory reported that its CS-1 solved a system of equations more than two hundred times faster than its supercomputer, while using "a fraction" of the power consumption. "To our knowledge, this is the first ever system capable of faster-than real-time simulation of millions of cells in realistic fluid-dynamics models," the researchers wrote. They concluded that, because of scaling inefficiencies, there could be no version of their supercomputer big enough to beat the CS-1.... Bronis de Supinski, the C.T.O. for Livermore Computing, told me that, in initial tests, the CS-1 had run neural networks about five times as fast per transistor as a cluster of G.P.U.s, and had accelerated network training even more.
It all suggests one possible work-around for Moore's Law: optimizing chips for specific applications. "For now," Feldman tells the New Yorker, "progress will come through specialization."

Gallup: More Americans are taking UFOs seriously than just two years ago. When asked which of two theories better explains UFO sightings, 41% of adults now believe some UFOs involve alien spacecraft from other planets, up eight points from 33% in 2019. Half of Americans, down from 60% in 2019, remain skeptical, saying all UFO sightings can be explained by human activity or natural phenomena. Another 9% are unwilling to venture a guess. The recent change spans a period when UFOs have received significant coverage in mainstream news publications. This includes a spate of articles in 2019 focused on leaked footage of mysterious flying objects taken by Navy pilots. While the Department of Defense has not suggested these or any UFOs involve alien visitors, the Navy has acknowledged the leaked video is authentic, and in 2020, it commissioned a task force to study "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP).

The latest Gallup results are based on a telephone poll conducted July 6-21. This was less than a month after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued its preliminary report on UAPs, stating that the various types of incidents examined likely fall into one of five categories: "airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, [U.S. government] or U.S. industry development programs, foreign adversary systems and a catchall 'other' bin." The 2019 survey was conducted Aug. 1-14, several months after the Navy UFO footage was first leaked. From 1973 to 2019, Gallup tracked whether Americans thought UFO sightings involved "something real," as opposed to "just people's imaginations." This wording found between 47% and 57% believing they were real, including 56% in 2019. However, it wasn't clear from the question whether "real" meant people thought UFOs involved alien visitors or earthly objects such as drones, military planes or unusual cloud formations. To address that uncertainty, in a separate 2019 poll, Gallup first asked whether any UFOs have been alien spacecraft, with no questions about UFOs immediately preceding it in the survey. Today's update replicated that methodology, thus providing a reliable trend.

Slashdot reader nickwinlund77 quotes Wired: Location data sharing from wireless carriers has been a major privacy issue in recent years... Carriers remain perennially hungry to know as much about you as they can. Now, researchers are proposing a simple plan to limit how much bulk location data they can get from cell towers.

Much of the third-party location data industry is fueled by apps that gain permission to access your GPS information, but the location data that carriers can collect from cell towers has often provided an alternative pipeline. For years it's seemed like little could be done about this leakage, because cutting off access to this data would likely require the sort of systemic upgrades that carriers are loath to make.

At the Usenix security conference on Thursday, though, network security researchers Paul Schmitt of Princeton University and Barath Raghavan of the University of Southern California are presenting a scheme called Pretty Good Phone Privacy that can mask wireless users' locations from carriers with a simple software upgrade that any carrier can adopt—no tectonic infrastructure shifts required... The researchers propose installing portals on every device — using an app or operating system function — that run regular checks with a billing server to confirm that a user is in good standing. The system would hand out digital tokens that don't identify the specific device but simply indicate whether the attached wireless account is paid up.

CBS News reports: Russian intelligence services worked with prominent ransomware gangs to compromise U.S. government and government-affiliated organizations, according to new research from cybersecurity firm Analyst1.

Two Russian intelligence bureaus — the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR — collaborated with individuals in "multiple cybercriminal organizations," security analysts with the firm say in the report. The research indicates these cybercriminals helped Russian intelligence develop and deploy custom malware targeting American companies that serve U.S. military clients... The code was launched sometime between June 2019 and January 2020 and hid in the background of Windows machines, silently harvesting keystrokes and sensitive documents...

Analyst1 does not attribute the rise in organized criminal ransomware directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin or the Kremlin. But DiMaggio does "strongly believe" the Russian government colluded with cybercriminal gangs to spy on American defense targets.
The report described said two different Russian cybercriminal groups attacked the same target, infiltrated their targeted systems, "then distributed malware using a PowerShell Windows application..."

The report's author, a lead researcher at Analyst1, tells CBS that the ransomware variation "crawls documents for specific keywords, like 'weapon' and 'top secret,' then quietly sends the info back to the attacker."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from FedScoop: The Department of Defense has awarded a task order worth up to $979 million over a five-year period to Peraton to counter misinformation from U.S. adversaries. The contractor will provide services to U.S. Central Command and its mission partners with operational planning, implementation and assessment services. Peraton has undertaken such work for Central Command since 2016 under its counter-threat messaging support program, and according to the company, the latest contract represents a doubling of work already scheduled to be carried out under the program.

Commenting on the contract, Tom Afferton, president of Peraton's cyber missions sector, said: "Since 2016, Peraton has executed campaigns to promote regional security and stability. Our ability to provide the U.S. government with insight, expertise, and influence helps ensure the safety of Americans, our allies, and the more than 550 million people under U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility, spanning three continents and 20 nations." The award comes after Peraton earlier this month won an IT infrastructure contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which could be worth up to $497 million over seven years. The Virginia company will provide infrastructure-as-a-managed service for storage and computing infrastructure facilities across the U.S. and globally. Announcing the award, Peraton said it will deliver an enterprise-scale solution that integrates on-premise infrastructure with the VA's enterprise cloud architecture.

Friday a CNN video offered what it calls "an exclusive look into how Space Force is defending America." CNN's Jim Sciutto reported: Inside Mission Control at Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colorado, Space Force Guardians, as they're known, fly the nation's missile warning satellites. Using infrared sensors, these satellites, orbiting 22,000 miles above earth, scour the planet 24/7 for missile launches and nuclear detonations.

Lt. Col. Michael Mariner: "We never stop — always vigilant — and we never fail. Because that's how important this mission is to our nation. We provide decision-quality data to tactical war fighters on the ground, to save their lives."

This satellite dish is in touch with missile-warning satellites deployed in what's known as geosynchronous orbit. If those warning satellites detect a launch anywhere on the surface of the planet, it beams that information back down to this ground station instantaneously, at the speed of light. And then Space Force sends that information, that warning, around the world to U.S. forces deployed aboard or here on the U.S. homeland. In January 2020, these satellites sprang into action, detecting multiple missiles from Iran targetting the Al Asad airbase in Iraq. Before those missiles rained down, within minutes Space Force had delivered a lifesaving warning to units on the ground. Space Force specialist Sally Stevens was on duty. "It is lightning fast."

CNN: "Right. And quick enough to take action to protect themselves."

Stevens: "Absolutely. Especially in the Al Asad night. Not very often do we get reminded of where our end data gets to, and that night was a shocking reality."

Missile-warning satellites are just a fraction of the hundreds of U.S. government and commercial satellites monitored and defended by the Guardians of the Space Force today — defended because U.S. adversaries led by Russia and China have deployed weapons to disable or destroy them. Space Force is now an independent branch of the U.S. military due to this alarming new reality. Space, once relatively peaceful territory, is now considered a potential front in any modern war.

Colonel Matthew Holston: "Space is a war-fighting domain. It's the reason that we set up the United States Space Force as a separate service. So each and every day, we're training our operators to deter conflict, but if deterrence fails, to compete and win in space."

The U.S. has far more satellites than any other nation, some 2,500, compared to 431 for China and 168 for Russia. And a whole range of U.S. military technologies depend on them... The danger for the U.S. is that greater dependence on space equals greater vulnerability to attacks in space.

Lt. Col. Michael Mariner: "When you're at the top, the target's on your back. Everybody's shooting for you."

China is launching kidnapper satellites with grappling arms capable of plucking satellites out of orbit. Russia is deploying kamikaze satellites, capable of ramming and destroying U.S. space assets. And Russia now has a new space weapon that Space Force dubs "the nesting doll."

General John W. Raymond, Space Force Chief of Space Operations: "Back in 2017, Russia launched a satellite, and it opened up and another satellite came out, and then it open up and a projectile came out. That projectile is designed to kill U.S. satellites. So in 2019 they did the same thing, but this time they put it up next to one of our satellites. And then we started talking about it."

CNN: "You warned them away?"

Raymond: "We described what is safe and professional behavior. And it's important. Today there's no rules in space. It's the wild, wild west."

Russia and China also have directed-energy weapons, which can damage or disable U.S. satellites from a distance. The age of lasers in space has already arrived. New satellites are being designed with greater maneuverability, shielding to block directed-energy weapons, and resiliency so that losing one or a few does not disable the entire system. Space Force commanders welcome the private sector's entry into space, since it gives more and cheaper options to get into orbit... Raymond: "I would bet on U.S. industry any day. It's a huge advantage that we have."
A CNN article summarizing the report adds that Ameria's adversaries" have already attempted to use space weapons to temporarily disable US satellites, using lasers and directed-energy weapons to blind or 'dazzle' them."

CNN's report concludes that space war "is not science fiction, but a battle already underway today," adding this quote from Space Force Chief of Space Operations, General John W. Raymond. "We would prefer the domain to remain free of conflict. But like in any other domain — like air, land, sea, and now space — we'll be ready to protect and defend."

wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Researchers have discovered three separate Chinese military affiliated advanced threat groups simultaneously targeting and compromising the same Southeast Asian telcos. The attack groups concerned are Soft Cell, Naikon, and a third group, possibly Emissary Panda (also known as APT27)...

Cybereason released details of a triple-pronged attack by Chinese military-affiliated groups against cellular network providers in southeast Asia. Disturbingly, Yonatan Striem-Amit, CTO and co-founder of Cybereason, told SecurityWeek, "We discovered and have evidence that Chinese advanced groups have been using the Hafnium zero-days since at least 2017." Cellular networks are a prime target for nation states because they provide an excellent steppingstone to many other types of attack and different targets. "At this point," said Striem-Amit, "the attacks seem to be a stepping point for a major espionage campaign. We all carry a device in our pocket that knows where we are, where we have been, and who we are with...."

The surprising feature, apart from their stealthy duration, is that three groups, all associated with the Chinese government and often sharing tactics, techniques and procedures, have attacked the same targets at the same time — and have even been seen on the same endpoints simultaneously. It is consequently unclear whether the groups were separately instructed to target telcos, or whether they were being guided from a single source within the Chinese military... The one thing that is clear is that telcos are a major target for China, and that it has had knowledge of and has used serious Exchange zero-day vulnerabilities for many years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: The U.S. Air Force joins a group of venture capital firms in making a $60 million investment in Hermeus, a Georgia-based startup that is striving to make the world's first reusable hypersonic aircraft, a press statement reveals. The new contract, awarded on July 30, sets ambitious objectives for Hermeus, to be accomplished over the next three years. These include the building of three prototypes of the company's Quarterhorse aircraft and the testing of its full-scale reusable hypersonic propulsion system. If all goes to plan, the Quarterhorse passenger aircraft will be capable of flying at a staggering Mach 5 speeds, starting at 3836 mph (6174 km/h). By comparison, NASA's new supersonic jet, the X-59, will fly at Mach 1.5 and reach top speeds of 990 mph.

As Hermeus' aircraft will eventually be able to fly five times the speed of sound, it will be capable of traveling from New York to London in only 90 minutes -- instead of seven hours it typically takes today's commercial airliners. In order to reach those speeds, Hermeus is developing a proprietary turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine, based on the GE J85 turbojet engine used for a variety of high-speed aircraft including Virgin Galactic's White Knight carrier aircraft and Boom Supersonic's prototype XB-1 aircraft. The first Quarterhorse prototype is set to be unmanned -- much in the same way that Virgin Galactic's first space plane missions were uncrewed, the earliest flight tests will not be piloted so as to eliminate the risk to human life and to allow the company to start its flight testing earlier. According to a 2020 report by Aviation International News, Hermeus has already built and tested a small-scale hypersonic engine prototype and it is now working on a full-scale engine demonstrator of its TBCC engine.

After Havana shut down online access for 72 hours, the battle is on to keep the country connected. From a report: Cubans used to joke about Napoleon Bonaparte chatting to Mikhail Gorbachev, George W Bush and Fidel Castro in the afterlife. "If I'd have had your prudence, I'd never have fought Waterloo," the French emperor tells the last Soviet leader. "If I'd have had your military might, I'd have won Waterloo," he tells the Texan. Turning last to Castro, the emperor says: "If I'd have had Granma [the Cuban Communist party daily], I'd have lost Waterloo but nobody would have known." The joke no longer does the rounds.

With millions of Cubans now online, the state's monopoly on mass communication has been deeply eroded. But after social media helped catalyse historic protests on the island last month, the government temporarily shut the internet down. Full connectivity returned 72 hours later, but the issue has become a hot potato in the US. Hundreds of Cuban-Americans marched against the regime in Washington last week, and politicians are trying to leverage political capital: Florida senator Marco Rubio has called for the US to beam balloon-supplied internet to the island nation, while Joe Biden said his administration is assessing whether it can increase Cuba's connectivity. Experts say it's unclear how internet access could be increased at scale if the host nation is unwilling to cooperate.

"I haven't seen anything other than pie in the sky," said Larry Press, professor of information systems at California State University. Past US government attempts to bolster connectivity in Cuba read like a John Le Carre novel. In 2009, Alan Gross, a subcontractor for the US Agency for International Development, was arrested for distributing satellite equipment. His work was funded thanks to a US law that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the Castro regime. (Gross was later released as part of the restoration of US-Cuban relations during Barack Obama's second term.) Attempts to smuggle satellite ground stations disguised as surf boards on to the island were similarly foiled.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Will civilization as we know it end in the next 100 years? Will there be any functioning places left? These questions might sound like the stuff of dystopian fiction. But if recent headlines about extreme weather, climate change, the ongoing pandemic and faltering global supply chains have you asking them, you're not alone. Now two British academics, Aled Jones, director of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England, and his co-author, Nick King, think they have some answers. Their analysis, published in July in the journal Sustainability, aims to identify places that are best positioned to carry on when or if others fall apart. They call these lucky places "nodes of persisting complexity."

The winner, tech billionaires who already own bunkers there will be pleased to know, is New Zealand. The runners-up are Tasmania, Ireland, Iceland, Britain, the United States and Canada. The findings were greeted with skepticism by other academics who study topics like climate change and the collapse of civilization. Some flat-out disagreed with the list, saying it placed too much emphasis on the advantages of islands and failed to properly account for variables like military power. And some said the entire exercise was misguided: If climate change is allowed to disrupt civilization to this degree, no countries will have cause to celebrate. "For his study, he built on the University of Notre Dame's Global Adaptation Initiative, which ranks 181 countries annually on their readiness to successfully adapt to climate change," the NYT adds. "He then added three additional measures: whether the country has enough land to grow food for its people; whether it has the energy capacity to 'keep the lights on,' as he put it in an interview; and whether the country is sufficiently isolated to keep other people from walking across its borders, as its neighbors are collapsing."

"New Zealand comes out on top in Professor Jones's analysis because it appears to be ready for changes in the weather created by climate change. It has plenty of renewable energy capacity, it can produce its own food and it's an island, meaning it scores well on the isolation factor, he said."

The Drive reports that US Northern Command recently completed a string of tests for Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), a combination of AI, cloud computing and sensors that could give the Pentagon the ability to predict events "days in advance," according to Command leader General Glen VanHerck. Engadget reports: The machine learning-based system observes changes in raw, real-time data that hint at possible trouble. If satellite imagery shows signs that a rival nation's submarine is preparing to leave port, for instance, the AI could flag that mobilization knowing the vessel will likely leave soon. Military analysts can take hours or even days to comb through this information -- GIDE technology could send an alert within "seconds," VanHerck said.

The most recent dry run, GIDE 3, was the most expansive yet. It saw all 11 US commands and the broader Defense Department use a mix of military and civilian sensors to address scenarios where "contested logistics" (such as communications in the Panama Canal) might pose a problem. The technology involved wasn't strictly new, the General said, but the military "stitched everything together." The platform could be put into real-world use relatively soon. VanHerck believed the military was "ready to field" the software, and could validate it at the next Globally Integrated Exercise in spring 2022.

A recovery mission off Vietnam's coast showed how advances in technology have given new reach to the Pentagon's search for American war dead. From a report: On a July morning in 1967, two American B-52 bombers collided over the South China Sea as they approached a target in what was then South Vietnam. Seven crew members escaped, but rescue units from the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard were unable to find six other men, including a navigator from New York, Maj. Paul A. Avolese. It wasn't until last year that scientists scanning the seafloor found one of the B-52s and recovered Major Avolese's remains. "It was very humbling to be diving a site that turned out as hallowed ground, and realizing that maybe we were in a position to help bring closure back to families that had been missing this lost aviator," said Eric J. Terrill, one of two divers who descended to the wreck. Scientists say the recovery highlights a shift in the Pentagon's ability to search for personnel still missing from the Vietnam War.

For decades, such efforts have mainly focused on land in former conflict zones. But in this case, American investigators looked at an underwater site near Vietnam's long coastline, using high-tech robots. Their use of that technology is part of a larger trend. Robotic underwater and surface vehicles are "rapidly becoming indispensable tools for ocean science and exploration," said Rear Adm. Nancy Hann, who manages a fleet of nine aircraft and 16 research and survey vessels for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "They have proven to be a force multiplier when it comes to mapping the seafloor, locating and surveying wrecks and other sunken objects, and collecting data in places not easily accessed by ships and other vehicles," Admiral Hann said.

One reason for the new focus on Vietnam's undersea crash sites is that many land-based leads have been exhausted, said Andrew Pietruszka, the lead archaeologist for Project Recover, a nonprofit organization. The group worked on the recent recovery mission with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or D.P.A.A., the arm of the Pentagon tasked with finding and returning fallen military personnel. "Over time, a lot of the really good land cases and sites they've already done, they've already processed them," said Mr. Pietruszka, a former forensic archaeologist for D.P.A.A. who now works for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. "Now the majority of sites that haven't been looked at are falling in that underwater realm," he added.

"Resuming launches after a mission failure two months ago, Rocket Lab successfully placed a small U.S. military research and development satellite into orbit Thursday following a fiery liftoff from New Zealand..." reports Spaceflight Now: Heading east from Mahia, the rocket's first stage burned its nine engines for about two-and-a-half minutes, followed by a six-minute firing of the second stage engine to reach a preliminary parking orbit. A kick stage deployed from the the Electron rocket's second stage...

Rocket Lab, a California-based company founded in New Zealand, confirmed a good deployment of the U.S. military's small experimental Monolith spacecraft about 52 minutes after liftoff. "Payload deployed, flawless launch and mission by the team!" tweeted Peter Beck, Rocket Lab's founder and CEO.

The mission was the 21st flight of a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle since 2017, and the eighth to carry a payload for a U.S. military or intelligence agency customer. It was also the first Rocket Lab mission since May 15, when an Electron rocket failed before reaching orbit with two commercial BlackSky Earth-imaging satellites... The May 15 mission was the third time an Electron rocket failed to reach orbit on 20 attempts since 2017.

Israeli government officials visited the offices of the hacking company NSO Group on Wednesday to investigate allegations that the firm's spyware has been used to target activists, politicians, business executives, and journalists, the country's Ministry of Defense said in a statement today. From a report: An investigation published last week by 17 global media organizations, claims that phone numbers belonging to notable figures have been targeted by Pegasus, the notorious spyware that is NSO's best-selling product. The Israeli Ministry of Defense did not specify which government agencies were involved in the investigation, but Israeli media previously reported that the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry, Mossad, and Military Intelligence were also looking into the company following the publication of the Pegasus Project. NSO Group CEO Shalev Hulio confirmed to MIT Technology Review that the visit had taken place, but continued the company's denials that the list published by reporters was linked to Pegasus.

"That's true," he said. "I believe it's very good that they are checking, since we know the truth and we know that the list never existed and is not related to NSO." The reports focused largely on the successful hacking of 37 smartphones of business leaders, journalists, and human rights activists. But they also pointed to a leaked list of over 50,000 more phone numbers of interest in countries that are reportedly clients of NSO Group. The company has repeatedly denied the reporting. At this point, both the source of and meaning of the list remain unclear, but numerous phones on the list were hacked according to technical analysis by Amnesty International's Security Lab. When asked if the government's investigation process will continue, Hulio said he hopes it will be ongoing. "We want them to check everything and make sure that the allegations are wrong," he added.