Ukraine's Ministry of Defense website suffered from what appeared to be a distributed denial of service attack Tuesday, according to the government's Facebook account. CNET reports: The military's website remained unavailable as of 12 p.m. PT Tuesday, with the Ukrainian military's Facebook account saying work is currently underway to restore regular functioning to the online portal. The nation's largest commercial bank, PrivatBank, has also been subjected to a "massive DDoS attack" for the past few hours, according to the Ukraine Center for Strategic Communications. There's no threat to customer funds stored at the bank, it said, though the attack is preventing customers from accessing the Privat24 application and viewing their balances. Online banking with Oschadbank is also down, the Center for Strategic Communications said, as reported earlier by Vice. Nobody has yet to be blamed for the attack, but as CNET notes, "it comes after Russia is believed to have mounted multiple cyberattacks on Ukraine as part of efforts that security experts say are designed to destabilize the country's government and economy."

UPDATE (2/16/2022): America's Undersecretary of State said Wednesday that "While we're still investigating and doing forensics along with the Ukrainians, I think what's most important is that these cyberattacks were not very successful," reports CNN, which adds that the official "credited Ukrainian officials for responding quickly and helping the websites recover."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US Army released (PDF) its climate change strategy this week, and it's a lengthy document that shows how the largest and oldest branch of the military will not only prepare for climate change but will also zero out emissions from most of its operations and activities. The Army says that the goal isn't just to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions -- though that's a key outcome -- but also to make the force more resilient by "adapting infrastructure and natural environments to climate change risks." The strategy takes a multipronged approach toward addressing the climate threat, including overhauling the Army's installations and its acquisitions and logistics practices.

On just the facilities side, the Army buys more than $740 million of electricity every year, producing over 4.1 million metric tons of carbon pollution. To bring those numbers down while also improving its ability to operate when the grid goes down, the Army says it will install microgrids at each of its more than 130 installations by 2035. Already, 25 microgrids are "scoped and planned" through 2024. Microgrids are usually connected to the wider grid, though they can be easily cut off without losing power, allowing operations to continue if the connection is severed or the grid goes down. Currently, the Army is looking into solar, wind, and batteries to power microgrids.

On bases, myriad vehicles support day-to-day operations, and the new plan calls for the nontactical vehicle fleet to be all-electric by 2035. That includes everything from light trucks like Chevrolet Tahoes and Ford F-150s to massive prime movers like the "Dragon Wagon" and the HEMTT. Light-duty vehicles like the Tahoe are scheduled to be all-electric by 2027. Tactical vehicles, though, will take a bit longer. The Army hopes to hybridize them by 2035 before moving to all-electric in 2050. The plan doesn't spell out what it considers to be tactical vehicles, though the designation likely includes things like Humvees and MRAPs. Currently, there's no concrete plan for all-electric tanks and self-propelled artillery. The Army's plan is also requiring it to "proactively train its people and prepare a force that is ready to operate in a climate-altered world," the document says.

Furthermore, a "Climate 101" course has been rolled out "to introduce fundamentals of climate science to base architects and garrison commanders, and it says it will update all of its training modules, exercises, and simulations to consider the impacts of climate change by 2028," adds Ars Technica. "The goal is to prepare the entire force for whatever conditions climate change presents, from severe weather to a thawing Arctic."

In the early 2000s, the U.S. Army released America's Army, a video game meant as a recruitment tool. "The free-to-play tactical shooter was wildly successful, reaching 20 million players," reports Fast Company. "But come May 5, the servers will be shut down -- and America's Army will surrender to the forces of time." From the report: To date, no industry has embraced games as warmly as the military, though. America's Army, for example, started with an initial budget of $7 million of your tax dollars at play -- and quickly grew from there. Recognizing that players know a quality title when they see one (and ignore and ridicule poor-quality efforts), it assembled a team of proven developers and bought a license for the Unreal Engine, which was (and remains) one of the premier game engines on the market. America's Army was only supposed to be a seven-year project, but its success encouraged the Defense Department to stay with the game, with the Pentagon spending more than $3 million a year to evolve and promote it -- a drop in the bucket compared to the overall $8 billion recruiting budget.

How well did it work? A 2008 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that "30% of all Americans ages 16 to 24 had a more positive impression of the Army because of the game and, even more amazingly, the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined." The end of America's Army is hardly the end of the military's use of games as recruiting tools. The Army has its own Twitch channel (with more than 23,000 followers) and has an e-sports team that competes at tournaments -- with recruiters in tow.

A Russian court has sentenced three Siberian teenagers for terrorism Thursday for activities including plotting to blow up a virtual Federal Security Services (FSB) building in the popular online game Minecraft. From a report: Nikita Uvarov, Denis Mikhailenko and Bogdan Andreyev from Kansk, a town in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region, were arrested in June 2020 for hanging up political leaflets on the local FSB office that included slogans such as "the FSB is the main terrorist" and support for Azat Miftakhov, an anarchist who was sentenced to six years in prison. All three suspects were 14 at the time of their arrest. The Eastern Military Court in Krasnoyarsk found Uvarov, Mikhailenko and Andreyev guilty of "undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities" on Thursday. Uvarov was sentenced to five years in a penal colony, while Mikhailenko and Andreyev were handed three and four-year suspended sentences.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has flown a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter without a pilot for the first time ever. CNET reports: DARPA's Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System program was used to fly the helicopter on autopilot over Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on Saturday. The Black Hawk was kitted out with Sikorsky Matrix autonomous flying technology, and DARPA says it repeated the "uninhabited flight" on Monday. "Pilots can focus on mission management instead of the mechanics," Stuart Young, program manager in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, said in a statement. "ALIAS ... includes the ability to operate aircraft at all times of the day or night, with and without pilots, and in a variety of difficult conditions, such as contested, congested, and degraded visual environments."

The Polish government has announced today the creation of a new cyber component inside its Army Forces that will be tasked with carrying out operations in cyber-space. From a report: Named the Cyberspace Defense Forces (Wojska Obrony Cyberprzestrzeni), the new branch will operate as a command center inside the Polish Army and will have the authority to carry out reconnaissance, defensive, and offensive operations, the Polish Ministry of National Defense said today. Work on establishing this unit began in 2019 and was formalized earlier today in a ceremony at the Club of the Military University of Technology in Warsaw, where Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak appointed Brig. Gen. Karol Molenda as the unit's inaugural commander. [...] With today's announcement, Poland becomes one of the very few countries in the world to formally create a cyber component for their armed forces after NATO officially declared cyberspace a formal warfare battleground and domain of operations at the 2016 NATO Summit, held in Warsaw, Poland.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Clearview AI, the shady face recognition firm which claims to have landed contracts with federal, state, and local cops across the country, has landed a roughly $50,000 deal with the U.S. military for augmented reality glasses. First flagged by Tech Inquiry's Jack Poulson, Air Force procurement documents show that it awarded a $49,847 contract to Clearview AI for the purposes of "protecting airfields with augmented reality facial recognition; glasses." The contract is designated as part of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, meaning that Clearview's contract is to determine for the Air Force whether such applications are feasible.

Bryan Ripple, a media lead at the Air Force Research Laboratory Public Affairs, told Gizmodo via email that Clearview will conduct a three-month study under which "no glasses or units are being delivered under contract," nor are any prototypes. Clearview, he wrote, stipulated "that security personnel are vulnerable while their hands are occupied with scanners and ID cards" and AR goggles would allow them to "remain hands-free and ready during this timeframe." "Clearview AI's Augmented Reality (AR) Glasses perform facial recognition scanning to vet backgrounds and restrict unauthorized individuals from entering bases and flightlines," Ripple wrote. "This 100% hands-free identity verification wearable device allows Defenders to keep their weapons at the ready, increase standoff and social distance, and confirm authorized base access using rapid and accurate facial biometrics while keeping threats distant. The results are improved safety at entry control points and for bases, faster identity verification without manual ID card checks, and cost savings by replacing the need for large permanent camera installations."

In a promotional document shared by the Air Force, Clearview argued that in the time it takes to scan an ID card at the entry point to a military facility, "A criminal or terrorist can pull a gun, knife, or weapon during this brief but critical moment, kill the Defender, and access the base." They argued the AR glasses would increase "standoff distance," save guards time while vetting high volumes of traffic and allow them to maintain distance from anyone contagious with diseases.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: One of the most outspoken proponents of the metaverse is struggling to find its place in this hypothetical virtual world. Microsoft has reportedly scrapped plans to make a HoloLens 3 -- what would have been a successor to its current mixed reality headset -- and infighting within the mixed reality division has fueled uncertainty about its future, according to Business Insider. One source told Insider that the decision to abandon plans for a HoloLens 3 would mark the end of the "product as we know it." Multiple sources said Microsoft had agreed to partner with Samsung to develop a new mixed reality device, a decision that has reportedly "inflamed" division within the team. One employee called the partnership a "shit show." Insider spoke to 20 current and former employees at Microsoft who described "confusion and strategic uncertainty."

Some folks within Microsoft believe the company should continue to make hardware while others favor pivoting to a software platform for the metaverse -- that is, a Windows for the digital world. There is also a question of which customer base to target. Microsoft employees are apparently split on creating hardware and software for consumers or continuing their focus on enterprise customers. HoloLens 2, the company's latest AR/VR hardware, is a commercial product that sells for $3,500. Ruben Caballero, a former Apple executive who was hired in 2020 to join the mixed reality and AI division, reportedly wants to shift focus to consumers and the metaverse. Others within the team believe they should continue selling to businesses, and even fulfill military contracts.

LinkedIn profiles show that at least 25 Microsoft employees working on mixed reality left to join Meta last year alone, and Wall Street Journal reports the team lost around 100 people in 2021, many of them to Facebook's parent company. The HoloLens team is now uncertain about the long-term goals of the project and whether they will transition to working on a software platform. Disagreement on what to do next has made HoloLens's future unclear, though Microsoft maintains its commitment to the headset and promises to release more products in the future, "Microsoft HoloLens remains a critical part of our plans for emerging categories like mixed reality and the metaverse," said Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw. "We remain committed to HoloLens and future HoloLens development." Despite slow progress, Microsoft has doubled down on augmented and virtual reality in recent months, claiming its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard will provide the "building blocks for the metaverse." Microsoft's mixed-reality plans now appear to be hanging by a thread, and its most ambitious project yet is on the brink of collapse, just as talk about the metaverse -- the future it was meant to help create -- reaches a fever pitch.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Israel is accelerating the roll-out of laser-based interceptors as part of a plan to surround itself with such technologies and reduce the high costs currently incurred when shooting down aerial threats, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday. Lifting the veil on prototype interceptors that would use lasers to super-heat incoming drones or the kinds of rockets favored by Iran-backed guerrillas, Israeli defense officials predicted last June such systems would be ready for action in 2025.

But Bennett announced a dramatically shortened timeline. "Within a year already the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will bring into action a laser-based interception system, first experimentally, and later operationally, first in the south, then in other places," he said in a speech. "And this will enable us, as the years advance, to surround Israel with a wall of lasers which will protect us from missiles, rockets, UAVs and other threats," he told Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies. The laser system would be an addition to Israel's current air defenses based on Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow -- systems that launch interceptor missiles costing tens of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars each.

"The equation will be overturned -- they will invest much, and we little," Bennett said. "If we can intercept a missile or rocket with an electrical pulse that costs a few dollars, we will essentially neutralize the ring of fire that Iran has set up ... This new generation of air defense can also serve our friends in the region, who are also exposed to grave threats from Iran and its proxies.

DARPA has announced a new initiative called the Robust Optical Clock Network (ROCkN) program, which will look to develop a practical, super-accurate optical atomic clock that is robust and small enough to fit inside a military aircraft, warship, or field vehicle. New Atlas reports: Ignoring a lot of technical details, a conventional atomic clock works by using a beam of microwaves to measure the frequency of the target atoms, but by replacing the microwaves with light, the accuracy is boosted by a factor of 100. In fact, such optical clocks are so accurate that the most advanced wouldn't gain or lose a second through the entire lifespan of the universe. Such optical atomic clocks have been built, but they're still huge, delicate, room-filling machines that aren't practical for military application. The goal of DARPA's ROCKn program is to study the basic physics of the principle behind the optical clock and find a way to make optical atomic clocks with low size, weight, and power (SWaP). Not only that, they will be more precise and accurate than current state-of-the-art atomic clocks.

To do this, ROCKn will first look to produce a robust, high-precision small portable optical clock that can maintain picosecond accuracy for 100 seconds at a time. This clock would be small enough to install in a fighter jet or satellite and tough enough to withstand the temperatures, acceleration, and vibrational noise of such an environment. The second stage will aim to create a larger transportable version that can be used in a Navy ship or field unit that is accurate to a nanosecond for up to 30 days without an outside GPS signal.

Science magazine checks in on the new "Galileo Project" from controversial Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb. It's searching for evidence of extraterrestrial technology, whether it's spotted deep in space by mountaintop observatories or by their network of rooftop cameras "designed to capture any UFOs prowling through Earth's atmosphere."

"After enlisting more than three dozen astronomers and engineers in the project — as well as some notorious nonscientists — Loeb hopes to solve the enduring UFO mystery once and for all. 'Scientists have to come to the rescue and clear up the fog,' Loeb says." Some researchers applaud Loeb's endeavor. "He has mounted a scientific attack on a problem that is frustratingly fuzzy," says Gregory Laughlin, an astrophysicist at Yale University. "A project like this would have been unthinkable 10 years ago." But others say Loeb is tarnishing astronomy and undermining the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) just as that effort has started to acquire a veneer of respectability. In particular, they are bothered by the outspoken UFO zealots with no science background whom Loeb has welcomed into the project. "He's intermingled legitimate scientists with these fringe people," says Caleb Scharf, an astrobiologist at Columbia University. "I think you lose far more by doing that...."

One part of the project would design software to screen the data coming from telescopes like the Rubin observatory for interstellar objects. But the core of the project would be a worldwide network of sky monitors, hundreds in all. Each dome-shaped unit, roughly the size of an umbrella, will contain infrared and optical cameras arranged like a fly's eye to capture the full expanse of sky overhead. Audio sensors and radio antennas will listen at other frequencies. Running 24 hours a day, the monitors are meant to record everything that moves through the sky, day and night: from birds and balloons to insects, airliners, and drones. Artificial intelligence algorithms, trained to discard known objects like birds in favor of fast-moving spherical and lens-shaped objects, will sift through the data, says Richard Cloete, a computer scientist at the University of Cambridge, who is overseeing the system's software. "We're basically filtering out all the things that we expect to find in the sky," he says. "And all these things that are labeled other [by the AI] will be of interest."

Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute who sits on the Galileo Project's advisory board, points out that networks of sky cameras are not new. Since 2010, one SETI Institute network has detected 2 million meteors, and in the past few years, the LaserSETI project has begun to watch the sky for pulses of light from alien technologies. What's novel about the Galileo Project, Shostak says, is its focus on hunting for aliens in Earth's atmosphere. Both the Galileo Project and the SETI Institute "are looking for indications of extraterrestrial intelligence," he adds. "But that's like saying that studying unknown fauna in the rainforest is similar to those who are hoping to find mermaids or unicorns."

Loeb says a prototype sky monitor is being built now and will be affixed to the roof of the Harvard College Observatory in the spring. If the instruments work, he plans to make duplicates; if he can raise another $100 million from private donors, he will place them around the world. He says he won't utter the UFO word unless they see an object "that looks strange and moves in ways that human technology cannot enable."
A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, who participates as an unpaid "research affiliate "for the project, points out that "One of the problems is that many of the areas we're seeing the greatest level of [UFO] activity are restricted military airspace. The Defense Department is not going to be real excited about bringing in a lot of instruments to record everything that's going on."

Ed Turner, a Princeton University astrophysicist who is part of the project's core research team, tells the magazine that he's more excited by the interstellar component of the project — and doubts that the ground-based cameras will actually pick up any evidence of extraterrestrial visits. "If the aliens don't want us to know about them, they'll likely know about the Galileo Project," he says drily. "They can just avoid our high-resolution cameras."

Thanks to Slashdot reader sciencehabit for sharing the article

Last week a Chinese satellite "was observed grabbing another satellite and pulling it out of its normal geosynchronous orbit," reports the Drive, "and into a 'super-graveyard drift orbit.'"

"The maneuver raises questions about the potential applications of these types of satellites designed to maneuver close to other satellites for inspection or manipulation and adds to growing concerns about China's space program overall." On January 22, China's Shijian-21 satellite, or SJ-21, disappeared from its regular position in orbit during daylight hours when observations were difficult to make with optical telescopes. SJ-21 was then observed executing a "large maneuver" to bring it closely alongside another satellite, a dead BeiDou Navigation System satellite. SJ-21 then pulled the dead satellite out of its normal geosynchronous orbit and placed it a few hundred miles away in what is known as a graveyard orbit. These distant orbits are designated for defunct satellites at the end of their lives and are intended to reduce the risk of collision with operational assets....

According to Chinese state news outlets, SJ-21 was designed to "test and verify space debris mitigation technologies."

SJ-21's recent maneuver raises questions and concerns about these types of satellites and their potential for military use. Todd Harrison, director of CSIS's Aerospace Project, told Breaking Defense that SJ-21's actions present "more questions than answers," adding that while we can observe the satellite's actions, "the intent behind it and what China plans to do with this technology is a more subjective assessment."

This isn't the first time SJ-21 has made headlines with its questionable behavior. In November 2021, just a month after its launch, an unknown object was seen orbiting alongside SJ-21. At the time, Space Force designated the unidentified object as a spent apogee kick motor, but it was also reported that it might have been an experimental payload designed to test SJ-21's ability to perform remote operations and manipulate other satellites....

Analyzing the potential applications of these dual-use satellites is difficult.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story!

Moving halfway across America, from Colorado to New York, Austin and Valerie McNulty had a bad experience after hiring a moving company that subcontracted the work to another moving company.

But they'd also included an Apple AirTag in one of their boxes, Newsweek reports: A moving guy reportedly told Austin that he "just picked up the stuff" and would take another day or two. Due to the AirTag, the couple knew the moving guy was not in Colorado but was just less than five hours away in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As for the family's possessions, which were supposed to be inventoried and in a safe location, GPS tracking showed that neither action allegedly occurred. "It turns out [the items] just stayed overnight in a sketchy part of New Jersey," Austin told Newsweek.

According to Austin, that same driver who allegedly lied about his whereabouts told Austin in a phone call that he went to see "his lady" and that was part of the delay....

"I think we would have been waiting a lot longer for our home goods to arrive [if we didn't have the AirTag]," Valerie said.... "I would say that AirTags are fairly inexpensive and it's an easy way to hold the third parties accountable."
"When we brought up the fact that we knew his exact location he hung up on us," Valerie McNulty said in a Facebook post (which has been shared more than 4,600 times) — although the driver did eventually call back a few minutes later and the items were delivered the next day.

ABC News reports that the driver "was put on probation" according to his moving company — which also added that it "plans to use AirTags for tracking their drivers in the future."

Valerie McNulty argued to ABC News that "I was never tracking the driver, that was never my intention. I was tracking my belongings." Yet the Washington Post notes the story "comes amid a robust debate about the small plastic-and-metal disks, which launched last spring: Are they creepy or helpful? The trackers have been found on expensive cars, presumably so they could be stolen. But they can also be attached to commonly lost valuables, like keys, to make finding them easier."

Apple Insider reports a Pennsylvania state legislator is even proposing legislation making it a crime to track someone else's location or belongings without their consent, adding that if passed in Pennsylvania the law would "create a precedent for other states to follow suit if passed."

ZDNet quotes a remark from the Director of Cyber-Security at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to the BBC, calling Apple's AirTags "a perfect tool for stalking." But ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk adds "That's the problem with technology, isn't it? For every potential good use, there are at least several pain-inducing, criminal-pleasing, world-ending uses. Too often, the bad outweighs the good, especially in the public eyes and ears. Here, though, is a tale of a woman who's glad she used an AirTag for her own surveillance purposes....

This whole tale makes me wonder, though, what we've come to and where we're going.... If our default is that we can trust no one and fear everyone, how can we ever really get along?

"A race against time is under way for the U.S. Navy to reach one of its downed fighter jets — before the Chinese get there first," reports the BBC: The $100m (£74m) F-35C plane came down in the South China Sea after what the Navy describes as a "mishap" during take-off from the USS Carl Vinson. The jet is the Navy's newest, and crammed with classified equipment. As it is in international waters, it is technically fair game. Whoever gets there first, wins.

The prize? All the secrets behind this very expensive, leading-edge fighting force....

A U.S. salvage vessel looks to be at least 10 days away from the crash site. That's too late, says defence consultant Abi Austen, because the black box battery will die before then, making it harder to locate the aircraft. "It's vitally important the U.S. gets this back," she says. "The F-35 is basically like a flying computer. It's designed to link up other assets — what the Air Force calls 'linking sensors to shooters'."
The BBC describes the plane as the U.S. Navy's first "low observable" carrier-based aircraft, "which enables it to operate undetected in enemy airspace." And it's also "the most powerful fighter engine in the world," flying at speeds up to 1,200 mph, or Mach 1.6.

After the $100 million warplane crash-landed onto the deck of an aircraft carrier — and then tumbled into the water — images of the crash appeared on social media, reports CNN.

Thanks to Slashdot reader Thelasko for submitting the story!

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Drive: Space Force launched two additional satellites today as part of its push for greater Space Domain Awareness, or SDA, in geosynchronous orbit some 22,000 miles away from Earth. The two satellites are part of the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, or GSSAP, and will allow Space Force to not only locate and identify objects in this distant orbit, but also maneuver close to them in order to inspect them or assess their capabilities. The launch comes as Space Force leadership continues to sound the alarm about the risks posed to U.S. satellites in orbit.

The Northrop Grumman-built GSSAP-5 and GSSAP-6 were launched today at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 511 rocket. The first two GSSAP satellites were launched in 2014, with the second two following in 2016. Space Force has not released any details about how these two new GSSAP satellites might differ from the previous four, which were designed to operate near the belt of other geosynchronous satellites and maneuver close to them to conduct surveillance. A spokesperson for Space Systems Command stated this week that the new GGSAP satellites "will provide improved SDA data to the National Space Defense Center and other national users to enhance our ability to navigate freely and safely within the GEO belt."

GSSAP-5 and GSSAP-6 were originally scheduled to be launched in 2020, and it is not known why the launch was delayed almost two years. The GSSAP program was originally highly classified and was only revealed to the public in 2014. While the exact capabilities of the satellites are not public, it's known that they are able to capture close-up images of other satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Former Commander of Air Force Space Command Gen. William Shelton (Ret.) told Aviation Week in 2014 that the satellites are designed to drift in and out of the geosynchronous belt collecting intelligence on specific targets. The Air Force has previously used one of the satellites for Remote Proximity Operations (RPO), maneuvering close enough to inspect another Department of Defense satellite operated by the Navy that was experiencing a malfunction. The former head of Air Force Space Command, General John Hyten (Ret.), has previously said the satellites are capable of capturing some "truly eye-watering" imagery.

Hacktivists in Belarus said on Monday they had infected the network of the country's state-run railroad system with ransomware and would provide the decryption key only if Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko stopped aiding Russian troops ahead of a possible invasion of Ukraine. Ars Technica reports: Referring to the Belarus Railway, a group calling itself Cyber Partisans wrote on Telegram: "BelZhD, at the command of the terrorist Lukashenko, these days allows the occupying troops to enter our land. As part of the 'Peklo' cyber campaign, we encrypted the bulk of the servers, databases and workstations of the BelZhD in order to slow down and disrupt the operation of the road. The backups have been destroyed [...]." The group also announced the attack on Twitter.

A representative from the group said in a direct message that the Peklo cyber campaign targets specific entities and government-run companies with the goal of pressuring the Belarus government to release political prisoners and stop Russian troops from entering Belarus to use its ground for the attacks on Ukraine. "The government continues to suppress the free will of Belarusians, imprison innocent people, they continue to unlawfully keep... thousands of political prisoners," the representative wrote. "The major goal is to overthrow Lukashenko's regime, keep the sovereignty and build a democratic state with the rule of law, independent institutions and protection of human rights."

At the time this post went live, several services on the railway's website were unavailable. Online ticket purchases, for instance, weren't working [...]. The representative said that besides ticketing and scheduling being disrupted, the cyberattack also affected freight trains. According to reports, Russia has been sending military equipment and personnel by rail into Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine. @belzhd_live, a group of Belarus Railway workers that tracks activity on the 5,512-km railway, said on Friday that in a week's time, more than 33 Russian military trains loaded with equipment and troops had arrived in Belarus for joint strategic exercises there. The worker group said at the time that it expected a total of 200 so-called echelons to arrive in the coming days.

How exactly could Russia be deterred from invading Ukraine? The U.S. government is now "threatening to use a novel export control to damage strategic Russian industries, from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to civilian aerospace," according to Stars and Stripes (an editorially-independent newspaper for the American military). The newspaper cites administration officials as its source: The administration may also decide to apply the control more broadly in a way that would potentially deprive Russian citizens of some smartphones, tablets and video game consoles, said the officials. Such moves would expand the reach of U.S. sanctions beyond financial targets to the deployment of a weapon used only once before — to nearly cripple the Chinese tech giant Huawei. The weapon, known as the foreign direct product rule, contributed to Huawei suffering its first-ever annual revenue drop, a stunning 30% last year, according to analysts.

The attraction of using the foreign direct product rule derives from the fact that virtually anything electronic these days includes semiconductors, the tiny components on which all modern technology depends, from smartphones to jets to quantum computers — and that there is hardly a semiconductor on the planet that is not made with U.S. tools or designed with U.S. software. And the administration could try to force companies in other countries to stop exporting these types of goods to Russia through this rule. "This is a slow strangulation by the U.S. government," technology analyst Dan Wang of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm in Shanghai, said of Huawei. The rule cut the firm's supply of needed microchips, which were made outside the United States but with U.S. software or tools.

Now officials in Washington say they are working with European and Asian allies to craft a version of the rule that would aim to stop flows of crucial components to industries for which Russian President Vladimir Putin has high ambitions, such as civil aviation, maritime and high technology.... But the effort could face head winds from American and European business interests that fear using export controls could lead to Russian retaliation in other spheres — and eventually cause foreign companies to seek to design U.S. technology out of their products. That's because the extension of the rule beyond a single company like Huawei to an entire country or entire sectors of a country is unprecedented.

"It's like a magic power — you can only use it so many times before it starts to degrade," said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank. "Other countries will say, 'Oh, man, the U.S. has total control over us. We'd better find alternatives.'"
The newspaper also spoke to Paul Triolo, chief of technology policy at a global political risk research and consulting firm called Eurasia Group. His opinion "this would be weaponizing the U.S. semiconductor supply chain against an entire country."

And in more ways than one: Targeted use of the foreign direct product rule could be a blow to Russia's military, which relies on a type of chip called Elbrus that is designed in Russia but manufactured in Taiwan at a chip foundry called TSMC, according to Kostas Tigkos, an electronics expert at Janes Group, a U.K.-based provider of defense intelligence. If the United States barred TSMC from supplying those chips to Russia, as it successfully barred TSMC from supplying Huawei, that would have a "devastating effect," Tigkos said.

In a statement, TSMC said it "complies with all applicable laws and regulations" and that it has a "rigorous export control system in place ... to ensure export control restrictions are followed."Analysts say that Western multinational firms probably would comply with the export controls. All U.S. chipmakers include clauses in their contracts requiring customers to abide by U.S. export rules.
The article also explores a scenario where businesses in China step in to supply Russia (citing estimates from the Peterson Institute for International Economics that China already builds 70% of the computers and smartphones that Russia imports).

"If Chinese firms wound up supplying Russia in violation of the rule, that would leave Washington with a major diplomatic dilemma: whether to sanction them, even if they make ordinary — not military — goods."

Mustafa Suleyman, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence, is leaving Google to join the venture capital firm Greylock Partners. From a report: The departure of Mr. Suleyman, who was Google's vice president of product management and policy for artificial intelligence, closes a tumultuous tenure at the company. He joined Google in 2014 when the search giant acquired DeepMind, a cutting-edge artificial intelligence research lab, in a deal valued at $650 million. The deal demonstrated the value of companies that specialized in "deep learning," a form of artificial intelligence that became more important in the early part of the last decade. In just a few years, DeepMind had hired many of the leading researchers in the field.

Mr. Suleyman, known to friends and colleagues as Moose, was not an A.I. researcher by training. But he led the company into an important area of research: health care. He also became a key voice in DeepMind's efforts to ensure that its technologies would not be used for military applications, which led to a clash with Google when the company joined a flagship A.I. project with the Defense Department. (Google eventually pulled out of the project.)

President Biden on Wednesday expanded the National Security Agency's role in protecting the U.S. government's most sensitive computer networks, issuing a directive intended to bolster cybersecurity within the Defense Department and intelligence agencies. From a report: The memorandum signed by Mr. Biden mandates baseline cybersecurity practices and standards, such as two-factor authentication and use of encryption, for so-called national security systems, which include the Defense Department and intelligence agencies and the federal contractors that support them. It effectively aligns the cybersecurity standards imposed on national security agencies with those previously established for civilian agencies under an executive order Mr. Biden signed last May. Affected agencies will soon be expected to implement various cybersecurity protocols, including use of certain cloud technologies and software that can detect security problems on a network. Cybersecurity failures have plagued the U.S. government for decades, including thefts of detailed personnel records and military secrets that have been blamed on Russia, China and other adversaries. While national security agencies are generally seen as more secure than their civilian counterparts, they have endured significant breaches, too.

With the right military equipment, a single person can target a plane from three miles away using a heat-seeking missile. While such a nightmare is a rare occurrence, FedEx has applied to the FAA seeking approval to install a laser-based, anti-missile defense system on its cargo planes as an added safety measure. Gizmodo reports: FedEx's request to the Federal Aviation Administration, filed on Jan. 4, didn't come completely out of left field, however. In 2008, the company worked with Northrop Grumman to test its anti-missile laser-based defense systems on 12 of the shipping company's cargo planes for over a year. At the time, Northrop Grumman announced that its "system is ready to be deployed on civilian aircraft," although no commercial orders had been placed at the time, according to a company spokesperson. That may have changed, however.

FedEx's application to the FAA (PDF) to allow it to install and use anti-missile systems on its Airbus Model A321-200 cargo planes doesn't specifically mention Northrop Grumman's hardware, so the shipping company could now be working with another company, but the proposed hardware is basically the same as what was tested back in 2008. In the application document (PDF), which is "scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Jan. 18," FedEx cites "several incidents abroad" where "civilian aircraft were fired upon by man-portable air defense systems" which are nearly impossible to detect given their range of operation, but undoubtedly a serious threat when operating aircraft in some parts of the world.

The biggest problem with FedEx's application seems to be that the FAA's "design standards for transport category airplanes did not envisage that a design feature could project infrared laser energy outside the airplane" and that the "FAA's design standards are inadequate to address this capability." As a result, the defense system is being considered a "novel or unusual design feature" and as such will be subjected to several special safety regulations given how dangerous intense infrared light can be to the skin and eyes of "persons on the aircraft, on the ground, and on other aircraft." These regulations will include the ability to completely disable the system while the airplane is on the ground to prevent "inadvertent operation," a design that prevents inflight use from ever damaging the aircraft itself or risking the safety of the crew and passengers, even in the event of a system failure or accidental operation. They also require extensive markings, labels, warnings, and documentation for everyone from maintenance staff to ground crew, to pilots, warning them of the laser's class and risks, including an addendum to the flight manual explaining the complete use of the system.