A Blooper With Our Blimps

Oops, so this is one for the books...

The multi-billion dollar Raytheon-built military JLENS surveillance blimps are pictured above.

They are supposed to sense and alert us to a possible devastating surprise cruise missile attack on the U.S. eastern seaboard.

However, one of them lost its tethering and went sailing into the skies and had to itself be tracked by NORAD and two scrambled F-16 fighter jets. 

What was designed to surveil instead needed surveillance. 

The JLENS crashed landed in Amish country, Pennsylvania and took out the power to 20,000 people.

We need a strong, capable, and ready military!

If we are trying to improve our posturing with the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians--this is not the way to put our best blimp forward. ;-)

(Source photo: here with attribution to Bill Dickinson)

A Blooper With Our Blimps

Drones Made Easy

OMG, this is awesome.

This Lily Camera Drone is "throw and go" and simply lands in your hand. 

You can set it to follow you--almost like a guardian angel-- or to lead you where you need to go. 

Records video, sound, can do slow motion, and takes photos.

It has a tracking device.

It's waterproof.

Awesome for extreme sports or personal surveillance.

Would like to be able to communicate with it by voice command, and also see what it sees and hear what it hears with augmented reality glasses or on a smartphone or wearable.

Finally, if only it would come with a laser to zap anybody or anything bad that may come at us--that could be reassuring. 

Costs = $619 and ships in May 2016.

That was easy.  ;-)

Drones Made Easy

Stop Harassment Now

I took this photo on the Washington, D.C. Metro. 

"If It's Unwanted, It's Harassment."

Only a day or two later, some ladies came to me complaining that they had been harassed on the Metro.

Apparently, they had been on the platform waiting for a train and a young man was first staring at them, then coming around them menancingly, and then following them. 

Thank G-d, they got away, but it was a frightening situation that left them wanting to actually move away. 

Residents in the metro D.C area and customers of Metro should not have to ride in fear. 

We need more police and surveillance cameras on the Metro system now!

Signs are a great reminder, but law enforcement action is what is really needed and called for. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Stop Harassment Now

tURNING yOUR dEVICE aGAINST yOU!

So interesting article in BBC about the Samsung's "Listening TV."

This TV has voice activated controls and they don't just take commands, but...

"If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."

So aside from hackers (and spies) being able to turn your phone and computer mics, cameras, and GPS location data on and off to surveil and eavesdrop on you, now the dumb television set can listen in as well. 

You can be heard, seen, and found...whether you know it or not. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal with eyes and ears from here and here with attribution to Firas and Simon James)

tURNING yOUR dEVICE aGAINST yOU!

You Can't Hide Your Feelings

You can try to hide your feeling, but it won't work...

Your emotions are now an open book to anyone with facial-recognition software, such as from Emotient, Affectiva, and Eyeris.

This video from Emotient shows examples of Dr. Marion Bartlett demonstrating very well how the system is able to pick up on her expressions of joy, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, disgust, and contempt. 

From broad displays of emotion to subtle spontaneous, natural displays, to micro, fast and involuntary expressions, the system detects and clearly displays it. 

Described in the Wall Street Journal, the software, in real time, successfully uses "algorithms to analyze people's faces" and is based on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, who pioneered the study of facial expressions creating a catalog in the 1970s with "more than 5,000 muscle movements" linked to how they reveal your emotions. 

A single frame of a person's face can be used to extract 90,000 data points from "abstract patterns of light to tiny muscle movements, which get sorted by emotional categories."

With databases of billions of expressions from millions of faces in scores of countries around the world, the software works across ethnically diverse groups. 

Emotion-detection has a myriad of applications from national security surveillance and interrogation to in-store product marketing and generally gauging advertising effectiveness, to helping professionals from teachers to motivational speakers, executives, and even politicians hold people's attention and improve their messaging.

Then imagine very personal uses such as the software being used to evaluate job applicants or to tell if a spouse is lying about an affair...where does it end?

Of course, there are serious privacy issues in reading people's faces unbeknownst to or unwanted by them as well as possibilities for false positives, so that people's feelings are wrongly pegged or interpreted. 

In the end, unless you wear a physical mask or can spiritually transcend yourself above it all, we can see you and soon we will know not just what you are feeling, but also what you are thinking as well...it's coming. ;-)

You Can't Hide Your Feelings

Security, In the Blink Of An Eye

Very short, but cool video of this spooky kinetic art that I took today.

It is by artist, Tim Tate and it's called The Guardian.

We talked about putting this right in front of the door when you walk into the house.

Keeping an eye on things:

1) G-d
2) Spirits of our ancestors
3) Guards
4) Smith and Wesson 
5) Dogs very hungry
6) Gates, doors, and other barriers
7) Surveillance cameras
8) Sensors and alarms
9) Traps and tripwires
10) This cool art piece

Hope you enjoy! ;-)

Security, In the Blink Of An Eye

Drones Neighbor Against Neighbor

Fascinating perspective in the New York Times today on the future diabolical use of drones.

Yes, drones can be used for defense, law enforcement, search and rescue, neighborhood watch, agriculture, and even Amazon or Pizza Hut deliveries. 

But what about the darker side of drones--used neighbor against neighbor, where anyone can buy a fairly sophisticated drone for merely hundreds of dollars and use it against others in the community.

- Want to use the (surveillance) camera to spy on your neighbor?

- Want to use its claws to pick up and steal something?

- Want to airlift and plant evidence or contraband and frame someone unjustly?

- Want to distract someone or cause an accident or fatality?

Ok, I am going a lot further than the NYT article...but really what prevents people from doing these things and more?

The article does mention new FAA policies "prohibiting drones from flying [over stadiums] near major sporting events."

But think about a drone in the hands of a terrorist with a dirty bomb or G-d forbid, even a WMD, and the drone swooping into a densely populated area like a stadium or even Times Square...what would prevent this--perhaps, nothing?

Think about it...this is about to become a lot more dangerous world because drones are not just for the good guys anymore, and the bad guys may not care about FAA regulations and penalties. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to outacontext)

Drones Neighbor Against Neighbor

Dexterous Drones

Ok, after the da Vinci System that uses robotics to conduct surgeries this many not seem like such a feat, but think again.

While da Vinci is fully controlled by the surgeon, this Drone from Drexel University that can turn valves, or door knobs and other controls, is on the road to doing this autonomously. 

Think of robots that can manipulate the environment around them not on a stationary assembly line or doing repetitive tasks, but actually interacting real-time to open/close, turn things on/off, adjust control settings, pick things up/move them, eventually even sit at a computer or with other people--like you or I--and interface with them. 

Drones and robots will be doing a lot more than surveillance and assembly line work--with artifical intelligence and machine learning, they will be doing what we do--or close enough. ;-)

Dexterous Drones

From Pepper Spray to Champagne

Shhh! This is the story of drones. 

Drones continue to go from battlefield to backyard. 

Initially, developed for advanced persistent surveillance and later weaponized for targeting terrorists, we heard the like of Jeff Bezos promise drones for Amazon delivery. 

Once again, the double-edge of drones continues...

This week we saw the introduction of scary, "Riot Control Drones" developed by Desert Wolf (a military contractor) that can shoot 4,000 rounds of pepper spray, paint balls, and non-lethal plastic projectiles, employs bright strobe lights and blinding lasers, and issues commands and warnings through loud speakers, and monitors crowds of protesters by high-definition and thermal vision cameras. 

At the same time, we saw drones being used as Flying Bel Hops in the luxury Casa Madrona hotel and spa in California for delivering champagne, treats, toys, and even sunglasses to their $10,000 a night guests on their guest deck or even to a boat out on the bay. 

And we are still only at the beginning, with drones, and robotics in general, moving to revolutionize our world.  

Robots will surveil, they will attack and kill, and they will serve people everywhere from restaurants and retail to hospitals and homes.

You can't shush the robots, they are on the march and they will have the means to help and hurt people--it won't be simple, but it definitely will be completely invasive. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

From Pepper Spray to Champagne

Surveillance Society {Funny}

This was funny photo my wife and I took in a medical practitioner's office. 

Above the floodlights, was a picture of these staring eyes.

And it was simply thumbtacked onto the wallpaper. 

One of the receptionists asked why we were taking the photo.

We sort of giggled--uh, this was not exactly the typical surveillance scenario in the 21st century of CCTVs, drones, hidden mics, tracking devices, and big data--not even close!

But maybe it's just a reminder that someone is ALWAYS looking. ;-)

Surveillance Society {Funny}

The *S*p*y* Named Snowden

So was Edward Snowden a whistleblower (some even call him a patriot) or one of the most ruthless spies this country has ever known?

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Edward Jay Epstein makes a strong case that Snowden was a spy galore, and the whistleblowing was his cover.

1. What he stole? - 1.7 million documents from the NSA with "only a minute fraction of them have anything to do with civil liberties or whistleblowing." Instead, the vast majority "were related to our military capabilities, operations, tactics, techniques, and procedures"--otherwise known as the "keys to the kingdom." Moreover, it seems clear that a "top priority was lists of the computers of U.S. adversaries abroad that the NSA has succeeded in penetrating."
2. When he stole them? - Snowden took the Booz Allen Hamilton job as a contractor for NSA in March 2013--this was at the "tail end of his operation." Moreover, the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA) court order for Verizon to provide metadata on U.S. phone calls for 90 days had only been issued in April 2013. And Snowden told reporter James Rosen in October 2013, that his last job at NSA gave him access to every active operation against the Chinese and "that is why I accepted the position."
3. Where did Snowden end up? - First in Hong Kong and then under the protection of the FSB (aka the old KGB) in Russia, which "effectively compromises all the sources and methods" and ties all too nicely with what he stole. A former cabinet official has indicated that the Snowden heist was either Russian espionage, Chinese espionage, or a joint operation. 

If Snowden really was a spy as indicated, then the Whistleblowing of domestic surveillance in the U.S. was a most brilliant ploy by his operators to distract our nation from the true nature of the exfiltration and the harm done to our national security. In a way, it falls right in line with Russia's creative storyline/coverup in taking Crimea in saying that they were only protecting ethnic Russians. Score 2 for Russia!

Are we so easily lied to and manipulated...is public opinion really just jello in the hands of the global spymasters.  

We've got to be smart enough (i.e. critical thinkers) to interpret the noise in the intelligence signals, political speeches, and news stories to unveil the truth of what is really going on. In advertising, when exposing the truth of products and companies, this is sometimes referred to as culture jamming. Can we apply this to the complicated intrigue of global politics and get past the storyline that is fed to us to expose truth?  

It's high time to outmaneuver those that may seek to manipulate the public (whether from outside or even sometimes from within) with some brilliance of our own--in not believing every snippet that is fed to us and instead looking at the bigger picture of political theater, special interests, and national security to see who is now zinging whom and why. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The *S*p*y* Named Snowden

Crooked x 2

First, some beautiful flowers from Washington, D.C. 

Thought these were awesome, even though the gardner did a little bit of a crooked job here. 

And when it comes to crooked, I overheard a funny story in the locker room the other day.

These school students were talking about getting caught stealing something in a local store.

One says that he got spotted on the surveillance cameras and that they even have facial recognition now, but he's okay on that because he was wearing a cap. 

Another kid in the group says "why didn't you just tell them you didn't know you couldn't take it!" 

Some very sophisticated crooks we got here. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Crooked x 2

Guns And Roses

This was an interesting student portrayal showing decision on whether someone is a friend or foe--I like it!

On the face of it, is a computer screen "head" with pictures of a drone for surveillance and a fighter jet for carrying out battle. 

In the right hand is a rose for the friend, and in the left hand is a gun for the foe. 

On the bottom, it says "You Decide" with little pieces of hanging paper marked "Friend"or "Foe" and you pick one.

To me, the kid that designed this is pretty smart--smarter than a lot of adults today,

Why? 

To many people, everything is black or white--for example, liberals may default to everyone as good and trustworthy until shown otherwise, while conservatives may take the alternate track where they assume people are bad and we should be cautious with them and be prepared to defend ourselves. 

Neither is simply right or wrong--it's just how we approach things--although for me, it's definitely you have to earn trust, and still it's important to verify!

The kid that made the friend or foe robot apparently realizes that we have to discriminate between those people that are friends and those that are enemies--and act accordingly. 

Surveillance is a good thing and being ready to defend ourselves is a very good thing. 

Sometimes, those that masquerade as friends are really foes, and those that challenge us may really be our best friends. 

We must be very discriminating in determining who is who--and be ready with both rose and gun. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Guns And Roses

Gaming to Get More Bricks and Mortar

Farhad Manjoo has an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal on the gamification of the workplace. 

In office gamification, employees are treated like gamers--they are measured, given points, and recognized/rewarded for meeting objectives as if you are playing an arcade game or Angry Birds. 

The problem is that this is really nothing new and also not very motivating to the workforce. 

Already in the Bible the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites by giving them ever crushing quotas for gathering straw and building the great pyramids.

And if they didn't measure up, the Bible tells us that, "They made their lives bitter with harsh labor...the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly."(Deut. 1:14)

You see while measuring performance is a good and important part to managing and maturing processes and the workforce, tracking people in real life with plus ups for every good thing and minuses for every mistake or failure treats this whole thing as one big game, but it's not.

A mature adult workforce doesn't need points and bonus time for doing their jobs, and shouldn't be made to fear losing their jobs for not meeting their daily numbers.

Even Manjoo admits that he dreads working in a work environment where everything is measured and monitored to the nth-degree.

He says that even in a field like Journalism, he feels undue pressure to produce and that "every time I write a story that doesn't make the paper's most-popular list, I consider it a tiny failure. If I do that too many times in a row, I begin to wonder if I should look for a new line of work."

Now perhaps, many of you are saying, that if you can't perform at expectations, maybe you should be looking for another job, but the point is that performance measurement should be humane--working toward the long-term benefit of the company and the development of the employees--and not one miss and it's "Game Over!"

Gamification software, like Badgeville, that gives points for everything from creating a sales lead to responding to a lead and converting a lead to sales opportunities is nothing short of childish micromanagement.

Employees shouldn't treated like children working for points and prizes and titles like "Super Converter" or "Super Dealer" (like in the demo video), but rather should be treated as professionals, who work for the mission and based on an ethos of excellence, where they are committed to doing their best for the organization, and the organization is committed to developing them and making them a ever better and satisfied workforce--not making them feel like they are coming to a surveillance, tracking, and fear-inspired workplace. 

Can gamification have a place in creating some healthy workplace competition and fun? Sure, but when it's masquerading as a serious tool to engineer people to do their jobs and have a meaningful career, then someone in the C-suite has been playing Farmville a little too long. 

My father used to tell me, "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar," and employees will be far more motivated if they know you are working with them as a team to "get to the next level" rather than infantilizing and prodding them with ridiculous amounts of workplace surveillance to force them to collect more straw and build more pyramids. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Gaming to Get More Bricks and Mortar

Amazon Delivery - By Crunk-Car, If You Like

Jeff Bezos of Amazon is one very smart guy and when he announces that he is interested in drones delivering your next online order that makes for a lot of grandstanding. 

But really how is a dumb drone delivering an order of diapers or a book so exciting. 

Aside from putting a lot of delivery people at USPS, UPS, and FedEx out of work, what does the consumer get out of it? 

Honestly, I don't care if if the delivery comes by Zike-Bike, Crunk-Car, Zumble-Zay, Bumble-Boat, or a Gazoom, as Dr. Seuss would say--I just care that it gets here fast, safely, and cheaply. 

Will a drone be able to accomplish those things, likely--so great, send the drone over with my next order, but this doesn't represent the next big technological leap. 

It doesn't give us what the real world of robotics in the future is offering: artificial intelligence, natural language processing, augmentation of humans, or substitution by robots altogether, to do things stronger, faster, and more precisely, and even perhaps companionship to people. 

Turning surveillance and attack drones into delivery agents is perhaps a nice gesture to make a weapon into an everyday service provider. 

And maybe the Octocopters even help get products to customers within that holy grail, one day timeframe, that all the retailers are scampering for.

It's certainly a great marketing tool--because it's got our attention and we're talking about it.

But I'll take a humanoid robot sporting a metallic smile that can actually interact with people, solve problems, and perform a multitude of useful everyday functions--whether a caregiver, a bodyguard, or even a virtual friend (e.g. Data from Star Trek)--over a moving thingamajig that Dr. Seuss foresaw for Marvin K. Mooney. ;-)

Amazon Delivery - By Crunk-Car, If You Like

The Dancer and The Tablet

So we are at this Mediterranean Restaurant next to the beach.

We are sitting outside--it is a little chilly and we cozy up next to one of the fire poles to keep warm.

We weren't eating much; just a drink for our anniversary and something to munch on.

All of a sudden, my wife points to this lady from the next table who gets up and starts dancing provocatively.

You can see the sliver of ocean behind her, the night sky, and the cars and pedestrians are going by behind her.

There are multiple realities going on here:

She is in her own world--dancing to the music, swaying this way and that, and enjoying her femininity. 

On the other hand, the guy she's with is taking a video of her on his tablet computer--he seems more concerned with capturing the moment with his technology than enjoying his girlfriend. 

We are conscientious observers--I sort of wondered if the guy should've been paying more attention to the women who was wooing him than playing with his tablet. 

The other lesson that I can't help reaching is that cameras and microphones are truly everywhere--privacy is a complete myth!  

He is recording her, we are videoing them on our smartphone, and the restaurant is taping all of us on CCTV cameras, and NSA is laughing at us from Fort Meade. 

So if you want solitude, book a flight with Virgin Galactic. ;-)

The Dancer and The Tablet

Drone Warfare: Integration At Its Best

I learned a lot about Drone Warfare reading and thinking about "The Killing Machines" in The Atlantic by David Bowden. 

The benefits of drones for military use are numerous:

- Stealth: Drones can be relatively small (some are now even the size of bugs) and they can survey from vehicles that are aerial, terrestrial, underwater, or I would imagine, even subterranean. In a sense, even a spy satellite is a type of drone, isn't it? 

- Persistent: They can hover unmanned over enemy territory for not only hours, but also days at a time, and switching in replacement drones can create a virtually continuous stream of surveillance for months or years, depending on the need. 

- Powerful: The sensors on a drone can include high-definition cameras, eavesdropping devices, radar, infrared, "and a pixel array so dense, that the device can zoom in clearly on objects only inches wide from well over 15,000 feet above." Further, with features like Gorgon Stare, multiple cameras linked together can view entire cities in one feel swoop.   

- Long-range: Drones can function doing reconnaissance or surveillance far away and deep into enemy territory. With drones, no one is too distant or remote as to be untouchable. 

- Lethality: Drones can carry missiles such as The Hellfire, a "100-pound antitank missile" and other weapons that can act expediently on information without the need to call in additional support. 

- Precise: Drones can hit targets with amazing precision--"It targets indiscriminate killers with exquisite discrimination." 

- Safety: Drones carry out their work unmanned with (or without) controllers stationed at safe distances away--sometimes thousands of miles back at the homeland. 

- Expendable: Drones themselves are throwaway. As with a bee, a drone is more or less useless when disconnected from the hive. Similarly, a military "drone is useless as an eyeball disconnected from the brain," since drones function only as an extension of back-end satellite links, data processors, intelligence analysts, and its controller." 

Overall, the great value of drones is their integration of technologies: vehicles, global telecommunications, optics, sensors, supercomputers, weapon systems, and more. 

To me, between the questions of fairness, legality, and privacy--drones are being given a bum rap. 

- Fairness:  Just because one side has a technology that the other doesn't, should not mean it's wrong to use it. This is what competition and evolution is all about. I remember learning in school, when children would complain to the teacher that something was unfair, and the teacher would reply, "life is unfair!" This doesn't mean we should use a shotgun approach, but rather use what we got, appropriately. 

- Legality: Is it legal to kill targets rather than apprehending them, trying them, and otherwise punishing them? This is where sincere deliberations come in on whether someone is a "lawful target" (e.g. enemy combatant), "imminent threat" (e.g. self-defense), whether other alternatives are viable (e.g. collateral damage assessments), and will killing them do more hard than good to foreign relations, influence, and even possibly breeding new hate and terror, rather than quelling it. 

- Privacy: The issue of privacy comes less into play with military matters and more with respect to domestic use for law enforcement and other civilian uses (from agriculture to urban planning). The key is protect citizens from being unduly monitored, tracked, and scrutinized--where freedom itself is under big-brother attack and we all become mere drones ourselves in a national hive of complacency and brainless obedience. 

Rather than scaling back drones use, I liked Mary Ellen O'Connell vision of new drones "capable of delivering a warning--'Come out with your hands up!' and then landing to make an arrest using handcuffs."

This is the promise of technology to learn from mistakes of the past and always bring possibilities of making things better in the future. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Don McCullough)

Drone Warfare: Integration At Its Best

The Keys To Good Government

Peggy Noonan hit it right on the head in today's Wall Street Journal.

The fear of giving up privacy, she said, is of a "massive surveillance state," and this is not overblown. 

The crux of this concern is that if Government (or I would add hackers) can intrude on citizen's private communications and thoughts, then eventually people will self-censor. 

No privacy does mean government control.

As Noonan makes clear, violations of citizen privacy is not just a threat to the Fourth Amendment protecting against unreasonable search and seizure, but is a bona fide danger as well to the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech. 

People should not be afraid to think critically and creatively because of what the government may do to them (and their families) for disagreeing with fraud, waste, abuse, special interests, and stupidity.

Rather, politicians should fear being criticized and not re-elected for violating the duty to rule justly and as true representatives of the people. 

However, when government and politicians can listen in, see, and know what the lawful opposition in thinking and doing, then they are given virtually absolute power.

And absolute power does corrupt absolutely.  

We should not change our underlying values of freedom and become a nation of routine digital interrogation of everyday John Doe's.

Terrorists, traitors, anarchists, and hostile nation states should be pursued and given no rest or privacy from our intelligence, law enforcement, and warfighters. 

But well-meaning citizens should be free to think, feel, and say what they believe in the best interest of the country. 

Upright citizen's should never have to fear an unjust government, but rather corrupt politicians should be concerned about violating the fundamental rights of the people. 

At least two keys to good government are privacy and free speech. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Empirical Perception)

The Keys To Good Government

No Such Agency (NSA) Listening To No Such Information (NSI)

The National Security Agency (NSA) frequently referred to by the secretive surname of No Such Agency is at the forefront of our signals intelligence (SIGINT) and in protecting America--they are amazing!

Recently, there is a lot of controversy about the PRISM program for sifting through communications looking for terrorist contacts, plans, and imminent attacks to be foiled. 

Is this necessary for security or a violation of our privacy? 

Of course, we value our privacy and generally wish we had more. (For me growing up in the busy and crowded city that never slips, I craved a little more quiet and secluded life and that's how I ended up in the Washington D.C. suburbs).

Anyway, if your an average hard-working Joe or Jane, what do you fear about PRISM?

For me, if "they" are tracking calls or listening--this is what they hear:

- The occasional squabble with my loving wife (yes, we drive each other nuts sometimes).

- My teenage kids hanging up their phone on me, not wanting to hear my brilliant (in my own mind) parental advice and guidance.

- My elderly parents lecturing me and telling me that I should go to synagogue more often.

- The daily life transactions with the plumber, the cable service, and the credit card company. 

If your honest and loyal, and the system works fairly, the way it's supposed to, your communications are just some transmission packets travelling through cyberspace to carry out your life's goings on.

Then again, if you're crooked, a traitor, or planning to or have hurt someone, well then your up against some very powerful technology tools and (hopefully) your going to get caught and get what's coming to you.

The big concern then is not when the system works well and fairly, but when it's used corruptly, fraudulently, or for political ends. 

Then it's not what someone overhears you say or sees you do that's a real concern, but rather, with all the advanced electronics and technology, what can be made up about you to address personal or political gripes, grievances, or just settle a score.  

You don't have to be afraid (generally) of what you do honestly, instead you need to fear the dishonesty of those who can or are apt to misuse the technology for their own ends.

Then what you really did or said, can be taken out of context, exaggerated, edited, spliced, or otherwise doctored to something else entirely. 

This is why the integrity and ethical backbone of those who run the country and our vital institutions are of paramount importance.

With honesty, ethics, and justice--a surveillance system can greatly enhance national security. Without these things, they can be a tool of corruption. The best protection is not unplugging the system, but hooking in lots of internal and external controls to keep it honest.   ;-)

(Source Photo: here by LittleBirth)

No Such Agency (NSA) Listening To No Such Information (NSI)

Turnkey Cyberwar

Interesting article by Noah Shachtman in Wired about how the Pentagon is gearing up for cyberwar.

It's called Plan X and it's being pursued by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The idea is for cyber warfare to be conducted like traditional kinetic warfare--where "munitions made of 1s and 0s [are] to be as a simple to launch as ones made of metal and explosives."

Cyberspace is considered a domain of warfare similar to land, sea, air, and space, and it is necessary to be able to craft offensive capabilities where "a military operator can design and deploy a cyber effect, know what it's going to accomplish...and take the appropriate level of action."

We can't fly by the seat of our pants in cyberspace any longer; we've got to have turnkey solutions ready to launch in order to defend our people and interests. 

To accomplish this, we need:

1) Surveillance: A good map of cyberspace detailing enemy cyber outposts and threats akin to the geographical maps we have identifying physical targets and dangerous movements.

2) Weapons: Reliable cyber weapons ready to take on and take out enemy networks similar to kinetic weapons ready to destroy their military hardware and infrastructure.

3) Launch protocols: The rules of engagement for attack and counterattack and the ability to intuitively and securely unleash those even faster then the turnkey capabilities with which we can respond with traditional military might. 

Whether, the cyber weapon looks like Angry Birds or some other point (at the target) and swipe (to launch at them) interface is almost beside the point--what is key is that we are ready to fight like hell in cyberspace, win uncontested, and keep the peace again. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Great Beyond)

Turnkey Cyberwar