Silicon Folklore – The History of the Narrative History of the Internet: “You’ve probably heard the story of how the Internet was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. It usually goes “DARPA was doing cold war planning and was eager for a distributed resilient command-and-control”… actually let’s hear Professor Rob Larson, author of Bit Tyrants:… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: Defense
DHS OIG – Secret Service’s Preparation for, and Response to, the Events of January 6, 2021
The Secret Service’s Preparation for, and Response to, the Events of January 6, 2021 – (REDACTED) – [August 2, 2024], “the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) released a redacted version of the January 6th DHS OIG United States Secret Service report to the American public. This 82-page report details the… Continue Reading
Report of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy 2024
Congress established the Commission on the National Defense Strategy by statute to examine and make recommendations with respect to the National Defense Strategy. As part of the Commission’s role, it conducted a review of the “assumptions, strategic objectives, priority missions, major investments in defense capabilities, force posture and structure, operational concepts, and strategic and military… Continue Reading
War in Ukraine: Wide Partisan Differences on U.S. Responsibility and Support
With the conflict in Ukraine now in its third year, Republicans and Democrats continue to differ over U.S. policy toward the war-torn country. A 62% majority of Republicans say the United States does not have a responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s invasion. Americans overall are evenly divided on whether the U.S. has… Continue Reading
How data brokers sell our location data and jeopardise national security
Netzpolitic.org: “The AdTech industry is torpedoing the privacy of millions of people in Germany and is a threat to national security. But the underlying problem is global: databrokers sell location data without sufficient control. This is the summary of a joint research by netzpolitik.org and BR. Our investigation with BR (Bayerischer Rundfunk) shows for the… Continue Reading
The Donald Trump Interview Transcript
Bloomberg – Full text, fact-checked – unpaywalled – “Bloomberg Businessweek interviewed former US President Donald Trump at his golf club, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on June 25, two days before the first 2024 presidential debate and about two weeks before a failed assassination attempt. In a discussion focused on business and the global economy,… Continue Reading
384,000 sites pull code from sketchy code library recently bought by Chinese firm
Ars Technica: “More than 384,000 websites are linking to a site that was caught last week performing a supply-chain attack that redirected visitors to malicious sites, researchers said. For years, the JavaScript code, hosted at polyfill[.]com, was a legitimate open source project that allowed older browsers to handle advanced functions that weren’t natively supported. By… Continue Reading
Why GPS Is Under Attack
The New York Times Visualization [unlocked]: “The Global Positioning System runs the modern world. But it is under daily attack. This year alone, researchers say, more than 60,000 commercial flights have been hit by bogus GPS signals, which can confuse pilots. The American GPS network that was once the gold standard is at risk of… Continue Reading
Negative Emotions Fell Globally for the First Time Since 2014
“The world was beset by conflict in 2023 — as the war between Ukraine and Russia dragged on and a new one broke out between Israel and Hamas — but it was in a better place emotionally than it was at the height of the pandemic. Negative emotions dipped for the first time in a… Continue Reading
Nine Takeaways From Our Investigation Into Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Failures
ProPublica: “After Russian hackers exploited a flaw in a widely used Microsoft product duringone of the largest cyberattacks in U.S. history, the software giant downplayed its culpability. However, a recent ProPublica investigation revealed that a whistleblower within Microsoft’s ranks had repeatedly attempted to convince the company to address the weakness years before the hack —… Continue Reading
Catalyzing Crisis – A Primer on Artificial Intelligence, Catastrophes, and National Security
Center for New American Security: “The arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022 initiated both great excitement and fear around the world about the potential and risks of artificial intelligence (AI). In response, several AI labs, national governments, and international bodies have launched new research and policy efforts to mitigate large-scale AI risks. However, growing efforts… Continue Reading
Operation Overload
Aleksandra Atanasova (Reset.Tech), Amaury Lesplingart (CheckFirst), Francesco Poldi (CheckFirst), Guillaume Kuster (CheckFirst) Published in June 2024 under the CC BY-SA licence. “This report exposes a large-scale, cross-country, multi-platform disinformation campaign designed to spread pro-Russian propaganda in the West, with clear indicators of foreign interference and information manipulation (FIMI). The narratives promoted by the actors are… Continue Reading
