Resistence is Futile...

 Secured Cellphones

• BY ROBERT BECKHUSEN
• 04.19.13
• 6:30 AM

A U.S. marine with his cellphone on June 1, 2011. The Pentagon’s intelligence agency is looking for a new one. Photo: Marine Corps Recruiting Command

The Pentagon has big plans for its spy agency. But first it’s going to upgrade its secret agents’ cellphones.
That’s the gist of a recent request for information from the cryptic Virginia Contracting Activity (or VACA), the public face for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s secretive contract business. According to the request, the DIA is looking for a company with the “ability to work and store classified information at the SECRET Collateral Level” to design custom “cellular phone point-to-point communication systems.” In other words, a private communications link.

It even sounds like the DIA wants someone to build it a bespoke cellphone. This is not for certain, as the request uses broad language. The agency states the contractor must be proficient in designing “custom packaging and advanced miniaturization for communications” – in addition to a “high level of proficiency programming and testing cell phones.”



Among other specifics, the designers will need to have “a high level of proficiency in the manufacturing and production of custom transmit systems” from the design and integration stage to programming the firmware. The DIA also expects industry to develop and deploy a “functional prototype and operational evaluation,” and to eventually train people how to use the tool for operations. An addendum to the solicitation is classified, but the agency says it expects to award a multi-million-dollar, three-year contract sometime in the fall for the project.

The “cellular communications capabilities” are “for intelligence,” the request notes vaguely. But this kind of project isn’t exactly a surprise coming from the DIA, which has increasingly shifted towards a kind of old-school spycraft under the direction of Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was picked to head the agency last year after heading up intelligence in Afghanistan and for the Joint Special Operations Command.

Flynn’s institutional changes include the creation of a consolidated Pentagon spy force called the Defense Clandestine Service along with plans — if not the funds — to deploy hundreds of more spies to work overseas recruiting foreign agents and gathering intelligence.

The DIA doesn’t want to just buy new custom cellphones. It wants to crack and analyze them too. In December, the agency sought information from industry for a number of “technical exploitation” tools to analyze data found in captured media including hard drives and “mobile devices.” Broadly speaking, it’s what the DIA would need to rapidly sort through digital files — like the kind found in Osama bin Laden’s compound — while hunting for hidden information. In addition, the agency hired ex-Blackwater merc firm Academi to train its agents.

But the DIA isn’t quite on the level of the CIA. There’s been questions from the Senate whether the agency’s intelligence-gathering skills are up to snuff. Developing some of the basic tools would be a start.

Google Fusion Tables.. Time to get involved

 City of Palo Alto Breaks Open Government Ground Again with Launch of "Open GIS"

Palo Alto, California - The City of Palo Alto today again stepped up its commitment to open government by releasing the first sets of City Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) data as open data through the innovative use of Google Fusion Tables. Called Open GIS, this release joins Palo Alto's existing open data sets at http://data.cityofpaloalto.org, and the award-winning site for City budget information, Open Budget, available here: http://data.cityofpaloalto.org/openbudget.

The new service, accessible via http://data.cityofpaloalto.org/opengis will, over time, make hundreds of data layers easily available. The data will contain a large volume of geographically-referenced features which have been created and catalogued over the past 20 years in Palo Alto’s GIS. Coupled with these features is attribute data—additional information about each of the features such as size, material, owner, census tract, and other characteristics.

Open GIS was created through the innovative use of Google Fusion Tables, an experimental data visualization Web application to gather, visualize, and share large data tables. Developers can extend the power of Fusion Tables using the Fusion Tables API and by using FusionTablesLayers in the Google Maps API.

Palo Alto City Manager James Keene commented, “Open GIS continues our rapid pace to unleash the value of data stored on our servers so it can serve our community in completely new ways. Geospatial data is particularly valuable to a large range of stakeholders as it is the underlying physical blueprint of every community.”

Jonathan Reichental, Palo Alto Chief Information Officer said, “We’re stepping up to our responsibility as the heart of Silicon Valley by not just being a model for open government, but for doing it in the most innovative way. Experimenting with the power of Google Fusion Tables provides us with a free platform to try new ways to extend the data back to those it belongs: our community.”

Development Services Director Peter Pirnejad said, “Geospatial data is valuable to a wide range of stakeholders such as city planning, construction, architects, utilities, and public safety. I’ve already seen innovative start-ups use our open city permit data to create useful apps so I’m confident by making more and more of our GIS data easily available, we’ll see useful innovation for the community happen.”

The initial data sets on Open GIS include location data, road centerlines, land use, tree data, public projects, and trench plate data. More data will be added in the weeks ahead, so City staff recommends visiting the site often.

Media Overload - Air Force Drone

Welcome to the Age of Big Drone Data

BY SPENCER ACKERMAN
04.25.13
6:30 AM



An MQ-9 Reaper at Fort Drum, New York. Photo: U.S. Air Force

James is the Air Force’s deputy chief for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, giving him the flying service’s drone portfolio. During a rare public talk yesterday in Washington, James let on that “sustainment” of the drone fleet is his next big task. That means focusing less on designing new robots, as the Air Force’s new budget indicates, and more on the human problem of managing the absolutely enormous amount of data that its Predators, Reapers, Global Hawks and Sentinels generate.

“The future is going to be taking all sources of information and developing knowledge and intelligence from that,” James said. He’s working on some software fixes for that, as well as some data-storage farms. Welcome to the age of Big Drone Data.

The Air Force has actually lived in it for a long time. Last year, Secretary Michael Donley lamented that it will take “years” for Air Force analysts to swim through the oceans of imagery that the drones yield. One of the major purposes of the drone fleet is to hover over an area longer than a plane with a pilot in a cockpit can, snapping photos and streaming video down to the ground. And when you’ve got a robot doing that for 16 to 22 hours at a stretch, the length of a typical drone combat-air patrol, all that data piles up.

James doesn’t have ready-made solutions, but he said the Air Force is starting to look long and hard at its big-data challenges. First comes upgrading its network infrastructure “to move the data around, store it as you need to and to do that securely.” (Indeed.)

Next comes an improved suite of software tools to integrate the video feeds with other forms of imagery, harvested from drones, satellites, piloted spy planes and other sources. It’s got to work so that “I’m not relying on the human eyeball to look at FMV, full-motion video, all the time,” he said, “the tools are doing that for me.” Forthcoming algorithms will find something from a database of electro-optical information, connect it with something from the signals database “and bring it together in a fused fashion,” James said. No timetable on when that’ll come online.

In the meantime, Air Force isn’t totally shying away from developing new kinds of drones. It’s got a “micro-aviary” of tiny, insect- and bird-like ones, currently in the research phase. And the Air Force has a long history of developing planes in secret. As aviation journalist extraordinaire Bill Sweetman wrote on Tuesday, there’s likely a new secret drone design in the works right now; and in any event, the Air Force wants its next long-range bomber to be pilot-optional.

But other challenges that James wants his drone fleet of the future — even if it looks mostly like the one he’s got today — to meet are going to compound the Big Drone Data problem.

The first is increasing the time the Predators, Reapers, Global Hawks and Sentinels can stay aloft, an engineering challenge. The second is getting ever-powerful sensors in the bellies of the drones, so they can loiter further away from the targets they spy on. That’s a big issue, since drones are really easy to shoot down — they fly slow and aren’t built to maneuver — and not every place the military wants to send them lacks sophisticated air defenses a la Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yet the longer the drones are in the skies and the better their sensor packages are, the more data they’ll produce — bringing the Air Force back into its data-management problem. James levels: they’re working on it.

“The software tools will lead the way,” he predicted. “And it’s not just the military that’s worried about how you handle this big data. There’s lots of corporate and commercial interests out there in terms of video and imagery and what do I do with it and how can I track things and see them.” Until then, the Air Force has a video glut on its hands.

MidNight Mapper's Pickers - New Cool Cameras

A bunch of really neat new cameras... First are two GPS enabled SONY cameras.. a 3D binoc that innovates on their legacy DEV-5.  The they kicked out a new Point-and-Shoot that has 30x zoom, 1080p-60 as AVCHD and MP4.  It also allows remote control via its WiFi.  Next a waterproof Pentax... really Ricoh - noteable for over priced poor solutions IMHO - but this one seems to have some interesting qualities.  Next Delkin kicks out a $150 720p security cam that has WiFi and smartphone control and viewing.  And lastly a DARPA very high-res IR that will shift infra-red into handheld... looks like FLIR may get the go-ahead?

Enjoy...
MidNight Mapper

Sony's Digital Recording Binoculars score a huge boost with $2,000 DEV-50V

 

from Engadget by Zach Honig

Who, you say, might be the target customer for Sony's Digital Recording Binoculars? Your guess is as good as ours, but regardless of the device's audience, Sony's improvements are sure to boost that base by a bit. Like its predecessor, the DEV-5V, the DEV-50V captures stills and video, and will retail for $2,000, though the similarities end there. These binoculars are suited for far more than birdwatching -- the dual-sensor design is ideal for shooting 3D, and with dual 2.4M-dot XGA OLED viewfinders, previewing and playing back three-dimensional content apparently feels quite natural. There's a 0.8-25x zoom ratio (36.3-2,007mm 35mm equivalent), giving you quite a bit of range for viewing and recording just about any scene. The active optical SteadyShot offers twice the stability of its predecessor, and at 1 pound, 14 ounces, representing a 30-percent reduction, you'll be holding the binocs with a bit less discomfort, too.

Curiously, the previous-generation product wasn't rain-proof, but that's been resolved now -- a new water- and dust-resistant housing is designed to let water flow through the eyepieces without accumulation. Dual Exmor R CMOS sensors enable 20.4-megapixel still image and 1080/60p video capture, while a two-channel internal mic and audio input (and headphone) jack make it possible to add in your own audio -- quite useful, considering that the source of your footage may be hundreds of feet away. Sony's DEV-50V Digital Recording Binoculars are expected in stores for $2,000 come June. Will they be going home with you?

Gallery: Sony DEV-50V Digital Recording Binoculars

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX50V

Fully equipped and ready to accompany you wherever you go, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX50V is (at least for now) the smallest and lightest 30x optical zoo—or higher—camera on the market. This 20 megapixel camera features a 35mm-equivalent focal range of 24-720mm, measures a mere 4 3/8 × 2 5/8 × 1 9/16 inches and weighs 9.6 ounces, fully loaded.

That’s a lot of zoom for such small camera but Sony claims that improvements to its Optical SteadyShot image stabilization provides double the stabilization—and autofocus speed—of the HX50V’s sibling, the HX200V, at the same focal length. Maximum burst speed is 10fps for a total of 10 shots (we assume that focus and exposure is set at the first shot in order to obtain the 10fps speed).

The multi interface shoe allows easy connection with wide-ranging accessories expanding the range of photographic expression. Available accessories include a powerful external flash unit, electronic viewfinder etc.

Its GPS is great for travelers while the built-in WiFi provides wireless transfer to and remote triggering from iOS and Android devices. And, of course, the HX50V is compatible with Sony’s proprietary apps.

In addition to automatic and scene mode options, the HX50V offers full manual and semi-manual exposure modes. Full HD video (AVCHD 60i/60p) with stereo sound is available as well.

Creative filters and effects come aplenty, including Sony's Intelligent Sweep Panorama, which can capture even a full 360-degree image. Other artistic options including Pop Color, Soft High-Key and more.

WiFi and GPS. The Sony HX50V has built-in WiFi capabilities that take advantage of Sony's PlayMemories apps (available for both Android and Apple mobile devices) so you can transfer photos and videos wirelessly. PlayMemories also empowers your connected smartphone or tablet to act as a wireless remote to control the camera for self-portraits -- or for more creative uses.

With the camera's built-in GPS, you can geotag your photos and keep track of your photographic journeys.

Hi-Def video. Full 1080p HD video capabilities are becoming pretty much standard on compact cameras these days -- except for the most basic models -- but the HX50V surprises by allowing for fast-and-smooth 60p recording at 1920x1080. Filming gets the benefit of Sony's Optical SteadyShot Active mode, which reduces camera shake and blur during panning or other camera movements.

The HX50V records video in both AVCHD and MP4 formats, although MP4s are shot at reduced resolution and speeds. To help achieve better audio, the HX50V incorporates a stereo microphone and a wind noise-reduction feature.

There’s no built-in viewfinder, but the HX50V is outfitted with a multi-interface shoe for optional accessories such as an EVF (electronic viewfinder) or stereo microphone. Without the EVF, you’ll be using the camera’s high resolution (921k dot), 3-inch LCD for composing and viewing.

The camera is bundled with a rechargeable battery pack (good for about 400 shots per charge), an AC adaptor, micro USB cable, shoulder strap, shoe cap and instruction manual. Available in May, the HX50V is priced at $450.

Pentax K-30 Weather-Sealed 16 MP CMOS Digital SLR with 18-135mm Lens (Black) 

A growing list of PENTAX photographic products including DSLR cameras, compact digital cameras and certain interchangeable lenses have been specifically engineered to include a high level of protection against dust, moisture, rain and cold temperatures. Water-tight access covers, gaskets and a generous number of seals in the construction of the camera and lens body have expanded how and where these products can be used. 

The current selection of DSLRs from PENTAX offer a weather, dust and coldproof design to ensure reliable and consistent performance both in inclement weather and in those demanding environmental conditions which would challenge any camera. From the inside-out, PENTAX DSLRs are engineered to be both tough and dependable. Photographers from around the world report the ability to continue to shoot stunning images while enduring the harshest elements nature has to offer, including rain, sleet, and   snow.

First are the PENTAX DA* (DA Star) lenses. Recognized for their outstanding image quality and advanced features, PENTAX DA* lenses handle harsh weather with ease. Because each part of a DA* lens that might contact the environment is tightly sealed, it is ideal for use in dusty or rainy conditions. PENTAX DA* lenses are categorized both dustproof and waterresistant. The next category of “all weather” PENTAX lenses is designated “WR”. These affordable lenses utilize a simplified weather-resistant construction (similar to the sealing technology used in DA* lenses) which makes it difficult for water to enter the lens. 

Belkin rolls out 720p NetCam HD Wi-Fi surveillance camera

from Electronista | The Macintosh News Network

The newest addition to the popular NetCam product family, NetCam HD features a streamlined setup process that allows users to operate the camera's functions in two simple steps. Utilizing an iOS or Android device, users download Belkin's free NetCam app and then connect the camera to their home's Wi-Fi router to begin streaming video and audio to their mobile device. With the NetCam app, users can also customize the camera's offerings by enabling email notifications when motion is detected or record video directly to their phone or tablet.

Belkin NetCam HD Wi-Fi Camera (F7D7602) includes the following features: -- HD, 720p resolution video -- Clear digital audio -- Easy mobile-device setup to eliminate the need for a computer -- Infrared night vision for clear vision in little to no light -- Wide-angle video -- Movement detection email alerts -- Ability to record live video to mobile devices -- Compatible with iOS (4.2 or higher) and Android (version 2.2 or higher) devices

Pricing & Availability

Belkin's NetCam HD Wi-Fi Camera is available for purchase now at belkin.com, Amazon.com, Verizon, Target stores and other major retailers for $149.99. The free NetCam app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

Darpa Finally Shrinks Massive Thermal Cameras Into Handheld Device

• BY ROBERT BECKHUSEN
   
• 04.17.13
   
• 4:40 PM

The military’s thermal imaging cameras are too large to carry, like the mounted one being used by this armored cavalry trooper in Iraq on May, 15, 2005. Photo: Department of Defense

If the U.S. military wants to spot an enemy creeping up at night using only his body heat, it relies on bulky thermal cameras that need to be lugged around in tanks, planes and helicopters. Only now the Pentagon’s far-out researchers think they’ve developed infrared cameras and targeting systems small enough to fit in a soldier’s hand.

Darpa announced yesterday that one of its partners, New Jersey defense contractor DRS Technologies, has developed an infrared camera with pixels sized at only five microns across, or five-millionths of a meter. That’s about the standard pixel size of a smartphone camera or DSLR. Unlike that hardware, the Darpa camera uses thermal imaging — long-wave infrared — to detect body heat. The military’s night-time targeting sensors could start becoming a lot smaller and more pervasive.

It also leads to an inevitable question: what’s wrong with night vision goggles? Nothing, when there’s at least some light your camera can pick up and magnify. But if there’s not enough light, then they won’t work that well. Thermal cameras rely on heat — light doesn’t matter. Thermal also allow for much greater contrast. An enemy hiding in a tree is going to pop out in a thermal image in a way he’s not with night vision. Another ultimate goal, Darpa notes in a statement, is to “replace multiple sights now used by rifle scopes with single day/night sensor.”

Thermal imaging currently is either too big or too grainy. On the one hand, most of the military’s thermal imagers need to be hauled in tanks or helicopters, and are “too expensive for individual deployment,” Darpa laments. On the other, the thermal imaging devices it has that are actually small enough to mount on drones — or even miniaturized into a rifle sight — work only at low resolutions (around 320 x 240 pixels) and are similarly expensive, making them impractical for an individual soldier.

Then come the technical hurdles. In thermal imaging, smaller pixels can more easily be overwhelmed by background radiation. As the pixels become tinier and tiner, they become saturated with photons — a pixel can only hold so many at once — resulting in more background “noise” that’s harder and harder to control. Eventually, the noise interferes with the signal so much, that what should be a clear image turns out looking deadened and grey.


The five-micron-pixel infrared camera. Photo: Darpa

Darpa doesn’t fully explain how it got around the problem, except to say that “the camera demonstrates a reduction in pixel size, not pixel count,” Darpa program manager Nibir Dhar tells Danger Room. “Technical details regarding the signal-to-noise ratio are proprietary. As stated in the web feature, image performance is similar to cameras using larger pixels.”

Calls to DRS Technologies weren’t returned.

Nevertheless, smaller pixels for infrared cameras that don’t suffer a loss in resolution is a real technological achievement. “[E]ach pixel is about one twelfth the size of a human hair, or about one-sixth the area of current state-of-the-art,” Darpa noted in its press release. Since the diameter of a focal plane array is squared each time the size is divided in two, a sensor six times smaller would make it around 36 times cheaper to make.

It’s worth a note of caution that this isn’t a piece of hardware yet. It’s still a research project, under the umbrella program AWARE, or “Advanced Wide Field-of-View Architectures for Image Reconstruction and Exploitation.” But it’s a working demonstration, and can be added to a number of other Darpa advancements within the program, like a one-gigapixel camera and battery-powered cooling devices for infrared cameras. Now those cameras are closer to stepping out into the night

Google Heat Maps - Easy Samples

Dr Joe's and Ken's Raster Elixir
MapCalc and Google Earth Heat Maps...
Vector is correcter - But Raster is Faster!

Here are some introductory examples of Google Fusion Tables as well as how to get Google Earth and Map Heat Maps working.  And if you want a really neat FREE TOOL for spatial surface alegbra and abstractions try MapCalc.

MapCalcAcademic — 

click on this link and select Open/Run to download MapCalc Academic self-extracting zip file. Follow the onscreen installation instructions. It is recommended that you accept the default specifications as the exercise write-ups assume this installation location. 

 UseSerial Number 158MA2-137821-V and Release Code 4A49-B687-E895-A5BB to register the educational MapCalc Academic version beyond the 14-day trial period.  Note: under Windows 7, the request to register will continue to appear but once registered the software will not expire.

Some other examples of Heat Maps methods for Google Earth...

Home Made Transit Time - MapCalc?

How to build a Heat Map in Fusion Tables


Walking Bostonian Google Fusion Heat Map

Heat Map of Transit in San Diego, part 2

Posted by Mark Zocher in Still Alive on February 15, 2011

When I first wrote about this project back in September, I had the idea of creating a heat map showing transit times to downtown (to help pick a new apartment for my girlfriend and me).  What I didn’t have was a clue how to get started.  Luckily, the amount of data manipulation tools has grown since Neil Kandalgaonkar attempted this a few years ago for San Francisco. After some tinkering, I settled on using Google Fusion Tables for my proof of concept.

Gathering the data

When I explored this back in September/October, there were very few options for getting transit data. Bing had just rolled out a transit option to their api, but the cities were limited (and didn’t include San Diego). My only option was to screenscrape the data from Google Maps, using a piece of PHP I created (with influence from Neil’s Code). The code is somewhat modular, so you can drop in your starting and ending latitude/longitude and destination. I wrote this with a small delay after each request (to keep from being banned by Google) and ran the code overnight from the command line (“php gettimes.php > results.txt”).

• My Code: gettimes.php

Displaying the data

Once I had my data, I discovered Google Fusion Tables was my best bet for displaying the data. Fusion Tables functions very much like a Google Spreadsheet, but you can select a column and “GeoCode” it – this declares the column as GIS data (either in latitude/longitude, KML, or an address). I used KML (think XML, but for geographic data) for each data point. While you can draw any polygon with KML, you can draw a square by defining the 4 corners and then repeating the first corner to close out the box.

An example KML entry:
-116.635,32.575 -116.635,32.585 -116.625,32.585 -116.625,32.575 -116.635,32.575

(My code didn’t generate each KML entry, though it easily could. I instead used an Excel formula to reformat the lat/long into the proper KML). Once the location is defined, it’s as easy as choosing Visualization->Map to display the contents!

GMapCreator and Google API v3

Richard Milton GMap Creator

I’ve created a new html template for the GMapCreator that uses Google’s API v3. In addition to not requiring the API key which is locked to the URL, this also means that you can take advantage of Google’s new styled maps base layers and Fusion table overlays.

The following map shows UK geology as the green overlay with a styled base layer called ‘Moody’:

The green data overlay shows UK geology from GMapCreator tiles while the base layer is using the 'Moody' style

Thanks to Steven Gray for the Moody style: http://bigdatatoolkit.org/

The GMapCreator template for creating Google API v3 maps can be downloaded from the following link:http://www.maptube.org/downloads/html-templates/template-APIv3.html

(you need to right click and ‘save as’, otherwise it will open in the browser).

Select this as the html template in the GMapCreator and it will create Google API v3 maps from shapefiles automatically. I’ll post some alternative base map styles once I’ve had a chance to experiment with it some more.

That Sinking Silverlight Feeling...?

Netflix drops Silverlight in favor of HTML5

By Jim Barthold

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) has had enough of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Silverlight media player and is replacing it with three HTML5 extensions--Media Source, Encrypted Media and Web Cryptography API--in an effort, it said, to smooth the video browsing experience by sublimating the need for plug-ins.

Silverlight, a plug-in for Windows and OS-X browser streaming, had been positioned by Microsoft as competitive--or even a replacement for--Adobe Flash. It hasn't happened for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty involved with loading the browser into some platforms. Microsoft launched Silverlight 5 in late 2011 but has not provided a date for a release of Silverlight 6, leading some industry observers to believe it is finished with the platform.

http://www.silverlighthack.com/image.axd?picture=2011%2F4%2FW3CVideo.png

Netflix was among those questioning where Silverlight is headed.

A blog post by Anthony Park, director of engineering, and Mark Watson, director of streaming standards, praised Silverlight for its "high-quality streaming experience" but tellingly added, "since Microsoft announced the end of life of Silverlight 5 in 2021, we need to find a replacement some time within the next 8 years."

Reading the blog post more deeply, it appears that Netflix has been ready to make the switch for a while in an effort to improve on the cumbersome--and often impossible--Silverlight browser plug-in experience.

"Over the last year, we've been collaborating with other industry leaders on three W3C initiatives which are positioned to solve this problem of playing premium video content directly in the browser without the need for browser plugins such as Silverlight. We call these, collectively, the 'HTML5 Premium Video Extensions,'" the pair wrote.

Other evidence that Netflix had been planning the move for a while was a notation by the Netflix bloggers that the online video purveyor has "been working with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to implement support for the HTML5 Premium Video Extensions in the Chrome browser, and we've just started using this technology on the Samsung ARM-Based Chromebook."

The move also might spell better things for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) users who have been critical of Silverlight, according to a Computerworld story.

"Moving to HTML5 is important to someone like Netflix, which wants to be as platform agnostic as possible," Gartner analyst Mike McGuire said in the Computerworld article. "HTML5 has matured to the point where most in the industry are moving to it."

Including, now--and perhaps earlier than that--Netflix.

Socialism versus Reality in the US

Good... getting better

Computer Security Legend Mudge Leaves DARPA for Google Job

from All Things Digital by Arik Hesseldahl

Peter Zatko, the computer hacking expert better known by the handle Mudge, says he’s leaving his job as a program manager at DARPA to join Google. He announced the change overnight on Twitter.

Zatko joined DARPA, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense in 2010 and was a program manager in its Strategic Technologies Office, where he oversaw research intended to help government agencies fend off cyber attacks.

Zatko first came to fame as a member of the Cambridge, Mass.-based hacking group The L0pht, a sort of unofficial think tank for hackers whose members at the time included people who went on to distinguished careers in computer security, like Chris Wysopal, Joe Grand, and Christien Rioux. He was also a member of The Cult of the Dead Cow, another hacker collective known for mixing hacking prowess with an ability to get media attention.

In the mid-1990s he did some of the early fundamental research on a type of computer security vulnerability known as a buffer overflow, and published some of the first papers on the topic. He later was the principal creator of some important security tools, including L0phtcrack . In 1998 he and other members of L0pht testified before the U.S. Senate, a session in which the group famously proclaimed that with its combined expertise, it could “bring down the Internet in about 30 minutes.”

After that, he and other L0pht members were occasionally summoned to Washington whenever senior officials,including President Clinton (he’s the long-haired guy in the picture), wanted to be seen discussing computer security issues.

In 1999, L0pht went legit and joined with the Cambridge-based computer security firm @Stake, which in 2004 became part of Symantec. In 2005 Zatko joined BBN Technologies as a research scientist.

Inside DARPA, an agency known more for its secrecy and occasionally for the cool things it does, Zatko created aCyber Fast Track Program, through which hackers working outside government with good security ideas could get funding to work on projects that could help secure Defense Department systems.

Zatko didn’t specify what he’ll be doing at Google, and he didn’t immediately answer an email from me asking for a little more detail, though its a pretty sure bet it will involve doing some kind of research on security. I’ll add more if I hear back from him.

He’ll be the second high-profile DARPA manager to join Google in recent memory. Last year the agency’s former director, and D9 speaker Regina Dugan, joined the search giant.

Pegman's Tours - Great trips at a fast pace

Turning Street View Images Into Time-Lapse Films

By IAN AUSTEN

Hyperlapse videos are a variation of traditional time lapse filmmaking in which the camera travels while also panning, rotating and tilting. The effect can be striking or dizzying. But under normal circumstances, coordinating all that action and turning it into a film is exceedingly complex and time consuming.

A Toronto design studio, Teehan & Lax, has developed an online, no-cost system that creates hyperlapse films using images from Google Street View.

Jon Lax, the studio’s co-founder and president, said that the project initially did not involve Street View. A video designer at the company, Jonas Naimark, was working on software that would simplify making hyperlapse videos with a conventional camera. Google’s Street View provided him with a vast, global set of images to create a demonstration film.

After further simplifying the process and consulting with Google, the company made its software available as an open-source download, mainly for developers and other sophisticated users, while posting a simplified online version that did not require any technical knowledge on the part of users.

“Our intention in releasing the source code is to allow people to make things with this,” Mr. Lax said. Exactly what, he acknowledged, is unclear.


Google Street View Hyperlapse from Teehan+Lax Labs on Vimeo.

Mr. Lax’s partner, Geoff Teehan, is a motor-racing fan who has used the software to take virtual drives around famous circuits in Europe. Mr. Lax said that organizers of running, triathlon and cycling races might offer hyperlapse previews of their routes and suggested that tourism agencies could post virtual road trips online.

There is other software available for gathering Street View images into time-lapse films. But it generally does not allow users to alter the apparent vantage point and usually requires the use of separate video editing software.

The company’s demonstration, Mr. Lax cautioned, “is working the software on full power.” The online consumer version, while simple to use, offers less camera control and produces a slightly cruder image. The only way to share its creations is through awkwardly long URLs.

Mr. Lax said he also hoped that creative uses for the images can be found. In 2011, Tom Jenkins, a British filmmaker, combined time-lapse sequences made from Google Street View and stop-motion photography in a short film about an office desk toy traveling across the United States in a toy car.

Spinning Media is Fossil Storrage

IBM To Invest $1 Billion In Flash Technology Research, Reflecting Obsolescence Of Hard Disk Drives

IBM plans to invest $1 billion in research to design, create and integrate Flash into its servers, storage systems and middleware, a reflection of the changing requirements needed for companies to manage massive amounts of data.

As part of the news, IBM also announced a new line of Flash appliances. These storage appliances are based on technology acquired from Texas Memory Systems. IBM says the appliances can run 20 times faster than spinning hard drives and can store up to 24 terabytes of data.

The move comes as more companies need better ways to manage the high volume of data resulting from the influx of mobile apps, the web and the ability to create data with updates in pictures, video and trillions of text messages.

All that data makes for major bottlenecks in systems that have long depended on mechanical hard disks to process information. Those hard disk systems did just fine in an age when vendors built vertical stacks for transaction-based systems, such as ERP and business-management solutions. Today, the market is shifting to a more distributed horizontal mesh where data is spread over tens of thousands of servers.

IBM has a deep history in the server market and middleware and is showing a new focus on storage. But who is this for? If you look at the news, it’s apparent this move is to support its existing customer base, which has long-term investments in credit-card processing, manufacturing and operations that require large enterprise resource planning environments.

IBM’s Flash investment shows how companies are calibrating their strategies according to the data they process. Facebook uses Flash to process Internet-scale applications. IBM will apply Flash to software installations inside data centers at big banks, factories and other large-scale operations. These are two different uses tied together by the universal need to manage data and integrate it into the way we live and work.

Uber Tough Droid...

Wirefly Tortures A Kyocera Torque For Your Amusement: Washing Machine Cycle, Frozen In Ice, And Dropped 2 Stories
Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Kyocera, News, Torque

The Kyocera Torque made it through all three, proving its worth for those who value durability over all else. The drop test gave it some problems: after being thrown 15 feet onto concrete, the Torque's body was noticeably warped, and the volume buttons ceased to function. (The phone is only rated for a 4-foot drop.) But it still works and kept its data intact. The washing machine test is perhaps the most impressive, and definitely the most fun to watch.

Smartphones are getting tougher all around. Motorola's Kevlar-equipped RAZR line is known to take a beating, CNET performed a similar temperature test on the Galaxy S III (which survived), and Gorilla Glass and upcoming synthetic sapphire are making screens stronger than ever. But for those who need phones that can double as a tiny piece of body armor, it looks like the Torque is a pretty good option. You can watch the full 30-minute washing machine cycle below.

If you're interested, the Torque has a 4-inch WVGA screen, A Snapdragon S4 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, 4G LTE, 4GB of storage plus a MicroSD card slot, and Android 4.0. It's IP67/Military Standard 810G rated for resistance to dust, shock, temperature and humidity extremes, and one meter of water for up to 30 minutes. At Sprint it's $99 on-contract, but in deference to their work on these videos, we'll mention that Wirefly has it for $29.99.

4K without Fear - Made in Colorado!

Keeping track when GPS cann't

Darpa’s New Navigation Tool Is Smaller Than a Penny

• BY SPENCER ACKERMAN
• 04.11.13
• 10:00 AM

This chip, created by Darpa researchers at the University of Michigan, will help the military navigate when GPS is inaccessible. And it can almost fit in the Lincoln Memorial detailed on a penny. Photo: Darpa

It’s the Second Korean War of 2020, and things aren’t looking good for the U.S.-South Korean side. North Korea has used its jamming gear to disrupt low-power GPS signals accessible in South Korea for navigation. Luckily for Washington and Seoul, in 2013, the Pentagon’s blue-sky researchers created a positioning tool for use when GPS goes down — and even back then, it was smaller than a penny.

At the University of Michigan on Wednesday, researchers for Darpa announced they’d created a very small chip containing a timing and inertial measurement unit, or TIMU, that’s as thick as a couple human hairs. When the satellites we rely on for navigation can’t be reached — whether they’ve been jammed or you’re in a densely packed city — the chip contains everything you’ll need to figure out how to get from place to place. It’s got gyroscopes, accelerometers and a master clock, to calculate orientation, acceleration and time.

The TIMU is fabricated from silicon dioxide and contained within a 10 cubic millimeter package — meaning it can just about fit within the Lincoln Memorial rendered on the back of a penny. All of this came out of a Darpa effort to compensate for the weaknesses of global satellite positioning through the possibilities of microtechnology.

“The resulting TIMU is small enough and should be robust enough for applications (when GPS is unavailable or limited for a short period of time) such as personnel tracking, handheld navigation, small diameter munitions and small airborne platforms,” Darpa program manager Andrei Shkel said in the researchers’ announcement. In other words, further development could not only help ground units find optimal battlefield routes in the absence of GPS, they could make ever smaller bombs and missiles smart enough to find accurate targets, and equip gliders like the ones the Naval Research Lab 3D-prints with miniature navigation.

Notice that Darpa isn’t saying the penny-sized chip will replace GPS. For now, the Pentagon futurists are only talking about compensating for satellite positioning when the satellite signals are inaccessible. The Defense Department remains heavily invested in GPS: the budget it unveiled yesterday proposes $1.27 billion to procure and develop the next four satellites in the Block III GPS constellation. Darpa just wants a GPS workaround so the satellites don’t become a single point of failure for the U.S. military.

Oh, and don’t freak out, but reportedly, North Korea is already capable of jamming GPS signals in South Korea. The Pentagon wants to make the follow-on GPS satellites harder to jam, but even those satellites will still be vulnerable, and commercially-accessible (if illegal) GPS jamming and spoofing devices are proliferating. There may be some urgency behind Darpa’s tiny navigation chip.

Army has lost control... over their (too) Smartphones

Army has lost control of its mobile devices, says DOD IG

• By Defense Systems Staff
• Apr 02, 2013

The inspector general of the Defense Department reports that the Army’s Chief Information Office/G-6 has, in essence, lost control over commercial mobile devices (CMD) within the Army, and that more than 14,000 smartphones and tablets are untracked. The upshot is that the Army CIO office does not have an effective cybersecurity program that identifies and mitigates risks surrounding CMDs and removable media, according to the DOD IG.

“The Army did not implement an effective cybersecurity program for commercial mobile devices,” wrote Alice Carey, assistant DOD inspector general for readiness, operations and support, in a memorandum dated March 26. “If the devices remain unsecure, malicious activities could disrupt Army networks and compromise sensitive DOD information.”

According to the IG report, entitled, Improvements Needed With Tracking and Configuring Army Commercial Mobile Devices, the “Army CIO did not implement an effective cybersecurity program for CMDs. Specifically, the Army CIO did not appropriately track CMDs and was unaware of more than 14,000 CMDs used throughout the Army.” (The figure excludes Blackberry devices.)

Additionally, the Army CIO did not ensure that commands configured CMDs to protect stored data. According to the DOD IG, the CIOs at the U.S. Military Academy (USMA), West Point, NY, and the Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Vicksburg, MS, did not use a mobile device management application to configure CMDs to protect stored data, which means that they did not have the capability to remotely wipe data stored on CMDs that were transferred, lost, stolen or damaged.

Also, the CIOs at USMA and ERDC allowed users to store sensitive data on CMDs that acted as removable media.

“These actions occurred because the Army CIO did not develop clear and comprehensive policy for CMDs purchased under pilot and non-pilot programs,” states the IG report. In addition, the Army CIO inappropriately concluded that CMDs were not connecting to Army networks and storing sensitive information.

“As a result, critical information assurance controls were not appropriately applied, which left the Army networks more vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks and leakage of sensitive data.”

In response, the Army and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) agreed to develop a mobile device management (MDM) process to verify that users of CMDs are following Army and DOD information assurance policies and implementing the appropriate security controls to protect CMDs. Establishment of MDM and mobile application store architectures will be designed to make all CMDs managed mobile devices, which would result in the ability to observe every DOD-managed CMD, as well as the applications operating on the devices.

Additionally, the Army will gain the ability to wipe or remove a device from the environment, as well as monitor applications used, websites visited, plus data viewed, saved or modified on the mobile devices.

To that end, the Army issued a request for proposal for the MDM and mobile application store and expects to make an award this month, with initial operating capability expected by October 2013, with full operating capability available before the end of fiscal year 2014.