Month: March 2016

Lawmakers in West Virginia Pass a Bill Legalizing Raw Milk, and Toast their Success With Raw Milk………

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Then they proceed to make the state house resemble the sets in The Wild Bunch if the film had been directed by John Waters instead of Sam Peckinpah:*

In West Virginia, farmers and fans of raw milk celebrated this week as the governor signed a bill that, among other things, legalizes the sale of raw milk to consumers. Some delegates celebrated by drinking cups of raw milk from a local farm, or at least tasting it. Some of them are now sick with a mysterious gastrointestinal illness. Is it a coincidence or deep irony?

 ………

 Cadle himself was out with a stomach bug on Monday, but he and others point out that a similar illness had been circulating around the state capitol building for weeks. “It ain’t because of the raw milk,” he told the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “With that many people around and that close quarters and in that air and environment, I just call it a big germ.” The illness includes diarrhea, vomiting, and a fever, and sounds like our old fast-spreading pal norovirus.

………

 Health officials are investigating the milk incident.

This is just too perfect.

*Not my bon mot. I adopted this from Paul T. Riddell essay, The Attack of the Mad Sh%$ter.

India Can Go Cheney Itself

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India is taking the US to the WTO over the increase in fees for H1B visas:

India has complained to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) about the United States’ decision to increase visa application fees.

The USA last year doubled the fee required to apply for an H1-B visa, a class of temporary visa for skilled workers. Fees rose to US4,000 per application.

Indian technology companies have complained long and loud about the cost of H1-B visas, arguing that they need to bring workers from India to the USA to grow their businesses. US businesses retort that Indian companies could hire locals with comparable skills, but prefer to import people who they pay lower wages.

………

India’s now formally complained to the WTO, which sets the clock ticking on a 60-day mediation process. If nothing can be resolved, the WTO can rule on the dispute.

If I had my druthers, I’d shut the whole program down.

It’s rife with abuse, and depresses wages in technical fields in the United States.

Don’t Call Him the 5th Beatle, He Hated That

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Legendary Beatles producer George Martin is dead at age 90:

George Martin, who produced much of the Beatles‘ classic catalog, has died. The cause of death has not yet been released. He was 90.

 Ringo Starr reported the news on Twitter. “God bless George Martin,” he wrote late Tuesday night. “Peace and love to Judy and his family, love Ringo and Barbara. George will be missed.” In another post, accompanied by a photo of Martin with the Beatles, Starr wrote, “Thank you for all your love and kindness.”

 Over the decades, many people have claimed to be the “fifth Beatle.” But the only person who can credibly hold that title was Martin. The producer not only signed the Beatles to their first record contract in 1962 but went on to work extensively with them on the vast majority of music they recorded over the next eight years, from “Love Me Do” to the majestic suite that wrapped up Abbey Road.

 ………

 One of the many remarkable things about Martin is that he managed to produce highly complex, layered pieces of music like Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band, using a mere four-track recorder. “I felt that was the album which turned the Beatles from being just an ordinary rock & roll group into being significant contributors to the history of artistic performance,” Martin wrote in his memoir. “It was the watershed which changed the recording art from something which will stand the test of time as a valid art form: sculpture in music, if you like.”

In 2011, Martin looked back fondly on his time with the Beatles. “I think they’re so damn good they’ll be with us for generations, into the middle of the next century,” he said. “They’re just great musicians and great writers, like Gershwin or Rodgers and Hammerstein. They are there in history, and the Beatles are there in history, too. They’ll be there in 100 years, too. But I won’t be.”

Also, read Paul McCartney’s tribute to Martin.

How to Deal With Blackmail

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Turkey is (rather successfully) attempting to blackmail Europe over their handling of the refugee crisis:

Shopping in a Turkish bazaar is never wise for the novice.

The EU learned that lesson the hard way when it discovered the carefully crafted refugee deal it believed it had sold to Turkish leaders in the run-up to Monday’s summit turned out to be little more than the beginning of the negotiation.

Turkey made Europe a counter offer early Monday that six months ago would have prompted EU negotiators to get up and walk out. To European eyes, the proposal Ankara put on the table read more like a ransom note: €3 billion in refugee aid in addition to the €3 billion already pledged, full-scale visa liberalization for Turkish citizens in the EU by June, an acceleration of Turkey’s application to join the bloc as well as a pledge to resettle many of the Syrian refugees Turkey takes in.

Turkey’s message to Europe was clear: You need us more than we need you.

That Europe is not just considering the Turkish proposal, but is likely to end up accepting most, if not all of it, is testament to the desperation of the Union and its largest member, Germany, to secure a deal to limit the flow of refugees and end a crisis that is testing EU solidarity like nothing in its history.

Seeing as how Erdogan is trying to turn Turkey into an theocratic dictatorship, you don’t want to do things like speed Turkey’s entry into the EU.

The way I see this, there are two options:

  • Roll over.
  • Start sending large numbers of Turks home to “make space for the refugees”, and  clamp down on remittances, which cripples the Turkish economy.

I recommend that the leaders of Europe choose the 2nd option.

Using Turkish gastarbeiters as human shields is not a particularly laudable thing, but the Turks are using the Syrian refugees as human shields as well, and Turkey continues to support ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates driving the refugee flow in Syria.

The Turks won’t stop fomenting the civil war in Syria, nor trying to exploit and exacerbate the refugee crisis until the cost to them become prohibitive.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Needs to Be Fired ……… Out of a Cannon and into the Sun

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Among the audience members at the Democratic debate in Flint, was the Mayor of Warren.

He’s a Sanders supporter, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz had him threatened by event security because he was a Bernie supporter:

After expressing vocal support for Bernie Sanders during Sunday night’s debate, the independent mayor of Michigan’s third largest city says security warned him that he would be booted from Sunday’s Democratic debate here if he did not quiet down.

Jim Fouts, the three-term independent mayor of Warren, told BuzzFeed News Monday that he attended both the Republican and Democratic debates in Michigan over the past week. The audience at the GOP debate at the Fox Theatre in Detroit Thursday was loud. But the mood in the Whiting Auditorium on the campus of the Flint Cultural Center, where Sanders and Hillary Clinton met in one of their sharpest-elbowed debates to date, was very different, he said.

“The Democratic debate is totally controlled by Hillarys [sic] good friend DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” Fouts wrote on Facebook Monday. “No commentary is allowed by the audience. Particularly if you are cheering Bernie Sanders. Persons who do not adhere to Hillarys [sic] rules are threatened with expulsion.”

Fouts has not officially endorsed Sanders, but he is a big fan. He told BuzzFeed News that if he does vote in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, “it’s going to be for Bernie Sanders.”

At the debate, Fouts sat in the center section of the hall, directly behind Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair. Next to him was his longtime executive assistant. Fouts told BuzzFeed News that at multiple times during the beginning of the debate, he turned to his executive assistant, praised Sanders’ performance, and said the Flint debate — added to the calendar after the initial set were announced — proved that more debates were a good idea.

………

During an early commercial break, security confronted Fouts, roused him from his seat, and pulled him and his assistant off to the side of the hall. He was told there had been “complaints” about his behavior and that security had been ordered to throw him out.

“The sergeant at arms said, ‘The people that run this want you ejected, they don’t want you here,’” Fouts recalled. He said his assistant asked if the complainer was Wasserman Schultz.

“The security guy said, ‘don’t say I said it,” Fouts said.

Fouts was outraged by the evening. He called for Wasserman Schultz to step down in the Monday interview. After the conversation with security, Fouts said he returned to his seat and took extra care to be quiet.

Petty, paranoid, and stupid is no way to go through life, Ms. Wasserman-Schultz.

Well, This is a Surprise

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In the week leading up to the Michigan primary, Clinton was leading by in excess 20 points in the last few day’s polling.

Well, when polling places started running out of ballots for the Democratic primary, it was a sign that the polls might not be accurate.

As I am writing this, the Detroit Free Press has called Michigan for Bernie Sanders.

It appears that the Sanders got its get out the vote effort right tonight.

Headline of the Day

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Clowns Kicked out of Trans Pacific Partnership Roadshow.

It’s a real headline, and it does not refer to the people trying to sell that piece of unmitigated crap, it refers to actual clowns:

Four people dressed as clowns have been kicked out of the first stop of the Government’s Trans-Pacific Partnership information roadshow in Auckland.

The quartet were honking horns, blowing balloons and laughing, Newstalk ZB reported.

Master of Ceremonies Sean Plunket asked those also present at the roadshow to vote on whether they should be allowed to stay, before they were escorted out by police.

The 12-country agreement is designed to free up trade and investment between the countries, but has been a beacon for controversy for several years, mainly due to the secrecy of the deal, lack of public consultation and fears New Zealand’s sovereignty could be diminished. Widespread protests occurred when it was signed in Auckland a month ago, and traffic in the city was brought to a halt by protesters who blocked roads and motorway on and off-ramps.

I do understand why they were thrown out.

The real clowns are the people in suits trying to sell the deal.

Talk About Like a Lamb

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You know the old saying, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”
I’m getting lunch from the food truck, and the weather is magnificent.  (Ironically, I got the lamb.)
72 degrees without a cloud in the sky.

When juxtaposed with the brutal winter that we’ve had, it is a bit surreal.

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First Civil Application will be on Car Bras

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A car bra

Researchers at Iowa State University claim to have developed a flexible skin that absorbs radar:

Iowa State University engineers have developed a new flexible, stretchable and tunable “meta-skin” that uses rows of small, liquid-metal devices to cloak an object from the sharp eyes of radar.

The meta-skin takes its name from metamaterials, which are composites that have properties not found in nature and that can manipulate electromagnetic waves. By stretching and flexing the polymer meta-skin, it can be tuned to reduce the reflection of a wide range of radar frequencies.

The journal Scientific Reports recently reported the discovery online. Lead authors from Iowa State’s department of electrical and computer engineering are Liang Dong, associate professor; and Jiming Song, professor. Co-authors are Iowa State graduate students Siming Yang, Peng Liu and Qiugu Wang; and former Iowa State undergraduate Mingda Yang. The National Science Foundation and the China Scholarship Council have partially supported the project.

“It is believed that the present meta-skin technology will find many applications in electromagnetic frequency tuning, shielding and scattering suppression,” the engineers wrote in their paper.

Dong has a background in fabricating micro and nanoscale devices and working with liquids and polymers; Song has expertise in looking for new applications of electromagnetic waves.

Working together, they were hoping to prove an idea: that electromagnetic waves – perhaps even the shorter wavelengths of visible light – can be suppressed with flexible, tunable liquid-metal technologies.

What they came up with are rows of split ring resonators embedded inside layers of silicone sheets. The electric resonators are filled with galinstan, a metal alloy that’s liquid at room temperature and less toxic than other liquid metals such as mercury.

Those resonators are small rings with an outer radius of 2.5 millimeters and a thickness of half a millimeter. They have a 1 millimeter gap, essentially creating a small, curved segment of liquid wire.

The rings create electric inductors and the gaps create electric capacitors. Together they create a resonator that can trap and suppress radar waves at a certain frequency. Stretching the meta-skin changes the size of the liquid metal rings inside and changes the frequency the devices suppress.

Galinstan is the metal in modern “Mercury” thermometers.

If this works, I expect to see covers on cars to absorb the radar frequencies used by speed radars.

Because these radars operate over a fairly narrow bands, it’s not a particularly demanding application, and radar absorbent car bras has been a kind of holy grail in the industry.

Bloomberg is Out

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No, we are not talking about his sexuality, we are talking about his running for President.

He’s not running for President:

Americans today face a profound challenge to preserve our common values and national promise.

Wage stagnation at home and our declining influence abroad have left Americans angry and frustrated. And yet Washington, D.C., offers nothing but gridlock and partisan finger-pointing.

………

Over the last several months, many Americans have urged me to run for president as an independent, and some who don’t like the current candidates have said it is my patriotic duty to do so. I appreciate their appeals, and I have given the question serious consideration. The deadline to answer it is now, because of ballot access requirements.

Many Americans who have the name “Michael Bloomberg”.  No one was clamoring for Bloomberg to run but Michael Bloomberg.

………

But when I look at the data, it’s clear to me that if I entered the race, I could not win. I believe I could win a number of diverse states — but not enough to win the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency.

In a three-way race, it’s unlikely any candidate would win a majority of electoral votes, and then the power to choose the president would be taken out of the hands of the American people and thrown to Congress. The fact is, even if I were to receive the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, victory would be highly unlikely, because most members of Congress would vote for their party’s nominee. Party loyalists in Congress — not the American people or the Electoral College — would determine the next president.

As the race stands now, with Republicans in charge of both Houses, there is a good chance that my candidacy could lead to the election of Donald Trump or Senator Ted Cruz. That is not a risk I can take in good conscience.

He’s trying to cast this as a noble decision, but that’s crap.

He was indulging in onanistic narcissism, and now he is done.

Saw the Dem Debate Tonight

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I’m not sure who won, but here are my quick thoughts:

  • It was much more contentious than the previous debates.
  • Bernie Sanders is more likable.
  • CNN’s format was weird, and the questions from the audience were even weirder.
  • Clinton was hoarse.
  • Sanders was weak on gun control, which has always been one of his weak points.

Not sure what it means in the context of the election, though.

Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen!

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The FBI has a new program to spy on high school students:

Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and “western corruption” as potential future terrorists, warning that “anarchist extremists” are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, immigrants or travel to “suspicious” countries are more likely to commit horrific violence.

Based on the widely unpopular British “anti-terror” mass surveillance program, the FBI’s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” guidelines, released in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance, especially if she is socio-economically marginalized or politically outspoken.

This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other.

The FBI’s justification for such surveillance is based on McCarthy-era theories of radicalization, in which authorities monitor thoughts and behaviors that they claim to lead to acts of violent subversion, even if those people being watched have not committed any wrongdoing. This model has been widely discredited as a violence prevention method, including by the U.S. government, but it is now being imported to schools nationwide as official federal policy.


………

According to the FBI’s educational materials for teenagers, circulated as a visual aide to their new guidelines, the following offenses constitute signs that “could mean that someone plans to commit violence” and therefore should be reported: “Talking about traveling to places that sound suspicious”; “Using code words or unusual language”; “Using several different cell phones and private messaging apps”; and “Studying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government building).”

Under the category of domestic terrorists, the educational materials warn of the threat posed by “anarchist extremists.” The FBI states, “Anarchist extremists believe that society should have no government, laws, or police, and they are loosely organized, with no central leadership… Violent anarchist extremists usually target symbols of capitalism they believe to be the cause of all problems in society—such as large corporations, government organizations, and police agencies.”

Similarly, “Animal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists” are placed alongside “white supremacy extremists”, ISIS and Al Qaeda as terrorists out to recruit high school students. The materials also instruct students to watch out for extremist propaganda messages that communicate criticisms of “corrupt western nations” and express “government mistrust.”

………

At the surface level, the FBI’s new guidelines do not appear to single out Muslim students. The document and supplementary educational materials warn of a broad array of threats, including anti-abortion and white supremacist extremists. The Jewish Defense League is listed alongside Hizbollah and Al Qaeda as an imminent danger to young people in the United States.

But a closer read reveals that the FBI consistently invokes an Islamic threat without naming it. Cultural and religious differences, as well as criticisms of western imperialism, are repeatedly mentioned as risk factors for future extremism. “Some immigrant families may not be sufficiently present in a youth’s life due to work constraints to foster critical thinking,” the guidelines state.

BTW, the science also shows that these programs do not work, but that doesn’t stop lazy cops, and lazy school administrators, from using bigotry as a justification.

A Little Rocketry Factoid

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I was reading an article about how France is looking into creating a reusable rocket engine powered by Lox/CH4. (Methane)

I was wondering why they would go with Methane as a fuel, so I did some reasons.

These days, there are 4 basic options for launcher fuel, Liquid Hydrogen, Kerosene (RP-1), Hydrazine, and Methane.

Hydrazine has fallen out of favor for boosters, though it is still used in thrusters of various sorts. It has low impulse, and it’s toxic, but the fact that it can be used as a monopropellant means that it is convenient to use for orbital maneuvering, since it requires half the parts, and you don’t need to make sure that the flow of a separate fuel and oxidizer are synchronized for short the “blip” that would be needed for an orbital rendezvous or station keeping.

The commonly used propellants are LH2 and RP-1 each have distinct advantages:

  • Hydrogen has the highest impulse (fuel economy).
  • RP-1 is denser, and requires smaller tanks.
  • RP-1 can be stored at room temperature.

Methane falls in between Hydrogen and RP-1. It’s less dense than RP-1, and more dense than LH2, and is more fuel efficient than RP-1 and less so than LH2.

Methane is also a lot easier to handle than LH2, with hydrogen condensing at -252.9°C, while liquefies at a relatively balmy -161.6°C, much closer to the boiling point of LOX. (-183°C)

Additionally, for reusable and restartable engines, Methane has the advantage that it does not coke up, so recycling the engine for another use is more straightforward than RP-1.

Additionally, if you want to go to Mars or the outer planets, it is relatively trivial to manufacture or extract Methane, while manufacturing LH2 would be extremely difficult, and manufacturing RP-1 would be nigh impossible.

So, now you know more than you want to about why a number of rocket manufacturers are looking into Methane as a propellant.

What Part of “Peace Officer” Don’t You Get?

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The police chief for the San Francisco police has announced new policies that are geared toward cops deescalating conflicts, and the President of police union’s head is exploding.

The response of the union encapsulates everything that is wrong with the current trend of military oriented policing:

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr — already under attack from Black Lives Matter activists over the shooting death of Mario Woods — is now facing criticism from his own rank and file for what they see as appeasement of department critics.

At issue: a proposed policy change being drafted by Suhr and the Police Commission that emphasizes “de-escalation” of force when officers confront someone wielding a gun or knife. Of particular concern to the cops are instructions that officers “seek cover” and “engage in thoughtful communication” before doing anything else, unless there is an imminent threat.

The idea is to create enough “time and space” so police won’t need to open fire.

“I’m not happy with that or other provisions in the draft, because it could put our officers in harm’s way and at the same time jeopardize the safety of the community we serve,” said Martin Halloran, president of the Police Officers Association.

The union called an emergency meeting Thursday night at the Irish Cultural Center that was attended by about 200 cops — some of whom were calling for a vote of no confidence in the chief.

How can a cop object to not having to shoot someone?

Some Good that Comes from Donald Trump

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It appears that Donald Trump’s shenanigans have blown up Netanyahu’s alliance with Republicans:

In their Super Tuesday speeches, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio tried to use an Israel hammer to bash Donald Trump. Cruz sneeringly lambasted him for saying he would remain “neutral” while Rubio trounced Trump for trying to stay “impartial”, as his audience booed accordingly. And Trump? Trump was racking up victories, amassing delegates and laughing all the way to the top of the Republican presidential field.

In this way, the New York billionaire is decimating the conventional wisdom, one of many, that in 2016, total and unconditional support for Israel is a prerequisite for any aspiring GOP candidate wishing to run for president; that such a pledge of allegiance to Israel, in general, and to Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular, is a threshold requirement for gaining the support of Evangelicals, who set the tone during primary season; and that the flow of sympathy for Israel from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans is inevitable, perhaps even desirable, and in any case unstoppable.

But exactly a year after Netanyahu took this logic to its extreme and stood on the podium of Congress as Leader of the Republican opposition to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the conception is falling apart. The notion that the Republican Party is a monolithic bastion of support that will withstand the test of time is evaporating. The belief that any Republican president who will follow Obama will be better for Israel is eroding with each passing day. Faced with the Trump phenomenon, Netanyahu’s Fortress GOP strategy is collapsing like a house of cards. 

………

Trump not only diverts the Republican leadership from uniform automatic support for Netanyahu, he is destroying the internal coalition that was the lynchpin of the party’s strong pro-Israel stance. Evangelical support for Trump has already sparked an internal rupture, which has some experts declaring the death of America’s Religious Right. Evangelical leaders and many of their supporters in the media are heartbroken that so many Believers are flocking after the thrice married, dirty-talking reality star. They are less perturbed by his deviation from the strict pro-Israel party line, however, and more by the sinful ways for which he has not asked forgiveness.

If Trump becomes their candidate, the GOP will lose its most hawkish, most neoconservative and most pro-Israel secular elements as well. They are repelled not only by his indecipherable positions on Israel but also by his harsh criticism of George Bush and the Iraq War, his undisguised adulation of dictators for Vladimir Putin to Bashar Assad, his all round belligerence and his neo-isolationist vision of making America great again within its hermetically sealed walls. “As president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world” according to public letter signed by 50 GOP national security stalwarts, many of them known for their pro-Israel positions. “We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office.”

Sometimes, I worry about the future of Israel.

The two things that worry me the most is Netanyahu, who sees no further than the next election, and the Necons whose every action for at least the past two decades has served to diminish the safety and security of Israel, notwithstanding their declared support for the Jewish state.

Iraq, and Yemen, and Libya, and Syria, etc. have all been foreign policy disasters that have been created or worsened by Neocons, and all of these have been disasters for Israel.

Another Strike Against the F-35

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Rather unsurprisingly, it is the logistics and prognostics software, ALIS.

It has not been working right in tests, and even when it does, it means that there is effectively an off switch for any foreign buyer’s aircraft located in the United States.

Now we learn that they are intending to go live with the system before testing its vulnerability to hackers: (Paid subscription required)

The F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) will deploy its next major software release—2.0.2—in July, but concerns remain about performance and security. A report by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) released in January suggests delayed ALIS software may push back U.S. Air Force initial operational capability (IOC) and that the network’s cybersecurity has become a key concern.

Lockheed Martin’s ALIS program manager, Jeff Streznetcky, says a U.S. Marine Corps exercise at Twentynine Palms, California, in December and an ongoing Air Force test program at Mountain Home, Idaho, offer more representative indications of ALIS’s readiness than the report.

“By all accounts, ALIS performed exceptionally well” at Twentynine Palms, he says, “and the reports I’m getting out of Mountain Home are similar. ALIS is doing its job supporting the warfighter and ultimately turning jets.”

………

Leaked National Security Agency briefing documents confirm China obtained F-35 engine schematics and radar designs after compromising program systems in the mid-2000s. Less attention has been focused on the kind of information routinely moving through ALIS, which may represent the program’s biggest threat surface.

“The Chinese see ALIS as a fantastic opportunity to enhance and improve their own fighter-aircraft capabilities,” says Bill Hagestad, a retired Marine Corps colonel and expert on Chinese cyber competencies. “But ALIS data would also be of considerable operational and strategic value to the Chinese if they were able to take a look at the disposition and laydown of deployed combat aircraft.”

According to a 2015 report by cybersecurity vendor FireEye, it takes 205 days on average for network breaches to be detected. Even if all data are encrypted, content could be inferred through analysis of network traffic patterns. Attackers can remain undetected longer if they are leveraging previously unknown vulnerabilities.

ALIS’s security is not just dependent on Lockheed’s own software and network defenses deployed on the different national and corporate systems ALIS data transits. The system incorporates a number of off-the-shelf component programs to handle logistics management and other functions: This has cut development timescales and lowered costs, but any vulnerabilities in those products become ALIS vulnerabilities.

………

A comprehensive, ongoing cybersecurity testing regime would appear to be a necessity. Yet the DOT&E report states: “The program currently does not plan to conduct cybersecurity penetration testing during the development of this ALIS release [2.0.2], or any future developmental releases, but will instead rely on previous, albeit limited, cybersecurity test results.”

This has not gone over well with cybersecurity experts. “Suggesting that this should be deployed before it’s properly tested and then tested after it’s deployed is backward security,” says Adriel Desautels, founder of penetration-testing specialist Netragard. “I don’t have a word strong enough to describe the level of absurdity involved with that. You can’t possibly deploy something that’s this sensitive and just have blind faith that you won’t get hacked.

Of course, Lockheed-Martin and the Pentagon maintain that they will deal with any potential vulnerabilities as soon as they get a round to it.

They want to get the aircraft into the field and have a large captive market before people realize that the aircraft is an unaffordable dog.

Ship, then fix.

As any computer gamer knows, there is a a whole world of grief that comes from this arrangement.

I Can Haz Prosecushuns?

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We have a new development in the Flint water crisis, the Michigan Governor has retained private counsel, including a prominent criminal defense attorney:

Gov. Rick Snyder has hired two outside attorneys in connection with the Flint drinking water crisis, including a criminal defense attorney retained to serve as “investigatory counsel,” a Snyder spokesman confirmed Thursday.

Eugene Driker, a civil defense attorney, and Brian Lennon, a criminal defense attorney, were each awarded a contract worth $249,000 through Dec. 31, after which those contracts can be extended, Snyder spokesman Ari Adler told the Free Press.

The contracts, which are to be paid with state funds, are just below the $250,000 threshold for contracts requiring approval from the State Administrative Board, which meets in public to approve state contracts and grants. Adler said that was by design because the governor wanted to hire the attorneys quickly in early February. The administration will be going to the State Administrative Board on March 8, seeking approval for additional spending on the contract with Lennon, he said.

They are claiming that this is about processing documents, but this sounds an awful lot like hizzoner is lining up a defense team in the event of a criminal prosecution.