Slashdot Mirror

dwheeler writes "The US Department of Defense has just released a new official memo on open source software: 'Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software (OSS).' (The memo should be up shortly on this DoD site.) This memo is important for anyone who works with the DoD, including contractors, on software and systems that include software; it may influence many other organizations as well. The DoD had released a memo back in 2003, but 'misconceptions and misinterpretations... have hampered effective DoD use and development of OSS.' The new memo tries to counter those misconceptions and misinterpretations, and is very positive about OSS. In particular, it lists a number of potential advantages of OSS, and recommends that in certain cases the DoD release software as OSS."

Ponca City, We Love You writes "The Department of Defense has announced the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine to 'harness stem cell research and technology... to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers.' The government is budgeting $250 million in public and private money for the project's first five years, and the NIH and three universities will be on the team. The military has been working on regrowing lost body parts using extracellular matrices and scientists in labs have grown blood vessels, livers, bladders, breast implants, and meat and are already growing a new ear for a badly burned Marine using stem cells from his own body. Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker explained that our bodies systematically generate liver cells and bone marrow and that this ability can be redirected through 'the right kind of stimulation.' The general cited animals like salamanders that can regrow lost tails or limbs. 'Why can't a mammal do the same thing?' he asked."

Ponca City, We Love You writes "The Department of Defense has announced the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine to 'harness stem cell research and technology... to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers.' The government is budgeting $250 million in public and private money for the project's first five years, and the NIH and three universities will be on the team. The military has been working on regrowing lost body parts using extracellular matrices and scientists in labs have grown blood vessels, livers, bladders, breast implants, and meat and are already growing a new ear for a badly burned Marine using stem cells from his own body. Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker explained that our bodies systematically generate liver cells and bone marrow and that this ability can be redirected through 'the right kind of stimulation.' The general cited animals like salamanders that can regrow lost tails or limbs. 'Why can't a mammal do the same thing?' he asked."

Roland Piquepaille writes "A new report from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) looks at the future of the military's unmanned systems over the next 25 years. This 188-page report covers air-, land- and sea-based unmanned technology from 2007 to 2032. The long document notes that drone aircraft and ground-based robots have already proved they could be useful in Iraq and Afghanistan by saving soldiers' lives. The report also integrates contributions of combat commanders pointing out possible improvements to today's systems, such as 'better sensor technology for use on unmanned systems to identify underwater mines and land-based improvised explosive devices.' This report also looks at how developments in artificial intelligence and robotics might lead to 'autonomous, 'thinking' unmanned systems that could, for example, be used in aerial platforms to suppress enemy air defenses.'"

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "DefenseLINK News is reporting that 'troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building.' By simply holding the portable, handheld device named a "Radar Scope" up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing. The Radar Scope hopes to eventually give troops the ability to see up to 50 feet beyond a concrete wall to decrease losses in urban combat."

Ant writes "This article discusses the poor track record of IT projects undertaken by the U.S. government, and says experts blame poor planning, rapid industry advances and the massive scope of some complex projects whose price tags can run into billions of dollars at U.S. agencies with tens of thousands of employees. 'There are very few success stories,' said Paul Brubaker, former deputy chief information officer (CIO) at the Pentagon. 'Failures are very common, and they've been common for a long time.'... Seen on Blue's News."

An anonymous reader writes "The Army is funding development of new super suits. From the article: 'The Army's future soldier will resemble something out of a science fiction movie'. 'The new system has the ability for each soldier to be tied into tactical local and wide-area networks with an onboard computer that sits at the base of the soldier's back' and 'The helmet has sensors that register vibrations of the cranial cavity so [soldiers] don't have to have a microphone'. The article features several photos of the suits."

Merlin83 writes "As being reported on The Register, the US Military is developing a new system for monitoring enemy battlefield communication. Called WolfPack, each node is a 6"x4" cylinder, launched by missile or dropped from aircraft. Once the node lands, it stands up, extends its antenna and contacts other nodes. The nodes can also jam cellular communications by transmitting a signal themselves. "

blackp writes "DefenseLINK has an article about Force Protection Equipment Demonstration IV. This year they had over 2,600 gadget and equipment for defense and government agencies. The list includes kevlar suits, body heat camo, a RoBoCop Suit, even biometric identification. Some pictures are available, although somewhat limited. This show seems perfect for the geek with a big budget." Or the government with a big budget. Still, some neat things on display.

blackp writes "DefenseLINK has an article about Force Protection Equipment Demonstration IV. This year they had over 2,600 gadget and equipment for defense and government agencies. The list includes kevlar suits, body heat camo, a RoBoCop Suit, even biometric identification. Some pictures are available, although somewhat limited. This show seems perfect for the geek with a big budget." Or the government with a big budget. Still, some neat things on display.

securitas writes "Reuters and AP tell us that Epic Games and the US Army have announced the America's Army series of games, jointly developed by the Department of Defense and Epic. The first two-part game in the five-year project includes an RPG called Soldier and a first-person shooter called Operations. The game will be free of charge and available for download in July or August, with 1.2 million CDs simultaneously released, attached to gaming magazines. Does this remind anyone else of the war-room scene from Toys or Ender's Game?" Future installments will include Sim Mess Duty, Sim Standing Guard in the Rain, Sim Blister, and Sim Invading Iraq to Keep Approval Ratings High.

jeffy124 writes: "The Dept of Defense has released a new standard for GPS. The new standard will go into become available for use starting in 2003 when the first satellites are launched. Full completion is estimated to 2014. The new standard allows for greater horizontal accuracy of 36 meters instead of 100 meters, and also sets a new baseline for transmission protocols that circumvent ionic interference."

A dog'n'pony show is that delightful moment where some $1000 suits and the investors wearing them politely demand to be shown why they've paid you a salary for the last three months without hearing anything back except "we're all working hard here" and "stop bothering us and it'll get done faster." You pray the software works as well now as it did at 5AM when you finally killed the last display bug and headed home for a quick shower. Just two words of advice: don't cheat. Like VisuaLABS did with its "tiled LCD screens," or the Pentagon with its "missile defense test," you'll get caught. ...or will you? Tell us your best demo war stories.

Thanks to coli for passing along last Thursday's press release from VisuaLABS. This is a company that has been telling investors that they have what they call "GroutFree(tm)" technology, which joins multiple LCD screens invisibly into one, large, flat screen.

On July 3rd, investors were wowed by the demo of the company's "42 inch diagonal flat screen display" prototype. Sheldon Zelitt, VisuaLABS' Chairman and Chief Scientist, said, "It was our great pleasure to share an early look at that technology with our loyal shareholders at the Shareholders' Meeting."

And on July 26th, we got another press release -- this one titled "VisuaLABS Announces That Its Primary Technologies Are Not As Represented And Dismisses Sheldon Zelitt." It turns out that "the large screen GroutFree prototype demonstrated at the Annual Meeting was, in fact, a standard 42 inch plasma television purchased by Sheldon Zelitt ... at a local Calgary consumer electronics retailer ... The Committee believes that no working prototype of a device incorporating the GroutFree technology exists."

While all this was going on, the Pentagon was busy launching two missiles and making them smack into each other. This is the missile defense justification, the one scientists say can't be done, the umbrella that will protect the U.S. and its allies from all those Third World dictators who just have to deliver their nuclear warheads the hard way.

The big test came on July 14, when a target missile (avoiding mishaps) was launched and successfully blown to pieces by its interceptor. Bush was "pleased." CNN showed us the debris radar. And Michael Kelly of the Washington Post stuck it to the "liberal critics," pointing out that "The 'Smart People' Were Wrong." As he wrote:

"In the blink of a video screen going blinding white on July 14, it became impossible to offhandedly disdain a missile defense system as 'weapons that don't work.' It does work."

Yep! So phase one of our missile defense plan is complete. Now we go on to phase two, which is to convince all our enemies to install GPS transmitters in all their missiles.

Oh, you didn't know the test missile had a GPS transmitter on board? Well, you do now.

My favorite part is that the test missile actually launched a Mylar balloon as "chaff" to try to fool the "kill vehicle." Luckily, the balloon didn't have GPS.

So what's your favorite dog'n'pony story? Ever had a demo fail in some especially embarrassing way? Ever cheated? Ever get caught? C'mon, you can tell us...

Update: 08/01 08:00 PM by J : I'm seeing a lot of discussion of the relevance of the GPS. Here's Defense Week which claims the "prototype interceptor was able to find a target warhead partly because the target signaled its location to the interceptor for much of the flight, and the transmissions formed the basis of the targeting orders."

And thanks as always to Slashdot readers for posting more information. monopole points out this link, or take your pick, this one -- they're plans from last year, but still interesting:

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: And we take the GPS data, and we fuzz it up quite honestly, because GPS is a lot more accurate than radars. Okay? [...]

Q: Well, actually, would you then use the degraded GPS, or would you just the regular GPS that you use as a fallback -- (inaudible word)?

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: (Inaudible.)

STAFF: Use the regular GPS.

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Regular GPS.

DawnAlan writes: "The University of South Florida has developed (biosensor assays to detect pathogens in record time. The technology is a marriage of engineering and biology. The biosensor uses optical fibers and a laser to generate a signal for each sample tested. This signal indicates the presence or absence of biological agents." (Read more below.)

"Major applications include monitoring of pathogens for food safety in meat and beverage packaging facilities as well as surveillance for biological warefare agents (BWA) in the field for the protection of military personnel. In the wake of Desert Storm the Department of Defense has increased funding for research and education to prepare U.S. military personnel and civilians in the case of a bioterrorism event. The USF biosensor contributes to this effort."

Chernyakov writes "The Washington Post has an article about attacks on DoD systems. According to the article, the Pentagon's chief information officer said 'The Defense Department suffered more than 22,000 electronic attacks on its computer systems in 1999 and about 14,000 in the first seven months of this year.' " Those numbers apparently count port scans too, but the article is interest, talking about many things, including the fact that they don't run any commercial software on their most classified systems for fear of backdoors. I imagine the DoD's sysadmins are a scary bunch.

In a somewhat surprising move, the NSA has decided that the rest of the world can have the encryption alogorithim used in FORTEZZA card. This includes the Skipjack and Key Exchange Alogorithim.