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The radar and the guidance system had separate clocks, and they'd drift out of sync.

Here's a detailed analysis by the General Accounting Office.

"Radical" (rather, extremist) muslim arabs such as OBL are not intent on killing as many people as possible.

Statement from OBL and his associates:

"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."

Source: http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatw a.htm

So there you have it right from their own mouth (well, hand). Tell me now they aren't intent on killing as many people as possible. Seems to me like you are the one that needs to study up on what OBL wants.

Clinton never went after Bin Laden, that was the problem.

Then why did he publish rules like this? Clinton at least had Al Quaida and the Taliban listed firmly as enemies, a policy Bush reversed.

Bush supports research/development and deployment of a missile defense system. Seeing as how he started this shortly after getting into office it seems

False. The national missile defense project was actually started by Congress during the Clinton administration. Oh my, if people can be this ignorant about topics they supposedly care about... there's not much hope for them, really.

It's guys like you who make me think the USA deserves another Bush administration.

and slams the President for trying to deploy these systems rapidly.

Which is correct, because anyone with a smidgen of aerospace or military knowledge can tell that they just won't work. Kerry allows for ongoing research on the possibility that someday we might come up with a way to make them work, but deploying them today is just throwing away dollars that could be used for REAL defense. (Like some of the new soldiers Kerry wants to hire, to go around and shoot terrorists)

North Korea HAS nuclear weapons NOW,

Yeah, and knowing that North Korea has nuclear weapons, Bush decided to go and invade... Iraq? Who we KNEW had none. Brilliant!

because there weren't any attacks on the U.S. before he came along.

Oh really? You mean the world trade center bombing by a man with ties to Iraq in 1993 that killed 6 people was just a figment of our national imagination?

or maybe you just didn't care because it didn't affect your nations bottom line...

Someone else already pointed out that NK has not signed the non proliferation treaty

It's called USNDS, and they have sensors on GPS and DSP sattelites.

It's called USNDS, and they have sensors on GPS and DSP sattelites.

I bet most of you haven't heard of the USNDS program, which would allow the U.S. Military to know relatively quickly if this was a nuclear blast or not. The reports go up to very high level people, and this wouldn't necessarily be relased to the public, either. If this was indeed a nuclear detonation, the Secretary of State would know it. If the state department says it wasn't nuclear, it probably wasn't. (And I bet you thought GPS was only used for navigation...)

Strategic Force
In a roundtable discussion with the United States and China in Beijing on April 24, 2003, North Korean officials admitted for the first time that they possessed nuclear weapons. Furthermore, North Korean officials claim to have reprocessed spent fuel rods and have threatened to begin exporting nuclear materials unless the United States agrees to one-on-one talks with North Korea.

Strategic Force
In a roundtable discussion with the United States and China in Beijing on April 24, 2003, North Korean officials admitted for the first time that they possessed nuclear weapons. Furthermore, North Korean officials claim to have reprocessed spent fuel rods and have threatened to begin exporting nuclear materials unless the United States agrees to one-on-one talks with North Korea.

While the A4/V2 information may be of limited use to countries that don't already have a ballistic program, North Korea already has an advanced ballistic missile program, and builds missles based on Russian SCUD technology, itself loosely evolved from the original A4/V2 designs.

Further information on North Korean missile programs here

Location of Mushroom - - Map Here - probably better than what CNN can tell you.

My guess is that it isn't a forest fire.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200409 /200409120002.html

Old Sat pictures - not really of the explosion site.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/facility/nodong .htm/

They signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty before backing out of it in January of 2003. Put simply, signatories to the treaty (that did not already have nuclear weapons)agreed not to produce nuclear weapons.

Soviet

Finish

A more modern one (introduced in US army in 1990, Canada's had it much longer.)

A lot of satellite imagery that I have seen deals with climate measuring. It's not clear from reading the proposal itself if this "unclassified" data is included.

<AluminumFoilDeflectorBeanie mode="On"> might be a handy way to keep those filthy pinko commies and terrorists from showing evidence of climate change and messing up our plans to use up as much as possible before The Rapture(tm) comes, using our precious, precious unclassified photos...</AluminumFoilDeflectorBeanie>

That's the part that gets me - they're talking SPECIFICALLY about "unclassified" (i.e. NOT "Top Secret(tm)", etc.) information. The recommendation in the proposal explicitly mentions, in effect, the fact that, well, they COULD just classify the stuff that they don't want to show to potential commie terrorists (or the people who paid for it e.g. US Taxpayers) but that's just so inconvenient to have to do...

More grist for the Aluminum-Foil-Deflector-Beanie-defended conspiracy mill (from the proposal):
"Compelled[by the FOIA, etc.] release of such data and imagery by the United States under FOIA defeats the purpose of these licensing agreements, removes any profit motive, and may damage the national security by mandating disclosure to the general public upon request. While the data and imagery could be protected from disclosure under FOIA by classifying them, the United States prefers to keep them unclassified. Unclassified matter is more easily shared with coalition partners in contingency operations and with State and local officials in disaster relief and homeland security operations.[emphasis added]

It's terrible to think what horrible disasters could befall the US while we dare to "remove any profit motive" from taxpayer-funded "remote sensing" (which, presumably, includes imagery from sources other than satellites as well?) projects. I know I would feel safer if I wasn't allowed to look at this unclassified material that I'm paying for... And, gosh, I also feel better knowing my highly-paid legislators are Doing Something(tm) about, um, I guess terrorists or environmentalists or something.

This would only prohibit the release of data that is already prohibited from sale to customers other than the US Government.

As it currently stands, commerical imagery operators are prohibited from selling certain data to anyone but the government. Third parties cannot buy this data. However, there is nothing to prohibit someone from filing a Freedom of Information request once the government buys it. This would close that loophole.

And about the other story: WOW. I would love the chance to send up a four-inch cube into space. God alone knows what the hell I would do with it -- I'm no electronics guy -- but the possibilities are simply too cool to be believed. I'd be tempted to go back to university and get an engineering degree just to be able to be part of a project like that.

But hey, who says that's necessary? $40K for a launch, even U$, isn't that much if you get a bunch of people together. There's people that chip in to buy an airplane -- how long 'til we see people (besides the good folks running OSCAR, that is) getting together to build and launch their own cubesat? God knows I'd be there in a heartbeat...

There does not exist another vehicle that can COMFORTABLY take 10 people into space and back, AND cargo too. The largest capsules only seat 3 people, and have no room for anything else.

as for cargo, there's not a whole lot of good reason it has to go up along with human crew. if something needs to be assembled or maintained in orbit, why can't it be sent up into a parking orbit by itself for a week or two and the personnel to do the work on it be sent up separately? this not only lets you choose launch windows a bit more freely (since the two launches might be different in those regards - only one of them needs to be able to return, for a start), it also lets you use cheaper, non-manrated lifters for dead cargo and save the expensive, reliable ones for humans.

one of the main reasons the shuttle is what it is was that the Air Force wanted the capacity to bring large loads back down from orbit. that's why the thing has that huge, ever-present cargo bay instead of a disposable payload shroud, basically. 'course, this ability has actually been used about three or four times, but who cares, right...?

It boils down to class, and class warfare. It always has and always will. Marx was wrong about prescriptions, but his analysis was spot on 150 years ago, and it's still dead accurate.

Some things are different: events are certainly moving on a deeper and larger scale than the capitalists could possibly muster in 1870, but the structure has remained the same: there are a very few people on top and a lot of people on the bottom. The globalisation of wealth has made entire nations part of the "top" and entire continents part of the "bottom" - and you know who's getting fucked.

"Conservatives" (especially those of the more recent "neocon" variety, who are little more than penny ante fascists) are people who have internalised the false consciousness machine of contemporary capitalist culture to such a degree that they cheerfully support the plutocrats who enslave them. In fact, their culturally instilled cranio-rectal inversion is so complete, they don't see themselves as being willing participants in their own self enslavement - they see themselves as supporters of "freedom and liberty".

Meanwhile, the powers that be are re-aligning the economies into Orwellian superstates. The Europeans are doing it through an opt-in confederacy (EU), the Americans are doing it with their typically murderously belligerent policy of co-option, destruction and subordination (from Wounded Knee to Baghdad) and forming Oceania by way of NAFTA. East Asia is forming more slowly, as is typical of the Chinese Empire.

The great battle will be between a collapsing Oceania and a rising EastAsia. Eurasia will sit on the sidelines and watch the two destroy each other, and then move in to scoop up what's left.

This isn't tinfoil hat theory. this is stuff that has been documented over and over and over.

here

Here

and HERE.

Now, if you have any sense: ORGANISE A COHERENT RESISTANCE AND GET A PLACE AT THE TABLE OF OCEANIA. Prevent the disaster. If the neocon agenda goes on by its own logic, there will be an eventual war between EastAsia and Oceania. It will be fought through terror proxies first, then localised wars and rebeliions at the periphery. The results will be millions dead so the rich bastards running the American State can stay rich and the powerful shitbags running the Chinese Gov stay in power.

WAKE UP PEOPLE. Or don't: just pretend it isn't happening and surrender your children to be cannon fodder in some far off oil rich country for the sake of Exxon, Halliburton, and Walmart.

RS

Same info, different site:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ano.htm

Here's another Saddam-supported group of Marxist terrorists:
http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/mek.htm

Any thorough War on Terror needed to address Iraq sooner or later.

Because, ultimately, the safety systems at Three Mile Island were able to keep the plant from blowing up, where other nations have not done so well when they had accidents. Nuclear power systems are safest made by advanced technological nations... even leaving aside the number of agressive loons who want nuclear bombs to lob at their obnoxious neighbors. True, even the current guys get it wrong... but the US has 60 years of experience in screwing up, and tends to not make the same engineering mistakes twice. (Political mistakes are another story.) If the developing world gets to use advanced safety designs, even if only by borrowing them rather than having to build them themselves, it's probably safer than them trying to reverse engineer the product and botching it.

You want to stop nuclear proliferation? How about starting with the United States, Israel, England, France, India...

Ummm... because stopping proliferation means keeping those who don't have nuclear weapons from getting them, which is incidentally easier than it is to get the ones who have them to give them up?

We're potentially just a few EMPs away from losing a lot of information that's increasingly being stored on the Web in lieue of hardcopy.

Not being able to find server documentation is one thing; not being able to find, say, Planck's Constant is quite another.

...Bosnia.

Doesn't compare to Iraq.

Dozens of Americans were killed in Bosnia, and what do we have to show for it? The Europeon countries for whom we took this action -- shed this blood, sacrificed a Cabinet Secretary -- have proven they will not reciprocate. We cannot build or use military facilities in Bosnia.

We have nothing to show for our work in Bosnia. We are left with the conclusion that President Clinton's actions were simply to distract from his dishonorable domestic conduct. Readers are encouraged to rent and view this documentary.

On the other hand, for the cost of a thousand American soldiers (and a hundred billion Iraqi babies!!!), have created an ally in the middle of the Middle East. We have a great big unsinkable aircraft carrier. We have a California-size staging area for further pacifications.

In other words, we have a whole new country to show for our work. Pretty damn impressive!

And the only pinheads who think it was a "distraction" from the War on Terror have not heard of the Abu Nidal Organization or the Salman Pak training camp.

Of the socialist ANO, the Federation of American Scientists says, "Has received considerable support, including safehaven, training, logistic assistance, and financial aid from Iraq, Libya, and Syria (until 1987), in addition to close support for selected operations." (emphasis added to make it perfectly clear that Iraq supported terrorists) Of special relevance is Libya -- whose capitulation in the War on Terror was a direct result of the action in Iraq.

Like the song says,

If you want a President who kicks ass, vote Republican.
If you want a President who kisses ass, vote Democrat.
If you want a President who is an ass, vote Green.
If you want a President who will let you buy ass, vote Libertarian.

MiG-15 had the Rolls-Royce Nene engine , thoughtfully provided to them by the British Labour Party.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/shk val.htm

The U.S. military (through DARPA and other agencies) has been funding research on micro-UAVs for years. Not too hard to think about what they would be good for if you change your mindset to try to solve the "problem" of being able to kill people more effectively.

Some interesting links:
Pretty scary justification for "why bother": http://www.darpa.mil/tto/mav/mav_auvsi.html
For those that don't know, an "ACD" is a program where they actually build a working weapons system out of the technology: http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/mavact.html
This is one of my favorate MAV's: http://www.aerovironment.com/news/news-archive/was p62.html
A general links page that shows the amount of research being done in this area: http://www.casde.iitb.ac.in/IMSL/amitay.html
FAS collects a ton of information about U.S. military programs and systems: http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/mav.htm

Some white hat hacker - please take the above site down - it will provide Bush with proof to invade all these countries.

This comment is so rich. I can only spend a little time on it, but here's a shot:

First, let's talk about references. When I say something like x is due to y, I like to back it up with something like according to z(www.z.com), you get the picture.

Now the "Germany KNOWS that Saddam did have WMD" statement sounds a little overstated - I would assume you are referring to international findings of that nature and not the Germans in particular?

On that note, almost every country has WMD right now. I think that makes the WMD case for war a bit daft, but that's just a personal opinion.

I'm at a bit of a loss on this statement:
"Are we to believe that in the interim period, Iraq secretly destroyed all of its remaining weapons, on its own, with no supervision or involvement of outside monitors, all with no proof or records"
Let's try CNN on this one. Looks like they were destroying them right up to the war.

Here's another idea I take issue with:
"it's not just about bombing people into oblivion; it's about encouraging free government with a free flow of information"
The question I have here is why, after over a year, have we still seen none of this come to fruition? Sure, we handed over power, but to an unelected government that we selected. Also, how did we contribute to the free flow of information by banning newspapers?

You go on to insist that this was somehow was positive for "most of the civilized world", but offer no rational for that logic. I think it's much safer to assume that the real winners here are defence contractors tied to the Whitehouse

"People think that the US just wants to arrogantly steamroll people..." Please don't talk about the actions of the state as the actions of the US. I'm a part of this great country, and like many others, I consider this war a shameful crime against humanity.

Actually, there are such creatures, exactly as you suggest. The American and allied military and intelligence agencies run a SECRET-level internet called SIPRNET (Secret Internet Protocol Router NETwork) and a TOP SECRET-level one called JDISS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System). They're completely separate from the Internet (the publicly accessible one), but they're sprawling, worldwide internets connecting tens of thousands of machines.

Chris

Actually, there are such creatures, exactly as you suggest. The American and allied military and intelligence agencies run a SECRET-level internet called SIPRNET (Secret Internet Protocol Router NETwork) and a TOP SECRET-level one called JDISS (Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System). They're completely separate from the Internet (the publicly accessible one), but they're sprawling, worldwide internets connecting tens of thousands of machines.

Chris

Looking at the pictures and the description of what went wrong, it looks like they needed more clearance between the top and bottom rotors. The Russian Helix, with the same eggbeater setup, has probably got about 5 feet of clearance between blades that are much stiffer to begin with. The Canadian appeared to have maybe a foot, with blades that are probably just as big, if not larger, but much less stiff. Finally, I'm sure that their hub probably had a little bit of play in it due to it's light weight that would become evident in any sort of wind. Overall though, I like the eggbeater design because it provides the necessary countertorque while still providing lift. Plus, they were able to repair it with cellophane in 17 minutes and made a second attempt! Unfortunately, the chain broke. Maybe they should've gone with a SRAM powerlink?

Also, the article stated incorrectly that the helicopter didn't have enough buoyancy. Buoyancy is a force due to differences in density of fluids and supports blimps and boats. The proper term is lift, which is pressure-related and makes wings and water-skis work. A nitpick that someone else already mentioned, but that comment has gotten buried in the responses.

A final point to those wondering about the feasibility of the project: The article (hint) states that two other teams have gotten craft to fly, they just haven't gotten high enough.

There are some rumors that the prions which cause mad cow disease were developed as part of the extensive biological and chemical weapons programs of the former Soviet Union. Agencies such as: Biopreparat, the FSB (formerly the KGB), and the Soviet Military were all involved.

In another chilling development, Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea, where much testing of biological agents including anthrax, bubonic plague, glanders, and other extremely infectious agents occurred supposedly contains massive amounts of anthrax hastily buried by Russian scientists amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. More fodder for the conspiracy theorists out there...

Like a slowly degrading precision value.

The ability to quickly reboot is a standard feature of most all military field computers. Warfighters do it VERY frequently. Even the avionics computer of a modern fighter can be rebooted in midair. For a g-g gunnery computer to stay up for even 24 hours is not likely.

But after 36-48 hours of heavy real-life usuage,

Good thing that normal military tests I've observed last for 200-400 hours, then! The SUTs run longer in on the test range than they will in the field...

It would pass verification and testing without fail everytime.

The word "verification" has a special meaning for military software-types. It requires that the code (source code AND binary) has gone through such an exhaustive correctness analysis that the budget for originally writing the program can often be exceeded.

PS. Everything I've just said has been violated by the horrendously dysfunctional F-22 Raptor project. The Pentagon had better delay that plane a few years to go back and test it right.

Nope. Open source is still the best way to go, along with open government. When you let people hide "stuff", and when it's connected to massive political power and heaps 0 money, that's when crimes occur. The best bet is openness, bar none. It is not perfect, but it's the best design yet.

USA - Mordor. Sauron's home.
Saddam - Frodo. Underdog facing the mighty Bush/Sauroman.


Saddam as Frodo?! You apparently are having a serious formatting problem with your post. Saddam is anything but good at heart or deed. His war crimes and crimes against humanity are well known to anyone who cares to know.

http://www.activedir.org

http://www.ntbugtraq.com/

http://www.securityfocus.com/archive

FAS Secrecy News

Linux Users Group of Davis Lists

linux-wlan(tm) Project Mailing Lists

Upgrading to the real thing?

Paintball? ;)

Upgrading to the real thing?

Paintball? ;)

It's called the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System, or MILES. It's been in use in the army since the 80's. They even make sensors for tanks and Humvees, as well as individual soldiers. The laser transmitter attaches to the barrel of an actual M-16, and is activated by the sound from the firing of blanks, so you approximate the noise and weapon kickback you would with firing an actual round.

Some links (the second with pictures):
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/miles.htm
http://www.peostri.army.mil/PRODUCTS/MILES/

This is actually the company responsible for making the MILES gear the post above mentions (or at least a relative of the system that seems to be marketed worldwide to law enforcement and military). They're located in New Zealand, but they were bought by Cubic Corporation, a California company that, according to this FAS article and their own website, actually provides MILES to the US military.

yes Iraq WAS (past tense ;-) a 'disgrace' for having violated numerous UN Security council resolutions, each of which authorized "serious consequences" (diplo-speak for war) ... UN Security Council Resolutions on Iraq

yes Iraq WAS (past tense ;-) a 'disgrace' for having violated human rights (coalition abuse != Saddam-era torture)... UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Iraq and also view the Iraq torture video clip

New Zealand: "The New Zealand intelligence service has admitted to bludgeoning Mr. Bruce Simpson to death with sticks. New Zealanders have expressed shock that their country actually posseses an intelligence service."

Umm, we're talking about an aircraft moving in excess of 500 miles per hour. Unless you had a reliable mechanism to synchronize multiple receiving stations and triangulate at the same instant in time, it would be next to impossible to determine the location of the transmitter on the plane. Furthermore, even if could determine the latitude and longitude of the plane, altitudinal triangulation adds another dimension of complexity. Ground based radar would be far more effective for finding the plane. Admittedly, you would be trading a passive sensor for an active one, which would cause additional issues.

From the energy of the pulse at your end, you can estimate the total power of the transmitter. Compare the pulse arrival times at several places, and you can find out how often the radar makes a sweep. The pulse duration and frequency distribution probably would tell you something about how the transmitter works.

The challenge was to demonstrate how one could find information "leaking" from the plane. That is actually raw, nearly useless data. In addition, you can not reliably deduce transmitter power from signal strength. I am a licensed Extra class Amateur Radio operator. The signal strength between a 5 W transmitter signal and a 1,000 W signal can be indistinguishable given certain atmospheric conditions, antenna and cable gain or loss, etc. Finding out "how the radar transmitter works" is really pretty easy anyway. Consider this link to the Federation of American Scientists, for example: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/an-tps -75.htm Essentially, all you could effectively find from the plane's radar emissions would be that there was a plane somewhere.

For radar in a plane, you could use the doppler effect to get the speed of the plane.

Or, once again, you could use ground based radar with all the same, or better, results.

I am told that the radiation from tritium penetrates so poorly that standard detectors cannot read it; nothing gets through the detector housing. But you probably don't have to worry about exposure even if you do break it; hydrogen gas doesn't hang around very long, and isn't absorbed very much by building materials. You'll probably get more radiation from the concrete.

Back in the late 80's I was carting a sewing machine case portable Compaq '286 around on the job in an armpit of the universe place called Baluchistan. I needed a built in EPROM burner for programming this nice little tracking system. In PDP11 and FORTRAN. We were hurtling down the road one night, and camer around the corner to see a young camel doing the 'deer in the headlights' thing. We went into the ditch, the Compaq went into the front seat, I went into the dashboard. Had to rewire the whole damn thing with leftover 30 gauge wiring and a butane soldering iron (thank god for Jensen tools).

• DREN is an R&D network. You won't find anything sensitive here, and it's considered the least secure of the primary DoD networks.
• NIPRnet is where you find the DoD's mail servers, primarily. This is where your mistake is - NIPRnet is considered at maximum SBU "sensitive but unclassified". The network isn't secure in the sense that Secret systems would be. All DoD systems are required to be 'secure', moreso than most or all commercial machines, but no special effort is expended to secure down NIPRnet systems. It's an analogue to the office network in a commercial environment. If you only used the Secret networks, you could never communicate outside of DoD, mostly.
• SIPRnet - You need a Secret clearance to be here. SIPRnet is for sensitive stuff. It isn't directly connected to anything else. This is what you were thinking about when you were talking about 'secure systems'. However, even stuff on the NIPRnet or DREN has to be secure.

Please note I used completely public sources. There is more to know, but not more that I can say.

In direct answer to your question, we get a decent amount of spam, mostly worm related stuff though. Most spammers seem to be afraid to send Viagra ads to .mil addresses. I dunno why. Maybe they're afraid they'll get a Hummer.

No we didn't. They did, and (rather frighteningly, given the nearly complete decay of their military) still do have more, although their ability to deliver them has drasticly dropped off in recent years.

This is nothing new.
The russians have been launching small payloads on their submarine-launched Volna and Shtil for years.

More info on the R36 family of rockets is available here

(in fact the US Navy uses them to transmit extremly low frequency/long wavelength signlas to its submerged subs!

No, it doesn't. The Navy has specific special-purpose antennas for that purpose. It does not use powerlines.

Sure, they look like power lines, due to the fact that they're metal wires strung overhead on poles, but they're not feeding AC to anyone's toaster or television, and total radiated power is a handful of watts.

There is a little about it (and the missile) here and here

The US MX (Peacekeeper) missile was also designed to be cold launched. You can read about that here