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An anonymous reader writes:The EmDrive, a hypothetical miracle propulsion system for outer space, has been sparking heated arguments for years. Now, Guido Fetta plans to settle the argument about reactionless space drives for once and for all by sending one into space to prove that it really generates thrust without exhaust. Even if mainstream scientists say this is impossible. Fetta is CEO of Cannae Inc, and inventor of the Cannae Drive. His creation is related to the EmDrive first demonstrated by British engineer Roger Shawyer in 2003. Both are closed systems filled with microwaves with no exhaust, yet which the inventors claim do produce thrust. There is no accepted theory of how this might work. Shawyer claims that relativistic effects produce different radiation pressures at the two ends of the drive, leading to a net force. Fetta pursues a similar idea involving Lorentz (electromagnetic) forces. NASA researchers have suggested that the drive is actually pushing against "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" of particles that shift in and out of existence. Most physicists believe these far-out systems cannot work and that their potential benefits, such as getting to Mars in ten weeks, are illusory. After all, the law of conservation of momentum says that a rocket cannot accelerate forward without some form of exhaust ejected backwards. Yet the drumbeat goes on. Just last month, Jose Rodal claimed on the NASA Spaceflight forum that a NASA paper, "Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio Frequency Cavity in Vacuum" has finally been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, but this cannot be confirmed yet.

Since Boeing and SpaceX will begin sending NASA astronauts into orbit next year, the International Space Station is going to need a place for them to park. Astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins will journey outside the ISS on Friday to install a new docking adapter for these two private companies. Popular Mechanics reports: "Installing these adapters is a necessary step in NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which seeks to spur development of commercial crew spacecraft. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 8:05 a.m. on Friday, and live coverage will start at 6:30. This will be Williams' fourth spacewalk, and Rubins' first." In the meantime, you can watch this video describing exactly what the spacewalk will entail.

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Army has developed an all-in-one hearing system that not only boosts the hearing of troops in the field, it also acts to cut down the noise of battle. The system, known as Tactical Communication and Protective System (TCAPS), is currently rolling out to units in the field. TCAPS is $2,000 pair of earbuds designed to limit battlefield noise exposure, cutting off noise that reaches a set decibel threshold. The wearer can still hear gunshots and estimate their direction, but the noise is dampened to a non-damaging level thanks to microphones that detect the noise, and internals that use sound canceling technology to modify it for a wearer's ears. At the same time, the decibel cap allows TCAPS-equipped soldiers to hear the voices of others around him, including through radios and other communications equipment.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Mechanics: Today, a team of scientists has announced the first discovery of extraterrestrial tsunamis. A team of astronomers and geologists led by J. Alexis Rodriguez at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona has uncovered evidence of massive tsunamis on Mars billions of years ago. As Rodriguez reports, two separate mega-tsunamis tore across the red planet around 3.4 billion years ago, a time when Mars was a mere 1.1 billion years old and nearby Earth was just cradling its first microbial lifeforms. The two tsunamis created 150-foot-high shore-break waves on average, and some absolutely monster waves up to 400 feet tall. Rodriguez and his colleagues outline their tsunami findings today in the journal Scientific Reports. From the report: "Rodriquez and his colleagues stumbled across evidence of these tsunamis while scouring over images of Mars' relatively flat northern planes. Two regions called Chryse Planitia and Arabia Terra. Using detailed infrared maps rendered by the thermal camera on the 15-year-old Mars Odyssey orbiter, the scientists identified the high water marks of the tsunamis -- features that look a lot like ancient ocean coastlines." Within the last year alone, scientists have spotted the signs of flowing water on Mars, recently discovering how water flows on the red planet. NASA has detected atomic oxygen in the atmosphere of the planet, too.

William Herkewitz, writing for Popular Mechanics: Physicists have just built the smallest working engine ever created. It's a heat-powered motor barely larger than the single atom it runs on. Designed and build by a team of experimental physicists led by Johannes at the University of Mainz in Germany, the single atom engine is about as efficient as your car at transforming the changing temperature into mechanical energy. While scientists have previously created several micro-engines consisting of a mere 10,000 particles, Johannes's new engine blows these out of the water by paring down the machine to a singular atom housed in a nano-sized cone of electromagnetic radiation. The project is outlined today in the journal Science. "The engine has the same working principles as the well-known [combustion] car engine," Johannes says. It follows the same four strokes; expanding then cooling, contracting then heating.There's some confusion here. The article says it's a "four-stroke" engine. But as we know, a four-stroke engine consists of an intake stroke, a compression stroke, a power stroke, and an exhaust stroke -- things that the engine in the article doesn't seem to have. The article doesn't mention how a single atom is able to mimic all the effects of a combustion engine. Update: 04/15 18:24 GMT by M :The article appears to have been updated for clarification.

YouTube personality Colin Furze has built a homemade cannon which he's filmed launching grenades filled with thermite, "an especially nasty chemical composition made of metal power and oxide that burns as hot as 2,500 degrees Celsius." Furze once co-hosted Sky1's program Gadget Geeks, and he's since made a new career demonstrating strange science projects on YouTube. Furze's other homemade devices have included a rocket-powered go-kart and a knife that can also toast bread while it's cutting.

William Herkewitz, reports for Popular Mechanics: A newly discovered star is unlike any ever found. With an outermost layer of 99.9 percent pure oxygen, its atmosphere is the most oxygen-rich in the known universe. Heck, it makes Earth's meager 21 percent look downright suffocating. The strange stellar oddity is a radically new type of white dwarf star, and was discovered by a team of Brazilian astronomers led by Kepler de Souza Oliveira at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. The star is unique in the known pool of 32,000 white dwarf stars, and is the only known star of any kind with an almost pure oxygen atmosphere. The new white dwarf has a mouthful of a name -- SDSSJ124043.01+671034.68 -- but has been nicknamed 'Dox' (pronounced Dee-Awks) by Kepler's team. The discovery was reported today in a paper in the journal Science.

MarkWhittington writes: Whether and when Russia will try to send cosmonauts to the moon is an open question. The Putin government has heavily slashed spending on the Russian space program, a measure brought on by declining oil and gas revenues. But, as Popular Mechanics reports, Russian engineers have gone ahead and have started to design a lunar lander for the eventual Russian lunar surface effort. When money is going to be forthcoming for such a vehicle is unknown, though Russia could partner with another country with lunar ambitions, such as China or the European Union.

MarkWhittington writes: When Russia decided to abandon its drive to land cosmonauts on the moon, the reasons were not so much political than they were fiscal. The low price of oil and the costs of Vladimir Putin's imperial adventures in the Ukraine and Syria had crowded out funding for Russia space missions. It did not help matters that the Russian Space Agency was rife with corruption and mismanagement that seems to prevail across much of Russian society. However, Popular Mechanics suggests that Russia is still thinking of landing cosmonauts on the moon when that country's fiscal situation improves.

MarkWhittington writes: In the hit movie, "The Martian", NASA astronaut Mark Watney survives by planting potatoes in one of the modules of the Mars base who is stranded at. The plot device received a great deal of praise from space agriculture experts, according to a recent story in Popular Mechanics. Of course, future space farmers would be advised to grow a variety of crops in order to diversify their diet, not an option for Watney. In any case, according to a story in ZME Science, NASA is partnering with Peru's International Potato Center (CIP) to do what Watney did and grow potatoes on Mars.

MarkWhittington writes: The current NASA thinking concerning the Journey to Mars program envisions a visit to the Martian moon Phobos in the early 2030s before attempting a landing on the Martian surface in the late 2030s, as Popular Mechanics noted. The idea of a practice run that takes astronauts almost but not quite to Mars is similar to what the space agency did during the 1960s Apollo program. Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 each orbited the moon but did not land on it before the Apollo 11 mission went all the way to the lunar surface, fulfilling President John. F. Kennedy's challenge.

gurps_npc writes: Popular Mechanics has a nice article about how to shoot down a non-military drone. Interestingly enough, a Super Soaker will do the job while a standard paint gun does nothing. It doesn't take much energy as long as it is concentrated. A BB gun can do it as well — if you can hit the the target. "Other good non-gun options include pretty much any other solid-projectile slinger. Slingshots will likely work—again, assuming you can hit." They add, "Last but not least, you never want to underestimate the power of just throwing crap. A rock, a baseball, anything you can fling straight, accurate, and fast. All it takes to down a drone is a bent propeller or enough of a jolt to flip it."

Taco Cowboy writes: Researchers from Seoul University and Harvard have constructed tiny robots that can walk across the surface of standing water, and even jump into the air. The robots were designed to imitate the way pond-skimmer insects take advantage of surface tension to maneuver on top of still bodies of water. After studying the insects, the researchers found their legs started with a small amount of movement before gradually accelerating downward into a jump. The insects also sweep their legs inward during the jump to maximize the amount of time they stay in contact with the surface (abstract). "Using these principles, the researchers developed an ultra light robot made out of nickel titanium with a 2 centimeter long body inspired by origami. Its 5 centimeter long wire legs are curved at the tips like a real water strider's and coated with a material that repels water." Pictures of the robots are available here and here, as well as this animated gif.

An anonymous reader writes "A band of space hackers and engineers are trying to do something never done before — recover a 36 year old NASA spacecraft from the grips of deep space and time. With old NASA documents and Rockethub crowdfunding, a team led by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing is attempting to steer ISEE-3, later rechristened ICE, the International Cometary Explorer, back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Dennis says, 'ISEE-3 can become a great teaching tool for future engineers and scientists helping with design and travel to Mars'. Only 40 days remain before the spacecraft will be out of range for recovery. A radio telescope is available, propulsion designs are in hand and the team is hoping for public support to provide the small amount needed to accomplish a very unique milestone in space exploration."

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "The nearest star systems — such as our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light-years from home — are so far away, reaching them would require a generational starship. Entire generations of people would be born, live, and die before the ship reached its destination. This brings up the question of how many people you need to send on a hypothetical interstellar mission to sustain sufficient genetic diversity. Anthropologist Cameron Smith has calculated how many people would be required to maintain genetic diversity and secure the success of the endeavor. William Gardner-O'Kearney helped Smith build the MATLAB simulations to calculate how many different scenarios would play out during interstellar travel and ran some simulations specially to show why the success of an interstellar mission depends crucially on the starting population size. Gardner-O'Kearny calculated each population's possible trajectory over 300 years, or 30 generations. Because there are a lot of random variables to consider, he calculated the trajectory of each population 10 times, then averaged the results.

A population of 150 people, proposed by John Moore in 2002, is not nearly high enough to maintain genetic variation. Over many generations, inbreeding leads to the loss of more than 80 percent of the original diversity found within the hypothetical gene. A population of 500 people would not be sufficient either, Smith says. "Five hundred people picked at random today from the human population would not probably represent all of human genetic diversity . . . If you're going to seed a planet for its entire future, you want to have as much genetic diversity as possible, because that diversity is your insurance policy for adaptation to new conditions." A starting population of 40,000 people maintains 100 percent of its variation, while the 10,000-person scenario stays relatively stable too. So, Smith concludes that a number between 10,000 and 40,000 is a pretty safe bet when it comes to preserving genetic variation. Luckily, tens of thousands of pioneers wouldn't have to be housed all in one starship. Spreading people out among multiple ships also spreads out the risk. Modular ships could dock together for trade and social gatherings, but travel separately so that disaster for one wouldn't spell disaster for all. 'With 10,000,' Smith says, 'you can set off with good amount of human genetic diversity, survive even a bad disease sweep, and arrive in numbers, perhaps, and diversity sufficient to make a good go at Humanity 2.0.'"

cartechboy writes "Soon, your new car's headlights will be powered by lasers. The 2015 BMW i8 is entering production, and it's the first vehicle to offer laser headlights. These new beams offer a handful of advantages over LED lighting, including greater lighting intensity and extending the beams' reach as far as 600 meters down the road (nearly double the range of LEDs). The beam pattern also can be controlled very precisely. Plus, laser lights consumer about 30 percent less energy than the already-efficient LED lights. Audi is among the short list of other auto manufacturers to promise laser lights in the near future. But the coolest part of all this? When you turn on a set of these new headlights, you'll be able to scream, 'fire the lasers!'"

cold fjord sends this news from Popular Mechanics: "[M]aking custom racecar parts out of carbon fiber is daunting. The only real method available is CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand. To improve the process, [Gregory Mark] looked to 3D printing. But nothing on the market could print the material, and no available materials could print pieces strong enough for his purposes. So Mark devised his own solution: the MarkForged Mark One, the world's first carbon fiber 3D printer. Mark debuted his Boston area-based startup MarkForged at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego with a working prototype. The Mark One can print in carbon fiber, fiberglass, nylon and PLA (a thermoplastic). ... The main advantage of the Mark One: It can print parts 20 times stiffer and five times stronger than ABS, according to the company. It even has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than CNC-machined aluminum. ... Mark says that he imagines this machine is for anybody who wants to print in a material as strong as aluminum. Beyond racecars, it could be useful to industries like prosthetics."

A moon-bound NASA rocket was launched successfully Friday evening from Virginia's Wallops Island. The launch was visible over a wide stretch of the east coast; YouTube videos are beginning to show up. The robotic probe, to study lunar dust, is the first rocket launched into outer space from the Virginia launch site.

oritonic1 writes "During their long, cold winters, the Norwegian town of Rjukan doesn't enjoy much by way of daylight—so the town (population 3,386), installed three giant sun-tracking mirrors to shine a steady light over a 2000 square foot circle of the town square. From Popular Mechanics: 'Call it a mood enhancer. Or a tourist attraction. But the mirrors, which will be carried in via helicopter, will provide an oasis of light in an otherwise bleak location at the center of the 3500-population town. Three mirrors with a total surface area of about 538 square feet will sit at an angle to redirect winter sun down into the town, lighting up over 2150 square feet of concentrated space in the town square. A similar idea exists in the Italian village of Viganella, which has used brushed steel to reflect light since 2006.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Candace Jackson writes that an increasing number of home builders and buyers are looking for a new kind of security: homes equipped to handle everything from hurricanes, tornadoes and hybrid superstorms like this week's Sandy, to man-made threats ranging from home invasion to nuclear war. Fueling the rise of these often-fortresslike homes are new technologies and building materials—which builders say will ultimately be used on a more widespread basis in storm- and earthquake-threatened areas. For example, Alys Beach, a 158-acre luxury seaside community on Florida's Gulf Coast, has earned the designation of Fortified...for safer living® homes and is designed to withstand strong winds. The roofs have two coats of limestone and exterior walls have 8 inches of concrete, reinforced every 32 inches for 'bunkerlike' safety, according to marketing materials. Other builders are producing highly hurricane-proof residences that are circular in shape with 'radial engineering' wherein roof and floor trusses link back to the home's center like spokes on a wheel, helping to dissipate gale forces around the structure. Deltec, a North Carolina–based builder, says it has never lost a circular home to hurricanes in over 40 years of construction. But Doug Buck says some 'extreme' building techniques don't make financial sense. 'You get to a point of diminishing returns,' says Buck. 'You're going to spend so much that honestly, it would make more sense to let it blow down and rebuild it.''

SchrodingerZ writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is known for making odd scientific advances ranging from hypersonic unnamed rockets to bionic prosthetic limbs to insect-sized reconnaissance drones. But recently DARPA has made a interesting advancement in the field of fire suppression. Using two speakers arranged on either side of an open liquid fuel flame, an acoustic field was emitted and engulfed the fire. 'The sound increases air velocity, which then thins the area of the flame where combustion occurs, known as the flame boundary.' This make the flame weak and much easier to douse. Another wonderful thing about this: it's not even that loud! DARPA began its testing in 2008, stating that despite extensive research in this area, there have been no new methods for extinguishing and/or manipulating fire in almost 50 years. The agency plans to expand on this experiment and try to make it successful on a practical scale."

Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that although fly-by-wire technology has huge advantages, Airbus's 'brilliant' aircraft design may have contributed to one of the world's worst aviation disasters and the deaths of all 228 passengers onboard Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. While there is no doubt that at least one of AF447's pilots made a fatal and sustained mistake, the errors committed by the pilot doing the flying were not corrected by his more experienced colleagues because they did not know he was behaving in a manner bound to induce a stall. The reason for that fatal lack of awareness lies partly in the design of the control stick – the 'side stick' – used in all Airbus cockpits. 'Most Airbus pilots I know love it because of the reliable automation that allows you to manage situations and not be so fatigued by the mechanics of flying,' says Stephen King of the British Airline Pilots' Association. But the fact that the second pilot's stick stays in neutral whatever there is input to the other is not a good thing. 'It's not immediately apparent to one pilot what the other may be doing with the control stick, unless he makes a big effort to look across to the other side of the flight deck, which is not easy. In any case, the side stick is held back for only a few seconds, so you have to see the action being taken.'"

GlobalEcho writes "Researchers have created a second version of the Raven robotic surgeon, with open-source control code. 'UW researchers also created software to work with the Robot Operating System, a popular open-source robotics code, so labs can easily connect the Raven to other devices and share ideas.' Unfortunately for them, according to The Economist, 'there is [a] legal problem. Intuitive Surgical, the company behind the da Vinci [robot], holds patents that could make launching a commercial competitor tricky — at least in the immediate future."

YIAAL writes "After a multi-car pileup involving two school buses, the NTSB is urging states to ban all cellphones and personal electronic devices in cars, even hands-free phones. But on looking at the NTSB report, it appears that the big problem was a school bus driver who was following too closely, and another school bus driver who wasn't watching the road. Why is the NTSB targeting gadgets instead of bad drivers?"

FleaPlus writes "Besides using the SpaceX Dragon capsule to deliver supplies to the ISS this year and astronauts in following years, the company wants to use Dragon as a platform for propulsively landing science payloads on Mars and other planets. Combined with their upcoming Falcon Heavy rocket, 'a single Dragon mission could land with more payload than has been delivered to Mars cumulatively in history.' According to CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX is working with NASA's Ames Research Center on a mission design concept that could launch in as early as 5-6 years."

With 244 steps The Time Machine, built by by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, took first place and broke a world record at the 24th Annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. From the article: "It starts with the Big Bang, re-creates the extinction of the dinosaurs, holds a jousting competition, flips over an album, and simulates World War II, a shuttle launch, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the alleged apocalypse in 2012. In its precisely executed review of history, 'The Time Machine,' a Rube Goldberg contraption built by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, incorporates a record-breaking 244 steps—all to water a single flower."

SonicSpike writes "The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program. A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and videos off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections. 'Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags,' a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities." Popular Mechanics has a short conversation with a 4th Amendment lawyer about the practice of slurping cellphone data, too, though it's unclear if the Michigan police are actually using these devices to their full potential.

Ant writes "Popular Mechanics mailed a bunch of sensors on an epic journey to find out which American shipping company is the most careful with your packages. From the article: 'One disheartening result was that our package received more abuse when marked "Fragile" or "This Side Up." The carriers flipped the package more, and it registered above-average acceleration spikes during trips for which we requested careful treatment.' Here's what they found."

MithrandirAgain writes "A new study from several scientists at the Aerospace Corporation claims spaceships that rely on rubber-based fuel could help cause climate change. The fuel apparently expels a black carbon soot into the stratosphere when burned with nitrous oxide, which could be contributing to global climate changes, like shrinking the icecaps. However, the authors are careful about their work being an end-all study and are 'inviting others to take a look.' Virgin Galactic, whose SpaceShipTwo just made its first solo flight (and uses the type of fuel discussed in the study), is listening to the scientists' concerns. CEO George Whitesides said, 'I think we and others in the industry welcome the opportunity to talk about all of these issues.' SpaceShipTwo does use a hybrid engine 'because of its significantly lower environmental impact than other designs,' and Whitesides stresses, 'I think as we look at this more, we'll find the impact will be far smaller than that set out in the paper. In any case, I welcome the conversation.'"

Martin Hellman writes "A few weeks ago Popular Mechanics awarded one of its Breakthrough Awards for the invention of 'programmable magnets.' Instead of having a single North or South pole, these clever devices have an array of North and South poles. If a matching device with exactly the same array is aligned with the first one, they will experience strong repulsion, just like two single North poles do when brought near one another. If the matching device has the complementary array (North and South interchanged), with correct alignment the two devices will attract. But a slight misalignment will cancel most of the force. Other configurations are possible as well, allowing frictionless magnetic gears and exploding toys. The inventor, Larry Fullerton, used techniques similar to those from CDMA modulation. (Watch the intro video for a brief explanation. While I don't understand magnetism that well, I do understand CDMA and carrying over those ideas to magnetic arrays does make sense to me.)"

Bad_CRC1945 writes "The good news: Not one, but two companies are selling jet packs. The bad news: The tech has a long way to go. In the past, potential buyers have been stymied by two problems: Rocket belts aren't for sale, and even prototypes run on modern-day fuel (as opposed to whatever the Jetsons use) which means rocket belts can weigh upwards of 100 pounds, with only enough fuel to stay aloft for under a minute." That second problem's still with us, but the article hints that jet-fuel options (for the brave) could considerably extend users' time aloft.

longacre sends in a quote from Popular Mechanics: "The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected two companies to proceed with the next stage of its Transformer, known as TX — a fully automated four-person vehicle that can drive like a car and then take off and fly like an aircraft to avoid roadside bombs. Lockheed Martin and AAI Corp., a unit of Textron Systems, are currently in negotiations with DARPA for the first stage of the Transformer project, several industry sources told Popular Mechanics at a robotics conference here in Denver." The picture included with the linked article says it all, really.

longacre writes "Erik Sofge trudges through NASA's latest free video game, which he finds tedious, uninspiring and misguided. Quoting: 'Moonbase Alpha is a demo, of sorts, for NASA's more ambitious upcoming game, Astronaut: Moon, Mars & Beyond, which will feature more destinations, and hopefully less welding. The European Space Agency is developing a similar game, set on the Jovian Moon, Europa. But Moonbase Alpha proves that as a recruiting campaign, or even as an educational tool, the astronaut simulation game is a lost cause. Unless NASA plans to veer into science fiction and populate its virtual moons, asteroids and planets with hostile species, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to suffer through another minute of pretending to weld power cables back into place, while thousands of miles away, the most advanced explorers ever built are hurtling toward asteroids and dwarf planets and into the heart of the sun. Even if it was possible to build an astronaut game that's both exciting and realistic, why bother? It will be more than a decade before humans even attempt another trip outside of Earth's orbit. If NASA wants to inspire the next generation of astronauts and engineers, its games should focus on the real winners of the space race — the robots.'"

Several readers have sent in followups to Wednesday's news that AT&T was eliminating its unlimited data plan. Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics defends the new plan, writing, "Imagine, for a moment, if we bought electricity the way we buy data in this country. Every month, you would pay a fixed amount of money (say, $120), and then you would use as much electricity as you wanted, with an incentive to use as much as you could. That brings price stability to the end user, but it's a horrible way to manage electricity load." Others point out that this will likely engender more scrutiny from regulatory agencies and watchdog groups. A Computerworld article says that one way or the other, AT&T's decision is a huge deal for the mobile computing industry, influencing not only how other carriers look at data rates, but how content providers and advertisers will need to start thinking about a data budget if they want consumers to keep visiting their sites. AT&T, responding to criticism, has decided to allow iPad buyers to use the old, unlimited plan as long as they order before June 7, and Gizmodo has raised the question of "rollover bytes."

longacre writes "Cape Wind is making headlines for being the first offshore wind farm to earn federal approval, but it still has plenty of legal hoops to jump through before groundbreaking. Texas, on the other hand, requires no review — state, federal, or otherwise — to build wind farms off its shore. Texas energy expert and Popular Mechanics senior editor Jennifer Bogo talks to Texan energy leaders who are confident they will beat Cape Wind to the punch for the distinction of having the first functional US offshore wind farm. 'I was about to write a press release to congratulate Cape Wind for getting their approval,' says Jim Suydam, press secretary of the Texas General Land Office, 'and let them know when they're done jumping through hoops up there they can come build off the Texas Coast.' Despite its reputation as an oil-addicted, non-environmentally-friendly, conservative state, Texas's existing land-based wind farms actually produce four times more electricity than California's."

longacre writes "Cape Wind is making headlines for being the first offshore wind farm to earn federal approval, but it still has plenty of legal hoops to jump through before groundbreaking. Texas, on the other hand, requires no review — state, federal, or otherwise — to build wind farms off its shore. Texas energy expert and Popular Mechanics senior editor Jennifer Bogo talks to Texan energy leaders who are confident they will beat Cape Wind to the punch for the distinction of having the first functional US offshore wind farm. 'I was about to write a press release to congratulate Cape Wind for getting their approval,' says Jim Suydam, press secretary of the Texas General Land Office, 'and let them know when they're done jumping through hoops up there they can come build off the Texas Coast.' Despite its reputation as an oil-addicted, non-environmentally-friendly, conservative state, Texas's existing land-based wind farms actually produce four times more electricity than California's."

longacre writes "A Gasoline-Powered Alarm Clock was among 15 bogus products granted the coveted Energy Star seal of approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency during a secret evaluation conducted by the Government Accountability Office. In addition, four fictional manufacturers run by fake people and marketed with crummy websites — Cool Rapport (HVAC equipment), Futurizon Solar Innovations (lighting), Spartan Digital Electronics, and Tropical Thunder Appliances — were granted Energy Star partnerships. The root of the problem: Manufacturers need only submit photos and not actual examples of their products, and they submit their own efficiency ratings, which are not independently verified by the EPA."

malachiorion writes "Are humanoid bots and CGI characters still crawling their way out of the Uncanny Valley? Maybe, but maybe it doesn't matter. Here's a cold, hard look at a popular robotics theory that might have no legs to stand on, android or otherwise. It's everything that seems wrong and irrelevant about the Uncanny Valley that I wasn't able to fit into this month's Popular Mechanics cover story on social bots."

FleaPlus writes "Buzz Aldrin and twelve other astronauts have published a joint endorsement of commercial human spaceflight, stating that 'while it's completely appropriate for NASA to continue developing systems and the new technologies necessary to take crews farther out into our solar system, [the astronauts] believe that the commercial sector is fully capable of safely handling the critical task of low-Earth-orbit human transportation.' They are confident that commercial systems (which NASA already relies on for launching multibillion-dollar science payloads) can provide a level of safety equal to the Russian Soyuz and higher than the Space Shuttle, while strengthening US economic competitiveness. They also support the expected endorsement of the White House's Augustine Commission regarding NASA's use of commercial spaceflight — the Commission's final report will be released today." And here's the Augustine report itself (PDF).

Several readers including tyghe!! sent in a Popular Mechanics piece analyzing the Augustine Commission's recommendations and NASA itself in terms of a persistent bias towards risk aversion, and arguing that such a bias is fundamentally incompatible with the mission of opening a new frontier. "Rand Simberg, a former aerospace engineer finds the report a little too innocuous. In this analysis, Simberg asks, what happens when we take the risk out of space travel? ... Aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan said a few years ago that if we're not killing people, we're not pushing hard enough. That might sound harsh to people outside the aerospace community but, as Rutan knows, test pilots and astronauts are a breed of people that willingly accepts certain risk in order to be part of great endeavors. They're volunteers and they know what they're getting into."

FleaPlus writes "Apollo 11 astronaut (and MIT Astronautics Sc.D.) Buzz Aldrin suggests a bolder plan for NASA (while still remaining within its budget), which he will present to the White House's Augustine Commission; he sees NASA heading down the wrong path with a 'rehash of what we did 40 years ago' which could derail future exploration and settlement. For the short-term, Aldrin suggests canceling NASA's troubled and increasingly costly Ares I, instead launching manned capsules on commercial Delta IV, Atlas V, and/or SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. In the medium-term, NASA should return to the moon with an international consortium, with the ultimate goal of commercial lunar exploitation in mind. Aldrin's long term plan includes a 2018 comet flyby, a 2019 manned trip to a near-earth asteroid, a 2025 trip to the Martian moon Phobos, and one-way trips to colonize Mars."

Ismenio writes "Does anyone have any ideas for a do-it-yourself Google-Street-View-like project on the cheap? I am planning to visit a few places outside the US that are important to me, and would like to be able to set up a site for friends and family to visit and give them the Street View-like experience so that they could navigate, pan and zoom in the areas I have. Though being able to use GPS coordinates would be great, that's certainly something I can do without. I know I can take pictures and stitch them together to create panoramic views, but I would like to be able to also navigate though some streets. Would it make sense to record it with an HD camera, then batch export frames as pictures? Is there any software in the open source community that I can use?" Ismenio includes links to some related pages: Popular Mechanics' look at the camera tech used for Street View, and a company that claims better panoramic image technology than Google's.

Red Flayer writes "Popular Mechanics is running a story that describes one of the more interesting explanations for the Tunguska explosion of 1908: 'Now, a controversial new scientific study suggests that a chunk of a comet caused the 5-10 megaton fireball, bouncing off the atmosphere and back into orbit around the sun. The scientists have even identified a candidate Tunguska object — now more than 100 million miles away — that will pass close to Earth again in 2045.' Note that Popular Mechanics' definition of 'close to' is somewhat different than most people's — the comet will be 3.8 million miles away at its closest. At any rate, the key to this theory is that hydrogen and oxygen in the ice shard exploded upon entering the atmosphere, resulting in the difficult-to-explain blast pattern (previous theories contend that the object must have 'skipped' on the atmosphere and then re-entered at the exact same spot). This would also, sadly, dash the theory that Nikola Tesla was responsible."

Slartibartfast was one of many readers sending in news of GM's partnership with Segway to develop a two-seater urban electric vehicle. It's called the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or "PUMA." This is just a prototype, so don't get your credit card out yet. Its total cost of ownership could be about 1/4 that of a traditional car, GM says. The prototype runs for 35 miles, at a top speed of 35 mph, on lithium-ion batteries. It features the now-familiar Segway balancing technology, though fore-and-aft training wheels are visible on the prototype. Some commentators have likened it to a high-tech rickshaw, others to a golf cart. Engadget describes how the ride feels.

longacre writes "Modern highway planning schemes designed to make roads safer combined with the comfort and safety technology found in the modern automobile may actually be putting us in danger, according to a compelling piece in Popular Mechanics. Citing studies and anecdotal evidence, the article points out that a driver on a narrow mountain road will probably drive as if their life depends on it; but the same driver on an eight-lane freeway with gradual curves and little traffic may be lulled into speeding while chatting on his cellphone. Quoting: 'Modern cars are quiet, powerful and capable of astonishing grip in curves, even on wet pavement. That's swell, of course, until you suddenly lose traction at 75 mph. The sense of confidence bred by all this capability makes us feel safe, which causes us to drive faster than we probably should. We don't want to make cars with poor response, but perhaps we could design cues — steering-wheel vibration devices, as in video games? — that make us feel less safe at speed and encourage more care. ... In college I drove an Austin-Healey 3000 that somehow felt faster at 45 mph than my Mazda RX-8 (or even my Toyota Highlander Hybrid) feels at 75 mph. That was a good thing.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A fireball streaked over Austin, Texas on February 15 producing sonic booms and startling people for hundreds of miles. The video of the event was shown on national television and viewed by thousands of people on the Net. The first news reports speculated that the fireball might have been debris from a February 13th collision between two satellites over Siberia but space experts said that the object was probably a meteor. Now this has been confirmed: experienced meteorite hunters located a strewnfield about 120 miles north of the filming site of the Austin cameraman and have recovered over 100 freshly fallen meteorites."

ZosX writes "An article over at Popular Mechanics announces that, for the first time, solar cells have been manufactured for the much sought-after figure of $1/Watt. They also talk about a new study of the cost of the particular raw materials used in different manufacturing processes. The conclusion is that the company that just achieved the $1/W milestone, using cadmium telluride technology, may not prove to be the long-term winner capable of meeting demand when it rises into the terawatt range."

bughunter writes "The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is slated for launch tomorrow, February 24, 2009. OCO is the first earth science observatory that will create a detailed map of atmospheric carbon dioxide sources and sinks around the globe. And not a moment too soon. Popular Mechanics has a concise article on the science that this mission will perform, and how it fits in with the existing 'A-train' of polar-orbiting earth observatories. JPL's page goes into more detail. And NASA's OCO Launch Blog will have continuous updates as liftoff approaches and the spacecraft reports in and checks out from 700km up."

FleaPlus writes "Popular Mechanics reports that a 'renegade' group including NASA engineers has met with President-Elect Obama's space transition team to present information on the DIRECT architecture for launching NASA missions after the Space Shuttle is retired. According to the group, DIRECT's Jupiter launch system will be safer, less expensive, better-performing, and be ready sooner than the Ares launch system NASA is currently developing, while still providing jobs for much of the existing shuttle workforce. Meanwhile, it's expected that current NASA head and adamant Ares supporter Michael Griffin will be replaced by a new NASA administrator."

Last week we solicited questions for US Representative Jim Langevin (D-RI), one of the chairs of the CSIS Cybersecurity Commission. Here are his answers — along with contact information for him if you want to continue the conversation. 1) Red Teams
by Bananatree3
The NSA has had great success with Red Teams and competitions between security experts in helping learn how to better secure sensitive data and to keep up to date with the latest attack techniques.

What are your plans to utilize this powerful technique? If applied elsewhere, Red Team competitions can help better secure other aspects of the internet and to stay up to date.

Rep. Langevin: I couldn't agree more. I've been an advocate of moving away from the paperwork exercises that have become more prevalent in Federal government IT security towards a more operational-focused testing environment like red/blue teams and penetration testing. In fact, I wrote a bill (HR 5983) this year that would have required the heads of appropriate Federal agencies (DHS, NSA, DOD, etc.) to create security control testing protocols to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security's networks are protected against known attacks and exploits. The bill would have essentially given the DHS Inspector General the ability to red/blue team the Department's networks to determine whether or not the Department's security policies and controls were effective.

The DHS Inspector General does not have the same capabilities as the NSA red team. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of individuals who are members of these elite teams; what I'd like to see happen is groups like NSA red/blue engage with more Federal civilian agency security officers who can perform these functions when the NSA teams are not available.

Of course, the great value in red teaming comes from actually mitigating the vulnerabilities discovered by the red team. This takes time and money, which can sometimes be difficult to come by. So while we have to do more red teaming in the Federal government, we also have to be prepared to spend the money to fix the problems.

I find that red team competitions are a great way to refine offensive and defensive skills, and can also be a good recruiting tool for the Federal government. In the spring I congratulated the college participants in the 2008 National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition that was held at the campus of UT-San Antonio, and encouraged them to look for Federal jobs when they graduate. We as a nation have to recruit and invest in these students because of their talent and potential.

2) Why run this out of the EOP?
by Animats
Why run this out of the Executive Office of the President? Trying to run operational units directly from the White House seldom works well; the environment is political, not operational. The present cybersecurity office, in Homeland Security, is ineffective because the incumbent is a former lobbyist. When Amit Yoran was in charge there, progress was being made. He quit because he wasn't getting backing from higher in Homeland Security. The office needs a high-level champion in the White House, but that's a liasion job.

Rep. Langevin: You are right - cyber operations should not be run by the White House. We have plenty of agencies that have the skill and capability to run various cyber operations throughout the Federal government. But as you've noted, at the end of the day, cybersecurity requires coordination of activities across agencies, and the CSIS Commission concluded that the White House is the best place to locate this function.

The Commission discovered that the central problems in the current Federal organization for cybersecurity are lack of a strategic focus, overlapping missions, poor coordination and collaboration, and diffuse responsibility. The Commission considered many options for how best to organize for cybersecurity. One particularly useful model was the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act (IRTPA). IRTPA imposed a new, more collaborative structure on the Intelligence Community. It mandated a distributed "intelligence enterprise." Congressional mandates, however, are not enough. It took a Director of National Intelligence with the appropriate authorities to build collaboration. This did not mean that the DNI became a centralized manager of the IC - agencies still have their unique operational functions. The DNI role is to provide the strategy and collaborative networks for the intelligence enterprise. This effort, although it is still a work in progress, helped to guide our thinking.

I hope that the Assistant to the President for Cyberspace will be that high-level champion that you described, a person who can provide programmatic oversight for the many cybersecurity programs that involve multiple agencies, but not take operational control over the agency responsibilities.

3) Re:Why run this out of the EOP?
by gclef (96
To build on this, how are you planning on addressing the credibility gap between what the executive wants to achieve, and what the rest of the internet community (at least in the US) believes you really can/should achieve?

For example, I was at BlackHat this year, and the keynote speaker was one of the Feds, speaking about the federal plans for cyber security. The discussions in the hall after his keynote were scathing. Many of the attendees concluded that he had no clue what he was talking about. This, I think, has to be the first hurdle the executive needs to clear before accomplishing anything. Put simply: the private sector just doesn't believe in government's ability to succeed. How are you going to fix that?

Rep. Langevin: The uncertainty of success should not prevent government from playing a role in securing cyberspace, but its questionable effectiveness means we have to find specific areas or roles where the government can add value. This is the challenge we face today.

I think back to some of the fundamental lessons of the government's efforts in Y2K. John Koskinen, the incredibly effective manager of this effort, asked himself what role the government could or should play with the private sector. His list was short: 1) Government could provide expertise to the private sector; 2) Government could provide a trusted meeting place for the private sector; 3) Government could provide a mix of positive and negative incentives for the private sector to implement security fixes. With this blueprint, Koskinen had his marching orders.

Government alone will not solve the cybersecurity problem because government alone does not own the infrastructure or the technical expertise. But government involvement is the key for success because of its ability to positively and negatively incentivize behavior. Today, just like 10 years ago, there are incentives that the government can provide to ensure better security in the private sector, and, like the government response to Y2K, I think this is where the government should focus its effort.

The trust relationship between the government and the private sector has been damaged over the years, so this will be an area for the next President to try to improve. The CSIS Commission recommends rebuilding the public-private partnership on cybersecurity to focus on key infrastructures and coordinated preventative and responsive activities. The Commission recommends the President direct the creation of three new groups for partnership that provide the basis for both trust and action: 1) A Presidential Advisory Committee organized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) with senior representatives from the key cyber infrastructures; 2) A "town hall" style national stakeholders' organization that provides a platform for education and discussion; and 3) A new operational organization, the Center for Cybersecurity Operations (CCSO), where public and private sector entities can collaborate and share information on critical cybersecurity in a trusted environment.

There is one specific area that the government can establish some credibility with the private sector: become the gold standard for network security. Some of you have heard me discuss this vision during my DHS oversight hearings. The security of Federal networks has received attention from the highest principals in government, and I believe the increased attention will lead to better strategies, larger commitment of resources, and greater awareness throughout Federal agencies. Making the Federal government the gold standard demonstrates to the private sector that we are committed to security and we can be a trusted partner.

4) Regulation
by Hatta
The free and open nature of the internet is its biggest asset. How do you plan on enforcing "cybersecurity" without damaging its free and open nature? Are you sure that the cure (government regulation) isn't worse than the disease (cybercrime)? Remember there was no cybercrime before the internet. The internet has brought us both crime and prosperity, so far the prosperity has far exceeded the crime. I benefit far more than I suffer from having an unregulated internet, can you convince me that a regulated internet is even necessary?

What sort of measures can you take to fight cybercrime without affecting my unfettered access to the internet? The phrase "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is not an acceptable response.

Rep. Langevin: I disagree with the premise - neither I nor the CSIS Commission discussed a "regulated Internet". What we did discuss is the need to develop and issue standards and guidance for securing three specific critical cyber infrastructures - telecom, finance, and energy - with the intent of increasing transparency and improving resiliency and reliability in the delivery of services critical to cyberspace.

5)How will this power be controlled?
by Opportunist
I work in IT security and thus I wonder how you plan to deal with two conflicting problems: Rapid change of threat scenarios and ability to supervise and monitor the actions taken by the "cyber police". Threats in IT change rapidly. Over the course of days sometimes. So quick reactions to emerging threats is a necessity. You have to react fast when something emerges, you can't let debates go on forever with weeks passing to give various interest groups a say in the matter.

How do you plan to ensure that civil liberties will not suffer from the necessary fast response when trying to make the internet a safer place?

That whatever organization is supposed to make the "net safer" will have certain powers is a given. Whenever, though, someone who has power has to do something fast (i.e. before someone could complain or interfere), the temptation to abuse this power (claiming "danger in delay", when the only danger would have been that someone could find out that power abuse is afoot) is present as well. How do you plan to address this?

Rep. Langevin: It's a significant challenge to respond to threats that can hit in a matter of milliseconds. Specifically, to address abuses of power or compromises of privacy and civil liberties, we have to insist that privacy and civil liberties protections be built in from the ground floor into our cybersecurity programs.

The E-Government Act requires agencies to conduct Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) before developing or procuring IT systems or projects that collect, maintain or disseminate information in identifiable form from or about members of the public, or initiating a new electronic collection of information in identifiable form for 10 or more persons. In general, PIAs are required to be performed and updated as necessary where a system change creates new privacy risks. I think this is one way that we can ensure that privacy and civil liberties concerns are addressed at the outset, but I am open to any suggestions from the readers.

6) Hiring Practices And Education
by codepunk
I noticed briefly in the document that it mentions the inability of the Govt. to hire the necessary talent to combat these issues. Namely it mentions the drop in CS student enrollments and attempts to relate it to the .com burst. In reality the American IT profession is under assault by both outsourcing and the current H1B visa program. How do you intend to increase CS enrollment when the job market is being eroded by these two factors?

Rep. Langevin: I am concerned about the drop in computer science students, because it could portend of a decline in American competitiveness in science and technology At the same time, I also know that advanced degrees are not a necessity in operations. Some of the best operational experts I know - both in and out of government - only have high school diplomas.

There are a variety of different skill sets that we are looking for in the Federal government. The goal is to both increase the supply of skilled workers (to benefit both government and the private sector) and to create a career path (including training and advancement) for cyber specialists in the Federal government.

I have long advocated for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform that combines border security, enforcement of immigration laws already on the books, and a humane and common-sense approach to dealing with the millions of immigrants who are already in this country illegally. Reforming the system includes looking at all visa programs such as the one you mention.

The model for increasing the supply of skilled cyber workers is the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which improved national security and strengthened the economy. A larger effort poses complex challenges, however, and a focused program that emphasizes cybersecurity will be easier to obtain. The simplest approach may be to expand Scholarship for Service, a National Science Foundation scholarship program that provides tuition and stipends, in addition to requiring accreditation of schools where scholarships are provided for computer security studies.

The U.S. must also develop a career path for cyber specialists in federal service. Creating this career path entails a number of steps, including minimum entry requirements for cyber positions, training in specialized security skills, and a national cyber skills certification program. The Office of Personnel Management, working with key agencies engaged in cyber defense and offense, needs to establish rewarding career paths and advanced training.

This career path should transcend specific departments or agencies. I believe it should be modeled on the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), which provides training to all Federal employees in the Law Enforcement Officer skills. The program should initially focus on national security related missions (including critical infrastructure), but could later be expanded to other mission areas.

7) Why?
by poetmatt
Why must civil liberties be given up under any circumstance under the guise of "cybersecurity"? Why is there no open public review for people to proclaim that under no circumstance do they plan to give up civil liberties for sake of a bad us government cybersecurity plan? I for one do not plan to give up any form of "rights" just because the government has an inability to secure their own systems. I'm sure we all know the Thomas Jefferson quote for this.

Basically, my question is: why are we focused on balancing rights for security when we could spend more effort securing the existing government computer systems that we use, and it would be more effective? This is like pointing a finger at the washington monument and blaming it for the market collapse, and does not directly address the issue I just mentioned.

Rep. Langevin: No American should give up the liberties granted to him by our Constitution under any circumstances. I do disagree with your premise, however, that the Federal government is sacrificing the liberties of its citizens to ensure greater security of its networks.

Readers of Slashdot who share my concern about protecting privacy and civil liberties may be interested in reading the Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) prepared by the Federal government for various IT systems that I mentioned in a previous response.

8) Over-reaching
by gclef
A) Are you concerned with biting off more than you can chew with the "Manage Identities" portion of the recommendation? (or, put another way, are you sure the government should really be doing any of those in the first place?)

A number of people are already uncomfortable with the idea of a national identity card (witness the problems that RealID is having these days)...your report goes even farther, though, by proposing a

government-issued identity card that consumers could use for purchases online. If I'm already suspicious of a national ID, why in the world would I want to use a government-issued online ID?

B) Also, your recommendations have some huge loopholes: point 17 says that you want to allow consumers to use strong government-issued credentials for online activities, but point 18 then says that there should be regulation preventing businesses from *requiring* the use of those credentials.In practice, one of these two lines will be pointless (companies will say that it's optional to do business with them, so it's not "required"). By way of example, it's illegal for a company to *require* an SSN for non-banking business, but just try to get water service in Maryland without giving it to them...you can't do it. Doesn't this sort of loophole make your "consumer protection" recommendations pointless?

Rep. Langevin: Government-issued identity sparks a wide range of emotions, but I have to be clear about one thing: the Commission did not recommend that the government issue strong credentials to individuals.

First, we recommended that strong authentication be mandatory for critical cyber infrastructures - energy, finance, and telecommunications. Second, we said that if people want to use their new strong credential (which does not necessarily have to be provided by the government) for commercial purposes, they should be allowed to do so when the other party in a transaction is willing to accept them. Finally, we said that as we are likely to see two classes of consumers emerge (those with strong digital credentials and those who have chosen not to have such credentials), the FTC should ensure that companies can't refuse low-risk online services to those without credentials. FTC rules can move companies to adopt a risk-based approach to authentication - low risk transactions can use weak or no authentication, high risk transaction can require more.

You are essentially already doing this if you use online banking services: you can browse the website without authentication, but you need strong authentication to access your account and engage in transactions. Banks issue the credential (not the government) but it is in a framework of rules and guidance issued by regulatory authorities. The Commission wanted to move the banking model to other critical sectors.

The real issue is how to construct a system that accommodates a minority that is afraid of strong authentication without blocking adoption for critical infrastructure or high value transactions.

9) Single Platform Vulnerability
by codepunk
It is no secret that our nations national security is threatened by the current single platform strategy. The lack of operating system diversity creates a fatal environment in which a single system flaw can expose all govt facilities and networks. As it stands today a single serious vulnerability could be exploited to blackout most if not all of our govt infrastructure. How do you intend to address this serious problem?

Rep. Langevin: We can do our best to build security in. Currently, most vendors deliver software with a very wide set of features and functions enabled including some that can result in less secure operations if not properly configured by the purchaser. However, as software systems become increasingly complex the difficulty of securely configuring these systems and maintaining that secure configuration has become a major technical and operational challenge.

The Federal government, taken as a single organization, is the largest buyer of most information technology products. Federal acquisitions rules provide a large mechanism for the government to shape private sector behavior. The CSIS Commission recommended that the Federal government require that the IT products it buys be securely configured upon delivery. Today, this effort is known as the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC). The FDCC is an OMB mandate that requires all Federal agencies to standardize the configuration of settings on operating systems and for applications that run on those systems. The FDCC is aimed at strengthening Federal IT security by reducing opportunities for hackers to access and exploit government computer systems.

A carefully crafted acquisitions regime, combined with an expanded FDCC initiative could help drive the market towards more secure configurations. The secure configurations mandated by the Federal government and produced in this collaboration with industry would be available for use by state and local government organizations as well as the private sector. A collaborative effort between government and industry to resolve software vulnerabilities and to deliver secure products could result in lower overall costs over the life of a system, even if secure configurations initially resulted in a higher price.

10) Secure what?
by fuego451
Besides sensitive government computers, which for whatever reason need to be connected to the WWW, exactly what part of the US portion of the Web needs to be secured and why?

Rep. Langevin: I am focused specifically on Federal information networks and critical infrastructure networks, such as infrastructure that is used to operate energy utilities and banking and finance and telecommunications. Ineffective cybersecurity leaves us vulnerable to attacks on our informational infrastructure, and in an increasingly competitive international environment, such attacks undercut America's economy and security and put the nation at risk.

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Thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in this thread. Obviously, we weren't able to cover everything here in one Q&A, but if you would like to contact me with additional thoughts, please send me an email noting your interest in cybersecurity.