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The Military

US Deploys 'Heat-Ray' In Afghanistan 406

Posted by Soulskill from the warming-up-to-the-idea dept.
Koreantoast writes "The United States military has deployed Raytheon's newly developed Active Denial System (ADS), a millimeter-wave, 'non-lethal' heat-ray, to Afghanistan. The weapon generates a 'burning sensation' that is supposedly harmless, with the military claiming that the chance of injury is at less than 0.1%; numerous volunteers including reporters over the last several years have experienced its effects during various trials and demonstrations. While US military spokesperson Lt. Col. John Dorrian states that the weapon has not yet been operationally used, the tense situation in theater will ensure its usage soon enough. Proponents of ADS believe the system may help limit civilian deaths in counterinsurgency operations and provide new, safer ways to disperse crowds and control riots, but opponents fear that the system's long-term effects are not fully known and that the device may even be used for torture. Regardless, if ADS is successful in the field, we'll probably see this mobile microwave at your next local protest or riot."

Comment It's the economics...dude (Score 1) 292

by GSGKT (#30705718) Attached to: China Luring Scientists Back Home
Smart and motivated people is in limited supply, so nations would complete for them. No graduate students, or postdocs, have ever got rich from their stipends while perform research in the US. Otherwise more American youth would want to work in university laboratories instead of the Wall Street. China is doing everything to bring their best talents home, because they also have invested a lot of resources on them. It still a sound investment for the US to attract the best talents from anywhere in the world to be educated and perform research here. If just the top 10% of these people decide to stay in this country, then everyone benefits from that. Furthermore, it is easier to find and recruit the best talents and for them want to stay, if they are educated here...most be the koolaid you find in the cafeteria.

Comment Re:JPL's next grant application: is it water? (Score 1) 186

by GSGKT (#26951819) Attached to: Strange Globs Could Signal Water On Mars
Dear Funding Agency: JPL has a great track record for "less money for greater success"! In addition, the initial $520M for Mars Lander projects has kept many physcists and engineers happily employed. Instead of giving $$ to further enrich Wall Street bankers, business exec, hedgefund traders, etc., this project will employ the brightest minds in this great country to achieve no other countries can in the next N years(and pile up more bull-s*&t here until the BS meter breaks).

Comment JPL's next grant application: is it water? (Score 2, Insightful) 186

by GSGKT (#26951401) Attached to: Strange Globs Could Signal Water On Mars
Dear ___funding agency____, Is there surface water on Mars? We need to send another mission to Mars. It should cost less than the amount of money GM asked for bailout during this funding period to study this question, and 2 five-year funding periods to really find out. Please send money. JPL/NASA

Comment Re:Scientific community? (Score 1) 578

by GSGKT (#24548317) Attached to: The Flat Earthers Are Still With Us
If it is a theory, then we can apply this idea called "scientific method" and develop a testable hypothesis, and then... Wait, the flat earth idea has been shown to be false: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth and Earth is an oblate spheroid. "Round" could be interpreted as like a circle and two-dimensional, just those flat-earth people want you to think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth These flat earth "alchemists" are just like those who claim that human activities could never affect the climate http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_change_skeptics, there are endless oil supplies on earth for human consumption, http://economics.about.com/cs/macroeconomics/a/run_out_of_oil.htm, HIV does not cause AIDS http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aids/not/abstract.htm, and the only way to study whales is to kill them and sell the meat in the supermarket http://www.icrwhale.org/QandAjapanresearch.htm. Aaahhh these fucking assholes.
Security

Submission + - Google's Research on Malware Distribution (blogspot.com)

Submitted by GSGKT
GSGKT writes: Google's Anti-Malware Team has made available some of their research data on malware distribution mechanism while the research paper is under peer review. The lead author, Niels Provos, wrote, "It has been over a year and a half since we started to identify web pages that infect vulnerable hosts via drive-by downloads, i.e. web pages that attempt to exploit their visitors by installing and running malware automatically. During that time (Jan 07 to Oct. 07) we have investigated billions of URLs and found more than three million unique URLs on over 180,000 web sites automatically installing malware. During the course of our research, we have investigated not only the prevalence of drive-by downloads but also how users are being exposed to malware and how it is being distributed." The technical report [PDF] is available. Salient points in this report are: (1) 4% of chance a URL might direct you to one of the 180 thousand malicious sites, with an average about 1.3% actually getting hit with a malicious result. (2) The distribution sites are concentrated to a few nations: China (67.0%), US (15.0%), Russia (4.0%) and Malaysia and (South) Korea (~2%). (3) The likelihood of a web page harboring malwares has no strong correlation to its contents. Visiting adult web pages is no more dangerous than visiting website about games, finance, online communities, etc. (4) Malware delivery is like by mis-directing ads on web pages during ads synchronization to malware distribution sites.
Space

Submission + - US satillite dodging Chinese missle debris (washingtontimes.com)

Submitted by GSGKT
GSGKT writes: Today's Washington Times runs a story about the increasing problem with space junks orbiting the earth. Debris from the anti-satellite missile test by the Chinese military last year threatens the integrity of more than 800 operating satellites, half of them belongs to the US. Two orbiting U.S. spacecraft were forced to change course to avoid being damaged soon after the incident. Air Force Brig. Gen. Ted Kresge, director of air, space and information operations at the Air Force Space Command in Colorado, estimates that "essentially (Chinese anti-satellite tests) increase the amount of space debris orbiting the Earth by about 20 percent", and the debris might threaten spacecraft for up to 100 years.
Security

Submission + - Trojan found in brand new HD sold in Taiwan (taipeitimes.com)

Submitted by
GSGKT
GSGKT writes: "About 1800 of these brand new 300GB or 500GB external HD made for Maxtor in Thailand have Trojan Horse malwares (autorun.inf and ghost.pif) pre-installed. When the HD is in use, these will forward information on HD to two websites in Beijing, China): www.nice8.org or www.we168.org. Potential users of these large HD would be mid/small business, the military, and the government in Taiwan, although no one can prove this to be the continuing war/spying efforts on Taiwan by the People's Liberation Army. /. has a story on Russian Business Network moving to China recently (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/09/1957239). Together, these two stories make an interesting new cyber-crime model: Infecting the HD at the manufacturing sites is far more efficient than to phish the end-users!"

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