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Comment US Fed parallels? Not really (Score 3, Informative) 20

by bbsguru (#65577354) Attached to: UK Courts Service 'Covered Up' IT Bug That Lost Evidence
With 20+ years in US Federal Court IT, I can confirm that there were a couple of times when serious 'data loss' did occur. However, in no case did it take more than a few days to be restored and back in service. At the same time, I know there have been multiple cases of unrecoverable data loss in local courts, as well as the (unconfirmed by me) rumor of a serious incident in one state court system.

In the past, each federal court district was entirely self-contained data wise, with nationally managed backup systems. Over the past decade, it has become just another cloud-based service-by-contractor, with the best security and resilience promises can buy.

Given the constant budget cuts and increasing federal fondness for outsourcing and contractor reliance, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before headlines are made. With the entire federal court system now in a single (replicated) basket, the risk of data loss or exposure is greatly magnified. While a previous problem might have affected only the Northern District of North Dakota, for example, it's now all or nothing.

Submission + - US Montly Jobs Report firing: lies, damn lies, and statistics (bls.gov)

Submitted by cosmicl
cosmicl writes: The Bureau of Labor and statistics reported that the US added 73,000 jobs in July. Apparently President Trump did not like this number because he thought it was much too low. Solution? Fire Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "whom he accused, without evidence, of manipulating the monthly jobs reports for “political purposes.” " The report is detailed at the BLS website, Along with plenty of charts and other data.

Looks like commissioner McEntarfer (senate approval 86-8 Jan 2024) and team are following a methodology that the BLS repeats every month. As part of the process there is a revision for each month. Weather or not you like the method, it appears to be relatively transparent and repeated for each month. Hard to see how this firing is going to improve the situation beyond stroking the ego of the Dear Leader.

 

Submission + - Russia: Commercial satellite providing help to the Ukraine are now targets (behindtheblack.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Russia this week informed regulators at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that it now considers all European and American private satellite constellations "legitimate targets to be destroyed" if they provide any help to the Ukraine.

Russia tells ITU that GPS/Galileo/GNSS nav commercial broadcast sats helping Ukraine militarily should expect interference. Same for EutelsatGroup, OneWeb, Starlink constellations, which Russia has said are 'legitimate targets to be destroyed.

There is more at the full article, but that is behind a subscription paywall.

Russia's announcement here is probably in response to Trump's more bellicose statements recently about Putin and Russia.

I suspect Russia will begin by trying to jam these constellations. Let us hope it does not go farther than that.

Comment But it's not just the DOD! (Score 1) 63

Microsoft is also providing these same sensitive data management 'services' to 100% of the Federal Judiciary, and many of the Executive branch departments.

Yes, including the department of Commerce. Nothing to see here, pay no attention to the helpful manager.

All your base are belong to us.

Submission + - NYT: Inside DOGE's Chaotic Takeover of Social Security

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security, the New York Times begins: "Throughout the early months of this Trump presidency, Mr. Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans, a New York Times investigation has found. [...] At Social Security, Mr. Musk’s efforts amount to a case study in what happened when his team of government novices ran a critical government agency through misinformation and social media blasts. The Times’s investigation found that Mr. Musk became fixated on the program in early February after members of his team misread government spending data — a pivotal and previously unreported moment that DOGE believed had exposed massive fraud inside the agency." (Spoiler Alert: Things only go downhill from there.)

Submission + - 17-year-old student builds 3D-printed drone in garage, interests DoD and MIT (thinkstewartville.com)

Submitted by Agnapot
Agnapot writes: While many teenagers devote their free time to social media or gaming, 17-year-old Taylor built a 3D-printed drone in his garage, and has already received an award from the Department of Defense, and is set to join MIT.

The journey began with a simple observation. When Taylor’s younger sister received a consumer drone that delivered only 30 minutes of flight time, the tech-savvy teenager saw room for improvement. Instead of accepting existing limitations, he immersed himself in VTOL mechanics – aircraft capable of helicopter-like takeoffs followed by airplane-style forward flight.

The 17-year-old American prodigy has engineered what experts are calling a game-changing drone innovation. This teenage genius developed a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone that operates more efficiently than commercial models while costing significantly less. His groundbreaking creation has captured the attention of the Pentagon, resulting in $23,000 in awards from the Department of Defense.

Submission + - US Navy Backs Right To Repair After $13 Billion Carrier Crew Left Half-Fed (theregister.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: US Navy Secretary John Phelan has told the Senate the service needs the right to repair its own gear, and will rethink how it writes contracts to keep control of intellectual property and ensure sailors can fix hardware, especially in a fight. Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Phelan cited the case of the USS Gerald R. Ford, America's largest and most expensive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which carried a price tag of $13 billion. The ship was struggling to feed its crew of over 4,500 because six of its eight ovens were out of action, and sailors were barred by contract from fixing them themselves.

"I am a huge supporter of right to repair," Phelan told the politicians. "I went on the carrier; they had eight ovens — this is a ship that serves 15,300 meals a day. Only two were working. Six were out." He pointed out the Navy personnel are capable of fixing their own gear but are blocked by contracts that reserve repairs for vendors, often due to IP restrictions. That drives up costs and slows down basic fixes. According to the Government Accountability Office, about 70 percent [PDF] of a weapon system's life-cycle cost goes to operations and support. A similar issue plagued the USS Gerald Ford's weapons elevators, which move bombs from deep storage to the flight deck. They reportedly took more than four years after delivery to become fully operational, delaying the carrier's first proper deployment. "They have to come out and diagnose the problem, and then they'll fix it," Phelan said. "It is crazy. We should be able to fix this."

Submission + - Vaccine skeptic RFK Jr. ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory board (apnews.com)

Submitted by skam240
skam240 writes: Well known vaccine skeptic and US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday removed every member of a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines and pledged to replace them with his own picks https://apnews.com/article/ken... ,

Kennedy has an extensive history of vaccine skepticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , frequently furnishing false or misleading data dressed up to look scientific to the public.

Comment Re:Broken business model... The customers are gone (Score 1) 46

by bbsguru (#65429498) Attached to: American Science & Surplus Is Fighting For Its Life
My favorite of the genre (OK, I've only been to two) was Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale. Between them and Halted Supply Company, there was so much to imagine making use of.

Both of those are gone now, of course.

I bought a console table with an embedded 8" trackball (from an old radar station) and spent weeks trying to make use of it. Never found a way to, but I enjoyed the attempt. For all the chatter about 'maker culture' and such, I think the earlier comment about technology moving too fast for surplus to be pretty telling.

OTOH, people are clumping 2Gb flash drives into a "Terrabyte external SSD" by wrapping them in a plastic case, so I guess there is life in some surplus, even today.

Submission + - Ukraine Drones Destroy Dozens of Russian Aircraft (foxnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The brazen Ukrainian blitz of Russian warplanes Sunday was 18 months in the making and the Pentagon was kept in the dark until it was over, sources told Fox News.

"Operation Spider's Web," a series of coordinated drone strikes penetrating deep into Russian territory, is believed to have taken out dozens of Russia's most powerful bomber jets and surveillance planes as they sat idle on five military airfields.

The stunning operation was personally overseen by President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said.

Ukraine used small FPV drones hidden inside wooden cabins mounted on trucks. When the trucks reached their targets, the roofs opened by remote control, and the drones launched.

Submission + - Kawasaki unveils horse-like rideable robotic concept 4

Submitted by backslashdot
backslashdot writes: Unveiled by Kawasaki Heavy Industries at the Osaka Kansai Expo in April 2025, it combines the company’s expertise in motorcycle engineering with advanced robotics. The Kawasaki Corleo is a futuristic, hydrogen-powered, four-legged robotic vehicle designed for off-road personal mobility. Unlike traditional wheeled vehicles, the Corleo moves using four independently articulated legs, each equipped with rubber hooves for enhanced grip on diverse terrains like grass, gravel, rocks, and mountains.

Riders control the Corleo through natural body movements—shifting their weight on adjustable footrests (similar to stirrups) and using a handlebar system that detects their center of gravity, mimicking the feel of riding a horse. A 150cc hydrogen engine powers electric motors in each leg, making it a clean-energy vehicle that produces water as a byproduct. It features an onboard display showing navigation, hydrogen levels, and posture feedback, and at night, it can project guiding markers onto the terrain. The rear legs swing independently from the front to absorb shocks and maintain rider stability on uneven ground or steep inclines.

Submission + - Citizenlab spyware research

Submitted by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite
ISayWeOnlyToBePolite writes: Original paper: https://citizenlab.ca/2025/03/...

Techcrunch coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03...
"The governments of Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore are likely customers of Israeli spyware maker Paragon Solutions, according to a new technical report by a renowned digital security lab.

On Wednesday, The Citizen Lab, a group of academics and security researchers housed at the University of Toronto that has investigated the spyware industry for more than a decade, published a report about the Israeli-founded surveillance startup, identifying the six governments as “suspected Paragon deployments.”

At the end of January, WhatsApp notified around 90 users that the company believed were targeted with Paragon spyware, prompting a scandal in Italy, where some of the targets live. "

The Guardian additional coverage of activist David Yambino :https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/19/italian-activist-david-yambio-alerts-icc-spyware-attack

"A prominent activist in Italy has warned the international criminal court that his mobile phone was under surveillance when he was providing the ICC with confidential information about victims of torture in Libya.

A report released on Wednesday by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which tracks digital surveillance of members of civil society, has confirmed that David Yambio, the founder of an organisation called Refugees in Libya, was targeted by mercenary spyware. The attack occurred at a time when he was in communication with The Hague, he said. At least one attack took place around June 2024, researchers said."

Submission + - California Reservoir Dams Opened At Trump's Order 2

Submitted by Petersko
Petersko writes: At the order of the President, 2.2 billion gallons of water were released from reservoirs in Central California on Friday. The goal, according to his posts on Truth Social, was to provide water to "farmers throughout the state, and to Los Angeles."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03...

"There are two major problems, water experts said: The newly released water will not flow to Los Angeles, and it is being wasted by being released during the wet winter season."

“They were holding extra water in those reservoirs because of the risk that it would be a dry summer,” Heather Cooley, director of research for California water policy organization the Pacific Institute. “This puts agriculture at risk of insufficient water during the summer months.”

According to Trump, an additional 3 billion gallons will follow.

"The US Army Corps of Engineers and the White House did not respond to CNN’s request for comment."

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"Unibus timeout fatal trap program lost sorry" - An error message printed by DEC's RSTS operating system for the PDP-11

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