Geomagnetic security

Solar storm TODAY: Will a geomagnetic storm cause a tech BLACKOUT today?

A GEOMAGNETIC storm watch is in effect today after a giant hole in the Sun spewed charged particles towards the Earth – but will this cause a tech blackout today?

Intense solar space weather is associated with power fluctuations, GPS malfunction and loss of satellite communications. At their strongest, geomagnetic storms can shut down entire power grids, block out radio signals and severely disrupt satellite operations. On Tuesday, February 26, US space weather forecasters warned charged particles from the Sun will wash over the Earth between February 27 and February 28. The US Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) then issued a G1 geomagnetic storm watch, which is in effect right now.

Arctic

Northern border along Arctic, not southern, is what worries NORAD leaders

The opening of the Arctic and the stirring of Russian and Chinese interest along the U.S. and Canadian northern borders is a major worry for the top officer at U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy told senators Tuesday that geography is no longer the buffer that it once was.

“[China and Russia] both have … established a noticeably stronger foothold in the Arctic along the northern approaches to the United States and Canada,” O’Shaughnessy told the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 26. “As a result, the strategic value of the Arctic as our first line of defense has re-emerged and USNORTHCOM and NORAD are taking active measures to ensure our ability to detect, detract and defeat potential threats in this region.”

Focusing on the northern border also aligns more with the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which singles out China as an emerging competitor and Russia as revisionist power.

One of the focal points for Arctic concern is Alaska; many intercepts of Russian aircraftare made near its borders.

Navy

Russia’s Latest Diesel-Electric Attack Sub to Commence Sea Trials in 2019

Russia second Project 677 Lada-class diesel-electric attack submarine (SSK), christened Kronstadt, will undergo a series of trials in 2019, the commander in chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Vladimir Korolyov, told reporters during a visit to the Rubin Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering in St. Petersburg this month.

“Serial production of the non-nuclear Lada-class submarines continues. This year, testing will commence on the second non-nuclear Lada-class submarine Kronstadt, which was launched in September 2018,” Korolyov was quoted as saying by TASS news agency on February 22. The Kronstadt, was officially launched at the St. Petersburg-based Admiralty Shipyards on September 20 thirteen years after the SSK was laid down.The construction of the Kronstadt was was suspended in 2011 due to a number of design and technical challenges, in addition to a funding shortage, and only restarted in 2013.

“The submarine began to be built in 2005,”Admiralty Shipyard CEO Alexander Buzakov said during the launching ceremony in September 2018. “There have been some pauses in construction work and in financing, but the launch day has come at last. The delay in construction work allowed for using the experience gained in building and operating the submarine The St. Petersburg. By all parameters this submarine surpasses its predecessor – Project 636 [improved Kilo-class]. We are certain that the future of non-nuclear submarine force of the Russian Navy should be pinned on project 677. There will be a large series.”

International security

Are Russians Targeting Sacramento?' CBS Worried Over Report on Zircon Missiles

The report CBS referred to was a channel Russia-1 story picturing a list of what were said to be "just some" of the US military's "decision-making centres" which could be targeted by Zircons in the event of war. The list included Camp David, the Pentagon, Fort Ritchie, Jim Creek and McClellan Air Force base, with the latter erroneously listed as US Strategic Command (the headquarters is actually located at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska). McClellan ceased military operations in 1995, and has since been converted for civilian use.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov commented on the Russia-1 report, pointing out that President Putin "never named any specific geographical locations" for targeting by Zircons, but adding that the Kremlin wasn't in the business of interfering in the editorial policy of state or private-owned media to correct their errors.

Speaking to CBS, one Sacramento resident said that she was "kind of nervous now," saying the report was "crazy," adding that the base is "not even active" and she hoped the report wasn't true. "Should I move?" she asked.

Roxanne Yonn, former director of Sacramento's Aerospace Museum, said that while the base was busy during the Korea and Vietnam wars, its strategic value today is "around zero."

Innovations & technologies

What Is Quantum Technology?

Quantum technology can be hard to understand because it’s based on principles that explain the experimentally observed behavior of the microscopic world. These concepts are alien to the intuitions most of us derive from our daily experiences in the macroscopic world. That’s why it makes sense to learn as much as possible about it.

“Now is the time for companies to begin exploring quantum technology with their partners and other experts,” said Madhavan. “For example, SAP customers want to solve increasingly complex problems and generate results faster. We’re benchmarking classical versus quantum computers, looking at solving targeted business problems in areas like logistics, supply chain and warehouse management. While preliminary results haven’t generated major outcomes, it’s the ideal timeframe to collaborate on potential use cases, laying the groundwork for important future business opportunities.”

It’s early days, and industries face tremendous technical challenges getting quantum technology to live up to its promise. I’ll provide more quantum updates, including challenges, use cases and progress in the coming months. 

International security

World War 3: India-Pakistan war could cause NUCLEAR WINTER – 'no one is safe'

WAR between India and Pakistan could plunge temperatures to below ice age conditions, bringing a nuclear winter which would “destroy civilisation” and starve 90 percent of the population to death.

War between India and Pakistan, the two smallest nuclear powers, could destroy civilisation, warned a physicist. Brian Toon, a Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, explained his theory at a talk in February last year. Speaking at a Tedx meeting, Professor Toon claimed: “War between India and Pakistan, two of the smallest nuclear powers, with only a few hundred weapons the size of the Hiroshima bomb. We might die as unintended consequences that the Indian and Pakistani generals never even gave us a thought about. My colleagues Luke Oman and Alman Roebuck calculated the spread of smoke after a war between India and Pakistan.

“It only takes about two weeks for the smoke to cover the entire earth, and it would rise to altitudes between 20 and 50 miles above the surface, at those altitudes it never rains. The smoke would stay there for years.

“This farmer may be in Europe or in the United States, but many thousands of miles from Pakistan and India, is looking at the smoky sky above him, and down at the crops that have died in his field from lack of light and cold temperatures.”

The Fellow at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder continued: “It is estimated that in a war between India and Pakistan, that we would lose 10 to 40 percent of the yields of corn, what and rice for years afterwards because of the bad weather.

Navy

The Navy just declared America's most expensive weapons system ready for war

The U.S. Navy has declared its fleet of F-35C fighter jets ready for war, the Department of Defense announced Thursday. The Navy joins the Marine Corps and Air Force as the third and final service branch to declare their F-35s ready for war.

"The F-35C is ready for operations, ready for combat and ready to win," said Commander Naval Air Forces, Vice Admiral DeWolfe Miller in a statement. "We are adding an incredible weapon system into the arsenal of our Carrier Strike Groups that significantly enhances the capability of the joint force."

Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon's top weapons supplier, designed three variants of the fighter in order to accommodate the unique needs of each sister-service branch: the F-35A for the Air Force, F-35B for the Marine Corps, and F-35C for the Navy.

Law enforcement 

A History of Asset Forfeiture

...The decades-long abuse of this policy has reached such extreme proportions that people on all sides of the political aisle have been turning against it. As I am writing this (February 20th, 2019), the Supreme Court has unanimously voted in favor of Tyson Timbs, whose $42,000 Land Rover was seized in 2015, following a conviction for selling $400 in heroin. The Court is asserting that asset forfeiture constitutes a fine, and the Eighth Amendment – which protects citizens from excessive fines – applies to both state and local governments. The consequences of the ruling remain to be seen, but it seems nearly certain that the unanimous decision was motivated by the increasing outrage against the Civil Asset Forfeiture policies.

Climate security

Climate Security in times of geopolitical crises—what ways forward?

Ahead of the fourth Planetary Security Conference on 19–20 February 2019 in The Hague, SIPRI authored the 2019 progress report ‘Climate Security – Making it #Doable.’ The report reviews progress made to address climate-related security risks in a time of growing geopolitical turmoil. The authors highlight three upcoming processes that will be key in shaping actions on climate security in 2019 and beyond.

During 2018 the increasing impact of climate change became visible with frequent droughts, floods, and extreme weather events. At the same time geopolitical tensions grew between old and new rivals that seem to undermine the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2015 Paris Agreement. The turmoil puts multilateralism in question.

Climate security within the UN

Nevertheless, as shown in the newly released report ‘Climate Security – Making it #Doable’, global and regional organizations have been able to achieve progress in addressing and mitigating climate-related security risks. Developments among regional organisations—including the African Union and the European Union—illustrates a growing awareness and action on climate security...

Military deception

Army Support to Military Deception 

When properly resourced and integrated, deception has the potential to deter or induce actions that are favorable to the force and can increase the success of friendly activity. In the same way that operations transition from one phase to the next, deception plans integrated into each phase and through each transition will strengthen the ability of commanders to retain initiative throughout the operation. Successfully planned deceptions give commanders the ability to act faster than the enemy can make decisions, creating positions of relative advantage. Deception, as part of a broader strategy, is present in military case studies. While deception has its roots in the earliest military strategies, the modern day practical study of deception relies largely on case studies from World War I to present day. The availability of actual participants for interviews combined with detailed after action review reporting provides an in-depth understanding of deception tactics and techniques. Deception can play a pivotal role in achieving the commander’s objectives and significantly reduce risk. Deception can conceal, protect, reinforce, amplify, minimize, distort, or otherwise misrepresent friendly technical and operational capabilities, intentions, operations, and associated activities. Deception can be a critical enabler to achieving operational surprise and maintaining the initiative during large-scale combat operations in highly contested, lethal environments.

Innovations & technologies

Short History of Infrared Vision Technology

Technology keeps on changing how war is waged. One of the fields that has seen many changes is that of imaging and detection, which gives a major advantage for armed forces over their enemies. For the warfighter on land, in the air, or at sea, vision and reconnaissance are of supreme importance.
Infrared imaging capability provides superior vision in the dark, through smoke and obscurants, and even through obstacles such as trees or structures.
At longwave and midwave (LWIR or MWIR) wavelengths, imaging devices can detect the emitted thermal energy of objects such as skin. LWIR devices are often used to see through smoke and battlefield obscurants. At the higher-energy MWIR band, devices can see as far as several kilometers. MWIR devices are often used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, according to engineering.com.
When longwave and midwave (LWIR or MWIR) thermal infrared cameras were first developed and used for military applications, the technology offered a complex device that was quite large and bulky, had frequent maintenance issues, and was very costly.
In the early 2000s, microbolometer technology enabled much higher pixel densities and smaller sensors for the midwave and longwave (MWIR and LWIR) wavelengths. This gave hope for true soldier-portable LWIR systems.
More recently, FLIR has refined microbolometer technology to the point where a LWIR module can be about the size of a sugar cube, and size, weight, power, and cost (SWAP-C) requirements continue to decline.
However, some military applications still need the performance of a cooled MWIR or LWIR system. Typically, these are applications where the higher sensitivity of a cooled system will allow longer standoff distances. Applications that benefit from such performance benefits are airborne ISR missions, long range surveillance applications, high performance weapon sights, ground vehicle fire control systems, and missile seekers, to name only a few.

Border security

Fiber-Optics – Best Border Security Solution?

Contrary to popular belief, satellites carry less than 1% of human communications. Fiber-optic cables, stretching across the sea floor, buried under cities, and connected to people’s homes, carry the rest. While they’re mostly used to transmit telecommunications, they can also detect motion.

While the US federal government continues to pursue its strategy of building a physical barrier, a border wall, for enhancing its border security, various technological solutions may be more promising.

A fiber-optic technology that could pinpoint with precision where border intrusions occur, determine what exactly is coming across, and relay the information to Border Patrol agents in realtime, was recently mentioned by Will Hurd, a Texas Republican congressman. He teamed up with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in July 2017 to introduce the Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology (SMART) Act, which would have tasked the Department of Homeland Security with deploying high-tech systems like radar, LIDAR, fiber optics, drones, and cameras along the border. However, the bill stalled in committee and never moved forward.

Experts and industry leaders told businessinsider.com that fiber-optic technology is already advanced enough to work across most of the US-Mexico border, nearly 10 times less expensive than a wall, and is ready to be deployed immediately.

Innovatioins  & technologies

Ten recent low-tech inventions that have changed the world

DC-power microgrid

Solar cells can provide cheap, decentralized electricity. But if you’re plugging them into conventional devices on a normal household grid, there’s a lot of overhead involved in converting the direct current they produce into alternating current and back again. A well-designed small DC network can save a substantial amount of energy by eliminating this need.

Better woodstoves

Deforestation is a major problem in much of the developing world, as is the harm to human health that comes from breathing in the particulate matter in smoke from woodstoves. Better-designed stoves like the Berkeley-Darfur stove use only half as much fuel to cook a comparable amount of food, and they cut the particulate emissions in half as well.

Simple, effective water filters

Hundreds of millions of people around the world lack access to safe water. Simple, cheap water filters use ash combined with silver nanoparticles to filter out impurities and pathogens; they have improved the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Hippo roller

Hundreds of millions of people, usually women, have to walk every day to get enough water for their basic needs and transport it home in buckets. The Hippo roller is a heavy-duty plastic barrel that can be flipped on its side and rolled home, via an attached handle, over rough terrain...

International security

Moscow Says It's Forced to Respond Properly to NATO Military Potential Boost

 A boost in NATO's military potential destroys the existing security system in the world and forces Russia to take measures in response, Defenсe Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday at a meeting of his ministry's board.

"The scale and intensity of drills, which more actively involve non-NATO members Ukraine and Georgia, has more than doubled. Such actions violate the existing security system in the world," Shoigu said.

He went on saying that Russia was "forced to respond properly, combining strategic deterrence measures with plans to increase the combat capabilities of formations and military units."

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the bloc was getting prepared for a potential cessation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, but it didn't want a new arms race and did not plan to deploy new ground-based missiles in Europe.

Cybersecurity

How to Turn on Your Windows PC Automatically Each Morning

Most of us have morning rituals, and yours probably involves a computer at some point. And while it’s not that hard to press the power button, wait for your system to boot up, and then type in your Windows password to log into your desktop, those are a lot of time-consuming steps that morning you has to sit and do. If you’re lucky, you can automate this entire process.

The one problem with this plan is that laptop manufacturers and motherboard manufacturers have a tendency to label settings differently. Nevertheless, the next time you power up your laptop or desktop, mash whatever buttons you need to press to load up its BIOS instead of your operating system.

Once inside, you’re going to be looking for any settings that relate to power. These might be labeled something as simple as “power-on menu,” or “power scheduling,” or whatnot. There might also be a setting for “powering on” by an “RTC alarm,” powering on by “RTC,” or simply “resume by alarm.”

Drug trafficking

Puerto Rico drug gang fed victims' bodies to caimans, 75 indicted on trafficking charges: feds

Seventy-five people in Puerto Rico were indicted Wednesday for allegedly running a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking ring that including selling hard drugs in public housing complexes and throwing bodies of victims to caimans.

U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez announced Wednesday the group had been operating since 2006 and sold drugs -- including crack, cocaine, heroin and Xanax -- in the capital of San Juan as well as shipping cocaine to the U.S. mainland.

“Since we began investigating this violent gang, we were struck that they would take their victims and their bodies were thrown to the caimans,” Rodriguez said in a news conference Wednesday morning. “With those acts, we see the violence from this dangerous gang, who is known as Las FARC.”

FARC is translated to be “The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cantera,” which operated out of Barrio Obrero Ward in San Juan with the goal to “maintain control of all the drug trafficking activities with the in Santurce area by the use of force, threats, violence, and intimidation,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Financial safety

Bear market for stocks already underway, recession coming, says Crescat Capital

Investors are waking up to a rumble on the geopolitical front, as tensions heat up between two big nuclear powers, India and Pakistan.

See below for more details, and watch for Southern Asia unease to be used as an excuse for selling, something that has already been seen across global equities. Earnings disappointment and ever-present worries about the U.S. economy also get some credit for rattling investors Wednesday.

On that last point, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell heads back to Capitol Hill ahead of more data, as big banks struggle with the debate over whether the U.S. is headed for recession. J.P. Morgan’s CEO James Dimon reportedly told clients Tuesday they are bracing for a recession, just in case.

Doubts about the U.S. and global economy color our call of the day, from Octavio ‘Tavi’ Costa, Crescat Capital global macro analyst, who sees a recession coming, and thinks investors are blind to the fact the bear market for stocks has already started.

“In our view, September of 2018 marked the peak of the U.S. economic cycle. We are now seeing a typical bear market rally, and the next downward leg is likely to be just as abrupt as the first one,” Costa told MarketWatch in an interview. “It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly, but my best guess is between now and April.”

Data security

Dow Jones’ watchlist of 2.4 million high-risk individuals has leaked

A watchlist of risky individuals and corporate entities owned by Dow Jones has been exposed, after a company with access to the database left it on a server without a password.

Bob Diachenko, an independent security researcher, found the Amazon Web Services-hosted Elasticsearch database exposing more than 2.4 million records of individuals or business entities.

The data, since secured, is the financial giant’s Watchlist database, which companies use as part of their risk and compliance efforts. Other financial companies, like Thomson Reuters, have their own databasesof high-risk clients, politically exposed persons and terrorists — but have also been exposed over the years through separate security lapses.

A 2010-dated brochure billed the Dow Jones Watchlist as allowing customers to “easily and accurately identify high-risk clients with detailed, up-to-date profiles” on any individual or company in the database. At the time, the database had 650,000 entries, the brochure said.

Arms trade

Heckler & Koch fined for illegal gun sales to Mexico

A German court has handed suspended jail terms to two ex-employees of gun maker Heckler & Koch and fined the firm €3.7m (£3.2m) for illegal arms deliveries to Mexico.

The Stuttgart court acquitted three other H&K ex-employees.
H&K was found to have breached German arms export rules by shipping nearly 5,000 G36 assault rifles and smaller firearms to strife-torn regions.
Mexico is plagued by warfare involving drug gangs and paramilitaries.
Germany's arms export restrictions include Mexican states such as Chiapas, Chihuahua and Guerrero, which are blighted by murders and kidnappings.
The H&K deliveries took place in 2006-2009. One ex-employee was given a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months, plus a fine of €80,000. The other received one year and five months and was ordered to do 250 hours of social work.

Law & order

 Judicial Watch Sues for ‘Coup’ Documents

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records of communication of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the Office of the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or the Office of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussing the 25^th Amendment or presidential fitness. Additionally, the lawsuit seeks all recordings made by any official in the Office of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General of meetings in the Executive Office of the President or Vice President.
The suit was filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests dated September 21, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00388)). The lawsuit seeks all written and audio/visual records of any FBI/DOJ discussions regarding the 25^th Amendment and plans to secretly record President Trump in the Oval Office.
On February 14, 2019, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe stated in an interview with CBS that “there were conversations about the possibility of removing Trump under the 25th Amendment and confirming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had offered to wear a wire around the president.”
After President Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey, reportedly top DOJ officials discussed whether to recruit cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.
President Trump recently tweeted: “The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying & leaking.”

It was reported in September 2018 that Deputy Attorney General, Rod J. Rosenstein, suggested that he secretly record President Trump in the White House in an effort to invoke the 25^th Amendment and have President Trump removed. Judicial Watch’s immediate follow-up FOIA requests were ignored.

International security

India vs Pakistan: Military strength and arsenal

...In 2018, India allocated four trillion rupees ($58bn), or 2.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), to support its 1.4 million active troops, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Last year, Pakistan spent 1.26 trillion Pakistani rupees ($11bn), about 3.6 percent of its GDP, on its 653,800 troops. It also received $100m in foreign military assistance in 2018.

Between 1993 and 2006, more than 20 percent of Pakistan's annual government expenditure was spent on the military, according to estimates from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The military accounted for 16.7 percent of government spending in 2017, it said.

By comparison, India's military spending as a percentage of its government expenditure remained under 12 percent during the same period, according to SIPRI. It was 9.1 percent in 2017.
Missiles and nuclear weapons

Both nations have ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

India has nine types of operational missiles, including the Agni-3 with a range of 3,000km to 5,000km, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

Pakistan's missile programme, built with Chinese assistance, includes mobile short- and medium-range weapons that can reach any part of India, CSIS said. The Shaheen 2 has the longest range, up to 2,000km.

In 2011, Pakistan confirmed that it had acquired tactical nuclear weapon capability, wherein smaller nuclear warheads are attached to short-range missiles (50-100km) as a deterrent against relatively small-scale conventional Indian attacks.

Health security

Ex-DEA agent predicts U.S. will have to deal with opioid crisis for the long term

Jack Riley, a former special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, emphasized the urgency surrounding combating the opioid crisis on Monday, telling Hill.TV's "Rising" that it's something the U.S. will have to deal with in the long term. 

"We've never faced anything like this," Riley, author of "Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of America's Opioid Crisis," told hosts Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball. "Over 120 people a day are dying in this country because of drug abuse, and much of that is opioid-related." 

"Everybody is a part of this solution," he continued. "Law enforcement, the treatment, educators, policymakers, preachers, coaches and athletics, and certainly parents around their dinner table." 

"This is something we're going to have to deal with, I think, for quite a while," he said. "A lot of people use the term 'war on drugs.' It really drives me crazy because it denotes a beginning and an end, and I think as long as we're in existence, we're going to be struggling with addiction, with the violence, and the people that profit from it, and I think it's up to us to choose how we hit it."