Wednesday, February 27, 2019

A war, by any other name, would smell as sweet.
US Cyber Command attacked Russian troll farm on Election Day 2018
The United States Cyber Command launched an offensive campaign to silence one of Russia’s most notorious troll operations on the day of the 2018 midterm elections, according to a new report by The Washington Post. The operation targeted the Internet Research Agency, a private company linked to the Kremlin and often used for disinformation campaigns.
The US operation seems to have taken the IRA entirely offline during Election Day, to the point that many employees complained to systems administrators that they were unable to access the internet, according to the Post’s sources.
… It’s one of the most aggressive publicly reported campaigns the cyber command has yet taken, and the legal status of such actions remains in flux. In theory, infrastructural attacks against agents of a foreign government could have significant diplomatic repercussions, and run the risk of being taken as an act of war. But in practice, these actions are rarely officially attributed and political blowback is typically minimal.




The official database of the Ministry of Silly Walks? Every ache and pain is reflected in my ‘silly walk.’
Chinese police test gait-recognition technology from AI startup
South China Morning News: “You can tell a lot of things from the way someone walks. Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Watrix says its software can identify a person from 50 metres away – even if they have covered their face or have their back to a camera – making it more than a match for Sherlock Holmes. Known as gait recognition, the technology works by analysing thousands of metrics about a person’s walk, from body contour to the angle of arm movement to whether a person has a toe-in or toe-out gait, to then build a database. “With facial recognition people need to look into a camera – cooperation is not needed for them to be recognised [by our technology],” said Huang Yongzhen, co-founder and chief executive of Watrix, in an interview in Beijing.
Features like this have given Watrix an edge in catching runaway criminals, who tend to avoid surveillance, said Huang. Police on the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, have already run trials of gait recognition technology, said Huang, and the company officially launched its 2.0 version last week, which supports analysis of real-time camera feeds at a mega-city level. “We are currently working with police on criminal investigations, such as tracking suspects from a robbery scene,” said Huang, who was dressed all in black for the interview in his company office. “Currently, China has about 300,000 wanted criminals on the loose and counting. [Our software’s] database includes those with a prior gait record…”




Self-driving fighters.
Avalon 2019: Boeing to partner with Australia on development of multimission unmanned aircraft system
Boeing and Australia's Department of Defence (DoD) are to partner in developing a concept demonstrator for a large unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that will support and protect air combat missions.
… Dr Shane Arnott, director of Boeing's Phantom Works International, said system development had been under way for some time, but declined to say for how long.
The first flight will take place in Australia and is scheduled for 2020. The model unveiled at Avalon was representative of the intended flight vehicle, he said.
Although the platform would be powered by a single light commercial jet engine to save costs, "it will need to take off from the same runways and run the same speeds" as the aircraft with which it was teamed.
The system is not remotely piloted but will be semi-autonomous and controlled from both the ground and the air, he explained. "The intention is the teaming system will be an extension of the air power assets that it will be supporting," Arnott explained.




I have concerns.
Is war coming to South Asia?
… On February 26, the Indian military launched what it said were retaliatory air raids which allegedly destroyed a "terrorist" training camp in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Pakistan for its part also responded with air raids across the line of control (LoC) which separates Indian- from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and claims to have downed two Indian fighter jets.
Military standoffs or escalations between India and Pakistan are not new, nor is the use of military means to settle scores. However, what sets this round of escalation apart is that this is the first time since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war that the two countries attack targets deep within each other's territories.


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