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| Current Topic: Military Technology |
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Terror Trading Site Goes Bust |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
9:58 pm EDT, Jul 29, 2003 |
The Pentagon's new terrorism futures market is suddenly a thing of the past. "It is a very significant mistake." "This Poindexter program is still a runaway horse that needs to be reined in." "It is totally unauthorized as far as we are concerned. It's really a serious mistake on the part of DARPA." Sound familiar? This meme just in: DARPA is the new AOL Time Warner, and John Poindexter is the new Justin Frankel. Also, you have to appreciate the buzzworthy reference to Seabiscuit. Terror Trading Site Goes Bust |
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Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
7:40 am EDT, Jul 29, 2003 |
The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups. I know misdirection technique, and my style is much better ... Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
5:36 am EDT, Jun 5, 2003 |
William Safire complains about LifeLog in his Thursday column for the New York Times. Dear Darpa Diary |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
10:07 pm EDT, Jun 3, 2003 |
Here is the BAA for LifeLog. The Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting proposals to develop an ontology-based (sub)system that captures, stores, and makes accessible the flow of one person's experience in and interactions with the world in order to support a broad spectrum of associates/assistants and other system capabilities. The objective of this "LifeLog" concept is to be able to trace the "threads" of an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships. LifeLog technology will support the long-term IPTO vision of a new class of truly "cognitive" systems that can reason in a variety of ways, using substantial amounts of appropriately represented knowledge; can learn from experiences so that their performance improves as they accumulate knowledge and experience; can explain their actions and can accept direction; can be aware of their own behavior and reflect on their own capabilities; and can respond in a robust manner to surprises. LifeLog BAA |
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Unweaving the Web: Deception and Adaptation in Future Urban Operations | RAND |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
12:38 am EDT, Apr 15, 2003 |
Deception is a powerful yet understudied instrument of war. Using the extensive literature on deception in the animal kingdom, where ruses of near-infinite variety are applied to offense, defense, and intelligence gathering, the authors delve into the theory of deception to reveal new avenues of experimentation. These pathways may lead to new technologies or training techniques and provoke a new look at deception doctrine applicable at every level of war. Unweaving the Web: Deception and Adaptation in Future Urban Operations | RAND |
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Test of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb on March 11, 2003 [RealVideo] |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
5:45 pm EST, Mar 22, 2003 |
On March 11, the Air Force tested its Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon at the Eglin Air Force Base Air Armament Center's western test range. Dropped from a C-130, the MOAB is a precision-guided weapons weighing 21,500 pounds. It will be the largest non-nuclear conventional weapon in existence. The MOAB is an Air Force Research Laboratory technology project that began in fiscal year 2002 and is to be completed this year. I know that other people already blogged about MOAB and that it's old news, but the previous entries had nothing beyond a single still image to offer. Here is one minute of RealVideo showing the live test from air drop through detonation and the resulting fireball and mushroom cloud of smoke. Test of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb on March 11, 2003 [RealVideo] |
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Transformation Trends - 17 February 2003 |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
4:22 pm EST, Mar 1, 2003 |
We are working to promote a culture that rewards unconventional thinking -- a climate where people have freedom and flexibility to take risks and try new things. Power is moving to the larger system level, while violence is moving downwards to the individual level ... Transformation is a continuing process ... about creating or at least anticipating the future. This is not just about technology. It is about human behavior. We are interested in concepts of organizations as well as how they interact with each other. We are talking about creating a new competitive space. The compelling need to transform stems from ... the networking phenomenon and its consequences, which is increasingly a source of power and a source of change. Most of our doctrine is based on centers of gravity, but with a non-nodal enemy it becomes increasingly difficult to identify centers of gravity. Networking is about human behavior. Remember that to network is a verb. If you want to increase the richness of your information you get that by sharing it. The power of information comes in the ability to share it as opposed to the ability to hoard it. The soldier on the front line needs a network structure and he has to be shown that power comes out of that network structure. He have to institutionalize peer-to-peer and power-to-the-edge. ... If we do that well we find that we step out of the information domain of merely networking and into the cognitive domain where battles are truly won or lost. A new American way of war is emerging ... that recognizes the value of shared awareness ... and understands the substitution of information for mass ... Transformation Trends - 17 February 2003 |
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Firing Memes, US Wages Information War |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
11:34 pm EST, Feb 23, 2003 |
... a wave of official spam offering "get out of Iraq free" cards ... ... cell-phone calls from far-away strangers that block caller ID ... ... urgent advisories telling you to "protect your reputation!" ... ... local coffee houses offer audio propaganda on free CDs ... Ready, aim, fire memes! Firing Memes, US Wages Information War |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
3:49 pm EST, Feb 16, 2003 |
I'm posting this now as a personal reminder to locate more information later ... Bruce Berkowitz has a new book coming out in March (or April, depending on who you ask). He's a reseach fellow at the Hoover Institution; he consults for OSD; he's also on the staff at RAND and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. According to Barnes & Noble and Powell's, the subtitle of the book is "Lethal Networks in the Information Age." However, the image of the cover indicates that the subtitle is "How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century." The New Face of War |
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DARPA Combating Information Overload |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
9:08 pm EDT, Sep 9, 2002 |
In the civilian world, it's called "information overload." That's when so much information is coming in that the receiver cannot separate the wheat from the chaff. In the military, information overload can get you killed. That's why the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency set up the Information Exploitation Office. "What we're trying to do is extract information out of this huge stream of data." DARPA Combating Information Overload |
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