Missile shield hosts ask US: what’s in it for us?

As Russia, in the words of a US official, delivers “bloodcurdling” threats in response to the Pentagon project in central Europe and unease spirals in Germany, there is also growing frustration in Warsaw and Prague with what is perceived as a high-handed approach by the US administration. “We want legal guarantees. I can’t go into details but it is to do with how the base is protected and also about the base agreement,” said a senior Czech official of the proposal for a radar base south-west of Prague. “Unfortunately the Americans could have done more to engage the Russians over the past year.”The Polish demands are more incendiary and are certain to confirm the Russian belief that in the long term the new US bases in central Europe are aimed at Russia. The US and Nato say such ideas are nonsense and that the 10 interceptor rockets to be stationed in Poland will be there to deter a missile attack from the Middle East, especially Iran.

The Poles are telling the Americans that they do not feel threatened by Iran, but they do feel vulnerable to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and need to build up their defences. Patriots would help to protect Poland from short-range and medium-range missile attack from Russia. If the Poles display their loyalty to the Americans by helping the US defend against attack from the Middle East, the Americans should beef up Polish defences against Russia, Warsaw argues.

Source: Guardian

Scrutinizing New Nukes

A comprehensive examination of U.S. nuclear weapons policies should be undertaken before the government proceeds beyond the initial stages of producing a new nuclear weapon, says a report from an expert panel of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)….. 

The AAAS panel, which consists mostly of former DOE weapons lab officials, generally supports the program’s initial phase, but it says the Bush Administration should lead a “policy framework discussion” about nuclear weapons before moving further, according to C. Bruce Tarter, AAAS group leader and a former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory director.

“What are nuclear weapons for, and how many do we need?” are questions that should be asked, Tarter says. “We do not believe the program can succeed without that kind of top-down discussion.

“Redoing the [nuclear weapons] complex is a major program that will take 25 years or three, four, five administrations and a dozen Congresses, and so we believe it has to have a bipartisan basis to carry it for that long,” he continues.

Source: Chemical & Engineering News

Quantum cryptography is hacked

Most quantum networks send secret data in the polarization of photons. The sender encodes each photon’s polarization such that the receiver who tries to measure it will only get the right information out about half of the time. When this information does come through, the duo can agree to use that particular bit of data as a key to encode and decode a message.

The system ensures secrecy because anyone intercepting a transmitted photon will disrupt its polarization, and affect the rate at which the receiver can correctly measure it. So the sender and receiver can detect the eavesdropper by noticing a spike in the transmission error rate. They can then stop communicating or try again on a different network.

Shapiro and his co-authors have successfully executed a trick that gets at least part-way around this. To listen in, the team used a quantum-mechanical principle known as entanglement, which can link together two different traits of a particle. Using an optical setup, the team was able to entangle the transmitted photon’s polarization with its momentum. The eavesdropper could then measure the momentum in order to get information about the polarization, without affecting the original polarization.

Source: Nature

Cryptome: cease & desist letter

VERIO
An NTT Communications Company

Writer’s Direct Numbers
o) 303-645-1912
fax) 303-708-2445
e-mail: dthompson[at]verio.net

April 20, 2007

Via Certified Mail

John Young
Cryptome Org
251 West 89th Street
New Yor, NY 10024

RE: www.cryptome.org

Dear Mr. Young,

This letter is to notify you that we are terminating your service for violation of our Acceptable Use Policy, effective Friday May 4, 2007. We are providing you with two week notice to locate another service provider.

Sincerely,

VERIO INC.
an NTT Communications Company

[Signed]

Check Cryptome.

See also Kurt Nimmo’s “Cryptome Shut Down. National Security Letter Issued?“.

US missile shield questioned

The director of Moscow’s Center for Policy Studies, Dr Vladimir Orlov, told ISN Security Watch that “Russia is suspicious that this is only a stage of a greater American plan to surround Russia, first from the west and then from the south - in Georgia and the Ukraine. And with the final stage of paralyzing Russia’s own strategic missile capabilities.”

Source: ISN

A US satellite has launched that will gather information that could be used for a future missile defence system in space. The satellite will study rocket exhaust plumes to glean information that would help future interceptors home in on enemy missiles.

Source: New Scientist

Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III

The wargaming scenarios—as well as some of the “real-world” scenarios—in Space Wars are amalgamations of outcomes and insights gained from actual wargames, such as those listed on pg. 7 of the book’s forward.Finally, weapons and systems depicted in SW are real or based on real-world technologies, although some remain classified. For instance, as an AvWeek reporter, I confirmed years ago that classified tests done at China Lake NAS, Calif., proved that a maser could be accurately controlled and targeted by first firing a laser, then firing the maser a split second later. The latter’s microwave beam would follow the laser-formed “waveguide” through the air, enabling the beam to be aimed accurately and controlled.

Read the interview with the coauthor of Space Wars at KurzweilAI.

Create an Alien, Win A-Prize!

RU Sirus interviews Dr. Alan Goldstein.

We won’t discover the first alien lifeforms out amongst the stars, says Dr. Alan Goldstein. We will create them in our own laboratories. Read more at 10 Zen Monkeys.

The militarization of neuroscience

According to Jonathan Moreno’s fascinating and frightening new book, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press 2006), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been funding research in the following areas:

- Mind-machine interfaces (”neural prosthetics“) that will enable pilots and soldiers to control high-tech weapons by thought alone.

- “Living robots” whose movements could be controlled via brain implants. This technology has already been tested successfully on “roborats” and could lead to animals remotely directed for mine clearance, or even to remotely controlled soldiers.

- “Cognitive feedback helmets” that allow remote monitoring of soldiers’ mental state.

- MRI technologies (”brain fingerprinting“) for use in interrogation or airport screening for terrorists. Quite apart from questions about their error rate, such technologies would raise the issue of whether involuntary brain scans violate the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

- Pulse weapons or other neurodisruptors that play havoc with enemy soldiers’ thought processes.

- “Neuroweapons” that use biological agents to excite the release of neurotoxins. (The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention bans the stockpiling of such weapons for offensive purposes, but not “defensive” research into their mechanisms of action.)

- New drugs that would enable soldiers to go without sleep for days, to excise traumatic memories, to suppress fear, or to repress psychological inhibitions against killing.

Read the entire article at The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. See also “The Evolution and Consequences of Synthetic Biology“.

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future

Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx’s proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe’s drops as fertility falls. “Flashmobs” - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.

This is the world in 30 years’ time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the “future strategic context” likely to face Britain’s armed forces. It includes an “analysis of the key risks and shocks”. Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD’s Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as “probability-based, rather than predictive”.

Read the article in the Guardian and the entire report at Skilluminati Research.

Smart dust to explore space

BBC reports:

If they were to be used for planetary exploration, smart dust particles would have to carry sensors. But current chemical sensors would be too large to be carried on particles the size of sand grains.

The scientists hope the pace of miniaturisation will make smaller sensors available in coming decades.

“We are still at an early stage, working on simulations and components,” said Dr Barker.

“We have a lot of obstacles to overcome before we are even ready to physically test our designs.”