James Bond Tips of the Week via MythBusters

Motion Sensors:

Walk very slowly holding up a sheet in front of you, sounds crazy but watch, it works.

Lazer Security System:

You can use your own lazer to get around the system.

Finger Print Locks:

There are many ways to beat finger print locks... watch and learn.

Safe Cracking:

Water + Depth Charge = an Opened Safe

Digital Tour: The WikiLeaks Nuclear Bunker Facility

Name: Pionen White Mountains
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Depth: 98 feet below the ground [under a mountain]

  

  

VIDEO TOUR:

Source: [Gizmodo]

China: Military, Space, and Economy Technology

Does Defensive Modernization Work in the 21st Century?

Defensive Modernization = Poor Domestic Infrastructure

China's heavy investment in military and space technology has a direct result of poor rural internal infrastructure.

Chinese Battleships now out number the US navy:

The Economist reports that the rising cost of military weapons has caused a steady decline in defense technology within the United States, Russia, and Britain with steady rises by India and heavy military investment by China.

"In a book published in 1983, Norman Augustine, a luminary of the aerospace industry, drafted a series of lighthearted “laws”. In one aphorism, he plotted the exponential growth of unit cost for fighter aircraft since 1910 (see chart 2), and extrapolated it to its absurd conclusion:

“In the year 2054, the entire defence budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3½ days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.”

Nearly three decades on, Mr Augustine says, “we are right on target. Unfortunately nothing has changed.” These days Raptors go for $160m apiece ($350m including the cost of developing the jet), compared with $50m-60m for the venerable F-16. In the long run, high unit costs must limit numbers." [The Economist] [Defense Tech]


Secret Chinese Satellite Rendezvous in Space:

"Earlier this month, two Chinese satellites met up in orbit. Depending on who you believe, it’s either a sign of China’s increasingly-sophisticated space program — or a sign of its increasingly-sophisticated space warfare program... [as these] performed maneuvers [indicate] a cutting edge procedure called non-cooperative robotic rendezvous... This kind of rendezvous can have extremely useful, and benign, applications: removing space debris, refueling satellites or repairing craft in orbit. But the military apps are massive, and include up-close inspection of foreign satellites, espionage — and the infliction of some serious damage to adversarial space infrastructure..." [Danger Room]

The True Backbone of Chinese Technology: Lixin Fan [Last Train Home]

"... The wave is made up of millions of migrant factory workers. The homes they seek are the rural villages and families they left behind to seek work in the booming coastal cities. It is an epic spectacle that tells us much about China, a country discarding traditional ways as it hurtles towards modernity and global economic dominance...." [Business Insider]


Does defensive modernization work in the 21st century? What do you think.... ? What are the internal and domestic costs...?

CIA + Google: Invest in Web-Monitoring Company

With countries like Dubai and Saudi Arabia banning Blackberry's within their nations since the Blackberry encryption cannot be monitored, web-monitoring has become an international topic. Critics of Blackberry argue that their encryption "... hinders efforts to fight terrorism and criminal activity." [BBC]


The United States is very invested in web-monitoring. The company called Recorded Future is a new company that focuses on searching the internet and coming up with all the invisible connections between people and creating information timelines to predict the future. The company works by:

1. Scouring the Internet

Scan thousands [closer to millions most likely] of news publications, blogs, nich sources, trade publications, government websites, financial databases, and more..."

2. Extracts, ranks, and organizes

Extract information from text and html to develop accurate timelines of information that is measured against "momentum for each item in [the] index.

3. Organize the information

Using "powerful visualization tools" allows the user to see "temporal patterns" and links between multiple networks while exploring the past and present to predict the future.

Other companies such as Visible Technologies provide similar search capabilities, as they search 500,000 web 2.0 sites per day. But Recorded Future is gaining the most hype and both the CIA and Google are investing in the company.

CIA Director General Michael Hayden said in 2008 that, "in fact, there's a real satisfication in solving a problem or answering a tough question with infomration that somone was dumb enough to leave out in the open. [Danger Room]

"Recorded Future certainly has the potential to spot events and trends early. Take the case of Hezbollah’s long-range missiles. On March 21, Israeli President Shimon Peres leveled the allegation that the terror group had Scud-like weapons. Scouring Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s past statements, Recorded Future found corroborating evidence from a month prior that appeared to back up Peres’ accusations."

A few things that seem somewhat obvious that no one has talked about. First, the NSA clearly has the capabilities to not only crack the Blackberry encryption, but perform the same services as Recorded Futures. Second, Americans looking to not have their freedom of speech and privacy violated should not worry as under Obama, none of the information obtained via illegal wiretaps or electronic communications is admissible in court.

Sources: [Danger Room] [BBC] [Recorded Futures]

Military, Police, and Earth Technology

A Greener Police - The Ford Police Interceptor

From Ford:

A highly efficient 3.5-liter V-6 engine delivering at least 263 horsepower and E85 compatibility is 25 percent more efficient than the 4.6-liter Single Overhead Cam (SOHC) V-8 offered in the current Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

Plus, an all-new 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 twin-turbocharged, direct-injection engine will deliver at least 365 horsepower and 350 ft.-lb. of torque across a broad rpm range.

A high-capacity six-speed SelectShift Automatic transmission delivers the power of EcoBoost to the road via the sophisticated torque-sensing all-wheel-drive system.

Again, Ford and other American automobile makers are on a very strong rebound, especially due to the current Toyota Recall. The computers in these cars should also have the technology to control and launch mobile UAV's.


The Bunker Busting Robot

This Robotic Underground Munition [RUM] is being developed by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency to drill deep underground into enemy bunkers then explode, creating a very expensive one time use.

Our Last Defense Against Earthquakes

The Stanford University "Quake-Catcher" has been available since 2008, but due to current frequency and intensity of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, they have experienced many new users that will allow the earthquake predictor to work with more efficiency. Using accelerometers built into many new laptops, the software takes note if many laptops are all shaking in the same area and uses this information to track the earthquake.

My only problem with technology like this is that it uses expensive laptop sensors that are expensive and not available in the areas that will be most affected by "increased frequency and intensity" of storms and geothermal activity [Taken from my notes in Prof. Gary Yohe's class and the IPCC Report], most notably the "third-world."


Sources: [Smart Planet] [Gizmodo] [Engadget]

Home Security 4.0

Protect your family with the Bedside Shotgun Rack

Protects against robbers, villains, roaches, mice, competing drug dealers, and aliens. I'm personally going wait for the spring loaded version to come out.



Source: [Crunch Gear]

Hotel Door Hacking

Related Post:
The assassins of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, who was killed in a Dubai hotel, broke into the leaders hotel room and killed him by inducing "sever blood pressure to the brain." The video above gives evidence as to how easy it is to break into a secure hotel room. The video below is the CCTV security camera footage of the 10 assassins up to 19 hours before the assassination took place:

Sources: [Crunch Gear] [Black Bag]

Security Technology: Human Scanners

Remember in Total Recall when the train stations and airports all had body scanners for security measures? This technology now exists and has been implemented in US airports around the country.

Some believe that these scanners are an invasion of privacy.

The American Association for Nude Recreation announced:

"A trained security professional in a remote monitoring station takes a few seconds discreetly screening passengers to be sure they're only bringing what nature gave them aboard. In exchange for safer skies, AANR believes it's completely worth it. But you don't have to be a nudist to agree these measures are based on common sense."


Source: Gizmodo