U.S. Military Takes Generative AI Out for a Spin

Based on previous experience,  can see this as useful.   With cautions. 

ACM TECHNEWS

U.S. Military Takes Generative AI Out for a Spin

By Bloomberg, July 10, 2023

A service member with the 175th Cyber Operations monitors cyberattacks during Exercise Southern Strike at Camp Shelby, MS.

Dozens of companies, including Palantir Technologies Inc. and Anduril Industries Inc., are developing AI-based decision platforms for the Pentagon.

Credit: Staff Sgt. Renee Seruntine/U.S. Army National Guard

The U.S. Department of Defense is testing five large language models (LLMs) as part of an effort to develop data integration and digital platforms for military use.

U.S. Air Force Col. Matthew Strohmeyer said one experiment using a LLM to perform a military task was "highly successful" and "very fast."

However, Strohmeyer said, "That doesn't mean it's ready for primetime right now."

The exercises involve feeding classified operational information into the LLMs, with the ultimate goal of using AI-enabled data in decision-making, sensors, and firepower.

Specifically, the LLMs are being tasked with helping plan a military response to an escalating global crisis, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

From Bloomberg

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China and AI

From ChatGBT:

China has been actively exploring and investing in the military applications of artificial intelligence (AI). They view AI as a critical component in modernizing their military capabilities. Some potential military uses of AI in China include:

1. Autonomous Weapons: China is developing unmanned systems, including autonomous drones and ground vehicles, that can be used for surveillance, reconnaissance, and combat purposes. AI enables these systems to make decisions and operate independently, reducing the need for human intervention.

2. Cybersecurity: AI technologies are employed to enhance China's cybersecurity defenses and strengthen its capabilities in countering cyber threats. AI algorithms can help detect and respond to cyberattacks more effectively by analyzing large volumes of data and identifying patterns of malicious activity.

3. Command and Control Systems: China is exploring the use of AI in command and control systems, which would allow for more efficient decision-making and coordination of military operations. AI can help process and analyze vast amounts of data in real-time, providing commanders with actionable insights.

4. Intelligence and Surveillance: AI-powered surveillance systems, such as facial recognition and pattern recognition technologies, are being utilized to enhance China's intelligence gathering capabilities. These systems can process massive amounts of data from various sources to identify and track potential threats.

5. Offensive and Defensive Cyber Operations: China is developing AI-driven tools for both offensive and defensive cyber operations. AI can be used to automate cyberattacks, enhance reconnaissance capabilities, and optimize defensive strategies to protect critical infrastructure and networks.

It's important to note that the information available is based on public knowledge up until September 2021, and the specific details of China's military use of AI may have evolved since then.

AI Diplomacy with China?

One Key Challenge for Diplomacy on AI: China’s Military Does Not Want to Talk

Commentary by Gregory C. Allen   in Csis.com

Published May 20, 2022

Over the past 10 years, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has become increasingly critical to scientific breakthroughs and technology innovation across an ever-widening set of fields, and warfare is no exception. In pursuit of new sources of competitive advantage, militaries around the world are working to accelerate the integration of AI technology into their capabilities and operations. However, the rise of military AI has brought with it fears of a new AI arms race and a potential new source of unintended conflict escalation. In the May/June 2022 issue of Foreign Affairs, Michael C. Horowitz, Lauren Kahn, and Laura Resnick Samotin write:

The United States, then, faces dueling risks from AI. If it moves too slowly, Washington could be overtaken by its competitors, jeopardizing national security. But if it moves too fast, it may compromise on safety and build AI systems that breed deadly accidents. Although the former is a larger risk than the latter, it is critical that the United States take safety concerns seriously.

Such fears are not entirely unfounded. Machine learning, the technology paradigm at the heart of the modern AI revolution, brings with it not only opportunities for radically improved performance, but also new failure modes. When it comes to traditional software, the U.S. military has decades of institutional muscle memory related to preventing technical accidents, but building machine learning systems that are reliable enough to be trusted in safety-critical or use-of-force applications is a newer challenge. To its credit, the Department of Defense (DOD) has devoted significant resources and attention to the problem: partnering with industry to make commercial AI test and evaluation capabilities more widely available, announcing AI ethics principles and releasing new guidelines and governance processes to ensure their robust implementation, updating longstanding DOD system safety standards to pay extra attention to machine learning failure modes, and funding a host of AI reliability and trustworthiness research efforts through organizations like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

However, even if the United States were somehow to successfully eliminate the risk of AI accidents in its own military systems—a bold and incredibly challenging goal, to be sure—it still would not have solved risks to the United States from technical failures in Russian and Chinese military AI systems. What if a Chinese AI-enabled early warning system erroneously announces that U.S. forces are launching a surprise attack? The resulting Chinese strike—wrongly believed to be a counterattack—could be the opening salvo of a new war.

In recognition of this risk, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence recommended in its March 2021 final report that the DOD engage in diplomacy with the Chinese military to “discuss AI’s impact on crisis stability.” More recently, Ryan Fedasiuk wrote in last month’s Foreign Policy that “it is more important than ever that the United States and China take steps to mitigate existential threats posed by AI accidents.”

It is not only Americans who have written about the need for a diplomatic dialogue on this subject. In 2020, Zhou Bo, a senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which he argued,

As China’s military strength continues to grow, and it closes the gap with the United States, both sides will almost certainly need to put more rules in place, not only in areas like antipiracy or disaster relief—where the two countries already have been cooperating—but also regarding space exploration, cyberspace and artificial intelligence.

Other Chinese officials—including Fu Ying, the vice chair of the China’s National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee—have published similar calls for U.S.-China diplomacy on AI risk reduction. Even the Global Times, a newspaper owned and published by the Chinese Communist Party, ran an English-language article in November 2021 with the headline “China urges regulating military use of AI, first time in UN history, showing global responsibility.” Clearly China believes that calls for diplomacy on military AI are good for its global reputation.

Substantive diplomacy on this topic is worth pursuing and, if successful, could meaningfully contribute to reducing the risk of a future U.S.-China conflict. With such loud public support in prominent Chinese venues, one might think that the U.S. military need only ask in order to begin a dialogue on AI risk reduction with the Chinese military.

Alas, during my tenure as the Director of Strategy and Policy at the DOD Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, the DOD did just that, twice. Both times the Chinese military refused to allow the topic on the agenda.   .. 

Expeditionary Cyberspace Operations

Good piece in Schneier: 

Expeditionary Cyberspace Operations   

Cyberspace operations now officially has    a physical dimension, meaning that the United States has official military doctrine about cyberattacks that also involve an actual human gaining physical access to a piece of computing infrastructure.  ... '

Russian Cyberwarfare Docs Leaked

 As usual interesting piece in Schneier.   Including useful commentary. We need to think of these ideas as a powerful form of warfare

Russian Cyberwarfare Documents Leaked    

Now this is interesting:  

Thousands of pages of secret documents reveal how Vulkan’s engineers have worked for Russian military and intelligence agencies to support hacking operations, train operatives before attacks on national infrastructure, spread disinformation and control sections of the internet.

The company’s work is linked to the federal security service or FSB, the domestic spy agency; the operational and intelligence divisions of the armed forces, known as the GOU and GRU; and the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence organisation.  

Lots more at the link.  ... 

Weaponizing Starlink?

 At what point is something directly weaponized?  In support of military activity?

SpaceX curbed Ukraine's use of Starlink internet for drones -company president  By Joey Roulette  in Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine's military from using the company's Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region during the country's war with Russia, SpaceX's president said Wednesday.

SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, which has provided Ukraine's military with broadband communications in its defense against Russia's military, was "never never meant to be weaponized," Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, said during a conference in Washington, D.C.

"However, Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement," she said.  ... 

Small, Convenient Mosquito Repellent Device

 A former school of mine does interesting work

Small, convenient mosquito repellent device passes test to protect military personnel  by Karen Dooley, University of Florida

A device developed at the University of Florida for the U.S. military provides protection from mosquitos for an extended period and requires no heat, electricity or skin contact.

The controlled-release passive device was designed by Nagarajan Rajagopal, a Ph.D. candidate and Dr. Christopher Batich in UF's Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. It recently was tested successfully in a four-week semi-field study at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Gainesville in a collaboration with Dr. Daniel Kline, Dr. Jerry Hogsette and Adam Bowman from the USDA's Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology.

Results showed the controlled release of the repellent transfluthrin was effective in preventing multiple species of mosquitos from entering the testing site. Transfluthrin is an organic insecticide considered to be safe for humans and animals.

"Our device eliminates the need for applying topical repellents and for insecticides that are sprayed across an open area, which can contaminate surrounding plants or bodies of water and have a negative impact on beneficial pollinators like bees and butterflies," Rajagopal said. "This is versatile, portable, easily deployed and doesn't require electricity or heat to activate the solution."

Mosquitos are more than an annoying distraction for military personnel, as they can spread serious diseases and viruses like malaria, dengue virus, Zika and West Nile virus. The DOD continually looks for ways to protect soldiers in the field from mosquito bites.

The controlled release passive device is made up of a tube-shaped polypropylene plastic that is 2.5 centimeters long and holds two smaller tubes and a cotton containing the repellent.The team attached 70 of the devices to the opening of a large military tent using fishing line and nothing to a similar control tent. Caged mosquitos were released at various points along the exterior of the tent, and almost all were killed or repelled within 24 hours, Rajagopal said.

He explained that while the field test showed the team's prototype created a protective space from mosquitos for four weeks, the final product, which will be built through a 3-D-printing process, could extend that period up to three months.

"We call our device passive because you don't need to do anything to activate it," he said. "It provides a sustained release of the insecticide over an extended period rather than just a spike at the beginning."

Rajagopal said they are filing for a patent on the device, and the government is interested in further study, so that it can eventually be commercialized for the civilian market. USDA scientists believe there are more opportunities for its use by people who enjoy outdoor activities.

"While initially developed for tent-entrance protection, the personal protection device in various sizes and configurations has potential for other applications, including for hiking and fishing," said Kline, a research entomologist with the USDA.  ... ' 

Ukraine has become the world’s testing ground for military robots

Has to be expected. A Situation that is critical, uncontrolled, funded from many directions.   Watched carefully for testing new approaches.

The after-action reports will be of interest to the entire world,   December 21, 2022 - 4:42 pm

Ukraine has become the world’s testing ground for military robots   By Tristan Greene  n TheNextWeb

The war in Ukraine has become the largest testing ground for artificial intelligence-powered autonomous and uncrewed vehicles in history. While the use of military robots is nothing new — World War II saw the birth of remote-controlled war machines and the US has deployed fully-autonomous assault drones as recently as 2020 — what we’re seeing in Ukraine is the proliferation of a new class of combat vehicle. 

This article discusses the “killer robot” technology being used by both sides in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Our main takeaway is that the “killer” part of “killer robots” doesn’t apply here. Read on to find out why. 

Uncrewed versus autonomous

This war represents the first usage of the modern class of uncrewed vehicles and automated weapons platforms in a protracted invasion involving forces with relatively similar tech. While Russia’s military appears, on paper, to be superior to Ukraine’s, the two sides have fielded forces with similar capabilities. Compared to forces Russia faced during its involvement in the Syrian civil war or, for example, those faced by the US during the Iraq and Afghanistan engagements, what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine right now demonstrates a more paralleled engagement theater. 

It’s important, however, to mention that this is not a war being fought by machines. It’s unlikely that autonomous or uncrewed weapons and vehicles will have much impact in the war, simply because they’re untested and, currently, unreliable. 

Uncrewed vehicles and autonomous vehicles aren’t necessarily the same thing. While almost all autonomous vehicles — those which can operate without human intervention — are uncrewed, many uncrewed vehicles can only be operated remotely by humans. Perhaps most importantly, many of these vehicles have never been tested in combat. This means that they’re more likely to be used in “support” roles than as autonomous combat vehicles, even if that’s what they were designed to do. 

But, before we get into the how’s and why’s behind the usage of military robots in modern warfare, we need to explain what kind of vehicles are currently in use. There are no “killer robots” in warfare. That’s a catch-all term used to describe military vehicles both autonomous and uncrewed.

These include uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs), and uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs, another term for uncrewed maritime or water-based vehicles). .... '

To the Highest Bidder: A Military Database of Fingerprints, Iris Scans

 Disconcerting direction.

To the Highest Bidder: A Military Database of Fingerprints, Iris Scans

By The New York Times, December 30, 2022

SEEK II purchased by German researchers on eBay

The Defense Logistics Agency says the SEEK II never should have made it to the open market.

Credit: Andreas Meichsner / The New York Times

German security researcher Matthias Marx successfully bid on eBay for a Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit, or SEEK II, which contained the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints, and iris scans of 2,632 people, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq. Many were known terrorists and wanted individuals but others appeared to be people who had worked with the U.S. government or had been stopped at checkpoints.

Over the past year, Marx and other researchers at the Chaos Computer Club, a European hacker association, bought six biometric capture devices on eBay, most for less than 200 Euro (USD214). Of the six, two of the SEEK II devices had sensitive data on them. The second SEEK II, with location metadata showing it was last used in Jordan in 2013, appeared to contain the fingerprints and iris scans of U.S. service members.

"It was disturbing that they didn't even try to protect the data," Marx said, referring to the U.S. military. "They didn't care about the risk, or they ignored the risk."

From The New York Times

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Russia Is Jamming More GPS Satellite Signals

Use of Jamming versus Sat Signals, GPS

Russia Is Jamming More GPS Satellite Signals Around Moscow

By New Scientist, December 27, 2022

Map of GPS Interference near Moscow for 26 December 2022.

Credit: GPSJam

Russia has accelerated its jamming of global positioning system (GPS) satellites around Moscow, apparently to deter long-range strikes by Ukrainian drones, according to the GPSJam monitoring website.

The ramp-up followed drone strikes on two Russian airbases earlier this month, says Dana Goward at the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, Alexandria, VA. Russia has jammed satellite navigation following drone strikes before, and it has various military mobile jamming systems that broadcast radio noise to disrupt weak signals. Operators directly pilot short-range drones, making GPS use unnecessary. However, long-range strikes generally need GPS to navigate, so jamming would thwart remotely orchestrated strikes.

Jamming won’t protect against all drones, however. Shahad-136 drones, for example, which Russia has used against Ukraine, are equipped with navigation units that allow them to pass through areas of jamming.

From New Scientist   View Full Article

Connecting the Joint Force as One

Northrup Grumman:   Connecting the Joint Force as One

Future mission success will lay in highly-effective Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)

‘Joining Forces’ has always been a critical factor in creating extra strength

In the future, more than ever before, mission advantage will go to military forces who can coordinate and act together across all domains. Observing, orienting, deciding and acting together, faster and with greater effect than their adversaries is the next-gen technological edge for Joint Forces. And, whether Joint Forces are across United States military branches including the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marines, U.S. Space Force, or in partnership with allies―future mission success will lay in highly-effective Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

Ars Technicast Special Edition: The Internet of Military Things

For decades, the US Department of Defense has been trying to make the tools we use to fight battles more like the tools we use in peacetime with more connectivity, more data, and more smarts. The difference this time around, is that technology has caught up to the point where what we can do in real life almost mirrors what we can do in movies. To learn more, listen to Scott Stapp, Chief Technology Officer, Northrop Grumman on Ars Technica’s podcast.

(Podcast) 

Chinese Drones in Restricted Spaces

Of course there are now many drones in that area, many Chinese built. But still a valid concern. 

 In American Military News: 

Hundreds of Chinese-made drones have flown into restricted airspaces over Washington, D.C., in recent months and officials are playing catch-up to stop the foreign-made tech from spying on those restricted areas. While China may not be controlling these drones directly, any Chinese-made devices could still be covertly sending data back to China.

Sources told POLITICO they don’t believe the Chinese government is directing the drones, which are made by China-based DJI. But officials are beginning to see risks in U.S. consumers buying up Chinese tech that can enter one of the world’s most secure airspaces and potentially become another government’s surveillance system, or worse.

“The reality is, people on the tech side always said, ‘Look, at any point in time the Chinese can take control of a DJI that’s flying in the air,’” an anonymous government contractor told POLITICO.

Commercial drones, including those by DJI, use “geofencing” to prohibit drones from entering into restricted airspace such as those over D.C. But a government contractor told POLITICO there are “YouTube videos that could walk your grandparents through” how to bypass those constraints and allow users to fly their drones wherever they want.  .... ' 

Towards Fusion-Nuclear Military Aircraft

As mentioned, not a new thing.

LOCKHEED MARTIN HAS A PATENT FOR FUSION-POWERED FIGHTERS AND BOMBERS

Alex Hollings | October 25, 2022

Back in 2018, Lockheed Martin filed a patent for something it called a “plasma confinement system” — a device small enough to fit inside the fuselage of an F-16 Fighting Falcon that is capable of managing internal temperatures 10 times hotter than the center of the sun.

This scalable device was designed to play a vital role in containing an approach to power production that some still consider science fiction: nuclear fusion. Now, recent advancements in the field are making fusion power look not just possible, but potentially even feasible. In the coming years, fusion could not only change everything about the way the world fights wars… it could even change the way humanity approaches conflict itself.

And it all might start within the shadowy confines of the Pentagon’s black budget.

Related: Why does the media report on secretive defense programs?

Nuclear aircraft aren’t a new concept

An air-to-air view of the Convair NB-36H experimental aircraft (s/n 51-5712) and a Boeing B-50 Superfortress chase plane during research and development taking place at the Convair plant at Forth Worth, Texas. (U.S. Air Force Photo)

As soon as mankind realized it could produce huge amounts of power by splitting the atom, efforts began to incorporate this new concept into just about everything, including airplanes. Using just a small bit of fuel, nuclear power could allow fighters, bombers, or reconnaissance platforms to stay airborne practically indefinitely. But despite several programs aimed at fielding such an aircraft propulsion system, atom-splitting fission reactors simply offered greater risk than reward when hurtling through the air at 50,000 feet.

Fission efforts did find a useful home in naval applications, with programs leading to today’s nuclear-powered submarines and supercarriers. But aviation efforts like Project Pluto’s nuclear-powered SLAM missile or Convair’s NB-36 nuclear-powered bomber, on the other hand, now come off as a bit crazy.

Nuclear ramjet from Project Pluto

Project Pluton’s Slam missile could have flown for thousands of miles, dropping hydrogen bombs and spewing radiation all along the way while producing such an intense amount of noise that scientists working on the program believed the soundwaves alone would kill anyone the missile passed over. The NB-36 could also stay airborne practically indefinitely to serve as an ongoing nuclear deterrent… but any crash or mishap could have led to an environmental disaster.

Today, the only publicly disclosed program, of any nation, aimed at fielding a fission-powered airborne platform is Russia’s 9M730 Burevestnik, or Skyfall missile. Despite a great deal of hype, however, it seems no closer to fruition today than when it was announced in 2018. And as if to prove the inherent danger of this enterprise, five scientists from the Russian Federal Nuclear Center were killed in 2019 in a mishap that was reportedly related to the ongoing effort.  ...  " 

Unpiloted Military Helicopter

More autonomous devices. 

Unpiloted Military Helicopter Flies 134 km in Simulated Mission

By New Scientist, November 7, 2022

A Black Hawk helicopter flying autonomously.

The helicopter flew as low as 60 meters above the ground at 185 kilometers per hour between mountains, relying on onboard sensors to avoid crashing into anything.

As part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's ALIAS program, the U.S. Army flew an autonomous Black Hawk Helicopter at 185 kph (115 mph) as low as 60 meters (197 feet) above the ground for 134 kilometers (83 miles) to deliver 230 kilograms (507 lbs.) of simulated and real blood.

The helicopter flew between mountains using onboard sensors to avoid a collision.

The program is testing Sikorsky Innovations' MATRIX technology, a drop-in kit that can transform helicopters into autonomous aircraft.

Sikorsky's Igor Cherepinsky said, "It's a truly autonomous system. Once you explain what the mission is, you don't even need a data link–the aircraft makes all the decisions."

From New Scientist

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Hypersonic Weapons

 Was asked, definition in congress intro: 

Hypersonic Weapons:  

Background and Issues for Congress

The United States has actively pursued the development of hypersonic weapons—maneuvering weapons that fly at speeds of at least Mach 5—as a part of its conventional prompt global strike program since the early 2000s. In recent years, the United States has focused such efforts on developing hypersonic glide vehicles, which are launched from a rocket before gliding to a target, and hypersonic cruise missiles, which are powered by high-speed, air-breathing engines during flight. As former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Commander of U.S. Strategic Command General John Hyten has stated, these weapons could enable “responsive, long-range, strike options against distant, defended, and/or time-critical threats [such as road-mobile missiles] when other forces are unavailable, denied access, or not preferred.” Critics, on the other hand, contend that hypersonic weapons lack defined mission requirements, contribute little to U.S. military capability, and are unnecessary for deterrence.

Funding for hypersonic weapons has been relatively restrained in the past; however, both the Pentagon and Congress have shown a growing interest in pursuing the development and near-term deployment of hypersonic systems. This is due, in part, to the advances in these technologies in Russia and China, both of which have a number of hypersonic weapons programs and have likely fielded operational hypersonic glide vehicles—potentially armed with nuclear warheads. Most U.S. hypersonic weapons, in contrast to those in Russia and China, are not being designed for use with a nuclear warhead. As a result, U.S. hypersonic weapons will likely require greater accuracy and will be more technically challenging to develop than nuclear-armed Chinese and Russian systems.

The Pentagon’s FY2023 budget request for hypersonic research is $4.7 billion—up from $3.8 billion in the FY2022 request. The Missile Defense Agency additionally requested $225.5 million for hypersonic defense. At present, the Department of Defense (DOD) has not established any programs of record for hypersonic weapons, suggesting that it may not have approved either mission requirements for the systems or long-term funding plans. Indeed, as Principal Director for Hypersonics (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering) Mike White has stated, DOD has not yet made a decision to acquire hypersonic weapons and is instead developing prototypes to assist in the evaluation of potential weapon system concepts and mission sets ....  '  (considerably more ) 

Russian official says civilian satellites may be military target

Obvious, chilling .... The clear future of warfare

Russian official says civilian satellites may be “legitimate” military target

Russia wasn't happy about Starlink providing broadband in Ukraine after invasion.

JON BRODKIN - 9/16/2022   ArsTechnica

A Russian diplomat said civilian satellites could be legitimate military targets in a statement that seems to refer to Starlink providing broadband access in Ukraine. Civilian satellites "may become a legitimate target for retaliation," the Russian official said in a statement to the United Nations' open-ended working group on reducing space threats.

The quote is from an unofficial English translation of the statement on September 12 by Konstantin Vorontsov, head of the Russian delegation to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) working group. The translation is provided with other countries' statements from the session on the UNODA's meeting website.... '

Military Grade Cybersecurity Needed in Business

Good thoughts regards key issues. 

ACM NEWS

Raising the Ramparts, By David Geer, Commissioned by CACM Staff,   August 11, 2022

The global military cybersecurity market will grow from US$25,692.4 million in 2021 to US$ 43,675.2 million by 2031, says Visiongain Research, Inc., a U.K. market intelligence firm.

That growth is no surprise, with commonplace nation-state attacks on critical infrastructure and government data assets. The U.S. federal government and its agencies, with the aid of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), are ramping up cyber defenses to combat disabling ransomware and complex attacks. They are using approved security products that the government and the military vet specifically for these purposes.

However, government organizations are not the only ones in jeopardy.

Nation-states target private enterprises, too, with support from their military and insidious Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups. Facing the same threats that government agencies do, companies need military-grade cybersecurity.

Military-grade cybersecurity proceeds from a Military Specification (MIL-SPEC) purchasing process, with rigorous testing to ensure cybersecurity components are the most secure, resilient product the military can get, says Peter Hay, Lead for Instruction at SimSpace Corporation, a military-grade cybersecurity risk management platform. The military uses extensive mission-based training to ensure its human cybersecurity talent adheres to MIL-SPEC security requirements, too.

MIL-SPEC cybersecurity products are a necessity, as high-profile cases of military-level attacks demonstrate. The Indian APT group ModifiedElephant stealthily attacked dissidents for 10 years without detection. The group used military-grade remote access trojans (RATs), keyloggers, and other attack tools, according to SC Media, a publication of the CyberRisk Alliance, an organization that, according to its Website, was "formed to help cybersecurity professionals face the challenges and obstacles that threaten the success and prosperity of their organizations."

The APT group Shadow Brokers stole the EternalBlue military-grade exploit from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in 2017. It released the exploit to criminal hackers globally via subscription-based access to data dumps, according to The New York Times. Cybercriminals have since used EternalBlue successfully in many attacks.

According to Tom Van de Wiele, a principal of WithSecure, an endpoint detection and response company in Finland, the 2010 Stuxnet attack was the most profound military-level cyberattack on record. Stuxnet used intelligence gathering, local spies bridging air-gapped networks using USB thumb drives, and zero-day exploits to gain access and persist long enough to disrupt Iranian uranium enrichment infrastructure, he says.

With an increase in nation-state data breaches, cybersecurity vendors serving the military are offering comparable products and services to the private sector to maintain the balance of power against nation-state attacks.

For example, CrowdStrike provides its cloud-based endpoint and identity product Falcon to the U.S. Government with FedRAMP authorization, according to a CrowdStrike media release. Falcon also is available to private enterprises. ... 

Facing the same threats that government agencies do, companies need military-grade cybersecurity...

Intensive Drone Use in War

ACM TECHNEWS

In Ukraine War, a Race to Acquire Smarter, Deadlier Drones

By Associated Press, July 19, 2022  in  ACM

Ukrainian servicemen correcting artillery fire by drone at the front line near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, July 2, 2022.   ... 

Never in the history of warfare have drones been used as intensively as in Ukraine, where they often play an outsized role in who lives and dies.

Drones are in high demand among both Ukrainians and Russians as the war continues, with both sides seeing their supply depleted, using crowdfunding to replenish their losses, and rushing to build or buy advanced drones that are more resistant to radio interference and GPS jamming.

Hundreds of drones have been shipped to Ukraine by U.S. and other Western allies, including Switchblade 600s that can fly at 70 mph, track targets using artificial intelligence, and carry tank-piercing warheads.

However, these "kamikaze" drones can fly only for about 40 minutes.

In May, the U.S. acquired 121 advanced military drones for Ukraine. Called Phoenix Ghosts, the drones can fly for six hours, destroy armored vehicles, and feature infrared cameras.

Thorsten Chmielus of the German drone company Aaronia said, "Everybody now wants drones, special drones, unjammable and whatsoever," but warns that "everybody will have millions of drones that can't be defeated."

From Associated Press

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Will AI Remove Submarine Stealth?

Has to be considered, along with many other kinds of stealth and related implications for that.

Better detection will make the oceans transparent—and perhaps doom mutually assured destruction  in IEEE Spectrum 

SUBMARINES ARE VALUED primarily for their ability to hide. The assurance that submarines would likely survive the first missile strike in a nuclear war and thus be able to respond by launching missiles in a second strike is key to the strategy of deterrence known as mutually assured destruction. Any new technology that might render the oceans effectively transparent, making it trivial to spot lurking submarines, could thus undermine the peace of the world. For nearly a century, naval engineers have striven to develop ever-faster, ever-quieter submarines. But they have worked just as hard at advancing a wide array of radar, sonar, and other technologies designed to detect, target, and eliminate enemy submarines.

The balance seemed to turn with the emergence of nuclear-powered submarines in the early 1960s. In a 2015 study for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, Bryan Clark, a naval specialist now at the Hudson Institute, noted that the ability of these boats to remain submerged for long periods of time made them “nearly impossible to find with radar and active sonar.” But even these stealthy submarines produce subtle, very-low-frequency noises that can be picked up from far away by networks of acoustic hydrophone arrays mounted to the seafloor.

And now the game of submarine hide-and-seek may be approaching the point at which submarines can no longer elude detection and simply disappear. It may come as early as 2050, according to a recent study by the National Security College of the Australian National University, in Canberra. This timing is particularly significant because the enormous costs required to design and build a submarine are meant to be spread out over at least 60 years. A submarine that goes into service today should still be in service in 2082. Nuclear-powered submarines, such as the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine, each cost roughly US $2.8 billion, according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. And that’s just the purchase price; the total life cycle cost for the new Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine is estimated to exceed $395 billion.  ... ' 

Of Course the Military is on it

 Also worked with an an example in this space:

The U.S. Military Is Building Its Own Metaverse,  By Wired, July 6, 2022

On May 10, two fighter pilots performed a high-altitude proto-metaverse experiment. A few thousand feet above the desert of California, in a pair of Berkut 540 jets, they donned custom AR headsets to connect to a system that overlaid a ghostly, glowing image of a refueling aircraft flying alongside them in the sky. One of the pilots then performed a refueling maneuver with the virtual tanker while the other looked on. Welcome to the fledgling military metaverse.

It isn't only Silicon Valley that's gripped by metaverse mania these days. Just as tech companies and corporations are scrambling to develop strategies for virtual worlds, many defense startups, contractors, and funders are increasingly talking up the metaverse, even if its definition and utility aren't always clear.

The key technologies needed for the metaverse—augmented and virtual reality, headmounted displays, 3D simulations and virtual environments built by artificial intelligence—are already found in the defense world. The result is a lot less polished, cutesy, and spacious than Mark Zuckerberg's virtual world vision, but that's partly the point. And there's a good chance that the underlying tech could take off, even if it stutters in the civilian realm.

From Wired

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