The US Military Is Quietly Building SkyNet

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.com

Maybe Elon Musk had a point…

The US’s military leaders have agreed on a strategy to guarantee the US military retains its global dominance during the twenty-first century: Connect everything with everything, as DefenseOne describes it. The result? An unimaginably large cephapoloidal nervous system armed with the world’s most advanced weaponry, and in control of all military equipment belonging to the world’s most powerful army.

Sound familiar? It should…

A networked military – an extreme take on the “internet of things” – would connect everything from F-35 jets to the Navy’s destroyers to the armor of the tanks crawling over the land to the devices carried by soldiers – every weapon would be connected.  Every weapon, vehicle, and device connected, sharing data, constantly aware of the presence and state of every other node in a truly global network.

Of course, the development of these “smart” weapons should unnerve Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has repeatedly warned that AI and machine learning poses a greater threat to the future of the US than North Korea. If not properly regulated, Elon suggested that machines could turn against their human masters.

“Until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal,” he said.

“AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff described their vision for a completely networked military in the newest iteration of their National Military Strategy, which lays out their plans for building the military’s weapon of the future. Ironically, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he had based the plan on a certain money-losing electric-car manufacturer. Goldfein was particularly impressed by Tesla’s ability to remotely extend the battery life of vehicles as their owners fled Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

In recent months, the Joint Chiefs of Staff put together the newest version of their National Military Strategy. Unlike previous ones, it is classified. But executing a strategy requiring buy-in and collaboration across the services. In recent months, at least two of the service chiefs talked openly about the strikingly similar direction that they are taking their forces. Standing before a sea of dark- blue uniforms at a September Air Force Association event in Maryland, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he had “refined” his plans for the Air Force after discussions with the Joint Chiefs “as part of the creation of the classified military strategy.”

The future for the Air Force? The service needed to be more like a certain electric-car manufacturer.

“Every Tesla car is connected to every other Tesla car,” said Goldfein, referring to a presentation by Elon Musk about the ways his firm’s vehicles learn from their collective experience. “If a Tesla is headed down the road and hits a pothole, every Tesla that’s behind it that’s self-driving, it will avoid the pothole, immediately. If you’re driving the car, it automatically adjusts your shocks in case you hit it, too.”

Goldfein waxed enthusiastically about how Tesla was able to remotely increase the battery capacity of cars in the U.S. Southeast to facilitate evacuation before the recent hurricanes.

“What would the world look like if we connected what we have in that way? If we looked at the world through a lens of a network as opposed to individual platforms, electronic jamming shared immediately, avoided automatically? Every three minutes, a mobility aircraft takes off somewhere on the planet. Platforms are nodes in a network,” the Air Force chief said.

As DefenseOne explains, the idea of a networked military borrows from the “network centric warfare” concept that first emerged more than a decade ago. However, the concept that military leaders proposed in their latest review is less a strategy for increasing efficiency than a plan to connect all military equipment on a single network. The result would be better coordinated, faster, and more lethal operations in air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.

The Air Force has begun making broad investments in data sharing. And its experiments with next-generation light tactical attack aircraft are as much about hardware as networks, he said. “Not only what can I buy and what can they do, but more importantly, can they connect? Can they actually share? And can we tie it to a new network that’s based on sharable information that gets me beyond the challenges I have right now in terms of security?” Goldfein said.

The Air Force Science Board is studying how to control a network of military equipment including light attack aircraft, tanks and even unmanned drones. James Chow, the board’s new head, told DefenseOne the study would also consider how to connect to other services.

As DefenseOne explains, although most of the research into the networked military is being conducted by the Air Force, once implemented, any system would likely include weapons from across the military, like Navy destroyers, said Chow.

“Our scope would be in helping the Air Force to think about operations they would be conducting that would incorporate joint sensors and platforms, like destroyers, I think that has to be part of it. And that is within the charter of the study,” Chow  said, adding that the study has “the highest priority level for Air Force leadership.”

The Marines are also looking at tanks that are digitally connected through their armor, according to Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, who leads Marine Corps Combat Development Command and serves as Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration. Navy leaders have also authorized research into connecting every object on the sea, land, air, space and in cyberspace. This is no exaggeration. Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations, said during a Navy expo earlier this year that he’d eventually like to “network everything,” explaining that creating such a system would be crucial to maintaining US military dominance.

In an amusing aside, DefenseOne notes that, despite the obvious parallels, military leaders detest comparisons between their tech pet projects and anything from the plot of the Terminator franchise.

And while enabling instantaneous communication between military units would undoubtedly improve efficiency and tactical prowess, as Musk as pointed out, these projects should be undertaken cautiously.

The U.S. military is quietly building Skynet

Maybe Elon Musk had a point…

The US’s military leaders have agreed on a strategy to guarantee the US military retains its global dominance during the twenty-first century: Connect everything with everything, as DefenseOne describes it. The result? An unimaginably large cephapoloidal nervous system armed with the world’s most advanced weaponry, and in control of all military equipment belonging to the world’s most powerful army.

Sound familiar? It should…

A networked military – an extreme take on the “internet of things” – would connect everything from F-35 jets to the Navy’s destroyers to the armor of the tanks crawling over the land to the devices carried by soldiers – every weapon would be connected.  Every weapon, vehicle, and a device connected, sharing data, constantly aware of the presence and state of every other node in a truly global network.

Of course, the development of these “smart” weapons should unnerve Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has repeatedly warned that AI and machine learning poses a greater threat to the future of the US than North Korea. If not properly regulated, Elon suggested that machines could turn against their human masters.

“Until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal,” he said.

“AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff described their vision for a completely networked military in the newest iteration of their National Military Strategy, which lays out their plans for building the military’s weapon of the future. Ironically, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he had based the plan on a certain money-losing electric-car manufacturer. Goldfein was particularly impressed by Tesla’s ability to remotely extend the battery life of vehicles as their owners fled Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

In recent months, the Joint Chiefs of Staff put together the newest version of their National Military Strategy. Unlike previous ones, it is classified. But executing a strategy requiring buy-in and collaboration across the services. In recent months, at least two of the service chiefs talked openly about the strikingly similar direction that they are taking their forces. Standing before a sea of dark- blue uniforms at a September Air Force Association event in Maryland, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he had “refined” his plans for the Air Force after discussions with the Joint Chiefs “as part of the creation of the classified military strategy.”

The future for the Air Force? The service needed to be more like a certain electric-car manufacturer.

“Every Tesla car is connected to every other Tesla car,” said Goldfein, referring to a presentation by Elon Musk about the ways his firm’s vehicles learn from their collective experience. “If a Tesla is headed down the road and hits a pothole, every Tesla that’s behind it that’s self-driving, it will avoid the pothole, immediately. If you’re driving the car, it automatically adjusts your shocks in case you hit it, too.”

Goldfein waxed enthusiastically about how Tesla was able to remotely increase the battery capacity of cars in the U.S. Southeast to facilitate evacuation before the recent hurricanes.

“What would the world look like if we connected what we have in that way? If we looked at the world through a lens of a network as opposed to individual platforms, electronic jamming shared immediately, avoided automatically? Every three minutes, a mobility aircraft takes off somewhere on the planet. Platforms are nodes in a network,” the Air Force chief said.

As DefenseOne explains, the idea of a networked military borrows from the  “network centric warfare” concept that first emerged more than a decade ago. However, the concept that military leaders proposed in their latest review is less a strategy for increasing efficiency than a plan to connect all military equipment on a single network. The result would be better coordinated, faster, and more lethal operations in air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.

The Air Force has begun making broad investments in data sharing. And its experiments with next-generation light tactical attack aircraft are as much about hardware as networks, he said. “Not only what can I buy and what can they do, but more importantly, can they connect? Can they actually share? And can we tie it to a new network that’s based on sharable information that gets me beyond the challenges I have right now in terms of security?” Goldfein said.

The Air Force Science Board is studying how to control a network of military equipment including light attack aircraft, tanks and even unmanned drones. James Chow, the board’s new head, told DefenseOne the study would also consider how to connect to other services.

As DefenseOne explains, although most of the research into the networked military is being conducted by the Air Force, once implemented, any system would likely include weapons from across the military, like Navy destroyers, said Chow.

“Our scope would be in helping the Air Force to think about operations they would be conducting that would incorporate joint sensors and platforms, like destroyers, I think that has to be part of it. And that is within the charter of the study,”Chow  said, adding that the study has “the highest priority level for Air Force leadership.”

The Marines are also looking at tanks that are digitally connected through their armor, according to Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, who leads Marine Corps Combat Development Command and serves as Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration. Navy leaders have also authorized research into connecting every object on the sea, land, air, space and in cyberspace. This is no exaggeration. Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations, said during a Navy expo earlier this year that he’d eventually like to “network everything,” explaining that creating such a system would be crucial to maintaining US military dominance.  

In an amusing aside, DefenseOne notes that, despite the obvious parallels, military leaders detest comparisons between their tech pet projects and anything from the plot of the Terminator franchise.

And while enabling instantaneous communication between military units would undoubtedly improve efficiency and tactical prowess, as Musk as pointed out, these projects should be undertaken cautiously.

Via ZeroHedge

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featured Image: T2 film (Image Source: Screencapture/YouTube)

The post The U.S. military is quietly building Skynet appeared first on Intellihub.

"Cry Safety... And Let Slip The Dogs Of Control"

Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,

Whatever their failings, machines generally don’t second-guess you. Turn them on, turn them off. Point them in a certain direction. Command them to move or spin or do whatever it is they were made to do and – assuming they are not broken – they will usually do it.

And won’t try to nudge you to do what they think is best.

Electronic gadgets, on the other hand . . .  .

They pre-empt and nudge. Do things you didn’t ask them to – and won’t do things you want them to. They turn on – and off- at random, according to their own lights. They are not broken, either.

Which means, of course, they can’t be fixed.

They seem to literally have a mind of their own – and in a very real sense, they do. They are programmed to guess/intuit/anticipate your needs – whether you need them to or not.

It is like having an insolent intern or personal assistant who is useful to you in some ways but an aneurism-inducing  aggravation in other ways. And unlike the intern or PA – whom you can fire and replace with a more deferential one who actually does do what you ask without giving you lip or funny looks or unsanctioned advice – and doesn’t do things you didn’t ask them to – electronic gadgets are pretty much all the same. In particular, their annoying penchant to pre-empt; to nudge you along certain pathways of the software’s – that is, the programmer’s – choosing.

Always because the programmer has decided it’s good for you.

To – in  a very real way  – parent you.

It most definitely isn’t a master-servant relationship, as it ought to be. As it was, with machines.

And it is spreading.

Do you see”safety” anywhere? Where is he?

Apple announced the other day that the next iPhone will lock you out whenever your car is moving. No texting, either sending or receiving. Nor swiping or tapping, either.

For your saaaaaaaaaaaafety, of course.

Just like the saaaaaafety features built into the latest cars that lock you out of many of the “infotainment” features while the car is moving.

Also for saaaaaaaaaaafety.

And automatically – parentally – mute or turn down the volume of the radio whenever the car’s transmission is put into Reverse. Or refuse to allow you to turn off the traction control. Flashes a red light at you when you exceed the speeeeeeeeed limit (yes, really).

And more.

Apples’ new “feature” – as it is being marketed – will be built into iOS 11, the latest software for their sail fawns. This will spread, as it always does. You will not be able to say No Thanks.

Your sail fawn has decided that you are not capable of safely answering a call or sending a text while driving. Because some people cannot. The people who can’t handle a car regardless.

But it will peremptorily assault you in the middle of night, while you are trying to sleep, with a piercing Amber Alert – about a disappeared kid 50 miles away that you can do precisely zero to assist. What are you supposed to do? Put on a fire hat and run outside and look for the kid?

You cannot delete Amber Alert, either. Or even turn it off.

They are talking about doing the same with “important” announcements from Dear Leader. Amber Alerts expanded to Emergency Alerts. The “emergency” being whatever they decide it is.

Dear Leaders alerts. Wait and see.

Since people have stopped paying attention to their Tele-Prompt-ered “speeches,” they will  be force-fed to us, via dey sail fawns. Unctions to vote. Maybe to remember to eat your veggies today, too.

 

It’s demoralizing. Like being ankle-tied to your stretch-pants-wearing sixth grade teacher .

And it’s not just Apple, either.

Nissan, according to reports, is giving serious thought to making its new cars mobile Faraday Cages – impenetrable to radio signals. Texts could not be sent or received from within. Ditto emails and other real-time updates. (Satellite radio transmissions will be a problem; no word as to how that will be allowed through.)

GM and Volvo are playing with the idea of fitting their new cars with built-in “passive” alcohol sensors; the steering wheel and other surfaces would sample your skin – and if the car decides you’ve had one-too-many, it won’t start.

For saaaaaaaafety, again.

All buckled in for saaaaaaafety!

The Kia Cadenza I test drove this week (reviewed here) is a nice car, overall – but like almost all new cars, has a suffocating suite of saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety technologies that you cannot skip. Among them, sensors for the profusion of air bags built into the car (eight of them) that are so sensitive to weight that they sound the alarm if a laptop or hoagie from Subway is left unbuckled in the passenger seat. Literally, an alarm will sound – and the only way to shut the thing up is to buckle up the laptop or the sandwich.

A great, retarded Skynet is descending.

Or rather, a Skynet that considers us retards is descending. We haven’t been targeted for termination. Just pre-emptive lobotomization. All of us – because some of us deserve to be so regarded (and treated).

Cry saaaaaaaaafety!  . . . and let slip the dogs of control.

Maybe All Those “Smart” Gadgets And Appliances From China Aren’t Such A Smart Idea (VIDEO)

You know all of those cool, sci-fi gadgets that people are beginning to get that are connected to the internet in their homes?  The voice controlled thermostats, the wireless printers and cameras, the home security systems, the food scale that sends the calories to your phone app, those “smart” appliances that text you to pick up milk, and the DVRS that can be programmed via your phone from work?

Apparently, those things may not be so smart after all because they played a big role in the cyber attack that took place last Friday. Security analysts believe that Friday’s attack on popular websites such as Reddit, Twitter, Netflix, and Spotify was the first one carried out by hackers who used the “Internet of Things.”

Here’s how the Internet of Things works:

Who else thinks that this is how Skynet got started? Maybe it’s just me.

The attack was on one service, Dyn.

The massive attack took down the internet across the country. The website Downdetector provided a map that shows how much of the US was affected:

The attack was on one company, and everything else fell over like a row of dominoes.

All of the companies involved use Dyn, a cloud-based Internet performance management company.

Dyn was the target of the attack, and that, in turn, affected other companies.

Dyn is sort of like a phone book that directs users to the internet address of the website. On Friday a distributed denial of service attack, (DDoS) affected Dyn by sending thousands of messages at the same time, which overwhelmed the service.

Security company Flashpoint said it had confirmed that the attack used “botnets” infected with the “Mirai” malware. From their site:

Flashpoint has confirmed that some of the infrastructure responsible for the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Dyn DNS were botnets compromised by Mirai malware. Mirai botnets were previously used in DDoS attacks against security researcher Brian Krebs’ blog “Krebs On Security” and French internet service and hosting provider OVH. Mirai malware targets Internet of Things (IoT) devices like routers, digital video records (DVRs), and webcams/security cameras, enslaving vast numbers of these devices into a botnet, which is then used to conduct DDoS attacks. Flashpoint has confirmed that at least some of the devices used in the Dyn DNS attacks are DVRs, further matching the technical indicators and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) associated with previous known Mirai botnet attacks.

While Flashpoint has confirmed that Mirai botnets were used in the October 21, 2016 attack against Dyn, they were separate and distinct botnets from those used to execute the DDoS attacks against “Krebs on Security” and OVH. Earlier this month, “Anna_Senpai,” the hacker operating the large Mirai botnet used in the Krebs DDoS, released Mira’s source code online. Since this release, copycat hackers have used the malware to create botnets of their own in order to launch DDoS attacks.

It is unknown if the attacks against Dyn DNS are linked to the DDoS attacks against Krebs, OVH, or other previous attacks. Given the proliferation of the Mirai malware, the relationship between the ongoing Dyn DDoS attacks, previous attacks, and “Anna_Senpai” is unclear.

Coincidentally, many of the  vulnerable “smart” devices are made in China.

Many of the devices involved come from Chinese manufacturers, with easy-to-guess usernames and passwords that cannot be changed by the user – a vulnerability which the malware exploits. According to the BBC:

“Mirai scours the Web for IoT (Internet of Things) devices protected by little more than factory-default usernames and passwords,” explained cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs, “and then enlists the devices in attacks that hurl junk traffic at an online target until it can no longer accommodate legitimate visitors or users.”

The owner of the device would generally have no way of knowing that it had been compromised to use in an attack, he wrote.

Mr Krebs is intimately familiar with this type of incident, after his website was targeted by a similar assault in September, in one of the biggest web attacks ever seen…That attack began around 8 p.m. ET on Sept. 20, and initial reports put it at approximately 665 Gigabits of traffic per second. Additional analysis on the attack traffic suggests the assault was closer to 620 Gbps in size, but in any case this is many orders of magnitude more traffic than is typically needed to knock most sites offline. (source)

I’m sure those easy passwords and vulnerabilities aren’t deliberate. China would never sneak Trojan horses into the USA, would they?

Article first appeared at DaisyLuther.com