Technology & Innovation

Is China a Paper Tiger in Cyberspace?

By Adam Segal, the Council on Foreign Relations

From Adam Segal, the Council on Foreign Relations:  Two recent studies of national cyber power have placed China near the bottom of the table.

NATO to spend almost $4 billion on UAV program

By Justyna Pawlak, Reuters

From Justyna Pawlak, Reuters: NATO is to buy five U.S.-made unmanned drone aircraft capable of countering Afghan insurgents, hunting pirates off Somalia or monitoring arms embargoes, an alliance official said on Wednesday. . . . "The acquisition itself is plus 1 billion (euros)," a NATO official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The cost […]

France and Italy contributed unarmed UAVs to NATO’s Libya operation

By Aviation International News

From Aviation International News:  [French air force commander General Jean-Paul] Palomeros told the Dubai Air Chiefs Conference last November that “at least 30” medium-altitude long endurance (MALE) UAVs should have been deployed to support the NATO air action over Libya last year.

Head of US Army Cyber Command: ‘Cyberspace requires a world-class cyber warrior’

By Peter Apps, Reuters

From Peter Apps, Reuters:  With growing worries about the threat of "cyber warfare," militaries around the world are racing to recruit the computer specialists they believe may be central to the conflicts of the 21st century. But whilst money is plentiful for new forces of "cyber warriors," attracting often individualistic technical specialists and hackers into […]

Syria Cyber War Opens New Front In Russia

By Jonathan Earle, the Moscow Times

From Jonathan Earle, the Moscow Times:  The cyber front of Syria’s year-old civil war spread to Russia this week as pro- and anti-government bots splashed criticism and expressions of gratitude across the Russian Internet, and Syrian hackers attempted to commandeer the website of a Russian embassy.

Cyber battles over Syria raging across the Internet

By Abigail Fielding-Smith, the Financial Times

From Abigail Fielding-Smith, the Financial Times:  The conflict between supporters and opponents of the regime of Mr Assad is being fought just as urgently in the cybersphere as on the streets of Homs, and goes far beyond trading insults. Two shadowy transnational armies slug it out on a daily basis for control not of streets […]

Is Chinese espionage responsible for the rising costs of the F-35?

By David Fulghum, Bill Sweetman, and Amy Butler, Aviation Week

From David Fulghum, Bill Sweetman, and Amy Butler, Aviation Week:  How much of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s spiraling cost in recent years can be traced to China’s cybertheft of technology and the subsequent need to reduce the fifth-generation aircraft’s vulnerability to detection and electronic attack?

NATO clears funding hurdle to buy five Global Hawks

By Stephen Trimble, Flight Global

NATO Doesn’t Yet Know How To Protect Its Networks

By Spencer Ackerman, Danger Room

From Spencer Ackerman, Danger Room:  Here at NATO Headquarters, the 2007 denial-of-service attack that took websites of member nation Estonia offline forms something of a template for worry.