Department of Defense

Soldiers in the United States military received a welcome surprise on Tuesday as the nation celebrated Veteran's Day. Delve Networks, based in Seattle, along with Houston-based Marion Montgomery, a marketing and design firm, teamed to launch TroopTube, a video-sharing Web site developed solely for members of the military and their families.

Federal agencies have deployed radio frequency identification technology to manage their assets, tracking everything from seagoing containers to paper medical files, and even to determine how fast a letter moves through the international postal system.

While Internet attacks continue in Georgia, security experts say the U.S. is not prepared for similar attacks that could steal confidential data and wreak havoc on U.S. computer systems.

National intelligence officials earlier this year told a Senate committee that unlike the U.S. military, the federal government and private sector are not prepared for cyber attacks and pointed to China and Russia as threats to consider. It wasn't the first time government officials cited China as a threat.

U.S. authorities are calling it the largest hacking and identity theft case yet. But this week's indictments of 11 people who allegedly plundered millions of payment card numbers might not seriously dent the underworld where such crimes occur.

Researchers at a hacking conference [in Las Vegas] met the news with a bit of a shrug, saying the theft of credit and debit cards still will flourish.

Lincoln believed that the definition of democracy was “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Today, with the help of social media, we can add “with the people” to that definition.
Particularly within the last six months, more and more federal government officials and agencies are blogging and using other forms of social media to communicate directly with the public. Most are posting multiple times per week - if not daily - and publishing comments that meet criteria defined in published commenting policies.

"What's the advantage...really...of having a solar-powered airplane?"
That's the kind of question I expect from people who are not immediately enamored with anything powered directly from that great flaming ball in the sky. And I suppose it's a question that should be answered, while I sit here drooling over the fact that it exists at all.

Apple's planned acquisition of chip-design firm P.A. Semi may run into trouble from an unlikely source -- the Department of Defense.

According to EETimes, P.A. Semi informed several current customers Monday that it was about to acquired by an unnamed company and that it could not guarantee supplies of its chips going forward. Meanwhile, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told The Wall Street Journal that his company acquired P.A. Semi for its design engineering talent, not the product line.

Stolen and sensitive U.S. military equipment, including fighter jet parts wanted by Iran and nuclear biological protective gear, has been available to the highest bidder on popular Internet sales sites, according to congressional investigators.

Using undercover identities, investigators purchased a dozen defense-related items on the auction site eBay and the online network Craigslist from January 2007 through last month and received the items "no questions asked."