Tag: technology

Venezuela strike marks a turning point for US cyber warfare

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Internet tracking group NetBlocks reported a loss of internet connectivity in Caracas that occurred around the same time as power cuts in the country. Venezuela’s electric energy ministry said Monday that power cuts in some areas of the country were due to U.S. attacks.

Chinese-made radar systems and Russian-made air defense systems were also reportedly disrupted during the strikes, hampering the Venezuelan government’s ability to effectively respond.

In a statement, a Space Command spokesperson declined to comment on details of its operations, but noted that “space-based capabilities such as Positioning, Navigation and Timing and satellite communications are foundational to all modern military activities,” and that “U.S. Space Command possesses the means and willingness to employ combat-credible capabilities that deter and counter our opponents.”

These efforts point to a more aggressive use of U.S. military technology and cyber expertise in foreign operations — a shift that the administration has repeatedly touted since Trump’s first term. In 2018, a classified national security policy memorandum was signed, expanding the Pentagon’s authorities to conduct offensive cyber strikes. This policy was later refined under the Biden administration.

Joshua Steinman, who served as senior director for cyber on the National Security Council under the first Trump administration, said that the Venezuela strikes demonstrate that the U.S. “is finally in a place where we can use cyber as a tool of national power.””

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/07/venezuela-us-cyber-warfare-00713507

China’s EUV Manhattan Project and Export Control Mythbusting with Chris McGuire

Posted on by Lone Candle

Chip restrictions on China appear to work because China is obsessed with asking US administrations to lift the restrictions, and because the Chinese companies say the restrictions slow their progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU4DT9UxK00

She blew the whistle at Meta. Then her career fell apart.

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Eisenstat, Facebook’s former head of election integrity, alleged the social media platform allowed political operatives to mislead the public with sophisticated ad-targeting tools in a 2019 op-ed. Meta has argued that these ad policies were to prevent censorship of political speech.

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It was hard to find a new job. Eisenstat said she would routinely interview with senior managers who would later ghost her. One institution courted her for months for a leadership role but then told her they wouldn’t hire her. That day, the organization announced a major donation from the philanthropic organization of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

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many whistleblowers say coming forward has unexpectedly derailed their lives. They say they became isolated among their colleagues, suffered severe professional damage, or were pushed out of the industry altogether. For a generation that entered Silicon Valley with a sense of idealism, viewing tech giants as mission-driven organizations seeking to improve the world, the cold reception to what they consider truth-telling has come as a shock.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/tech-whistleblowers-face-million-dollar-150822546.html

Why America’s massive defense budget just isn’t enough

Posted on by Lone Candle

The US military is weakening compared to its peers and is too heavily relying on aging legacy systems. US military spending is incredibly low compared to the Cold War. If the US doesn’t remain the strongest country, then the US, for all its flaws, will look like an angel compared to the authoritarian countries who will replace the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0TTtD8l9lI

Trump Is Taking 3 Steps Backward in the AI Race

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The first giant leap backward has been a dangerous weakening of public data, the raw material required to train AI models. The federal government collects troves of data that families and businesses use every day — traffic patterns and census information, nutritional assessments and air quality reports, soil data and economic measures.

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the administration has spent months ordering agency after agency to delete or hide data that’s politically inconvenient, and indiscriminately firing employees including those who manage valuable datasets.

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Initial research shows the eye-popping potential for AI weather forecasts that could be precise down to a city block or accurate as far ahead as a month. But that’s only possible with the sensor data that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collects and curates from weather stations, ships, balloons, aircraft, satellites and buoys. The Trump administration has reduced weather balloon launches and removed hundreds of agency staff. It plans to cut back on NOAA satellites and shutter more than a dozen facilities that gather and curate data.

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The Trump administration has also disrupted the collection of important health data. One example is data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gathered for nearly four decades from a representative sample of volunteers to understand risks in pregnancy. That valuable data now remains scattered and hard to access, because the CDC first shuttered the database to avoid collecting data on race and ethnicity in line with the administration’s executive order against “DEI,” and then placed the staff on administrative leave. That makes it harder to learn why Black maternal mortality is more than twice the national average, or how to protect all mothers and newborns. Data on vaccine safety, farm labor, hunger, greenhouse gas reporting and international development have also been deleted or degraded.

For AI to be effective against these immensely complex challenges, the smarter move would have been to expand data collection and support the agency staff who make sure datasets are robust and accessible.

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With steady support from Congress over successive administrations, eight decades of federal research funding made it possible to start new industries, prevent and cure diseases, deter potential adversaries, understand and start to manage environmental risks and expand the boundaries of human knowledge. This research base is where AI itself came from, and to harness AI for the next generation of advances, federal support is essential.

Instead, the Trump administration has frozen grants, attacked leading research universities, curtailed high-talent immigration, ousted thousands of research agency staff and proposed a $44 billion reduction in federally funded research and development — the largest single-year cut in history.

While some take solace in the administration’s cuts sparing specific budget lines for AI research and the new executive order for Energy Department research using AI, that’s like buying more tractors while you kill off your crops. AI is a tool, not the goal itself. The federal government needs to fund not just AI researchers, but researchers in the full range of promising fields that need AI to advance”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/12/03/what-the-trump-administration-is-getting-right-and-wrong-on-ai-00674211

Why China and Russia can track the F-35

Posted on by Lone Candle

Although stealth delays radar detection, its more important role is making stealth planes hard to target with weapons. The wide bands of radars that can detect the planes are not able to locate them accurately enough to target them with weapons. No stealth is invincible, so mission planning is also key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CvdMbWGHTA