Crapaganda.com

The Pentagon plans to fork over $32 million to develop “fun to play” computer games that can refine the way weapons systems are tested to ensure they are free from software errors and security bugs, according to a Defense Department solicitation.

The goal is to create puzzles that are “intuitively understandable by ordinary people” and could be solved on laptops, smartphones, tablets and consoles. The games’ solutions will be collected into a database and used to improve methods for analyzing software, according to the draft request for proposals put out by the military’s venture capital and research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

As weapons systems have become complex, the military’s methods for verifying that the software running on them is glitch-free and secure against hackers has fallen short. Formal verification is the process analysts use, through the application of mathematical theories, to determine if software code is free from bugs. Crowdsourcing this complicated task would help the Pentagon cut costs while it grapples with a shortage of computer security specialists.

“Formal verification has been too costly to apply beyond small, critical software components,” the document said. “This is particularly an issue for the Department of Defense because formal verification, while a proven method for reducing defects in software, currently requires highly specialized talent and cannot be scaled to the size of software found in modern weapon systems.”

DARPA’s three-year experiment, known as Crowdsourced Formal Verification, will address the question: How can developers translate formal verification problems into compelling puzzles people will want to solve?

The agency estimates that it will spend $4.7 million on the project this year.

The games will be released for testing by the public at the end of the program’s two research phases. Researchers must provide programming tools that allow robots to play the games. “However, some problems are expected to remain beyond any robot’s ability to solve,” the solicitation notes. DARPA did not respond to requests for an interview.

The use of crowdsourcing and games to tackle complex, real-world problems has gained traction since players of Foldit, a protein-folding computer game that analyzes possible protein combinations, recently deciphered an AIDS-related enzyme that had baffled scientists for more than a decade. The creation of Foldit by the University of Washington was funded in part by DARPA.

Another game, EteRNA, allows players to design RNA — or ribonucleic acid — molecules, creating genetic blueprints that scientists could build on to influence what happens inside living cells and possibly treat diseases in new ways.

“One of the really exciting things is that when we inject a new kind of problem in the world and provide tools to solve that problem, experts at the task just emerge,” said Adrien Treuille, an assistant computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has been involved in developing both games.

Security professionals, while intrigued by the potential of DARPA’s idea, have reservations about whether the program will meet the ambitious goals.

It would be more cost-effective for the government to focus efforts on ensuring that software is secure while it’s being engineered rather than after it has been deployed in systems, said Gary McGraw, chief technology officer at Cigital, a Dulles, Va.-based security consultancy. “It’s easier to build something right than to build a broken thing and then have to fix it.”

If players know a game is mapped to a weapons system’s software, there’s the alarming possibility that they could rig its results. “They could collude and play the game to show there are no security problems,” said Nasir Memon, director of the Information Systems and Internet Security Laboratory at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. “How can you trust results from that?”

Source: nextgov.com

After years of saying it was unavailable, the State of Hawaii has released a photo of President Obama’s Birth Certificate.  First we were told that they could not locate the original. Then they told us that because it was a government document it could not be released.  Now into the third year of his presidential term the elusive document just appears. Was it because Donald Trump had never brought it up before?

Click document for larger view

Here is the “Birth Certificate” released the first time around:

Click document for larger view

A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain.

“This is the power of tsunamis,” head researcher Richard Freund told Reuters.

“It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that’s pretty much what we’re talking about,” said Freund, a University of Hartford, Connecticut, professor who lead an international team searching for the true site of Atlantis.

To solve the age-old mystery, the team used a satellite photo of a suspected submerged city to find the site just north of Cadiz, Spain. There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana Park, they believe that they pinpointed the ancient, multi-ringed dominion known as Atlantis.

The team of archeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology to survey the site.

Freund’s discovery in central Spain of a strange series of “memorial cities,” built in Atlantis’ image by its refugees after the city’s likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof and confidence, he said.

Atlantis residents who did not perish in the tsunami fled inland and built new cities there, he added.

The team’s findings will be unveiled on Sunday in “Finding Atlantis,” a new National Geographic Channel special.

While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain in Atlantis, Freund said the “twist” of finding the memorial cities makes him confident Atlantis was buried in the mud flats on Spain’s southern coast.

“We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archeology, that makes a lot more sense,” Freund said.

Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis some 2,600 years ago, describing it as “an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules,” as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity. Using Plato’s detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city.

Tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries, Freund says. One of the largest was a reported 10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon in November, 1755.

Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato’s “dialogues” from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis “in a single day and night… disappeared into the depths of the sea.”

Experts plan further excavations are planned at the site where they believe Atlantis is located and at the mysterious “cities” in central Spain 150 miles away to more closely study geological formations and to date artifacts.

Source: Reuters

The former US defense secretary, an architect of the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, said the late Iraqi dictator gave him the video as a parting memento when Rumsfeld made a secret mission to Baghdad in 1983 as former president Ronald Reagan’s Mideast envoy.

“Such gifts can be unusual, but even so I was shocked by this one,” Rumsfeld said on his website, “The Rumsfeld Papers.”

“Saddam had given me a three-minute videotape documenting alleged Syrian ‘atrocities,’” he said.

“The blurred, choppy footage shows young Syrians biting the heads off of snakes and stabbing puppies, to the apparent applause of then-Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad.”

Rumsfeld posted the black-and-white video on his website, with a warning: “This video depicts graphic violence. Some viewers may find it disturbing.” His office said on Twitter that it was the first time it had ever been made public.

It shows what appears to be a Syrian military unit putting on a display for an audience of dignitaries, including Assad.

An unexpected and unwanted text message from a wireless company prematurely exploded a would-be suicide bomber’s vest bomb in Russia New Year’s Eve, inadvertently thwarting a planned attack on revelers in Moscow, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The would-be suicide bomber was planning to detonate a suicide belt bomb near Red Square, a plan that was foiled when her wireless carrier sent her an SMS while she was still at a safe house, setting off the bomb and killing her. The message reportedly wished her a Happy New Years, according to the report, which sourced the info from security forces in Russia. Cell phones are often used as makeshift detonators by terrorist and insurgent groups.

If true, the SMS might be the only time that a wireless carrier’s SMS message has ever been useful.

The authorities suspect the female bomber was part of the same Jihadist group that is suspected of hitting Moscow’s airport on Monday with a suicide bomb attack that killed 35.

Via The Telegraph

A crop circle that appeared a few days ago in rural Indonesia has tens of thousands of people flocking to the site for a glimpse of the mystery.

Many strained to see or photograph the nearly 100-foot diameter pattern featuring circles and triangles. Some people fainted or prayed, considering it a sign from above. The country’s National Atomic Energy Agency was even called in to inspect the site, and declared it harmless and free of radiation, much to the relief of those selling souvenirs to the gathering crowds.

So what made the strange pattern?

Some believe that mysterious energy lines or supernatural vortices are to blame; still others attribute them to freak wind patterns.

Mr. Pringle Solves Crop Circle Mystery

One popular theory is that they are created by extraterrestrials who are trying to give us signs, warnings, or other information. The extraterrestrial explanation is of course very popular, as Lee Speigel of AOL News noted: “One resident, Cahyo Utomo, speculated that the odd piece of rice field artwork wasn’t man-made. ‘The circles were there since yesterday morning. I think they were left by an alien spaceship,’ he said.”

If this explanation is true, it seems very strange that aliens would go to the trouble of traveling across the universe to our pale blue dot just to press down some plants in various shapes and then leave. Surely if an alien civilization is advanced enough to master space travel, it can devise more effective ways of communicating with us.

There’s only one known source for crop circles: humans. (In fact, I have personally investigated and made several crop circles, as I discuss in my 2010 book “Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries.”) Many people believe that crop circles have been reported for centuries, mistakenly citing a folktale from 1678 in which an English farmer told a worker with whom he was feuding that he “would rather pay the Devil himself” to cut his oat field.

What are the Chances of “Anything Coming From Mars”?

In fact, crop circles only date back about 30 years. The mysterious patterns first appeared in the British countryside, and their origin remained a mystery until September 1991, when two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, confessed that they had created the patterns for decades as a prank. They never claimed to have made all the circles — many were copycat pranks done by others — but their hoax was responsible for launching the crop circle phenomena.

Clearly, something made the patterns. Whether aliens or hoaxers, they are probably enjoying the publicity, and the souvenir vendors are delighted.

Source: Discovery.com

When a creepy, hairless animal appeared in Nelson County, Kentucky two weeks ago, rumors swirled that it could be the legendary chupacabra, a mythic animal once dubbed by CNN as the ”Bigfoot of Latino Culture.”

In this video from CNN, a wildlife biologist describes the animal as “no doubt a hideous creature. There’s just no way around it.” When Mark Cothern spotted this bizarre creature in his yard, he shot it. Pictures of the animal spread like wildfire, as many fans eagerly thought it could be a chupacabra.

But the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife have now investigated the animal’s anatomical features, and believe it to be a raccoon. They plan to study the creature due to its unusual appearance, which they believe to be related to hair loss.

One theory is that the animal has a condition similar to alopecia, a disease that in humans can lead to hair loss. There may be a growing number of hairless creatures in the eastern United States, and further investigation is needed to determine why.

As for the killed animal, sure it was ugly, but do you think it really needed to be shot just because it “looked strange?” And do you think this sheds light on other chupacabra sightings? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Source: Huffington Post

The Navy has opened an investigation into how a series of raunchy videos, full of sexual innuendo and anti-gay remarks, were produced and shown to the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise while on deployment supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Navy spokesman Cmdr. Chris Sims said the videos, which were shown to the crew in 2006 and 2007, are “inappropriate.”

Excerpts from the videos and descriptions of their content were first published Saturday by The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia.

The videos on the paper’s website, reviewed by CNN, feature a man identified by two Navy officials and The Virginian-Pilot as Capt. Owen Honors, who at the time was the executive officer, or second-in-command, of the Enterprise. He recently took command of the carrier, winning one of the most coveted assignments in the U.S. Navy, which has only 11 aircraft carriers.

Honors is shown cursing along with other members of his staff in an attempt to demonstrate humor, according to videos. There are also anti-gay slurs, simulated sex acts, and what appear to be two female sailors in a shower together.

The investigation was ordered Friday by Adm. John Harvey, the four-star head of the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command, after the videos were detailed in The Virginian-Pilot. The paper also posted a link to some of the material, but edited it so that expletives were censored and some identities of junior Navy crew were disguised.

CNN left a message for Honors on Saturday. The Virginian-Pilot said he did not respond to requests for comment.

The Navy issued a statement Saturday, saying in part “production of videos, like the ones produced four to five years ago on USS Enterprise and now being written about in the Virginian-Pilot, were not acceptable then and are still not acceptable in today’s Navy. The Navy does not endorse or condone these kinds of actions.”

The statement also said, “U.S. Fleet Forces Command has initiated an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the production of these videos; however, it would be inappropriate to comment any further on the specifics of the investigation.”

But the Saturday statement was an about-face from the initial military statement to the newspaper. In that statement, the Navy said the videos were “not created with the intent to offend anyone. The videos were intended to be humorous skits focusing the crew’s attention on specific issues such as port visits, traffic safety, water conservation, ship cleanliness, etc.”

Sims said senior officers had not yet seen the videos when they issued the first statement. It was after viewing them that the investigation was ordered, he said.

When the videos first came to light the “leadership” of the Enterprise was “directed” to make certain future videos were appropriate, the Navy said. Sims said he was not aware if Honors was ever reprimanded. In the videos, Honors repeatedly jokes that his superior officers were unaware of the content of the videos and “they should absolutely not be held accountable.”

The Virginian-Pilot says the videos were shown over the ship’s internal broadcast system to its nearly 6,000 crew.

Source: CNN

A 31-year-old UFO mystery was nothing more than a schoolboy science experiment, according to a man who has claimed responsibility for lights seen hovering in the Manawatu sky in the 1970s.

On a clear April evening in 1979 an orange light was spotted traveling in the night sky from Aokautere toward Hokowhitu.

Government documents released last week put this unexplained light down to a radar balloon “in the hands of people outside the meteorological service”.

These official X-files show the light was spotted early in the evening on April 20, while other orange lights were seen in the region six days later.

Malcolm McCrea was then a 16-year-old fifth form pupil at Awatapu College.

He said that at school, a science teacher would build hot air balloons from tissue paper, cardboard, wire and cotton wool.

Using heat from a Bunsen burner, the balloons would be released into the atmosphere.

About April or May 1979 those pupils decided the balloons would look better at night, so McCrea and his friends would release them into the atmosphere – powered by burning meths.

By stuffing different coloured tissue paper into them, the pupils could make a virtual kaleidoscope in the night sky, with the balloons ranging in size from a shoebox to a fridge.

The balloons would usually meander through the sky until an airstream caught them and made them rocket away – looking much like a silent alien aircraft speeding into the distance.

“We would often release several balloons at the same time, hence seeing something in a V-formation meant they were all caught in the same airstream,” McCrea said.

Oddly enough, one of the April 1979 sightings was of three lights traveling in such a formation. There were also plenty of other reports in the media about unexplained lights in the night sky.

“We thought it was very funny.”

McCrea, who now lives on the Kapiti Coast, said he released about eight or nine balloons himself – as did about 15 other people.

This likely explanation for Palmerston North’s 1979 sightings did not surprise New Zealand sceptics spokeswoman Vicki Hyde.

While most sceptics would not rule out the possibility of other life forms existing somewhere, most possible UFO sightings could be explained.

“The bulk of [sightings] are from sincere people who have seen something they can’t explain,” she said.

“You don’t have to be foolish to be fooled.” Ms Hyde encourages people who see unexplained objects to keep an open mind about what they’re looking at.

Another UFO sighting in Palmerston North happened in June 1972, when 17-year-old Jon Watson looked outside of his Crew Crescent flat and saw three silver objects flying 1000 feet overhead. “I got a fright at first,” he told the Manawatu Standard at the time.

“We followed the three spaceships with our eyes for about a quarter of an hour. They were following each other and were quite close together.”

Fourteen-year-old Freyberg High School pupil Gregory Key saw three “spinning silver objects” above Pahiatua on June 15 the same year.

Source: stuff.co.nz