A team of scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign published a paper in Cell Reports Physical Science that claims they have figured out a way to create micro-scaled batteries without losing energy and power that is typical of current micro-batteries and designs. The team developed a new packaging design that eliminates much of the loss of power and energy of other designs, and they improved the overall performance of the battery by using much more dense electrodes than in previous designs.
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In the intelligence world, one of the key disciplines is communicating information securely. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is, albeit for different reasons. Since the invention of radio communication – or “wireless telegraphy,” if you prefer – has been the Numbers Station.
To understand what a numbers station (One-Way Voice Link, or OWVL), is the technical term) is, we briefly have to discuss cryptography.
In its simplest form, cryptography is the art of making and breaking codes. Over the course of human history, many states and leaders have come up with various, often ingenious, codes and ciphers, as well as the means to both break them and manipulate them. Sir Francis Walsingham, official spymaster for the first Queen Elizabeth, was responsible (among many other things) for the interception and breaking of the ciphers used by Mary, Queen of Scots – an intelligence operation that resulted in that monarch’s execution. Likewise, the “polyalphabetic substitution cipher”, invented by an Italian cryptographer named Giovan Battista Bellaso in 1553 (better known as the Vigenère cipher), was so strong, it remained unbroken until 1863. There are many other systems – ancient, new and unique – but all share the same fundamental flaw: Key Distribution.
In cryptography, encipherment and decipherment are relatively easy, but only if both sender and receiver share the code – and written codes, as proved by Walsingham – can be intercepted, opening messages’ secrets that could and did lead to war, death and betrayal.
Heavy stuff.
The goal of key distribution was only solved – for a time, at least – by the invention of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) in the 1990’s…but that’s for another time.
But the problem, ‘back in the day’, seemed insurmountable: in order to decipher a message, the receiver required a copy of the code, a serious problem if a considerable distance separated sender and receiver. The Vigenère cipher, however, significantly reduced that problem through what we would now call “keywords”. Still, as was proven in 1854 by English mathematician and scientist Charles Babbage, Prussian army Major Friedrich Wilhelm Kasiski in 1863, and by American engineer William F. Friedman in the 1920’s, the Vigenère cipher model could, and was, breakable, via frequency analysis.
As early as World War 1, strange radio transmissions in the short-wave band began to be heard over the public airwaves. These stations transmitted signals in Morse Code, but the transmissions were not encoded. Instead, they were just strings of letters, numbers, and occasionally both. It quickly became apparent that these signals were almost certainly in a code of some kind, but no one – in public, at least – was able to decode the signals. They were resistant to frequency attacks, and seemed to be immune to proven forms of cryptanalytic attack.
This was the births of the One-Time Pad (OTP) and the Numbers Station.
First outlined in 1882 by the American banker Frank Miller, the OTP was reinvented in 1917, patented in the United States by Gilbert Vernam and Joseph Mauborgne (pdf link). In this coding system, random strings of letters or numbers (and sometimes both) were added or subtracted against a list of random numbers, to produce an enciphered message. The receiver – who would have a copy of the list of numbers – would, using their copy of the list – work in reverse, to reveal the message. Once received and decrypted, both sender and receiver would cross out the section of the numbers list they had used…and never use those exact sequences again.
And, up to this day, as long as the strict requirements of the system are followed, the messages are indecipherable, unless a decrypter has access to the key. (For a full discussion of the practical use of OTP’s, visit this PDF file).
What someone had realized was that an encoded signal did not have to go via telephone, telegraph or mail, all of which were open to interception. Instead, all a secret agent in the field needed, was a radio capable of picking up the Morse signals on the proper frequency, to receive a message. And, with the OTP, the agent’s “codebook” was shrunken to the size of a roll of postage stamps.
As time went on, wireless radio moved from Morse to verbal speech, helping to eliminate errors in transmission. National intelligence services constructed powerful shortwave transmission towers in areas they controlled around the world, and – in addition to the normal propaganda broadcasts and music they would play – would periodically pause, and transmit strings of letters and/or numbers at specific times of the day.
Counterintelligence officers found this highly frustrating, because there was no way to monitor who had a simple radio receiver. Capturing agents was usually through those agent’s mistakes, not through any kind of cunning technology.
And that is where things stand, to this day. Numbers stations transmit messages “in the clear,” and unless someone makes a mistake, there is no way to decipher the messages. No nation, incidentally, will openly admit to operating a numbers station, and will only rarely acknowledge their existence, as happened in the “Atención spy case”, where the bumbling of a group of agents from Fidel Castro’s Cuba rolled up a network of some twenty-seven agents, among many other operations.
There are civilian monitoring groups out on the internet for the interested sleuth, such as the Numbers Stations Research & Information Center, and PRIYOM.
…Just…please don’t get caught doing dumb things. If certain parties in government think you are up to no good, you won’t be able to catch our articles on time.
Priorities, you know.
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have conducted a study that claims the human body has enough electro-magnetic power within it to power small IoT (Internet of Things) devices, including powering and becoming antennas for the next evolution of the internet, 6G. This new internet promises to be 1000 times quicker than 5G, which is still being rolled out even as we speak.
6G promises to make even more of our world interconnected to everything else, creating a total “internet’ that includes everything from your t-shirt to your pen, from the table in your house to the house itself. Humans becoming part of the 6G network could be viewed as a positive development for humans or a further de-humanization of them.
As 6G emerges, the ethical, philosophical, and theological implications of an all-consuming network will come to the fore, challenging humans to potentially question the wisdom of creating a system that reduces humans to batteries.
Elon Musk made two major announcements on Twitter today, one announcing certain accounts had beem reinstated, and one still being considered, and a new policy regarding “free speech,”
He said in the first tweeet:
New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.
He added this in the second tweet:
Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee have been reinstated. Trump decision has not yet been made.
He followed up with this:
Note, this applies just to the individual tweet, not the whole account
The newly restored Jordan Peterson replied:
Thanks Elen 🙂
Really. Thank you sir. Probably best to reinstate Trump too. Let him do what he needs to do, and let the people decide. Right out in the open. Where such things should be decided.
CANCER ASSASSINS COULD PURGE THE BODY OF THE DEADLY DISEASE – Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich have released a study that shows the potential to engineer and grow micro-robots that can target cancer cells in the body for pinpoint delivery of cell-killing drugs that won’t harm any other cells other than the ones targeted. The robots were tested on cancerous mice, whose cancers were targeted 3 times more efficiently than traditional treatments did, with none of the additional harm to the body the other methods produce.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Scientists use magnets to deliver cancer-killing ‘micro-robots’ into the body – interestingengineering.com
Excerpt:
The invention, although exciting, is not entirely new. In November of 2021, researchers created a new way of moving chemotherapy drugs to the site of cancer cells with microbots.
The innovation was said to substantially enhance cancer treatment because it enabled the direct injection of chemo drugs into the cancerous cells.
The tiny microbots developed were guided to their goal (in this case, cancer cells) via magnets. Once there, they released the drug payload.
Composed of 3D-printed hydrogel in the shape of various animals (including a butterfly, crab, and fish), the little robotic critters exhibited gaps on the inside where engineers could stuff particles.
In April of 2022, researchers engineered a slimy turd-like robot powered by magnets that they said could one day be used to grab things from inside the body.
It consisted of a mixture of a polymer called polyvinyl alcohol, borax, and particles of neodymium magnets responsible for the magnetic attraction that leads to the slime’s movements.
The new study was published in the journal Science.
Study abstract:
Biohybrid bacteria–based microrobots are increasingly recognized as promising externally controllable vehicles for targeted cancer therapy. Magnetic fields in particular have been used as a safe means to transfer energy and direct their motion. Thus far, the magnetic control strategies used in this context rely on poorly scalable magnetic field gradients, require active position feedback, or are ill-suited to diffuse distributions within the body. Here, we present a magnetic torque–driven control scheme for enhanced transport through biological barriers that complements the innate taxis toward tumor cores exhibited by a range of bacteria, shown for Magnetospirillum magneticum as a magnetically responsive model organism. This hybrid control strategy is readily scalable, independent of position feedback, and applicable to bacterial microrobots dispersed by the circulatory system.
FACEBOOK EXPOSED AS DNC SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL – The U.S. House GOP has released a 1,050 page report that exposes the DNC-FBI working in direct collusion with Facebook to assure the DNC narrative is protected and its opponents are throttled or eliminated altogether. The report exposes “Operation Bronze Griffin,” which worked as a liaison between DNC-Facebook and DNC-FBI to control American politician discourse for the good of the party.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
House GOP report says Facebook giving FBI ‘partisan’ tips – news.google.com
Excerpt:
The FBI has a politically one-sided surveillance partnership with Facebook under the apparent name Operation Bronze Griffin, according to a bombshell report released Friday by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
The 1,050-page report broadly outlines the FBI’s alleged pro-Democrat political bias — just days after revelations of a secret Facebook portal through which authorities can request the deletion of alleged “misinformation” from the world’s top social media platform.
FORMER BIDEN OFFICIAL NOW WORKING FOR CCP’S TIKTOK – Jamal Brown, the former Pentagon official and campaign spokesperson for Joe Biden during the 2020 Mass-Mailer Presidential Campaign, is now taking a top position with the CCP’s owned and controlled social media app TikTok. President Donald Trump was trying to ban TikTok before the mass mailer President reversed the decision. Now it appears he’s also lending his best minds to help the Communist Party do better harvesting hearts and minds from American teens, for the good of the whole.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
TikTok hires former Biden campaign press secretary, Pentagon spokesman for top gig at Chinese-owned video app – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Senior Republican and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr discusses the Chinese Communist Party’s data harvesting practices for its ‘malign goals.’
A former campaign spokesman for President Biden and top Pentagon official has taken a job at TikTok.
It was first revealed in Politico newsletter on Tuesday that Jamal Brown is “joining TikTok to manage policy communications for the Americas, primarily focusing on the United States.”
TikTok has not appeared to put out an official statement regarding the hiring decision, but Brown’s Twitter bio has already been updated to show his employment for the Chinese-owned social media app.
From February 2021 until February 2022, Brown served as the deputy Pentagon press secretary at the U.S. Department of Defense. He previously worked as one of three national press secretaries for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Previously, we have talked about ersatz combat vehicles at length. While 300 angry people, armed with 200 machetes, 100 rifles and 50 rounds of ammunition made a respectable revolution as late as the mid-1990’s, the proliferation cheap, reliable and effect modern combat rifles around the world have shifted insurgent capabilities and tactics, there has been little movement in the other realms of physical combat, outside of the land environment.
Where any group armed with modern automatic weapons can turn themselves into “motorized cavalry” by seizing a used car and truck dealership and a tanker truck of fuel, there have been few examples of groups organizing actual combat ships on water, using what are essentially armed civilian pleasure craft – it happens, but infrequently.
Likewise, the use of equally ersatz militarized drones has been on the rise, for surveillance, assassination and combat. This theater of use has been accelerated in recent years, as many drones with significant capabilities, from a military perspective, are available “off the shelf” for well under US$200, with many retailing at under US$100. Expanding the capabilities of such devices requires little investment for a group able to recruit young and tech-savvy teens and early-20’s with an interest in gaming and computer mods.
Far more rare, are instances of “guerrilla air forces.” Appearing in significant numbers only twice since WW2, civilian aircraft being used as “armed combatant craft” usually appear in one’s and two’s, used by small states and groups who can only afford (or receive through donations) the kind of small, single-engine aircraft that are normally used for leisure flying or primary flight instruction for trainee pilots.
The question at hand, then, is this: Can an insurgent force create their own air force? That is what we will examine in this article.
The first questions to answer are, Where is the insurgent force getting its aircraft?, and What kind of aircraft can they easily acquire?
The first thing to understand, is that our hypothetical guerrilla force is not (probably) going to be buying craft like the AT-6B Wolverine, A-29 Super Tucano, AT-802L Longsword. These aircraft are being developed by defense contractors for established governments; for an insurgent group to obtain dedicated craft like this would require major-nation support. What we are discussing here, is the insurgent force acquiring specifically civilian craft, and using them as an “air force.”
The insurgent force will be limited, first, by its financial levels – aircraft, even small craft like a Piper or an immortal Cessna 172 (go ahead – reflect on the irony…Moving on…) or 208 Caravan are expensive, for a small group, with a Cessna 172 coming in at around US$40-50,000 for a used model, each. Obviously, this is a major impediment, unless a group is very well funded.
On the other hand, these small aircraft can be effectively armed; can land on almost any flat patch of ground or blacktop road long enough; require no overly complicated tools or equipment to maintain, and have cheap and readily available spare parts and maintenance manuals available on the open market. These aircraft can – and are – be hidden in rural barns and warehouses very effectively, only requiring a door large enough for their wings.
Given the above, then, the next question is, Where can the prospective insurgent air force get its pilot?
The one major downside to an insurgent force using aircraft is the need for competent training. While learning to fly a basic aircraft such as a Piper or a Cessna is not actually difficult for most people with a decent high school education to learn, teaching one to fly requires a pilot with at least 250 flight hours to begin training for such a rating as an Instructor Pilot (IP). However, there are plenty of IP’s out there who could be recruited to train pilots for an insurgent force.
Ground maintenance on these common civilian airframes, as previously stated, is not difficult, and spares are common enough to not present major issues. That brings us to weapons: what can you arm these airplanes with?
Simply placing one or two people armed with rifles in the back seats of these kinds of aircraft, and having them shoot at enemies on the ground is not complicated. Likewise, hanging machine guns out of a side door is also relatively uncomplicated to set up.
Salvage and theft of opposition government aircraft – as well as weapons bought on the black market – is another important source of ground-to-air capability. In like manner to recovered helicopter rocket pods being used as ground-to-ground multiple rocket launchers since the civil wars in Libya, the same pods could be mounted to civilian airframes.
This is especially true for smaller pods, such as the venerable Hydra-70 rocket pods. In fact, the prevalence of mounting the ex-Soviet SA-5 rocket system, fired by UB-16 and UB-32 launchers to “technical vehicles” in both Libya and Syria have begun to inspire Western firms to begin cashing on the market, with such “drop-in kits” as the new V.A.M.P.I.R.E. system, which is a drop-in kit for a conventional civilian pickup truck, giving it the ability to fire four Hydra-70 rockets at a time in the ground-to-ground role.
As well, should the guerrilla force come into possession of anti-aircraft weapons such as the Stinger missile, that force could conceivably mount such weapons to a civilian airframe, which would be a very nasty surprise to any opposing aircraft that did not know about them.
Note that the foregoing applies to helicopters, as well, although rotary-wing craft are generally more expensive than their comparable brethren.
So…Is it possible for a guerrilla/insurgent force to create and operate an actual “air force” on the cheap? The answer, clearly, is a solid Yes, albeit with caveats concerning the perennial problem of money. Such a force would clearly be no match against a First World air force, but it likely won’t need to, at least initially.
Never become complacent inside your box…because someone is always outside, thinking about how to get in.
TIKTOK REVEALS UK AND EU USER DATA CAN BE ACCESSED BY CCP – TikTok’s head of privacy for Europe, Elaine Fox, may have inadvertently revealed the CCP has access to European private user data when she responded to a query about who can access this private data. She said, “we allow certain employees within our corporate group located in Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States remote access to TikTok European user data.”
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
TikTok says staff in China can access UK and EU user data – www.bbc.co.uk
Excerpt:
Elaine Fox, the platform’s head of privacy for Europe, said in a statement on Wednesday that a global team helped to keep the user experience “consistent, enjoyable and safe”.
Although TikTok currently stores European user data in the US and Singapore, “we allow certain employees within our corporate group located in Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States remote access to TikTok European user data,” Ms Fox said.
“Our efforts are centred on limiting the number of employees with access to European user data, minimising data flows outside of the region, and storing European user data locally,” she added.
ELON MUSK WITH THE LEFT’S MORALITY POLICE – Elon Musk, the alleged champion of free speech who recently bought the social media giant Twitter, has just met with the worst offenders of leftist morality policing, including the ADL, the NAACP, and Color of Change. He appears to have made an agreement with them to meet some of their concerns, signaling to many Americans his faux commitment to free speech. The move could potentially alienate the left, who will never get enough, and the right, who have simply had enough.
NEWSWATCH BLURB:
Elon Musk’s Twitter meeting with ADL and NAACP – news.google.com
Excerpt:
Civil rights leaders confronted Elon Musk about the uptick of tweets containing racial slurs since he took over Twitter in a virtual meeting Tuesday afternoon….
The group — which included the heads of the Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change, Free Press, the Asian American Foundation, the NAACP, and the George W. Bush Presidential Center — walked away with a few verbal commitments from Musk, which he tweeted publicly early Wednesday.
But attendees say they’re waiting to see whether Musk follows those commitments with action. “He seemed to be listening. He seemed to be earnest,” said Jessica González, co-CEO of the nonprofit Free Press. “But he’s also shown himself to be inconsistent. We will judge him by his deeds, not his words.” Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
