Issue 346 Can the military fight without electronics May 29, 2014

   

Based on my limited knowledge, the military has become highly dependent on electronic devices to carry out its operations.  Global positioning systems require satellites and the ability to interpret the data via computer. Aircraft need computers to fly as their designs are purposefully made aerodynamically unstable.  Ground troops rely on computers to help aim and fire their guns.  So what can the military do to save themselves from something like an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)?

Faraday cages:  A Faraday cage is a metal cage that acts as a shield for electronic equipment.  It essentially uses a metal box, metal mesh, or layers of each to block electromagnetic radiation from reaching the object inside.  Essentially, this is a form of shielding from EMP, and other similar waves that may disrupt or destroy electronic equipment.  Certain military facilities are sure to have and use this technology already, but is enough of their facilities equipped with this shielding to protect the equipment inside?  Basically, can we take a tank and encase its most sensitive components in a Faraday cage to protect it so that in the event of a nuclear blast that it can still turn on and function.  All this is possible so as to protect all combat equipment in the Army, Navy, Air-force and Marines (and the rest of the defense industry and power grid as well).   The military needs this high tech equipment to coordinate tactics and strategy along with coordinate logistics.  Without this tech, our military and the defense infrastructure of the United States would be brought back to the 1800's.  In short, without such protection, the U.S. would be helpless.

Alternative GPS/communications Satellites:  One other essential system that is required by our military to function is GPS and other satellites.  Without these, our precision munitions, location tracking and communications would be limited.  Yes, I said we can protect them with a Faraday cage, but the other military's of the world are also looking into missiles that strike these communication and guidance systems to remove them by shooting them down and the capabilities of the United States to defend itself along with it.  So there are two options.  One is to create man portable communication towers and aircraft that can hoover above the battlefield providing these very same capabilities, while at the same time networking via internet with other systems and surviving ones.  The other is to try and use stealth technology.  For option one, you can have a series of small blimps/aircraft that can stay aloft for days at a time to provide all the observation, recon photos you want along with GPS and communications ability.  Towers equipped to command vehicles will receive date to transmit it to forces, or said forces will have their own methods of communicating with these flying systems.  The other option which uses stealth technologies will invest in creating satellites invisible to enemy sensors, or have a defense system to either overload the incoming missiles guidance system, or shoot it down entirely.  These are the main options here.

Passive:  The final piece that will help the military to protect itself is to use passive sensor and communications technology.  Here, in order to detect and target the enemy, the military uses a system to locate the source of the enemy's radar, or communications equipment.  By finding the source the military can target the enemy nearly undetected. In addition, they can use other satellites and communications equipment owned by other countries by hacking in and using it to replace lost systems.  This will force the enemy to even destroy their own satellites or face them being turned against them.  In this way, the military can adapt to their situation.

Conclusion:  While these solutions present real possibilities, they will not solve the overall problem.  As such, the military will still need to train in augmented training scenarios to communicate and fight without certain equipment being available to them.  As such, being able to fight primitively has its advantages. So as long our military learns to adapt, and takes steps to protect itself, it can continue protecting us. 

Issue 345 Government V. Private funding May 28, 2014

The Government seems to take a lot of credit for a lot of inventions in America.  But in fact private (who does it better) is looked down upon.  But in truth the government plays a supporting role to the private with respect to inventions and progress.  Let's discuss.

What Government has helped do and how:  Government generally gets credit for creating the internet, space travel and a host of other gadgets, gizmos and tech.  But in truth, all they did was pay private companies or individuals to help build these various pieces of technology. So in truth government, while it was involved in the funding and acquisition of the good/service, it was not the government who invented it.  However, government does continue to play a supporting role even after the invention is finished.  For instance, nuclear technology is supported by the government through subsidies.  This government money insures that a nuclear power-plant remains cheap to build for the company that will ultimately run and operate the facility.  This occurs again with respect to electric cars, and solar/wind farms.  Money is provided by the government to make it cheaper to build and even operate over the course of time.  The main drawback is that it costs us, the taxpayers’ money to do so.  Also, there is zero guarantee of success of the investment.  Unlike the private sector good money can be wasted if the people in government refuse to give up on a worthy cause.

Private:  The private sector as stated in previous articles is more flexible and capable than its government counterpart.  It can find a niche market and profit from it. Not to mention the fact that it costs the taxpayers no money.  With flexibility and innovation the private market turned the internet into the key component of business in the 21st century.  They gave us the car, the train, the plane, the telephone and nearly everything else we take for granted each and every day.  Now we have places where we can invest money to create new things called crowd funding.  Here a movie producer, an inventor or really anyone with a product or an idea can ask for money to be donated to them in order for their goal to be achieved.  Nowhere else is this possible than in the private sector.  However, if no profit is to be made, then the business venture may die off and not return until a later time when the invention or product is more feasible.  This is because not all inventions can be successful, which results in stagnation in particular instances.  Also, a business may hold back on bringing a new technology onto market because it threatens one of their already existing products. 

Conclusion:  So who is better, a government with nearly unlimited resources, or a private institution where there is more guarantee that no money will be wasted.  Government can't claim responsibility for all that has been invented as all has been done through private individuals or groups.  It can however say it helped.  So who would you rely on, a government that can waste your money, or a private company whom you may have to be patient with?  From my little experience, I will take the private sector for at least I'm nearly guaranteed to have a successful product.

Issue 344 Free Speech on Campus May 27, 2014

Colleges are supposed to be zones of discussion.  On a college campus free speech is meant to be supported to drive the learning process.  And yet they are not.  Why?

How they limit speech:  Many of the college campuses in the United States do not allow free speech save within a specified area.  Usually this area is small, out of the way and thus the least likely to be encountered or seen by the rest of the student body.  It seems odd doesn't it?  That they would confine speech to a specific area.  Well, this zone is also used for any protesters of a cause too, and for advocacy groups that the campus my not necessarily agree with.  Meanwhile the accepted groups can set up club booths in the main common areas to ask people to join while embracing their free speech rights based on their club or society and what they do.  So this is a double standard which seeks to allow groups on campus the college wants to be heard in the public eye with those they disagree with isolated.  So why do this?  What's the point?

Opinion on why:  I believe that all colleges have some sort of agenda they wish to put forth.  They allow only those they agree with to be heard and sometimes even invite them into the classroom.  On the other hand, groups that the college disagrees with or are not popular must via for a single spot on campus to speak.  Of course, as stated, this free speech zone is out of the way and rarely seen by the majority of the student body.  So these protests that may for example advocate for traditional marriage, certain rights and/or privileges get isolated to the back of a campus.  I mean look at the maps of a campus and see for yourself where they place their free speech zone.  

They may possibly do this just to isolate and change the culture of the campus and thus society itself.  Think about it.  The next generation of college students will only think in a certain way as advocated by the college.  It is because of this that a college can influence the very culture of a country.  Multiply this by all the colleges and across generational lines and views that the colleges want will eventually overtake the views of every previous generation causing a new culture in a country.  Is it about control?  Is it about altering the countries state of mind?  Control is a no, but state of mind is a maybe because there have been many good and bad things to happen to a country in the past which many of the intellectuals who run colleges want to fix (even if they have already been fixed by natural evolution of the culture itself).  

Conclusion:  Basically, there is no actual free speech on campus because the colleges want students steered in a specific direction.  Should they do this?  No, not at all, for it is manipulation of individuals.  Students go to college to learn about a career while acquiring the skills and knowledge to achieve that career, not to be preached to.  In order to learn, colleges need to allow for the full freedom of speech which enables students to question and thus seek truth by acquiring it themselves.  It is no wonder why colleges are fading with the changes in the job market, they are not focused on giving you your money's worth anymore, just rhetoric of what they want to pass.

Issue 343 Scrap Dining May 26, 2014

Last week we talked a lot about serious topics so I wanted to start off this week by being not so serious.  Right now there is a movement to not throw out as much food waste because much of that food is still usable (thanks Food Network).  So let’s go over some of these items that we don't realize are still good to eat.

Meat:  We throw out meat allot.  That meat still on the bone is still good to eat and can be taken off to make a great pot pie, shredded BBQ sandwich or other dish that requires shredded meat.  This includes that whole turkey at the Thanksgiving feast or that goose you cooked up for tonight's dinner.  But instead we throw it away where it ends up as rat food.

Sauces:  Have you kept that pasta sauce from last night’s pasta dish?  Well my father did.  He would collect the leftover sauce from the pot and store it as a base.  Then the next time he needed to make pasta, he would break out the base and then add just enough new ingredients to suit our meal at dinner time.  As such the sauce was never wasted.  This too can work for other sauces depending on shelf life.  Also, some of these sauces like soy sauce or duck can be used in other dishes to add another level of taste to a dish.  In the same way you can use flat soda as a sugar substitute in making a cake, you can use something like soy sauce in place of polished salt due to the salt content already in the sauce.  You just have to match the ingredient with the dish you are making.

Veggies and fruits:  Potatoes are an excellent example on recycling parts to make a delicious dish.  Don't throw out those potato skins when making mashed potatoes, but fill them with cheese and bacon for a potato skin snack. Orange peels can be grated to make lemon zest.  Pepper seeds can be crushed to flavor certain dishes.  Heck even peeps the marshmallow snack can be melted down to candy bacon (yea I know marshmallows aren't fruits or veggies, but they come from processed sugar >.<).  There are many things you can do to recycle parts of food that you may throw out for something else.

Conclusion:  Anything can be recycled so long as you know how.  Bacon grease and lard can be used to season a pan when making delicious foods.  Even fruits (after juicing) and veggies (leftovers from cooking) can be put in a processor to make a healthy smoothly if you like.  Literally, food parts and components can be used to make great cooking.  For what’s left that is inedible, be glad as there is the compost heap or even a grinder to make fertilizer for use in your own gardens.  Happy eating by preventing wasted food.

Issue 342 Protecting The Stock Market May 23, 2014

This is a hard one.  The stock market is not just infrastructure like a building or something on a computer to be protected from hackers and viruses.  It can also be manipulated by manipulating the prices of goods and services, by major buying and selling of stock, and even fear of risk itself.  So how do you protect this ultra-sensitive institution from a crash like the one during the great depression or the crash of 2007/8?

Protection?:  I am not a stock market expert.  Then again neither is Congress as they made that horrible law called Dodd Frank.  There is evidence that the processes that traditionally go on the market can be manipulated by just buying and selling as per normal.  And the fact is that it cannot be stopped.  Everything from currencies, natural resources, inventions and businesses are all invested in.  If someone buys a lot of stock and then sells it rapidly (and if the person, corporation or even country is well known) it could trigger a massive sell off by all other members trading on the market out of fear that they will lose money.  We unfortunately cannot protect from that as we may be able to control our own citizens and how we trade, but we cannot stop individuals from other countries.  So how do we fix this situation?

Mutual assured economic destruction:  We all know of the nuclear policy called MAD (mutually assured destruction).  However, they also developed a similar strategy in case of an invasion or non-nuclear conflict.  Basically the reason why the United States market crash affected the rest of the world is due to the ties between our stock market and the markets overseas. This was meant to be the solution that prevented such occurrences of economic or even conventional warfare attack as it would ruin the attacking countries economy as well. However, a rich country can position itself to reduce the damage while still destroying another country economically.  So what are we to do about this?  

Mutually assured economic destruction is still the answer, but it must be enhanced.  I believe that the market each day at 4 pm should actually never close (not just online but physically as well).  It is my belief that this will allow people to react immediately to any changes in the market including another crash (whether purposeful or not).  Traders can have an alarm set if any harm over a certain value happens to their investments which would wake them to counteract their losses.   In addition, I would allow insider trading to occur unchecked.  Reason being is that no one can really enforce the law in the first place and that as long as everyone is told publicly within a set period of time, then it should not matter who and when an individual reacts to that news.  This allows the damage to be reduced on the individual level by allowing faster reactions to market changes as they occur. 

Next ties between foreign nations and their economies should be strengthened as much as possible.  This will create an interdependence that will make any country think twice about an economic based attack.  For those countries that try to insulate themselves from economic crashes pre-attack.  A mechanism must be put in place to ensure that they suffer enough consequences for their actions that even if they wanted to further their attack via other methods that the suffering of their economy would prevent them.  What that method is, I do not know, but I do not advocate a financial penalty as that is too weak, as why would they even bother paying the fine.  Perhaps a more robust blacklisting of only those involved in the incident and only if wrong doing was confirmed (if they purposely made the crash happen).  Beyond that I do not know.

Recovery:  What is more essential will be the recovery after the fact. Right now America's economy is crawling back to its former glory instead of racing.  The reason is due to specific obstacles.  One is taxes on investments.  These taxes stagnate an economy making it harder for investors to purchase stock and for newer investors to invest in the first place.  Also, the government has even gone so far as to dictate, in certain instances, how certain businesses and individuals should invest and on how these businesses should perform their services which puts them at risk of financial ruin.  Government does not know how to run a business and thus should stop trying as all they are doing is risking that business failing which in turn negatively disrupts and harms to stock market.  Finally, licenses that hinder businesses opening should be made easier to obtain or abolished altogether.  These inhibit business growth which again harms and potentially stagnant the stock market.  Do these things and watch the market roar back to life.

Conclusion:  I apologize to anyone who knows the market better than I do.  Sure I am a novice (even as an investor) but insuring the safety of the market against fools who would crash it on purpose to suit their needs is something we must protect against.  I know not what to do against fiscally irresponsible governments like my own, or terrorists who manage to gain enough influence in the market to disrupt it using legal means.  All I know though is that there must be a way, and to do it we all have to work together (whether anyone likes it or not).

Issue 341 Protecting infrastructure May 22, 2014

Infrastructure includes, roads, bridges, tunnels, power plants and other energy generating sources, railroads and airports.  These various facilities facilitate the world we live in and make life as we know it possible.  However, whose job is it to protect these objects from possible attack?  Let us look at the pros and cons of government versus private yet again in the context of protecting the nation’s life blood of commerce.

Government:  Similar to yesterday, the government has the advantage of an unlimited money supply to make enhancements to protect our infrastructure.  They can fix it when it is damaged and maintain it when it is too expensive to repair by private company means.  However, that money spent is not always spent wisely.  Contract overruns, pulled budgets, and corruption take their toll. Also, despite having an unlimited money supply, printing all that money can cause negative economic consequences that could increase poverty.   

The government also has access to intelligence networks to prevent and preempt an attack from happening.  Not only does the government have access to its own intelligence network, but to other allied and neutral countries networks as well.  However, like with the Boston Bombing indecent, intelligence can be, and will be, ignored on occasion.  Thus, despite the sheer amount of resources at the government’s disposal to react, they may fail to act in the first place.

Additionally, unlike the private sector, the government has the judicial branch.  They can capture people caught in the act and then prosecute them.  However, private as of yet has no means of performing this delicate function of government.

Private:  Private has the advantage of it being small scale where they can focus on a specific facilities defense exclusively. As such, due to that focus it is not uncommon for them to innovate to maintain highly skilled and professional private security forces to act as guards and to develop security methods indicative to the particular object they wish to protect.  Government has trouble with this as they have a broader blanket approach to such things.  

When it comes to repair, the private sector innovates to ensure that things can get done quickly and efficiently.  They, who guard the facility, may not have to be able to repair the facility as they can have individuals hired to do that same task on their behalf as part of their job.  In their contract they can have a clause that even has them fortify the facility from things like electromagnetic pulse weapons and other forms of unorthodox attacks.  

Intelligence wise, the private sector has begun to get into the spy game in the same way they got into the use of mercenaries to protect certain assets.  Since the war on terror started under President George W. Bush, the private sector intelligence groups have been used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies to gather information on their behalf, especially when they are shorthanded when there is no focus or obvious threat from that country.

Conclusion:  In certain cases, the government is better, while in others private is better.  For instance a private security force with adequate intelligence from government and private sources can protect an airport, a nuclear power plant or a bus depot very efficiently.  On the other hand, a bridge or a tunnel is much harder to protect which typically leaves government as the de facto protector (as was the case of the Lincoln Tunnel indecent which NYPD's anti-terror team stopped).  On top of this, private is typically more motivated as they can be fired while the government can't.  Best example is with the TSA guarding our nation’s airports versus those in private industry guarding our airports.  The private sector security is rewarded for their good work and activities by the private company. The private company even designs exorcises to enhance quality and motivation even further leading to a better success rate on finding banned items in luggage than their government employed counterparts.  So you can see that there is a certain level of difference with respect to how well we will be protected and by whom when you think about it.  So it is all a matter of applying which group to protect what based on capability.  So yes, I am fine with a private company protecting a power plant and fortifying it from attack over the government which would be better suited to the offensives role of terrorist hunting.

Issue 340 Protecting the Net (whose job is it?) May 21, 2014

So whose job is it to protect the internet?  Truth is, the people of the United States are still discussing the issue. So let’s go over go over advantages to both public and private defending the internet that we have all come to rely on.

Government:  The main advantage to the government is that it has an unlimited budget to develop the systems needed to protect the net.  Groups in the defense industry like the National Security Agency (NSA) already serve to aid in protecting the net via various firewall and software programs.  In fact it was one of their primary jobs until Congress allowed for private companies to develop their own and sell their own anti-virus and protective software.  Now the NSA mainly serves as a spy agency to collect data via electronic means with the Air-force taking control of the defense of the net, but primarily does so for the military.  With the governments vast resources they can fund any program and institution to develop any program they need for the past, present and future threats the internet may face.

Private:  Private companies have a major advantage over the government.  For one they are on a budget.  Thus, despite their limited resources they can get an equivalent program to defend the internet much cheaper than in most cases than what the government will put forth (as corruption is sure to occur at the governmental level).  Also, while the government may rely on a single program, the private sector may develop multiple types of systems for their own protection which will frustrate hackers and foreign governments. Basically variety and cost saving are typically the main advantages here.

Conclusion:  In my opinion, both government and private companies have a role to play.  But both lack attack components (though the private sector is changing that somewhat).  So it really remains to be seen if either will have a settled role in the defense of the internet.  However, it is my opinion that the private sector provides so much more in advantages including variety, and flexibility of defensive abilities and development, that they will take the prominent role in the defense of the internet (including themselves).  For the government, they will revert here to a source of information sharing for any potential threats (though the private sector will have an overlapping role in this) and act as a funding body for the private sector for any new emerging threats that the private sector has yet to have a counter for (of course that is if the private sector has not already taken steps to counter the threat).  Overall the internet is a valuable resource for all commerce and its collapse will result in market crashes and the loss of all defensive abilities that countries like the United States has.  So we can only hope government allows the private sector with its superior advantages to take the lead, less the government is more concerned about their ego than the defense of the nation itself.