U.S. Defense contractor Planet Risk, Inc. discovered sensitive U.S. mission data buried in app data that is sold to data brokers. The data was pulled from popular apps such as weather, games, dating services, and social media apps that collect a user’s location. The sensitive data showed U.S. troops traveling to Syria from abroad and gathering at Lafarge cement factory in northern Syria. The contractor was working on a software prototype when its employees came across the sensitive data. Byron Tau of The WSJ writes (abridged): WASHINGTON—In 2016, a U.S. defense contractor named PlanetRisk … [Read more...]
Meet the Henry Lever Action Axe .410
A client just secured a Henry Axe, a lever-action .410 with a five-round capacity and a short stock for easy storage. Here's how Henry describes the gun: Not all firearms need to fit neatly into categories like hunting, home protection, or good ol’ backyard plinking. We feel that simply being fun to pull out of the scabbard and shoot again and again should be a category all its own. For those that join us in considering this an important category, the Lever Action Axe .410 delivers in spades. It’s fun, for sure, but it also has more practicality than meets the eye. The Axe has the same … [Read more...]
DARPA’s ACE Program Notches Key Accomplishments
According to DARPA, the purpose of the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program is “to develop trusted, scalable, human-level, AI-driven autonomy for air combat by using human-machine collaborative dogfighting as its challenge problem.” In simple terms, that means staging mock fights between AI and human pilots to train the AI to be better. After humiliating an experienced F-16 fighter pilot in a 5-0 defeat in the AlphaDogFight finals, artificial intelligence (AI) is turning its attention to ACE's Phase 2 live-fly sub-scale aircraft scenarios scheduled for late 2021. The ability for AI algorithms … [Read more...]
Top 10 Reasons to Own an AR-15
Originally posted December 13, 2018. You’ll benefit from spending some time reading “Top 10 Reasons You Should Own an AR-15,” by Mark Overstreet writing for the Federalist. One of the major misconceptions with the AR-15 is that it’s “automatic.” This is false. If you pull the trigger of an AR-15 and hold it in for five or ten seconds—one round will be fired. That’s it. No more. You control the pace of the next round fired—not the rifle. One more point, I own a Colt AR-15 and can tell you it shoots as smoothly as a hot knife through a stick of butter. You don’t have to reload it, … [Read more...]
#1 Reason Why Your Survival Guy Owns an AR-10
Originally posted on October 22, 2020. Your Survival Guy filled out paperwork last night for an ArmaLite AR-10. For those of you wondering why, I did it for three reasons. For one, I have a friend who owns a ranch in Texas—an expanse as far as the eye can see. He owns an AR-10. Your Survival guy was intrigued. Second, I see it as a complement to my AR-15. The caliber ammo for an AR-10 is .308. An AR-15 .223. Unless you’ve been living in Joe Biden’s basement the last few months, you know ammo is as rare as hens’ teeth—and expensive. A little diversification never hurt no one. Your Survival … [Read more...]
Your Personal Safety: Check Your Gun Safe Regularly
You don’t want to be in a position where an avoidable system-fail puts you in a bad spot. Here’s a quick fix I’ve done to my Sentry Safe. Another bit of required maintenance for many of these gun safes is changing the battery. Make a schedule for yourself to regularly check your safe's battery and replace it when necessary. The last thing you want to find yourself doing is fumbling around in the dark looking for your backup key when there's trouble coming up your stairs. Action Line: Your firearm relies on a number of support systems in order to be useful. Things like your safe, … [Read more...]
Sikorsky’s X2 Technology Leads the Way to Future Vertical Lift
The U.S. military’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) plan is about to drastically change the coming decades of warfare. Companies like Bell and Sikorsky are going head-to-head for the opportunity to redefine next generation of Army aviation. Sikorsky is doing that with its new X2 Technology. The aircraft will fly farther, faster, quieter, and with greater maneuverability and survivability. Future Vertical Lift (FVL) RAIDER X: Future Armed Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) DEFIANT X: Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) … [Read more...]
US Army Wants to Vaporize Threats with Powerful New Laser
Imagine harnessing the power it takes to light up 1.7 trillion light bulbs and shooting it through a lens at an object. That is just what the U.S. Army’s new Tactical Ultrashort Laser (USPL) hopes to do. The laser will be the most powerful in the Army’s arsenal. It’s a million times more powerful than any other. It’s designed to reach a terawatt of output. That’s a mind boggling 1 trillion watts of energy. It will emit short, pulse like bursts, unlike conventional lasers who emit a continuous beam. It has the power to vaporize a drone’s surface and cause a blast wave. A working prototype is … [Read more...]
UPGRADE! B-2 Bomber Could Get MAJOR New EMP Hardware
As the U.S. military becomes ever more reliant on the latest technology, the threat of a crippling attack by an EMP weapon grows. As Dr. Lowell Wood writes, "EMP is much more threatening to modern electronics than to old-fashioned ones." Older larger components are extremely rugged and more tolerant to EMP interference, but as tinier transistors make their way into military electronics, so does an inherent vulnerability. Moore's Law, which states that leading-edge integrated-circuit electronics shrink in an area by two-fold every year-and-a-half, only assures that this vulnerability will … [Read more...]
Key Figures in U.S. Airstrike that Killed Soleimani
UPDATE: Reports are surfacing that the Hellfire’s big brother, the JAGM was used in the Soleimani strike. - Steve Schneider The key figures in the January 3 U.S. airstrike that killed Qassem Soleimani have been identified, most notably Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and commander of Kataeb Hezbollah. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was listed as a terrorist in the United Arab Emirates and the United States. Some security experts are divided on whether Muhandis was specifically targeted or if he was a bonus kill. Iranian and Iraqi officials have … [Read more...]