Morning Coffee: Energy is US Cyber’s Weak Link
Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Leader’s owners or staff.
Just as in the nuclear industry in the wake of the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, the government needs to leverage insurance advantages to support cyber-security standards for all sized energy distributors, says a report out of the Bipartisan Policy Center. FCW reports more than half of 256 critical infrastructure attacks in 2013 involving the energy sector, particularly electrical systems.
Michael Hirsh of the National Journal, posting in DefenseOne, calls for a strong US response to Russia regarding Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “red line.” Mr. Hirsh provides a brief history leading to why these nations are at this brink: Ukraine is the last in a crumbling border between the historically Soviet-era nations aligned with Russia and those migrating toward Western Europe.
It was in Budapest, nearly 20 years ago, the US, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland welcomed Ukraine as a non-nuclear nation into the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and pledged to maintain the borders and rights of Ukraine as regarded the nation’s independence and sovereignty. This memorandum is a document of the US government stored at Wikisource.
Expect a slower acquisition schedule for the Littoral Combat Ship, reports Bloomberg, but the Navy still plans to spend $2.1 billion on three in FY15, instead of four; although whether Lockheed or Austal Ltd. gets the buy is still undetermined. The LCA haggling began as a re-examination in January about halfway through the Navy’s planned 52-ship buy. DefSec Chuck Hagel announced no new purchases beyond 32 of the Littoral Combat Ships and sought alternatives from the Navy for a small surface combat ship, reports Defense News.
NavySec Ray Mabus suggested “contract courts” could help the Navy and Marine Corps justify $40 billion a year on service contracts. “Why do we have the contract? Has it been re-bid lately? Is it the best price we can get? Is it needed?” DefCon Hill reported from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. To prioritize spending on force the secretary stressed the need to reign in personnel noting military compensation is now 40% higher than civilian. And he again stressed long-term cost savings in developing biofuel toward energy independence.
There is 3D printing and soon may come 3D modeling with liquid metal that can configure itself. One of the products under development by Chinese scientists could lead to a self-printing of soft robot, says DefenseTech. The reports notes that Apple has at least five liquid metal patents pending.
The weather satellite is back on orbit, reports FCW, and promises to live up to its next-gen status providing continuous surveillance of total lightning over the western hemisphere from space, sensors that will monitor radiation hazards, monitoring for solar flares, measurements of particle dynamics hazardous to spacecraft and human spaceflight and new severe weather forecast products including monitoring of volcanic ash, fire, smoke, and other types of hazards.
NextGov reports that the administration wants you to know that it isn’t only government collecting massive amounts of data about you. “On Facebook, there are some 350 million photos uploaded and shared every day. On YouTube, 100 hours of video is uploaded every minute,” said the on-point adviser to Pres. Obama, John Podesta, at an MIT conference this week.
