Persistence proved to be a winning strategy for one app developer this weekend. Metadata+, data artist Josh Begley’s iOS app that presents “real-time updates on national security,” was approved and released by Apple. The app, formerly known as Drones+, had been rejected by Apple several times prior to its release. In one rejection letter, Apple noted […]
A hum of activity pulls two cities together. In one, the shuffle of feet and the rush of cars compose the soundtrack to a morning rush hour. In the other we hear the excited bustling of a town nearing the end of long preparations for a shining, global sporting event. From afar, the buzz that […]
President Barack Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 28, addressed a number of foreign policy issues, from Iran, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the winding down of a 13-year war in Afghanistan. There were, however, some significant gaps. Here are three of them: 1.) Military sexual assault Despite a heavy focus on […]
In addition to leaks about the use of “leaky” mobile apps — including the highly-popular Angry Birds — yesterday’s revelations included a document dump explaining a program called “Squeaky Dolphin.” A slideshow entitled “Psychology A New Kind of SIGDEV” from Britain’s Government Security Headquarters (GCHQ) and obtained by NBC News via Edward Snowden the equivalent of […]
On the heels of Obama’s signal intelligence speech and just a day before the president’s State of the Union address, yet another Snowden document dump has come to the fore, this time detailing data collection activities from leaky mobile apps, such as Angry Birds. Mobile networks have proven to be a rich resource for the […]
Three days before Obama’s highly anticipated speech on Friday, January 17, and amidst further revelations of the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers, former Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court officials are raising a ruckus. Judge John D. Bates—former presiding judge of the FISC and current director of the Administrative Office of the United States Court—has raised a number […]
From botched attacks to UAV landings to Jeff Bezos’ fleet, drones have made headlines in 2013. Here are some of the most important 2013 events in the UAV world. X-47B carrier landing The X-47B, Northrop Grumman’s unmanned aerial combat vehicle (UCAV) designed for carrier-based operations, made headlines earlier this year as it became the first unmanned […]
On Dec. 11, 2013, a U.S. drone strike mistakenly struck a wedding convoy in an isolated region of Yemen, taking out five suspected Al Qaeda militants along with a dozen civilians in the process. The Obama administration’s “new” drone policy—announced by the president on May 23, 2013, in a speech at National Defense University—promised more […]
The Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Justice has released his year-end review, “Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Department of Justice.” Up there on the list of “challenges” facing the DOJ? Domestic use of drones, particularly by law enforcement. IG Michael Horowitz emphasizes that while unmanned systems will undoubtably prove to be hugely […]
In one of the odder efforts to “protect” Fourth Amendment rights, a small town in Colorado has taken to the practice of “drone hunting.” Led by Phil Steel, the Deer Tail drone hunters have proposed an ordinance that seeks “to defend the sovereign airspace of the Town of Deer Trail, Colorado, and that of its […]
Last Friday, December 13, Google announced its acquisition of Boston Dynamics, a prominent robotics manufacturer. Boston Dynamics is most famous for producing robots resembling animal-like quadrapeds and bipeds with remarkable agility and balance. Despite a streak of other robotics company acquisitions in the past half year, Google’s purchase of Boston Dynamics is significant in that […]
In an effort to speed up the “formal verification”—the process of checking whether a design or model adheres to a certain set of requirements—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants you to play online games. DARPA’s Crowd Sourced Formal Verification (CSFV) project, as per their website, “seeks to replace the intensive work done by […]
A couple of months ago I attended DARC, the Drones and Aerial Robotics Conference, at New York University. The conference brought together a mishmash of computer nerds, drone aficionados, engineers, policy wonks and a handful of (mostly friendly) robots. One of the strangest debates—one that is playing itself out among the American public and policymakers […]
“With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions — about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them.” —- President Obama (May, 2013) “The biggest, meanest, most advanced destroyer ever operated by the U.S Navy is about to hit the water […]
Hosted by Sarwar Kashmeri, the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions podcast series will headline issues together with the leaders whose decisions today will mold the foreign policy of tomorrow. Each podcast will deal with a different Great Decisions topic in the 2014 series, a list of which can be found here. Our first podcast will […]