Constella Intelligence’s Post

If you have been wanting to do business with aliens, think again. A lengthy Defense Department review of U.S. government activities related to “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” more commonly known as UFOs, has found no evidence that extraterrestrial intelligence has visited Earth or that authorities have recovered crashed alien spacecraft and are hiding them from the public. The review, publicly released Friday, covered all official U.S. investigatory efforts from 1945 to the present and examined classified and unclassified government archives. It was unequivocal in its conclusions, finding “no evidence that any [U.S. government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.” Reports of flying objects or suspected alien craft usually turned out to have quotidian explanations: They were “ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” sometimes by well-meaning witnesses who thought they had spotted something otherworldly. The report is likely to be scrutinized and rejected by independent investigators, former U.S. personnel and conspiracy theorists who appear convinced that the government is hiding evidence of alien life and has constructed an elaborate set of classified programs devoted to reverse-engineering their technology. Last summer, a former intelligence officer who had served on a Pentagon UAP task force sparked headlines and speculation when he told Congress that the government has a secret repository of downed alien spacecraft and corpses. The new report, compiled by the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), directly addressed those allegations. “AARO determined, based on all information provided to date, that claims involving specific people, known locations, technological tests, and documents allegedly involved in or related to the reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology, are inaccurate,” the office stated in a 60-plus-page unclassified document. Even before the report was published, critics of the office had questioned whether investigators would be hamstrung by a lack of access to highly classified material. But the office devised a “secure process,” according to the report, working with government agencies to review so-called special-access programs that interviewees had identified, either by their supposed code names or description.

ONKIDA If you don't want to deal with the aftermath of #Crowdstrike today or have already heard enough about it over the weekend, I recommend #ONKIDA. This tool, provided by the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Baden-Württemberg (#LfDI), is a thematically organized #index of references with links to selected supervisory authority papers on "Artificial Intelligence" (#AI). As a collection of materials, the tool provides an overview and quick access to the documents, serving as a helpful aid for working with these documents. https://lnkd.in/efhKGEpY

The Guardian reports: Palantir's AI Warfare Conference Draws Military-Industrial Complex Figures, Highlights Role of Technology in Modern Warfare Debate. According to an article by Caroline Haskins in The Guardian, the first-ever AI warfare conference hosted by Palantir and the Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington DC attracted a significant presence from the military-industrial complex. The event, which featured prominent figures like Eric Schmidt and Palantir CEO Alex Karp, was described as a platform for discussing the future of warfare and the role of AI in military operations.The panels at the conference reportedly showcased differing perspectives on the nature of war, with some attendees viewing it as a matter of strategy and financial gain, while others saw it as a matter of life and death. During one panel, Karp advocated for the US to instill fear in adversaries, drawing comparisons to the situation in Gaza. He also criticized peace activists, labeling them as war activists. Military officials, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, defended the use of violence in warfare, referencing historical events like the second world war. Schmidt discussed the importance of drones and automation in military contexts, while CIA Deputy Director David Cohen emphasized the need for humility in the face of technological advancements in warfare. The International Committee of the Red Cross was present to highlight the humanitarian impact of warfare, but their presence seemed to be overshadowed by the focus on technological innovation in military applications. Read the original article here: https://lnkd.in/gcMheHYz Made with the Link Report Chrome Extension www.LinkReportApp.com

The New York Times NYT said last week that #China’s main #intelligence #agency the, Ministry for State Security (#MSS) is “now going toe-to-toe with the CIA in collection and subterfuge around the world”. The unprecedented growth of the MSS, according to the paper, is occurring despite the fact that the CIA has doubled its budget on China under the presidency of Joe Biden. The American spy agency also launched a new China Mission Center under its current director, William J. Burns. A major concern for the CIA is reportedly the intense Chinese focus on cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced semiconductor design and manufacture. For this reason, the CIA’s China Mission Center works closely with the agency’s Technology Intelligence Center, claims the paper. Through these and other efforts, American intelligence officials have reportedly concluded that the “urgency and intensity of technological espionage” by Chinese spy agencies has increased beyond parallel. According to the New York Times, the technological advancements taking place in the state-supported Chinese private sector and the military, known as the People’s Liberation Army, “are surprising the US government”.

"I dedicated my adult life to defense, to defending the country, first in the Marine Corps as a counterintelligence, human intelligence officer, and then in Congress as chairman of the China committee, as chairman of the Innovation Subcommittee on Armed Services. So I view this as an opportunity to continue that mission, the mission of defending the country, of preventing World War III, in the private sector. And I think those are the stakes. I don't think that's an overstatement. If you look at the geopolitical landscape, you see an axis of chaos led by communist China, but including Iran and Russia, trying to subvert, if not destroy, the free world. And I think Palantir is at the leading edge of deterrence in the 21st Century—the era of software-defined warfare, where technological supremacy defines geopolitical survival. And that was a core insight coming out of my work on the select committee on China, just how high the stakes are in the technological domain of competition. And on the modern battlefield, I believe that militaries that don't harness the power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems are basically unilaterally disarming. It's like an army with only conventional weapons going against an enemy armed with tactical nukes. It was further said that Palantir is at the leading edge and really a pathfinder in revitalizing the American industrial base writ large, and the defense industrial base in particular, which helps communities like mine in Northeast Wisconsin, where we are a huge manufacturing community with a huge manufacturing legacy, but now we can leverage cutting-edge software like the kind Palantir produces in order to bend metal better. My experience really on the China committee showed me time and again how most of corporate America refuses to defend American values or even think of themselves as American companies, and in many cases, continually would bend the knee to China. But Palantir, on the other hand, is an unapologetic company in its defense of the West, and its belief that America is a force for good in the world, and that America is worth defending against our enemies." From the tap rooms of Princeton to the berries of the shire....welcome to Palantir Technologies Mike Gallagher. https://lnkd.in/gMBFv7Af

As a private sector techie, I don’t know much about China’s spying, yet maybe it would mean a complete recall of every tech device, satellite, drone and product used in this country. Try Hometree Data to focus on #offensivesecurity and #uscompetitiveness #osint #dataintegrity #dataprovenance We aggregate everything and identify new sources and can feed into your existing data sources. We start big with everything across the internet, tag text, images, video, refine out the noise and and hone in on the signal with scalable automated tech to capture everything, then can be refined, filtered, run through ML models, sentiment analysis, propaganda etc.. And check out #counteringnarratives with our partner Norwich University Applied Research Institutes (NUARI) “To block Chinese spying, U.S. intelligence agencies need to expand their efforts to counter Chinese cyber and surveillance programs and need to better utilize open-source information to improve their understanding of China.” Intelligence agencies also have failed to utilize private-sector experts, outside analysts who could help in providing “critical understanding of the cultural forces shaping Chinese leadership behavior,” #osint #cleandata Hometree Data #privatepublicsectorpartnerships #callonprivatesector #supplychain #riskassessment #counterintelligence #sourceintellogence Hometree Data David Knickerbocker #osint John Kunelius Jakon Hays

🤖 NEWS: NCITE Secures First-Ever Patent for Suspicious Activity Reporting Chatbot Designed by a team of NCITE researchers led by Joel Elson, Ph.D., and Erin Kearns, Ph.D., this innovative tool is set to transform how individuals report suspicious activity, providing law enforcement with more accurate, actionable information to safeguard communities. NCITE filed the patent through UNeMed Corporation.  The patent marks a significant achievement for NCITE, signaling the center’s capacity for tech innovation in the homeland security space. The newly patented chatbot technology is available for licensing and aims to modernize threat reporting, making it more accessible and efficient. “NCITE is incredibly proud to receive its first patent, a testament to our commitment to turning research into real-world solutions,” NCITE Director Gina Ligon, Ph.D., said. “This chatbot exemplifies the cutting-edge work our interdisciplinary team is doing, merging innovation in IT, criminology, and psychology to address urgent national security challenges.” Read more. ⤵ https://lnkd.in/gEU7NeGw

The SHSU Institute for Homeland Security hosts technical paper series on our website, ihsonline.org. The non-partisan series features papers with various viewpoints and examines critical and timely issues facing homeland security. In today’s “Research Spotlight,” we feature, "Artificial Intelligence and Social Network Analysis for Critical Infrastructure Response Networks and Dark Network Threat Analysis" by Nathan Jones, Christian Pamfile, Juli Dutta, Oscar Contreras Velasco and Michael Aspland. This project has served as a proof of concept for the use of artificial intelligence such as the large language model (LLM) ChatGPT 4o to create datasets based on large quantities of qualitative data. LLMs have thus demonstrated the capacity to synthesize large quantities of qualitative data and turn them into quantifiable structured data sets that we can then use traditional software packages for social network analysis (SNA). We have demonstrated this using a case study related to the North Houston area and critical infrastructure response networks. Jones, Nathan, Pamfile, Christian, Dutta, Juli, Contreras Velasco, Oscar, & Aspland, Michael (2024) Artificial Intelligence and Social Network Analysis for Critical Infrastructure Response Networks and Dark Network Threat Analysis. (Report No. IHS/CR-2024-1022). The Sam Houston State University Institute for Homeland Security. Click here to read the paper in its entirety: https://lnkd.in/gePmHSDE Every Tuesday and Thursday, we’ll spotlight a different research paper from our library. Click the link to visit the SHSU IHS research page. https://lnkd.in/gGtZFrX9 #shsuIHS #IHSResearchSpotlight #CriticalInfrastructure #AIinSecurity #SocialNetworkAnalysis #SecurityThreatAnalysis

A National Security Insider Does the Math on the Dangers of AI Jason Matheny is a delight to speak with, provided you’re up for a lengthy conversation about potential technological and biomedical catastrophes. Now CEO and president of Rand Corporation, Matheny has built a career out of thinking about such gloomy scenarios. An economist by training with a focus on public health, he dived into the worlds of pharmaceutical development and cultivated meat before turning his attention to national security. As director of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, the US intelligence community's research agency, he pushed for more attention to the dangers of biological weapons and badly designed artificial intelligence. In 2021, Matheny was tapped to be President Biden’s senior adviser on technology and national security issues. And then, in July of last year, he became CEO and president of Rand, the oldest nonprofit think tank in the US, which has shaped government policy on nuclear strategy, the Vietnam War, and the development of the internet. Matheny talks about threats like AI-enabled bioterrorism in convincing but measured tones, Mr. Doomsday in a casual suit. He’s steering Rand to investigate the daunting risks to US democracy, map out new strategies around climate and energy, and explore paths to “competition without catastrophe” in China. But his long-time concerns about biological weapons and AI remain top of mind. Onstage with WIRED at the recent Verify cybersecurity conference in Sausalito, California, hosted by the Aspen Institute and Hewlett Foundation, he warned that AI is making it easier to learn how to build biological weapons and other potentially devastating tools. (There’s a reason why he joked that he would pick up the tab at the bar afterwards.) The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. News credit WIRED #news #dailynews #dailynewsupdates #trendingnews #viralnews

Where does your data reside (geositus)? Is it covered under this new EO? _General Questions_ What about: Biological deposit requests (eg ATTC)? Pharma agreements (material transfer) on biological research? Biomedical data of US persons in Zenodo (EU database)? Uniprot? Did global biomedical data-sharing just come to a screeching halt? Or merely hit a bump-in-the-road? Or is it like the recent Odysseus lunar lander, just landing sideways until someone can right-the-ship? Needed, but perhaps also needing tweaks. https://lnkd.in/gwNkgarX