UPDATE: An AWS spokesperson responds to the IG's decision —-

This report doesn’t tell us much. It says nothing about the merits of the award, which we know are highly questionable based on the Judge’s recent statements and the government’s request to go back and take corrective action. And, it’s clear that this report couldn’t assess political interference because several DoD witnesses were instructed by the White House not to answer the IG’s questions about communications between the White House and DoD officials. The White House’s refusal to cooperate with the IG’s investigation is yet another blatant attempt to avoid a meaningful and transparent review of the JEDI contract award.

Transdigm is a notorious military supplier/hedge fund that used acquisitions to attain a monopoly over many spare parts so they could charge exorbitant markups -- as high as 4,451%! -- on materials procured with tax dollars. Read the rest

There's the "Laser-Induced Plasma Effect" (one laser dislodges atmospheric electrons and spins up plasma; a second blows up the ionizing gas "to release an ear-splitting burst of sound energy"); there's the "Variable Kinetic System" that "fires 180 rounds of micro-­pulverized burning irritant (or stink bombs or inky liquid)" and there's the "Pre-Emplaced Electric Vehicle Stopper" ("emits high-voltage pulses that disrupt the vehicle’s engine"). Read the rest

The Defense Department’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program has demonstrated the Radio Frequency Vehicle Stopper, an experimental "direct energy weapon" that causes car and boats' electronic engine control units to enter into an endless cycle of rebooting, immobilizing the vehicles until the weapon is switched off. Read the rest

The Upguard Cyber Risk Team has found three Department of Defense mass-storage "buckets" on Amazon that are world-viewable, containing 1.8 billion of social media posts that the DoD scraped from social media over 8 years as part of its global surveillance program. Read the rest

In a new report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reveals that the "Department of Defense uses 8- inch floppy disks in a legacy system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation’s nuclear forces." That floppy format was developed in the late 1960s and was obsolete by the 1980s. I wonder if the DoD saves a few bucks by using a hole punch to make them double sided.

According to the GAO report, "The agency plans to update its data storage solutions, port expansion processors, portable terminals, and desktop terminals by the end of fiscal year 2017."

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Federal Agencies Need to Address Aging Legacy Systems (PDF) Read the rest

Here's a new wrinkle on the massive emotion-manipulation study that Facebook conducted in concert with researchers from Cornell and UCSF: one of its researchers is funded under a US Department of Defense program to study "emotional contagion" and civil unrest. Read the rest