Russian Missile Forces Hold High Alert Drills

Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces are holding a series of exercises to practice putting road-mobile missile systems on high alert, SMF spokesman Col. Vadim Koval said.

The exercises involve Topol (SS-25 Sikle), Topol-M (SS-27 Sickle B) and Yars (RS-24) mobile systems stationed in central Russia and Siberia.

“SMF units armed with Topol, Topol-M and Yars road-mobile missile systems will practice patrolling, camouflaging and launch preparation procedures during high alert drills from January 16 to February 3,” Koval told reporters on Monday.

The SMF are planning to hold over 100 tactical drills in the first half of 2012.
As of January 2012, the SMF operated at least 162 mobile Topol systems, 18 mobile Topol-M and 15 mobile Yars systems.

Email in your eye? Next-generation video screen glasses could lay messages or GPS over your field of vision

By Gavin Allen

As advances in computer technology make gadgets ever smaller and more portable the idea of carrying a screen of any kind could soon be outdated. 

Consumer products with screens have dropped in size from computer to laptop to tablet via phone.
But one company specialising in cutting edge visual technology waIsraeli company Lumus has shown off the PD-18-2, which may look like a cumbersome pair of shades but allow the user to see high-quality images while they walk.nts to beam information directly into your field of vision.

Lumus, an Israeli company, specialises in what it calls Light-guide Optical Element (LOE) technology.

It's latest product is the PD-18-2, which may look to the untrained eye like a cumbersome pair of sunglasses. 

But inside the lenses of the glasses, the user can see high-quality full colour images
Products like this are already on the market for professional and military use, but where the next-generation PD-18-2 differs is that users can see though the spectacles too, instead of having the images block their vision.

The translucent lenses allow for what the manufacturer calls 'augmented vision', overlaying images or graphics over your usual field of vision.

They are designed for professionals such as pilots, surgeons and soldiers but there are hopes that it can be adapted for the consumer market so people could watch film or TV on the move, or play video games as they walk around.

It works by collecting image components from a micro display and projects them into the eye to create a large virtual image with SVGA resolution

'Following the successful deployment of our first generation PD-18-1 in combat aviation, ground soldier and assembly applications, we are pleased to release our next generation PD-18-2 that takes our competitive superiority to a whole new level,' said Dr. Eli Glikman.

'Our new display offers even higher brightness, increased contrast ratio, sharper image, improved image uniformity and enhanced optical efficiency.'

The company currently sells its products to aviation companies as well as military, medical and maintenance markets.

But the possibility of a move into the consumer market has already brought mixed reactions from technology watchers.

It could be extremely useful as a portable GPS system, but there are concerns that it could be distracting for pedestrians who can often be seen walking round with their heads buried in mobile phones.

One commenter, Erin Altman, wrote in a technology forum: 'Bad idea alert! Just like hands-free devices for cell phones, these things will give people a false sense of security. They will THINK they can still see what's going on around them but will be way too focused on the display instead.'

Another commenter wrote: 'It's bad enough already that people walk around texting and on the cell phones... an example of the DOWNSIDE of technology.'

Obama to hand Commerce Dept. authority over cybersecurity ID

by Declan McCullagh

STANFORD, Calif.--President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates, including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil-liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.

Details about the "trusted identity" project are remarkably scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential, if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said.

Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, who spoke later at the event, said any Internet ID must be created by the private sector--and also voluntary and competitive.

"The government cannot create that identity infrastructure," Dempsey said. "If it tried to, it wouldn't be trusted."

Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have existed ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years ago. Three years ago, proposals were circulating in Washington to transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S. Defense Department.

In March 2009, Rod Beckström, director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA "effectively controls DHS cyberefforts through detailees, technology insertions," and has proposed moving some functions to the agency's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

One of the NSA's missions is, of course, information assurance. But its normally lustrous star in the political firmament has dimmed a bit due to Wikileaks-related revelations.

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private who is accused of liberating hundreds of thousands of confidential government documents from military networks and sending them to Wikileaks, apparently joked about the NSA's incompetence in an online chat last spring.

"I even asked the NSA guy if he could find any suspicious activity coming out of local networks," Manning reportedly said in a chat transcript provided by ex-hacker Adrian Lamo. "He shrugged and said, 'It's not a priority.'"

Dollar power on the wane, new reserve system likely : Stiglitz

HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times

The days of the US dollar as a global currency, with its overarching charisma as a brand to measure everything from hamburger prices to trade between remote nations could be on the wane, says Nobel-prize winning Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz expects a new world reserve system to evolve at the next meeting of the G-20 group of the world’s leading economies.

“I am for a new global reserve system because money is moving in the wrong direction – from poor to rich countries. China and Russia pushed for a new reserve system at the last G-20 meeting but the United States did not agree to let the dollar be replaced,” Stiglitz said. “Hopefully, there will be a consensus on a departure from the dollar-dominated regime.”

Stiglitz, who won the Nobel in 2001, was in Guwahati to participate in a conversation with economist Lord Meghnad Desai on ‘Asia Rising: Implications for the World Economy’.

 Stiglitz, a staunch critic of economic globalisation,  feels a new global monetary order is imminent in view of the slide in the US economy and China’s emergence as a major economic power. The weakening of the euro was also a factor, he said.

Calming pessimists, Stiglitz said both China and India could expect stronger financial markets as they both had strong savings.

“Savings in the US is very low. People spend lavishly, and it is showing,”he said.

Fitch warns of 'cataclysmic' euro collapse

by Reuters

The European Central Bank should ramp up its buying of troubled euro zone debt to support Italy and prevent a "cataclysmic" collapse of the euro, David Riley, the head of sovereign ratings for Fitch, has warned.

Speaking to investors as part of a European roadshow, Mr Riley said a collapse of the euro would be disastrous for the global economy, and while it is not Fitch's baseline scenario, it could happen if Italy did not find a way out of its debt problems.

"The end of the euro would be cataclysmic. The euro is a reserve currency," Mr Riley said overnight. "What would that do in terms of financial and political stability?"

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"It is hard to believe the euro will survive if Italy does not make it through," he said, adding that while many saw Italy as too politically and economically important to be allowed to fail, "one might also argue that it is too big to rescue."

The warning pushed the euro down towards a 16-month low versus the US dollar.

Mr Riley urged the European Central Bank to abandon its current reluctance to scaling up its purchases of troubled euro zone debt such as Italy's and drop its resistance to the bloc's bailout fund, the EFSF, borrowing directly from it.

"Can the euro be saved without more active engagement from the ECB? Quite frankly we think no," Mr Riley said, adding that the bank had plenty of scope to expand its balance sheet without unleashing a wave of inflation across the euro zone.

"Why not have the ECB come out and say 'We are going to cap interest rates', say 'We are not going to allow interest rates to exceed 7 per cent' or whatever level they see is the limit?.. Why not turn the EFSF into a bank so it can borrow from the ECB so it doesn't have to go to the market?"

Greece the joker in the pack

Fitch has warned that the economic outlook for the euro zone has darkened further in recent months and has said there is a high chance it will downgrade Italy, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Slovenia and Cyprus by one or two notches by the end of this month.

But unlike larger rival Standard & Poor's, which has all but Greece on a downgrade warning and said France risks a two notch cut, Fitch has said it does not expect to strip Paris of its triple-A status for this year at least.

Still, Mr Riley cautioned the euro zone's second-biggest economy was in a precarious position as the crisis rumbled on.

"France is the weakest AAA country in the euro zone," he said, adding it had the additional burden of being the main country alongside Germany underpinning the euro zone's bailout fund.

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, he also said that Germany's robust finances meant it would require a serious escalation of the euro zone's crisis to bring its triple A rating under threat.

Greece, meanwhile, remained a major threat for the euro zone.

Last year's move to force investors to take losses on their Greek bonds had destroyed the pre-crisis assumption that no euro zone country would default, while the current debate on Greece potentially leaving the euro was forcing investors to fundamentally rethink their view of the single currency.

"Arguably Greece leaving the euro could be the beginning of the end for the euro," Mr Riley said. "Greece is still the joker in the pack. It still has the potential to plunge the euro zone into crisis."

But he reiterated that a euro split was not Fitch's current expectation. "We don't think Greece will leave the euro. The cost benefit analysis doesn't add up," Mr Riley said.