Asteroid Redirect Mission

Timelapse of Asteroid 2004 FH's flyby (NASA/JPL Public Domain) 2004 FH is the centre dot being followed by the sequence; the object that flashes by near the end is an artificial satellite. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NASA Completes First Internal Review of Concepts for Asteroid Redirect Mission

According to a press release from NASA on July 31, 2013

NASA has completed the first step toward a mission to find and capture a near-Earth asteroid, redirect it to a stable lunar orbit and send humans to study it.

In preparation for fiscal year 2014, a mission formulation review on Tuesday brought together NASA leaders from across the country to examine internal studies proposing multiple concepts and alternatives for each phase of the asteroid mission. The review assessed technical and programmatic aspects of the mission.

"At this meeting, we engaged in the critically important work of examining initial concepts to meet the goal of asteroid retrieval and exploration," said NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot, who chaired the review at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "The agency's science, technology and human exploration teams are working together to better understand near Earth asteroids, including ones potentially hazardous to our planet; demonstrate new technologies; and to send humans farther from home than ever before. I was extremely proud of the teams and the progress they have made so far. I look forward to integrating the inputs as we develop the mission concept further."

In addition to the internal reviews of concepts for the mission, managers also discussed the recently received more than 400 responses to a request for information in which industry, universities, and the public offered ideas for NASA’s asteroid initiative. The agency is evaluating those responses.

With the mission formulation review complete, agency officials now will begin integrating the most highly-rated concepts into an asteroid mission baseline concept to further develop in 2014.

The asteroid redirect mission is included in President Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget request for NASA, and leverages the agency's progress on its Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft and cutting-edge technology development. The mission is one step in NASA's strategy to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

For more information about NASA's asteroid initiative, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative

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Richard Clarke Should Get His Facts Straight On Cybersecurity and China

Richard Clarke's inflammatory article for the Wall Street Journal "China's Cyberassault On America" overflows with incorrect facts, logical inconsistencies and a serious lack of understanding of how targeted cyber attacks work at a granular level.

Clarke tries to draw a parallel between Obama's protection of Libyan dissidents from Gaddafi and his lack of protection for U.S. citizens from cyber attacks from China when he knows perfectly well that the President's authority over military actions as Commander-in-Chief is completely different from his authority over U.S. corporations, which is ZERO; that would be the totalitarian governments of the world, not the U.S. government, Mr. Clarke.
Later he argues that "cyber criminals don't hack defense contractors - they go after banks and credit cards". In fact, the Zeus and Hilary Kneber hacker crews have been conducting cyberespionage attacks against government and military employees using the same malware that they use in financial crime since at least February 2010. Brian Krebs and I both wrote about it back then and we were both were attacked by those same crews because of it. The use of these gangs is the modus operandi of the Russian and Ukranian governments. I delve into this process in detail in my book and will expand on it in the second edition.

The most recent example of these gangs running cyberespionage operations occurred in January, 2011 with the White House eCard spear phishing attack. Governments around the world have informal relationships with criminal hackers which allow them a safe harbor to conduct cybercrime as long as they also conduct cyberespionage or other types of cyber ops for their host government as needed. The Russian Federation has been conducting cyberespionage against foreign firms for years and yet their name is almost never mentioned in conjunction with attacks from which they would clearly benefit. They even use the same M.O. (spear phishing) and have a Prime Minister who has stated publicly that he used to run industrial espionage operations when he was with KGB and wishes that the Kremlin had made better use of his team's efforts back then.

Clarke mentions the Congressional log-jam on cybersecurity legislation but fails to mention that there are over 60 competing bills. He complains about lack of action by a President who has no power over Congress, no power over the companies that own 90% of the U.S. grid, and who's cybersecurity coordinator, Howard Schmidt, is doing the best he can with lots of responsibility and no authority. Richard Clarke has a lengthy career with the federal government at the highest levels so there's no reason that I can think of for him not to know that "responsibility with no authority" is the biggest reason that NSA, US-CERT, USCYBERCOM, DHS, FBI and the Executive Office of the President (EOP) can advise but not order companies to harden their networks. I consult with corporations whose CEOs have been visited by one or more three-letter agencies who inform them that their corporate networks are beaconing data to a foreign country and the exectutives' responses are mixed. Some take the hint and make radical changes. Others blow it off entirely as a cost of doing business. That's the nature of our system of government as well as the nature of business and Clarke surely knows it as well as anyone; which makes me wonder what his motives were for writing this OpEd to begin with.

This is not to say that China isn't vacuuming huge amounts intellectual property and sensitive data from around the world. Of course it is, but so are many other countries; all of whom have the technical capability of crafting a targeted spear phishing letter that delivers a malicious payload and gives entree' to an extended corporate network breach by bad actors leading to the discovery and exfiltration of valuable data. Further, if the only evidence pointing to China is the use of a Chinese IP address, then you have no evidence at all (see The Chinese IP Address Fallacy In Cyber Attribution). Anyone, regardless of their background, who says that only the Peoples Republic of China is conducting these types of attacks couldn't be more wrong and is harming, not helping, the cybersecurity posture of the United States.

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Justice Wins. Bin Laden is Dead.

It took 10 years, a new President, and the stellar collaborative work of the U.S. Intelligence Community to enable the success of the military operation against Osama bin Laden. Congratulations to all of the people whose names we'll never know that led to this momentous event of justice and vindication. We're so quick to judge intelligence failures that become public knowledge while the successes rarely make the news. Not only is this an intelligence success for CIA, NSA, and other agencies, it's vindication for President Obama's strategy to re-focus on capturing or killing Osama bin Laden in spite of political pressure to quit. I'm proud of everyone involved, and hugely grateful.

Related Links:

Timeline: The Intelligence Work Behind Bin Laden's Death
Latest on the Osama Raid: Tricked-Out Choppers, Live Tweets, Possible Pakistani Casualties
The Secret Team That Killed bin Laden

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