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As we head into the 2024 RSAC through the Defcon/BlackHat Conference jag, we look at the final report from the first-of-its-kind Generative AI Red Team Challenge, held last year in the AI Village at Defcon31. Find an overview of the event report here.
In March, OODA Network Member John Sullivan shared with the network an overview of current threat vectors and strategic challenges at the border relative to the presence of various international crime syndicates in North America. He also shared his perspective on the primary topic of the monthly meeting – The Exponential Pace of Technological Change. Find…
A young Brazilian Mixed Martial Arts fighter has just kicked off a wave of interest in the teachings of a little known philosopher, Ludwig von Mises. This has generated excitement among Boyd fans, who have long seen a connection between the philosophy of Mises and the attitudes and approaches of Boyd. Moicano has also been…
The much anticipated “Commercial Space Integration Strategy” was released by the Department of Defense in early April 2024 (weeks before the release of the Space Force Commercial Space Strategy). The DoD strategy document outlines the “broad guidance for where and why the Pentagon will try to increase its use of commercial space technologies.” Details here.
AI versus AI will be the central drama, but the outcome depends profoundly on human choices around how intelligently we govern this technology.
We found a compelling ISS-Corporate memorandum – AI and Board Of Directors Oversight: AI Governance Appears on Corporate Radar – authored by Veronica Nikitas. The report provides a robust quantitative framework for this topic’s core issues. In this post, you will find the key takeaways and excerpts from the report, as well as a forward-thinking…
RAND researchers explore the “lessons and challenges from three historical crises between nuclear-armed powers” when managing the potential escalation of nuclear conflict—insights apropos to the tinderbox that is the Middle East and ongoing threats of nuclear escalation in Europe by Russian President Vladamir Putin. A summary of the RAND report and insights can be found…
The war in Ukraine was the beginning, and the Iranian attack on Israel by a swarm of over 200 drones and ballistic missiles is now the tail end of an elongated inflection point – propelling geopolitics into a new era of 21st Century “Algorithmic Warfare.” A tick-tock of developments and links to live update resources…
Last week, the U.S. Space Force (USSF) released the much-anticipated “Commercial Space Strategy”—the first such strategy released by the USSF—which commits to realigning funding and prioritizing commercial space opportunities. Details from the USSF CSS are available here.
Our hypothesis on AI Hallucinations is based on a quote from the OODAcon 2024 panel, “The Next Generative AI Surprise: “Artificial Intelligence hallucinations may sometimes provide an output that is a very creative interpretation of something or an edge case that proves useful.” With that framing in mind, the following is the first installment in…
The ransomware epidemic is starting to feel like one continuous incident report and a growing national security concern – not to mention the dormant “ghost in the machine” capabilities that have already been positioned in the U.S. internetwork (by nation-state and non-nation-state players alike) as part of a strategic plan for a larger act of…
In December 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) issued an alert regarding the activities of Iranian cyber actors dubbed “CyberAv3ngers” believed to be tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The alert cited that this group…
Other industry sectors should keep a close eye on the critical milestones and pitfalls of the biotech/healthcare space – with an eye toward what platform, product, service innovations, and architectures may have a potable value proposition within your industry. The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) is doing great work fielding research in healthcare with…
“Q-Day” is a scenario where “no more secrets” becomes a reality, as previously secure communications and data could be vulnerable to decryption by entities wielding quantum computational power (also known as “Quantum Supremacy”). Find a breakdown, analysis, and future scenarios here.
Regular readers of the OODA Loop know that we cover exponential technologies daily and we expect disproportionate disruption when these technologies start to converge. In this post, we explore AI + an expanded working definition (with subcategories) of what is broadly considered “the metaverse” + blockchain technology as an example of the exponential tech stack…
Elon Musk believes that X, his social media platform, was targeted in a massive cyberattack. The platform went down on Monday for several hours, with tens of thousands of users left unable to access their accounts. Musk posted on X that while the site was frequently targeted, Monday’s attack had been conducted with a lot…
Manus, an “agentic” AI platform that launched in preview last week, is generating more hype than a Taylor Swift concert. The head of product at Hugging Face called Manus “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried.” AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the “most sophisticated computer using AI.” The official Discord server…
One recent evening in Shenzhen, a group of software engineers gathered in a dimly lit co-working space, furiously typing as they monitored the performance of a new AI system. The air was electric, thick with the hum of servers and the glow of high-resolution monitors. They were testing Manus, a revolutionary AI agent capable of…
Agibot, founded by Huawei Technologies’ former “Genius Youth” recruit Peng Zhihui, has launched a general artificial intelligence (AI) model that can enable humanoid robots to understand and perform real-world tasks quickly. The Shanghai-based start-up unveiled Genie Operator-1 (GO-1), a foundation model designed to serve as a general-purpose brain for humanoid robots to help them learn…
The UK said it would create a defense innovation unit to help promote and acquire best-in-class military technology, as the British government prepares to ramp up defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. The unit will “harness the ingenuity of the UK’s leading tech and manufacturing sectors” to rapidly scale up innovative prototypes, the…
Anthropic has launched a significant overhaul to its developer platform, introducing team collaboration features and extended reasoning capabilities for its Claude AI assistant that aim to solve major pain points for organizations implementing AI solutions. The upgraded Anthropic Console now allows cross-functional teams to collaborate on AI prompts — the text instructions that guide AI…
Across the spectrum of uses for artificial intelligence, one stands out. The big, inspiring A.I. opportunity on the horizon, experts agree, lies in accelerating and transforming scientific discovery and development. Fed by vast troves of scientific data, A.I. promises to generate new drugs to combat disease, new agriculture to feed the world’s population and new…
Quantum information processing relies on the entanglement of multiple photons to handle vast amounts of data. However, creating these entangled photons efficiently remains a major challenge. Traditional methods either use quantum nonlinear optical processes, which struggle with scaling to large numbers of photons, or linear beam-splitting and quantum interference, which require complex and delicate setups…
Companies are increasingly asking their potential technology hires: Do you know how to work with AI? Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. tech jobs posted so far this year are seeking employees with artificial-intelligence skills, job-listings data show, as firms in nearly every corner of the economy adjust their recruiting pipelines to embrace the technology. In…
On Monday, TSMC announced plans to invest $100 billion to expand its manufacturing capacity in the United States. The funds will go toward three additional fabs, two advanced packaging plants, and a major R&D facility. Tom’s Hardware spoke with the company to learn more about its plans. The extra $100 billion investment adds to TSMC’s…
Scientists have developed a quantum computer that uses light to process data, paving the way for quantum computers that can operate in a networked environment at room temperature. The new system, called Aurora, is the first photonic quantum computer in the world that can operate at scale using several modules interconnected through fiber optic cables.…
The White House is weighing measures to restrict Chinese artificial-intelligence upstart DeepSeek, including banning its chatbot from government devices because of national-security concerns, people familiar with the matter said. U.S. officials are worried about DeepSeek’s handling of user data, which the Chinese company says it stores in servers located in China, the people said. Officials…
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to establish a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies by using tokens already owned by the government, disappointing some in the market who had hoped for a firm plan to buy new tokens. The announcement, made on Thursday ahead of a meeting with crypto executives at the White…
From oxen and horses to tractors, high-yield crop varieties and synthetic fertilisers, agriculture has always showcased human creativity and ingenuity in the pursuit of food production and security. Today, agriculture is no longer simply about producing food. Modern agriculture is all about efficiency and sustainably while meeting the complex demands of a rapidly expanding global…
OpenAI and Oracle plan to begin filling a massive new data center in Texas with tens of thousands of powerful AI chips from Nvidia in the coming months, part of a push to get the first facility for their $100 billion Stargate infrastructure venture up and running. The site, in the small city of Abilene,…
Palantir Technologies Inc. is delivering mobile battle stations to the US Army as part of its $178 million Titan contract — a milestone for the data analysis giant in its work with the military, and a signal of software’s growing importance in modern warfare. The product, developed with subcontractors including Anduril Industries Inc. and Northrop…
South Korean President has been released from jail so that he may attend his criminal trial. The South Korean President has been released from jail by order of a South Korean Court. The Court issused this order so that he may attend his criminal trial for rebellion. The Consitutional Court is sepertaly deciding if the…
Clashes between Assad loyalists and government forces have continued in parts of Syria. Clashes between Assad loyalists in Syria’s coastal region and government forces have continued. The government in Damascus has dispatached additional security forces to the region to increase stablitiy. Syria’s coastal region had long been supportiative of the Assad regime due to the…
Sudan has accused the UAE of breaching the genocide convetion by giving support to the RSF. Sudan has filed a case with the International Court of Justice accusing the UAE of being complict in crimes against humanity becuase of their support for the RSF. The UAE has denied the claims and calimed that the Sudanese…
Poland’s government has annouced their intention to begin military training for all adult males. Poland’s government has annouced that they will begin drafting plans for a program to train all adult males. The governemnt said it wants to create a large reserve force of trained fighting aged men. The annoucement comes after several weeks of…
Malware is being disguised as videos in order to trick Telegram users into downloading it. Attackers on Telegram have begun to disguise malware as videos in order to trick users into dowloading it. If a Telegram user plays the video it will trigger the download process. The malware is also able to spoof itself as…
Threat actors claiming to be the BianLian Ransomware Group have begun targeting business leaders with phyiscal mail. Business leaders have reported that they are being targeted with physical mail which claims to be from the BianLian Ransomware Group. The mail says that the group has stolen documents from their business and they must use a…
A critical bug has been found which allows Kibana to be used as a malware host. Researchers have found a bug in Kibana which allows for remote code execution attacks. The bug requires that a crafted file be updated to the program. A patch has deployed which patches the vulnerability. Read more: https://cybernews.com/security/critical-kibana-vulnerability-remote-code-execution/
A malicious advertising campaign targetting users of movie streaming sites has been underway since December. A large scale malicious advertising campaign targetting users of movie streaming sites has been underway since December. The campaign has impacted million of devices around the world. The attack works by infiltrating users GitHubs, Discrods, DropBox, and other accounts while…
Neural networks, a type of artificial intelligence modeled on the connectivity of the human brain, are driving critical breakthroughs across a wide range of scientific domains. But these models face significant threat from adversarial attacks, which can derail predictions and produce incorrect information. Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have now pioneered a novel purification strategy…
Hyundai has launched a partnership with autonomous vehicle/robot delivery firm Avride. The collaboration will focus on the development of autonomous vehicles equipped with Avride’s driving system, while also expanding Avride’s fleet of Hyundai IONIQ 5 vehicles, according to a Wednesday (March 5) announcement on Avride’s blog. “Our team has been working with Hyundai Motor Group…
In 2025, supply chain disruptions will cost global businesses more than $1 trillion in losses. Geopolitical instability and unrest in Eastern Europe, combined with the worsening situation in the South China Sea, are set to disrupt the global supply chain. While many businesses still have reservations about using AI in the supply chain, it can…
From where we’re sitting today, it’s increasingly likely that quantum computing will be one of the most disruptive technologies on the medium-term horizon. Here’s why: Harnessing the properties of matter as it behaves at the sub-atomic level – by taking advantage of strange phenomena like entanglement and superposition means certain types of computation can be…
Anthropic has quietly removed from its website several voluntary commitments the company made in conjunction with the Biden administration in 2023 to promote safe and “trustworthy” AI. The commitments, which included pledges to share information on managing AI risks across industry and government and research on AI bias and discrimination, were deleted from Anthropic’s transparency…
Industry experts are excited about what’s on the horizon in surgical robotics in 2025. Speaking on the new season’s first DeviceTalks Tuesdays webinar, advisor Steve Bell — who has more than 25 years of experience in the surgical robotics industry — and The Mullings Group Chair and CEO Joe Mullings joined host Tom Salemi to…
Qwen Team, a division of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba developing its growing family of open-source Qwen large language models (LLMs), has introduced QwQ-32B, a new 32-billion-parameter reasoning model designed to improve performance on complex problem-solving tasks through reinforcement learning (RL). The model is available as open-weight on Hugging Face and on ModelScope under an Apache…
OpenAI on Monday said it is supporting a new consortium called NextGenAI that would focus on supporting AI-assisted research at top universities. NextGenAI, whose 15 founding academic partners include Harvard, the University of Oxford and MIT, will be funded with $50 million in research grants, compute funding, and API access from OpenAI, the company said.…
China’s takeover of nearly every technology needed for the green energy revolution happened gradually — then all at once.China now eclipses every other country when it comes to installations of wind and solar power, a striking transformation from 15 years ago. It was fueled by a gold rush of entrepreneurship and unwavering government support, including…
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, its integration with blockchain technology and robotics could open new possibilities for automation and finance. One of the limitations of AI, and by extension robots, is their inability to manage transactions autonomously. To address this, developers are now integrating AI with blockchain infrastructure, allowing AI agents to transact securely,…
American quantum computing startup PsiQuantum announced last week that it has cracked a significant puzzle on the road to making the technology useful: manufacturing quantum chips in large quantities. PsiQuantum burst out of stealth mode in 2021 with a blockbuster funding announcement. It followed up with two more last year. The company uses so-called “photonic”…
In 1977, Andrew Barto, as a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, began exploring a new theory that neurons behaved like hedonists. The basic idea was that the human brain was driven by billions of nerve cells that were each trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. A year later, he was joined by…
Nvidia-backed CoreWeave said on Tuesday that it is acquiring AI developer platform Weights & Biases as the company seeks to extend its cloud platform ahead of its IPO. The deal will combine CoreWeave’s infrastructure and managed cloud services with Weights & Biases’ platform, which is used for AI model training, evaluation, and monitoring, the company…
Scale AI on Wednesday announced a deal with the Department of Defense for a flagship AI agent program, a significant move in the controversial military use of artificial intelligence. The AI giant, which provides training data to key AI players like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Meta, has been awarded a prototype contract from the Defense…
After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, U.S. President Donald Trump has warned Canada that he will further hike tariffs. 25-percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports took effect on Tuesday, prompting Trudeau to announce these retaliatory tariffs. Canada will enact tariffs on over $100 billion of U.S. goods. On…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered new terms to end the Russia-Ukraine war, attempting to assure the Trump administration that Ukraine wants peace. On X, Zelensky wrote that Friday’s White House meeting was “regrettable,” and that it was, “time to make things right.” Zelensky stated that he was prepared to release Russian prisoners of war,…
On Tuesday, Arab leaders gathered in Cairo and endorsed Egypt’s plan for Gaza’s reconstruction. The plan will allow Gazans to remain in the territory while reconstruction efforts occur. The proposal counters President Trump’s plan to expel Gaza’s 2.3 million residents while the territory is redeveloped. Representatives from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia…
Iran’s conservatives are fueling a political crisis, ousting two high-profile officials and throwing the new, moderate government into chaos. The ousting occurred as Iran faces multiple other crises, including inflation, energy shortages, the defeat of allies, and President Trump’s return. On Sunday, Iran’s judiciary forced out Vice President of Strategy Mohammad Javad Zarif and the…
North Korean-linked hackers are behind another ongoing fake IT worker scheme, attempting to impersonate individuals seeking remote employment. IT workers are impersonating Vietnamese, Japanese, and Singaporean citizens looking for engineering and software development positions in the U.S. and Japan. While past employee personation campaigns appeared to be seeking espionage, these attackers are aiming to earn…
Eleven11bot, a new botnet, has been discovered by researchers. It was previously reported that the botnet encapsulated around 30,000 devices, most of which were security cameras and network video recorder devices. However, new research has identified 86,400 IoT devices compromised by the botnet. A majority of the affected devices are located in the U.S. in…
A new phishing campaign has been identified that is highly-targeted, focusing on less than 5 United Arab Emirates entities. The campaign delivers a new Golang backdoor called Sosano. The phishing attacks, targeted at aviation and satellite communications organizations, are being tracked as UNK_CraftyCamel. The attacker has used a compromised email account that belongs to INDIC…
Polish space agency POLSA has been hit with a cyberattack, prompting the agency to disconnect its network from the internet. POLSA said that they immediately disconnected from the internet in order to secure data after the hack. The agency has reported the incident to authorities and launched an investigation, but has not yet shared any…
TSMC’s newly announced US investment plan, unveiled on March 4, 2025, differs from the original by adding $100 billion, cutting one advanced-node fab, and including an extra advanced packaging plant and R&D center. This represents a win-win negotiation. The US government clearly knew what it wanted, while TSMC balanced government demands with commercial interests to…
After a rocky two years, money has started flowing back to biotech, with the return of the megaround exemplified in the $1 billion fundraise of 2024’s top moneymaker, Xaira Therapeutics. Few biotechs can expect to collect $1 billion in financing in one fell swoop, but the artificial-intelligence-focused company did just that. It reeled in the…
On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it added 15 American companies to an export-control list and expanded the number of U.S. firms on its “unreliable entity” list. Several U.S. defense-technology companies were put on the export-control list, the ministry said in a statement. They include drone maker Skydio, as well as Andreessen Horowitz-backed artificial-intelligence…
Zuchongzhi-3, a superconducting quantum computing prototype with 105 qubits and 182 couplers, has made significant advancements in random quantum circuit sampling. This prototype was successfully developed by a research team from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). This prototype operates at a speed that is 1015 times faster than the fastest supercomputer…
It’s happening. The question is, what is the it that is happening? An impressive progression of intelligence? An expensive, slow disappointment? Something else? The evals we have available don’t help us that much here, even more than usual. My tentative conclusion is it’s Secret Third Thing. It’s a different form factor, with unique advantages, that…
On Feb. 6, during the Lunar New Year festival in Tianjin, a humanoid robot from China’s Unitree Robotics unexpectedly displayed aggressive behavior, raising significant concerns about public safety and the deployment of robots in public spaces. The robot, known as the H1 model, weighs 47 kg and stands 180 cm tall. As spectators extended their…
Developers of a Utah data center have secured one of the biggest construction loans in recent years, the latest sign of the market’s enormous appetite for facilities that provide the backbone for artificial intelligence. JPMorgan Chase and Starwood Property Trust have agreed to lend $2 billion for the 100-acre data center campus in West Jordan,…
Syrian state media has reported that Israel carried out air strikes near Tartous, Syria’s Mediterranean port city. The Israeli army stated on Monday that it struck a military site holding weapons from the previous Syrian regime. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since December, when former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled.…
President Trump has suspended the delivery of all U.S. military aid to Ukraine in a directive made on Monday. The suspension comes just days after Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky had a confrontation in the Oval Office. Trump’s order will impact over $1 billion in arms and ammunition. A White House official said that the…
President Trump is responding to China’s lack of action with his proposal of additional 10 percent tariffs on China. In Trump’s view, China has not made efforts to stop fetanyl’s flow into the U.S. The Chinese are avoiding initiating a conversation with Trump before they fully understand what he wants, and are having a difficult…
The first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas ended on Sunday, and now the two actors are pursuing different paths for negotiations. Hamas is insisting on implementing the second phase of the original agreement, which includes the end of the war, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and hostage releases. Israel, however, has proposed…
The U.S. government has seized around $31 million worth of cryptocurrency, which was stolen from Uranium Finance in April 2021. The 2021 hack resulted in total losses of over $53 million, which made it one of the largest decentralized finance attacks at the time. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs investigated transactions linked to the heist,…
A new phishing campaign is allowing cyberattackers to take over Windows systems, targeting Microsoft SharePoint accounts. The attackers first attempt to get users to deploy a PowerShell command through a malicious document in a ClickFix-style attack. Then, the attackers are able to gain complete control over the users’ system. Researchers at FortiGuard Labs discovered the…
The Russian-speaking cybercrime group Qilin has claimed responsibility for the recent cyberattack on Lee Enterprise, one of the largest newspaper groups in the U.S. The company reported the cyberattack last month, which resulted in a data breach. Qilin typically operates as a ransomware group, and has claimed the theft of around 350GB of data from…
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