Critical Mitel MiCollab Flaw Exposes Systems to Unauthorized File and Admin Access

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  June 20, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  These US partners in the Asia-Pacific are to receive ScanEagle drones

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — The U.S. Department of Defense has announced a contract award for 34 Insitu ScanEagle drones under the Foreign Military Sales program to partners in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the $47.9 million contract, announced May 31, the UAVs are for the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Respectively, they will take delivery of twelve, eight, eight and six ScanEagles. The manufacturer is a Boeing subsidiary. The announcement marks the first time that military equipment will be transferred to Vietnam following the end of a U.S. arms embargo imposed since the communist takeover there in 1975. It was fully lifted in 2016. The order also provides for spare payloads, spare and repair parts, support equipment, tools, training, technical services, and field service representatives. Work is expected to be completed in 2022. Defense News understands from multiple sources that the UAVs will be provided to these countries by the U.S. government, although there are conflicting reports on whether these will falls under the purview of the DoD's capacity-building program or the maritime security initiative announced in 2015. One of the key advantages of the ScanEagle is its ability to be launched by a pneumatic catapult unit and recovered by Insitu's Skyhook system, which means it can be operated from any patch of open space or from aboard a ship, negating the need for a runway. Sensor payloads available for the UAV include electro-optic, infrared and high-resolution video cameras that enable the operator to track stationary and moving targets. The UAVs will assist the recipient countries in improving maritime domain awareness over their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. The contract announcement came on the same day that the DoD released its latest Indo-Pacific Strategy Report. The document lists as key priorities, among other things, building partner capacity and enhancing maritime domain awareness for third party partners in the region, as well as strengthening interoperability that includes increased information sharing between the U.S. and other like-minded countries in the region. All the recipient nations in this contract have interests in the South China Sea, with Indonesia being the only country among this group of four that does not claim ownership of any of the islands, features and rocks in the disputed Spratly or Paracel groups. https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2019/06/05/these-us-partners-in-the-asia-pacific-are-to-receive-scaneagle-drones/

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  September 10, 2018 | International, Naval

  France: La question d'un 2e porte-avion sera tranchée en 2025

  La décision de doter ou non la France d'un deuxième porte-avions sera prise dans le cadre de la prochaine loi de programmation militaire, soit à partir de 2025. La Marine nationale plaide pour la construction d'un nouveau navire pour permettre à la France d'assurer une "permanence à la mer". La décision de doter ou non la France d'un deuxième porte-avions sera prise dans le cadre de la prochaine loi de programmation militaire, soit à partir de 2025, a expliqué dimanche 9 septembre la ministre des Armées Florence Parly. Mis en service en 2001, l'unique porte-avions français, le Charles de Gaulle, "a vocation à terminer sa vie active autour de 2040", a-t-elle rappelé lors de l'émission Europe 1/CNews/Les Échos "Le grand rendez-vous". "C'est donc dès maintenant, dans le cadre de cette loi de programmation militaire (2019-2025, ndr), que nous lançons des études pour réfléchir à ce que doit être ce nouveau porte-avions", a-t-elle rappelé. Mais "lorsqu'on lance des études pour un nouveau modèle de porte-avions, on laisse ouverte la question de savoir s'il en faut un ou s'il en faut deux". Le Charles de Gaulle en rénovation "C'est la prochaine loi de programmation militaire, celle qui interviendra au-delà de 2025, qui devra déterminer les moyens pour assurer la construction de ce ou ces porte-avions et de définir le nombre de ces navires", a-t-elle conclu. Le porte-avions Charles de Gaulle subit depuis début 2017 à Toulon une vaste rénovation longue de 18 mois, qui doit redonner une seconde vie à ce b'timent pour les 20 prochaines années. La Marine nationale plaide pour la construction d'un deuxième porte-avions pour permettre à la France d'assurer une "permanence à la mer". (Avec AFP) https://www.challenges.fr/entreprise/defense/la-question-d-un-2e-porte-avion-sera-tranchee-en-2025_611597

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  March 14, 2019 | International, Land

  DARPA Seeks Tools to Capture Underground Worlds in 3D

  DARPA is seeking information on state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies for advanced mapping and surveying in support of the agency's Subterranean (SubT) Challenge. Georeferenced data – geographic coordinates tied to a map or image – could significantly improve the speed and accuracy of warfighters in time-sensitive active combat operations and disaster-related missions in the subterranean domain. Today, the majority of the underground environments are uncharted or inadequately mapped, including human-made tunnels, underground infrastructure, and natural cave networks. Through the Request for Information, DARPA is looking for innovative technologies to collect highly accurate and reproducible ground-truth data for subterranean environments, which would potentially disrupt and positively leverage the subterranean domain without prohibitive cost and with less risk to human lives. These innovative technologies will allow for exploring and exploiting these dark and dirty environments that are too dangerous to deploy humans. “What makes subterranean areas challenging for precision mapping and surveying – such as lack of GPS, constrained passages, dark or dust-filled air – is similar to what inhibits safe and speedy underground operations for our warfighters,” said Timothy Chung, program manager in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office (TTO). “Building an accurate three-dimensional picture is a key enabler to rapidly and remotely exploring and searching subterranean spaces.” DARPA is looking for commercial products, software, and services available to enable high-fidelity, 3D mapping and surveying of underground environments. Of interest are available technologies that offer high accuracy and high resolution, with the ability to provide precise and reproducible survey points without reliance on substantial infrastructure (e.g., access to global fixes underground). Additionally, relevant software should also allow for generated data products to be easily manipulated, annotated, and rendered into 3D mesh objects for importing into simulation and game engine environments. DARPA may select proposers to demonstrate their technologies or methods to determine feasibility of capabilities for potential use in the SubT Challenge in generating and sharing 3D datasets of underground environments. Such accurately georeferenced data may aid in scoring the SubT competitors' performance in identifying and reporting the location of artifacts placed within the course. In addition, renderings from these data may provide DARPA with additional visualization assets to showcase competition activities in real-time and/or post-production. Instructions for submissions, as well as full RFI details, are available on the Federal Business Opportunities website: https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/DARPA-SN-19-21/listing.html. Submissions are due at 1:00 p.m. EDT April 15, 2019. Please email questions to SubTChallenge@darpa.mil. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-03-07