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By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany – Germany is one step closer to getting its own version of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, as officials here seek to bolster the country's cybersecurity posture. The Cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel this week approved the new organization, to be headed jointly by the Defense and Interior ministries. The outfit is slated to get a budget of €200 million ($230 million) between 2019 and 2022. The new “Agency for Innovation in Cybersecurity” will eventually have 100 employees. The German parliament, the Bundestag, will debate the proposal in the upcoming months. Once the funding is cleared, analysts will begin their work in earnest next year. While the Pentagon's DARPA served as a model in creating the new organization, the American agency's funding and personnel commitment dwarfs that of new German effort. But the move is still a major step forward here because it shows a political commitment to cyberspace in the context of defense and security that officials said was previously lacking. Notably, one of the explicit goals is to speed up the acquisition cycle for cybersecurity technology. That puts Germany in the same boat as many governments around the world, where officials have found themselves perennially lagging behind sophisticated attack schemes employed by hackers. Full article: https://www.fifthdomain.com/global/europe/2018/08/31/german-cabinet-approves-new-cybersecurity-agency

Kathleen Harris · CBC News Canada and security allies say illicit material is flourishing and easily accessible on the web Canada and its "Five Eyes" intelligence allies are calling on the digital online industry to take urgent action to stop child pornographers, terrorists and violent extremists from finding a platform on the internet. After meetings in Australia, ministers from that country, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S. and U.K., issued a statement claiming the group is as determined to counter the "grave threats" online as they are to dealing with them in the physical world. "Our citizens expect online spaces to be safe, and are gravely concerned about illegal and illicit online content, particularly the online sexual exploitation of children. We stand united in affirming that the rule of law can and must prevail online," reads the joint communique issued Wednesday. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould attended the meetings. 'New vectors for harm' The joint statement says the anonymous, instantaneous and networked nature of the web has magnified threats and "opened up new vectors for harm." It also notes that the evolution of digital technology has created new opportunities for transmitting child exploitation material and perpetrating the most abhorrent acts, such as live streaming abuse. The statement says illicit material is not relegated to the recesses of the dark web, but is accessible through most common top‑level domains. Mobile technology has enabled offenders to target children using apps to recruit and coerce children. "The low financial cost, and the anonymized nature of this criminal enterprise, is contributing to a growth in the sexual exploitation of children. We must escalate government and industry efforts to stop this," it reads. Lianna McDonald, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection welcomed the joint statement. "Our organization has been engaging directly with survivors of child sexual abuse who endure lifelong impacts from the recording and sharing of their abuse on the internet," she said in an emailed statement "Collaboration across borders and with all sectors, including industry, is essential if we are to make meaningful progress in this space and address this heinous crime." Tackling terrorist fundraising The communique also pledges to do more to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from spreading materials designed to radicalize, recruit, fundraise and mobilize. Actions urged by the Five Eyes group include: Developing and implementing capabilities to prevent illegal and illicit content from being uploaded, and to execute urgent and immediate takedown measures when there is an upload. Deploying human and automated capabilities to find and remove legacy content. Investing more on automated capabilities and techniques, including photo DNA tools, to detect, remove and prevent reupload of illegal and illicit content. Building user safety into the design of all online platforms and services. Allen Mendelsohn, an internet law specialist and lecturer at McGill's law faculty, said because child porn is universally deemed reprehensible, he expects mounting governmental and public pressure could prompt tech companies to act. But, he said in past, they have resisted any steps to remove content, citing the "slippery slope" argument. "They are loathe to take any sort of action that would be seen as removing or not displaying any particular content that has been uploaded by users," he said. "They have taken the longstanding position that user content is the user's responsibility, not the platform's responsibility." Mendelsohn said the issue is complicated because there are differing laws and views internationally on what constitutes crossing the line for the internet. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/SOMNIA-1.4803122

RÉDIGÉ PAR JACQUES MAROUANI L'Agence pour l'innovation de défense sera officiellement créée le 1er septembre. L'Université d'été du Mouvement des Entreprises de France [MEDEF] a été une l'occasion pour la ministre des Armées, Florence Parly, a annoncé le lancement officiel de l'Agence de l'innovation de défense, sorte de « Darpa à la française ». La Darpa est l'agence américaine dédiée à l'innovation dans le secteur de la défense. « Rattachée à la DGA, elle sera chargée de fédérer tous les acteurs de l'innovation de défense, piloter la politique de recherche, technologie et innovation du ministère et l'ensemble des dispositifs d'innovation. Elle générera à terme le budget de la recherche et de l'innovation du ministère des armées, qui passera de 730 millions d'euros par an actuellement à un milliard d'euros d'ici à 2022 », avait expliqué Mme Parly, lors de l'annonce de sa création en mars dernier. Devant le Medef, la ministre a précisé la feuille de route de cette agence pour l'innovation de défense. Elle aura à « rassembler tous les acteurs du ministère et tous les programmes de soutien à l'innovation, tout en étant ouverte sur l'extérieur et « tournée vers l'Europe, a-t-elle dit. Emmanuel Chiva a été nommé à la tête de cette Agence pour l'innovation de défense. Normalien, docteur en bio-informatique, entrepreneur à succès (notamment dans la simulation numérique), ancien auditeur de l'Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN) et capitaine de frégate de réserve, M. Chiva est un passionné des nouvelles technologies appliquées au monde militaire. En outre, il était jusqu'à présent le président de la commission chargée de la prospective et de la préparation de l'avenir au sein du Gicat et membre du conseil de surveillance de Def'Invest, un fonds d'investissement du ministère des Armées dédié aux PME stratégiques. Par ailleurs, le ministère des Armées va lancer, à l'automne, un « grand forum de l'innovation de défense » qui rassemblera « industriels PME, start-up, chercheurs, investisseurs, acteurs public. http://www.electronique.biz/component/k2/item/62831-lancement-officiel-de-l-agence-de-l-innovation-de-defense

By: Valerie Insinna The Air Force's ambitious new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance strategy calls for a sensing grid that fuses together data from legacy platforms (such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk), emerging technologies (like swarming drones), other services' platforms and publicly available information. Artificial intelligence will decipher that data. Such a system may sound like science fiction, but the service believes it could be up by 2028. Lt. Gen. VeraLinn “Dash” Jamieson, the deputy chief of staff for ISR, explained the genesis for the Air Force's new “Next Generation ISR Dominance Flight Plan,” which lays out the service's goals for the next 10 years. She spoke recently with Valerie Insinna of sister publication Defense News. C4ISRNET: First, why does the Air Force need a new ISR plan? LT. GEN. “DASH” JAMIESON: This Flight Plan really does go out for 10 years. We did it because, primarily, we have a National Defense Strategy that was written, and crafted, and came out in January. It looks at a changing complex world with a great power competition. We see that the character of war is potentially changing based off of technologies that are being fielded and that are under development today. So that is one reason. The other reason really predates the NDS. When I took over the A2, the chief of staff, Gen. [David] Goldfein, really looked at me and said, “Dash, your ISR Enterprise is very airman intensive.” So I took an evaluation with my team, and it is extremely airman intensive. The airmen are applying new things to old tools. How we share the outcomes of our sensing capability is via PowerPoint that our airmen construct using Excel spreadsheets to look at the data, identify what is the data, and try to then manually layer the data in this construct. To get at some fused data, to get at what are the trends, that approach is not going to give us the ability to actually conduct our operations at the speed of relevance across the entire spectrum of conflict. More importantly, it drags out our decision cycle for our war fighter. When you drag out your own decision cycle, the adversary has the ability to get inside of your decisions and to disrupt those decisions. C4ISRNET: What can you do? JAMIESON: Our intent is to actually get inside the adversaries' decision cycle and create chaos. Once you do that, that really is a tough, tough problem to get out of. We established a framework and we have two major efforts. One was how we integrate and balance our ISR portfolio. We take a look at what we have today, what we see are our seams and our capability gaps, and we determine how we make investments on that. But our other major effort is, “What is my future pathway, what are those lines of effort that are going to give us an advantage?” We came up with three macro categories. First, it's disrupt the technologies, and see what capabilities and options that brings you. The second is how we bolster lethality and readiness with what we're going to do to the enterprise. Then, third, it's how we establish foundational capabilities that transcend this entire framework. C4ISRNET: How does that manifest itself? JAMIESON: You have to have a data strategy because you actually have to have standards on how you are going to condition your data. How are you going the access your data? How is your data gonna move for your infrastructure? How are you gonna secure your data? How do you ensure your data is not up for malicious attack? We did talk to industry. Then, we also worked with our acquisition professionals and said we really need to have an agile capability development concept annex. That really gets at how we prototype, how we do DevOps, what is the environment and how we get at acquisition of software in a very different paradigm. C4ISRNET: What does that mean for the force? JAMIESON: In 10 years, our digital airmen will be the preponderance of the force. Our airmen right now, a majority of the ones 24 and under, come in already knowing how to code. So what skill sets do we know come up for ISR where coding is fundamental? How does that affect our retention capability? Because we want to empower and unleash them to develop new skill sets that will complement where we're going with the ISR enterprise. Finally, we want to partner much deeper with our think tanks, our academia, our labs so that we are sharing right up front. C4ISRNET: You've talked about a collaborative sensing grid that uses advanced technology. What does that look like? JAMIESON: No longer are we going to invest primarily in just the air domain. We're gonna look at capabilities in and from space. We're also working with our joint partners to integrate in surface and subsurface capabilities, so that our sensing grid of tomorrow is no longer a sensor looking in a specific domain with a specific in. If we initially look at the first Predator, we had motion video that was EOIR, electro optical infrared. Then, maybe we need to have SAR. Then when we went to hyperspectral, we went to EO/IR and [synthetic aperture radar], because we're getting multiple ins in a domain. C4ISRNET: Is this a place to use AI? JAMIESON: We want to have algorithms to get at ensuring that the data is pure and not malicious or false. But we are going to take that, and we're going to use that with our exquisite capability to really flesh out that sensing grid. We're going to do it so now that we now have resiliency, it's not just in one domain or one capability. If we look at high altitude, what can I do from a manned and an unmanned capability? From a persistent, standoff and stand-in capability? We're going to look at swarming, we're going to look at even hypersonic capability — that give us a multitude of new capabilities to form this fencing grid. The beauty of the sensing grid is it doesn't forget what we have already fielded. Our airmen are looking at why is something happening, what are the trends. In other words, we fielded a sensor to answer a question. What we're trying to develop is how I get the data so that I can fuse it, look at it, then ask the right questions. C4ISRNET: What goals do you have over the next 10 years to really bring that into the ISR infrastructure? JAMIESON: The real importance of cloud computing ... and when I talk about cloud computing, I'm really talking about it as a service. The service that we're trying to get is really a platform, infrastructure and software. I'm not just looking for a data-storage hub. I'm looking for a partnership with industry. I'm not necessarily looking for just one industry partner; I'm looking for multiple industry partners in a multi-cloud concept, because each one of the big five, if we just were to use that, has their expertise. We want to be able to take that expertise and use it. When I say platform, infrastructure, software, I'm really talking about the capability that they give me to field at scale. Every time you turn on your Tesla updates are instantaneous, and I want my ISR enterprise to have those type of instantaneous updates on the infrastructure so that I can continue to prototype my applications. The data is what we're going to use to develop those applications. We've told industry, “You can make applications and we're going to buy applications from you. The data is ours. But we want to partner with you on the ability to create algorithms, applications, different software packages.” C4ISRNET: You talked about private sector partnerships, but how do you overcome or address the fallout from Project Maven? JAMIESON: We have been talking a lot about this. I don't see this as a problem for the ISR enterprise, I don't really see this as a problem for DoD. I see this as a U.S. public issue that needs to be debated and discussed. Because when we look at artificial intelligence and you look at how you develop algorithms, there's always a bias when we put the math together. The bias is formed by the humans that are putting that math together. What I mean by that is, the bias right now is whether we are going to use Western values. We value privacy, we value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our competitors, as we've seen, do not value privacy. Nor do they value life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. They have a completely different construct. I think the American public needs to have a discussion on where do we want to go. How do we want to approach this? What does it mean to us as a society? How are we going to protect our privacy? How are we going to protect our values? In lieu of that, then how does that apply to our national defense? We absolutely welcome that debate. We want to have that dialogue. C4ISRNET: Do you envision capability upgrades for the Global Hawk or Reaper? Are we going to see certain platforms phase out, or new platforms built into the budget? JAMIESON: As we look at where we are with our [remotely piloted aircraft, or RPA], U-2, our Rivet Joint capability now, it was pretty airmen intensive. What we are doing is developing algorithms to take the data off those platforms in a much faster cycle. I don't want to do processing, exploitation and dissemination in a reach-back mode in the future. I want to process, to exploit right on the aircraft or right on the sensor so that I can actually take that data, condition it, and then use it with other data so that I can get out better quality of information into the joint war fighter. Think of the Reaper. Today, we take the data off. If it's full-motion video, my airmen are actually identifying the object and looking at patterns of life after staring at that video for hours on end. What we're gonna do is automate that entire process and that is what Maven is doing. But we are developing algorithms much faster. In the next two to four years, it will be processed at the sensor. So that allows the airmen to no longer take the hours to do the processing. It takes a lot of bandwidth, it takes a lot of time. We want to do all that onboard the sensor so that I can fuse the data from the sensing grid. The reason I want to fuse the data from the sensing grid is because I want to identify certain characteristics. C4ISRNET: Did the Flight Plan address capabilities at the platform level, such as whether new systems were needed? Or were you purely focused on exploiting data? JAMIESON: We have to go back and identify first where are our big gaps, because we are in a cost-effective modernization way forward. Do I look at what I need from a space capability? Do I look at what I need from a swarming RPA? Do I look at autonomous remotely piloted aircraft, whether they are high altitude or minis that go for a specific length? We want to have a balanced portfolio of standoff, penetrating and persistent capabilities. C4ISRNET: Are you going to invest in swarming capabilities? Or some sort of hypersonic vehicle that can do ISR? JAMIESON: It is in the mode of being thought about. But you have to look at what technologies are real today and what technologies are really going to be there for tomorrow. You don't want to commit early to something that isn't gonna give you the best payoff. C4ISRNET: Are there any concrete goals that you guys are looking at to make sure the department is staying on track? JAMIESON: I'm pretty direct, and I'm pretty blunt. In our classified ISR Flight Plan, I've got an implementer for every single annex with milestones, goals, objectives and pathways so that, starting in 2018, we have the deliverables to ensure that we do stay on path. We don't know what's going to happen with the internet of things. That could be just as disruptive as the internet was. https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/isr/2018/08/30/how-the-air-force-data-strategy-is-evolving/

By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany – German shipbuilding advocates are pressing the government to insulate the military surface ship sector from international competition in a bid to boost the industry segment here. At issue are thousands of jobs in northern Germany, plus, proponents contend, a capability sector so critical to national security that it deserves an exemption from European acquisition requirements. The campaign is expected to pick up steam as a key naval program, the MKS-180 multirole frigate, proceeds toward a second call for offers by the German Ministry of Defense later this year. Up for grabs is a $4 billion deal to build an initial batch of four ships. The two contenders are a Dutch-led team headed by Damen Shipyards and one led by German Naval Yards Kiel, which is owned by a French-Lebanese investor. Both bids have German firms as partners: Lürssen's subsidiary Blohm+Voss in the case of Damen, and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems with GNYK. Daniel Günther, the minister-president of Germany's northernmost state Schleswig-Holstein, which includes the city of Kiel, was the latest to demand special treatment for German shipyards. Günther told the German press agency DPA he is rooting for the German Naval Yards bid because his state, which hosts both shipyards comprising the team, stands to benefit from the work. “It's important for me that the contract goes to Schleswig-Holstein, and that's why I use all opportunities to lobby for it in Berlin – though it's still on the companies to put together a good offer,” he was quoted as telling the German press agency DPA. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/08/30/german-shipbuilders-push-for-government-favor-against-european-rivals

BY MARCUS WEISGERBER With a Raptor's body and the JSF's brain, the new jet would aim to answer the next decade's Russian and Chinese threats. Lockheed Martin is quietly pitching the U.S. Air Force a new variant of the F-22 Raptor, equipped with the F-35's more modern mission avionics and some structural changes, Defense Onehas learned. It is one of several options being shopped to the U.S. military and allies as Lockheed explores how it might upgrade its combat jets to counter Russian and Chinese threats anticipated by military officials in the coming decade, according to people with direct knowledge of the plan. “You're building a hybrid aircraft,” David Deptula, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who is now dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “It's not an F-22. It's not an F-35. It's a combination thereof. That can be done much, much more rapidly than introducing a new design.” The new variant — similar to one Lockheed is pitching to Japan— would incorporate the F-35's more modern mission system and “other advancements in the stealth coatings and things of that nature,” according to a person familiar with the proposal. Full article: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/08/lockheed-pitching-f-22f-35-hybrid-us-air-force/150943/

By: Neil Fotre The Additive Manufacturing Team at Marine Corps Systems Command and Marines from the I Marine Expeditionary Force operated the world's largest concrete 3D printer at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Champaign, Illinois, according to the Marine Corps. The combined force effort was used to 3D print a 500-square-foot barracks hut. “This exercise had never been done before," Additive Manufacturing's project officer Capt. Matthew Friedell said in a news release. "People have printed buildings and large structures, but they haven't done it onsite and all at once. This is the first-in-the-world, onsite continuous concrete print.” Full article: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/08/30/no-sandbags-needed-marines-3d-print-a-barracks-room-in-40-hours

By: Todd South After more than 40 years of service, the robust little all-terrain vehicle that can climb mountains, ford rivers and churn through snow needs replacing. And the Army, Marines and National Guard are asking industry to give them a new ride. Back in June, Army Contracting Command officials put out a Request for Information for industry to share what they think can replace the Small Unit Support Vehicle, a tracked vehicle that's been in service since the mid-1970s. At one point, there were 1,100 of them in the U.S. military inventory. Now, only a few dozen remain, mostly in service in cold weather areas such as U.S. Army Alaska. The new program to replace the SUSV has been dubbed the “Joint All Weather All Terrain Support Vehicle," or JAASV. So far, Army officials have only asked for information, but they are expected to issue a proposal with more detailed requests for requirements and timelines from industry in the coming weeks or months. The upgrade and replacement are important for a variety of reasons, some of which are near-term, such as National Guard disaster response to blizzards, floods and fires, which can't be navigated easily by the current Humvee fleet. Others are for mobility in the Arctic. Leaders are shifting training and resources back to the Arctic as Russia has beefed up its capabilities and manpower in the region in recent years, from new units and commands to upgraded equipment and weaponry. BAE Systems built the original SUSV, or Bv206, and has since built a modernized version called the BvS10 in both armored and unarmored types. The newer model has been fielded to military units in the United Kingdom, Norway, France and the Netherlands. It has seen real-world operations in Afghanistan and the Balkans on NATO missions, according to company officials. Last year, ST Kinetics unveiled its own version of a small, all-terrain tracked vehicle, called the Bronco 3, at DESI, a defense conference in London, England, according to Army Times sister publication Defense News. Full article: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/08/30/the-army-is-looking-for-a-new-all-around-vehicle-that-can-swim-climb-and-charge-through-snow

By: Valerie Insinna and David B. Larter WASHINGTON — Boeing has seized the Navy's MQ-25 tanker drone contract, a major victory for a company that has in recent years struggled to win combat aircraft awards, marking a major step toward a new kind of carrier air wing. The $805 million contract covers the design, development, fabrication, test and delivery of four Stingray aircraft, a program the service expects will cost about $13 billion overall for 72 aircraft, said Navy acquisition boss James Geurts. The award to Boeing kicks off what the Navy would is aiming to be a six-year development effort moving toward a 2024 declaration of initial operational capability. At the end, it will mark a historic integration of drones into the Navy's carrier air wing. The Navy has traversed a long and complicated road in trying to develop a UAS that would fly on and off its aircraft carriers. It first envisioned UCLASS as a surveillance and strike asset, but the program was cancelled in 2016 after stakeholders including the Navy, the office of the secretary of defense and Congress publicly butted heads over the requirements. Instead, the effort to field a carrier drone was reborn that year as an unmanned tanker that could double the range of the carrier air wing. “I think we'll look back on this day and recognize it as a pretty historic event,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson. “From an operational standpoint we are putting our feet in the water in a big way of integrating unmanned with manned into the air wing,” adding that getting the Stingray into the fleet will free up the Hornets now dedicated to the tanking mission While the MQ-25 contract would have been a massive win for any of the competitors, which also included Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, it holds special meaning for Boeing. Boeing has a long history in both naval aviation and the tanking mission, but its Phantom Works advanced technology wing has failed in recent decades to win high-stakes awards like the joint strike fighter and long-range strike bomber contracts. Today's win is a big step in toward reversing the trend. Boeing and General Atomics were widely seen as the favorites for the MQ-25 contest, with each firm offering wing-body-tail designs that were heavily influenced by the company's work in the precursor to the program, the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike effort. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/08/30/us-navy-selects-builder-for-new-mq-25-stingray-aerial-refueling-drone