Old quarrels take new forms when the world's power balance shifts. The Japanese and Chinese nationalists squaring up over disputed islands in the East China Sea are in the grip of geopolitical rivalries, jockeying for position on the new map that China's rise has created. Their deeper animosity goes back into the misuse of their troubled, shared history.

When China's climb out of the economic trough began in the 1990s, the US was the world's biggest power, Japan the second biggest economy, and the Soviet empire recently deceased. Today, China is the world's second largest economy, Japan has stagnated for two decades, and US power looks less impressive than it did. As China flexes its muscles, the US shift in focus to the Pacific has come not a minute too soon for some of Beijing's nervous neighbours.

Asia's maritime borders, and ownership of the oil and gas beneath the East and South China seas, are disputed between Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, China and Japan – but as China grows, so does its unilateral assertion of claims. Two years ago it announced the South China Sea was a "core interest", in an unsuccessful attempt to stick a "keep out" sign on the dispute for the US to read. In July, Beijing elevated an island-based military garrison to city status, unilaterally giving it administrative responsibility over the entire South China Sea.

In the East China Sea, things have been equally tense. In April Shintaro Ishihara, Tokyo's governor, provocatively announced a public fund to buy several of the islands from private Japanese citizens. His action embarrassed the government and inflamed Japanese sentiments, provoking a reaction from Chinese nationalists: on 15 August, the anniversary of Japan's 1945 surrender, a group of Chinese citizens landed and raised Chinese flags on the islands. They were swiftly deported to Hong Kong, precipitating the worst anti-Japanese demonstrations since 2004.

The animosity is much older. For centuries China saw Japan as a vassal state and loftily accepted tribute from a people they regarded as inferior. In the 19th century, when Japan cast off its feudal system and modernised, the shock to China was the greater because of its historic contempt. When, in 1894, Japan defeated China militarily, the humiliation was felt across the nation. China set out to learn from Japan's transformation but was powerless to prevent Japan's imperial expansion and brutal occupation. Even after Japan's defeat in 1945, Japan's economic success and close relationship with the US perpetuated Chinese resentment.

That Japan is the focus of popular rage in China today is less surprising, given this history, than the fact that until the late 1970s visiting Japanese were greeted in China with professions of friendship. It was only after the Chinese regime sent tanks to crush the Tiananmen democracy movement in 1989 that nationalist animosity became official policy.

In the version of history elaborated after 1989, malign foreigners are China's enemy and the cause of the century of "national humiliation" from the 1840s to the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. "National humiliation" is now commemorated in scores of freshly built museums and taught to successive generations of school children.

Among China's enemies, Japan occupies a special place as a brutal territorial aggressor. China complains constantly, and unfairly, that Japan has failed to apologise for its war crimes; the visits of successive Japanese leaders to the Yasukuni shrine, with its unrepentant imperialist message, infuriates China every year.

Both sides distort history. Japan's notorious school textbooks are vague on war crimes; Chinese accounts of Japanese atrocities in films and school history books spare no gruesome detail. Japan as the source of inspiration and finance for a generation of Chinese political reformers, including Sun Yatsen, China's democratic revolutionary leader, is all but forgotten. Both the Chinese nationalists (the Kuomintang) and the Communist party claim to have defeated Japan in the war of resistance; the larger theatre of the second world war, the role of the US and the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki take a back seat.

Both governments have stoked nationalism for domestic purposes. Now they risk being held hostage to the indignation of the street. As Asia's geostrategic map shifts, such incidents, demonstrations and provocations will recur, stimulated by false histories and present ambitions. These are dangerous games, and both governments should ensure that more sober stories prevail. These maritime disputes are a test of Asia's capacity to co-operate for mutual benefit. Failure means everybody loses.

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Dozens of federal agencies have bought spyware to monitor the communications of government employees, Lisa Rein of the Washington Post reports. 

The software, sold by SpectorSoft, can be programmed to intercept tweets and Facebook posts, take screen shots of computers, track keystrokes, retrieve files from hard drives, and search for keywords. 

The report is highly concerning to privacy advocates and whistleblowers.

Last month Congressional investigators revealed the highest levels of the Food and Drug Administration authorized wide-ranging surveillance of a group of the agency’s scientists who were communicating with lawmakers and others about potentially dangerous medical devices.

SpectorSoft says its best-selling product, Spector 360, can monitor "Every activity, in complete detail" and that it has sold the product to numerous federal agencies.

In June the Transportation Security Administration asked for an “insider-threat software package.” The TSA specified that employees “must not have the ability to detect this technology” and “must not have the ability to kill the process or service,” according to Rein.

Industry experts told the Post the WikiLeaks scandal and concerns over unauthorized disclosures spurred the government to secretly track its employees' work and personal computers in real time.

Each agency sets its own policies on what can be monitored, and agencies are not required to inform employees when they monitor communications.

“How do you distinguish between a constitutionally protected contact with the press and an illegal leak?” Kohn asked. “You can’t. What you have right now is the ability to find every single Deep Throat in the government.”

SEE ALSO: This New Anti-Leaks Bill May End Government Transparency As We Know It >

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The grief-stricken father of a slain Marine lashed out at the U.S. training policies with the Afghan National Security Forces.

His son’s death became one of many recent insider attacks leading to high-level meetings between U.S. and Afghan leaders to re-evaluate their training methods.

“At the end of the day, what happened is my son trained somebody to murder him,” Greg Buckley Sr. said at the funeral Saturday for Lance Cpl. Gregory T. Buckley, 21, of Oceanside, N.Y., according to a CBS report.

The Afghan recruits “come in, they say, ‘We want to be police officers,’ and we hand them a blue uniform and hand them an AK-47? That’s insane,” the father told CBS as he stood surrounded by family and friends wearing buttons with a picture of his fallen son in uniform.

“If my son died on the battlefield, I would’ve been—maybe been—able to accept that, but instead they killed him inside the gym,” said Buckley Sr., according to CBS.

Buckley; Staff Sgt. Scott E. Dickinson, 29, of San Diego, Calif.; and Cpl. Richard A. Rivera Jr., 20 of Ventura, Calif., were shot to death on Aug. 10 while they worked out at a base gym in the southwestern Helmand province. The assailant allegedly was an unvetted 15-year-old “tea boy” who was the personal aide to the local Afghan district police chief, the Washington Post reported.

The grief and anger of Buckley’s father reflected the opinions of most Americans. Numerous recent polls have shown that a majority believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting.

While services were held for the young Marine in Long Island, N.Y., Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to curb the growing incidents of “insider attacks” by Afghans wearing uniforms that have killed at least 109 coalition troops since 2007—39 since January, including 25 Americans.

Another Afghan dressed in a police uniform shot and killed a NATO soldier Sunday in southern Afghanistan. It wasn’t immediately known what country the NATO soldier was from. And an Afghan police recruit killed two U.S. Special Forces trainers Aug. 17.

Panetta thanked Karzai for “condemning the attacks and the two “expressed shared concern over this issue,” said George Little, the chief Pentagon spokesman.

To counter the insider threat, Panetta and Karzai discussed measures that have already been put in place or are in the planning stage. The two called for “augmented counter-intelligence measures, even more rigorous vetting of Afghan recruits, and stepped up engagement with village elders, who often play a key role by vouching for Afghan security personnel,” Little said.

Marine Gen. John Allen, the overall Afghan commander and head of the International Security Assistance Force, has also ordered all U.S. troops in Afghanistan to carry loaded weapons with them at all times.

Buckley and the two other slain Marines were members of Kilo Co., 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which had not taken any casualties before the Aug. 10 incident in the gym. On that same day in Helmand province, three other Special Operations Marines were killed by an Afghan wearing a police uniform in a separate incident.

Capt. Matthew P. Manoukian, 29, of Los Altos Hills, Calif.; Gunnery Sgt. Ryan Jeschke, 31, of Herndon, Va.; and Staff Sgt. Sky R. Mote, 27, of El Dorado, Calif., were shot to death by an Afghan police officer with whom they had just shared a meal.

In yet another incident, U.S. military officials strongly suspect that the Afghan police recruit who killed two Special Forces trainers with a weapon just handed to him was a Taliban plant and part of a growing threat from enemy infiltrators.

The U.S. and NATO have begun a major review of the vetting process for Afghan recruits for the police and the army to include checking on the identities and loyalties of village elders and Afghan officials who are required to vouch for the trainees, the officials said.

Until recently, Pentagon and NATO officials had routinely dismissed Taliban claims to have infiltrated the ranks of the Afghan National Security Forces as idle boasts, but the recent spike in “green on blue,” or “insider,” attacks has forced commanders to rethink policy.

“We think it’s about 10 percent,” a Pentagon official said of the percentage of deadly insider attacks carried out by Taliban agents or sympathizers since January 2011.

A total of 50 attacks by Afghans in uniform had occurred in 2011 and 2012 through last Friday and killed 74 coalition troops, the vast majority of them Americans.

The latest insider incident in relatively peaceful Farah province was especially disturbing to the planners of the transition of the security lead to Afghan forces as U.S. and coalition combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014. The withdrawal was dependent on the success of the "partnering" program between U.S. and Afghan forces.

Afghan and NATO officials identified the attacker as Mohammad Ismail, who was being recruited for the Afghan Local Police. The ALP is part of a new initiative funded by the U.S. to serve as a part-time militia force in areas where Western troops were less likely to patrol as they become fewer in number.

Ismail allegedly opened fire and killed the two Special Forces troops as soon as he was handed a weapon. Other Afghan and coalition troops then shot and killed Ismail.

In reviewing the vetting process for recruits, the U.S. and NATO will go back to the standards outlined at Pentagon briefings in May 2011 by top officials of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan.

Jack Kem, deputy to the commander of the Training Mission, said an eight-step vetting process for recruits had been put in place, including identity card verifications, biometric scans, and a requirement for at least two letters from village elders or Afghan officials from the recruit’s district vouching for the trainee.

The Pentagon official said the review of the vetting process will determine whether standards have been maintained in the vetting process and focus on the vouchers from the village elders to determine whether those individuals actually exist and are trustworthy.

Despite the infiltration of the ranks, the official said the vast majority of insider attacks were the result of stress, emotional problems and “personal vendettas that they’ve decided to solve with a gun."

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The Hells Angels have filed suit over the government's bar on letting foreign members enter the United States, CNN reported Monday.

The group claims the U.S. government has violated both immigration law and the Constitution by dubbing the Hells Angels a "known criminal organization."

Despite its tough name, the Hells Angels claims it's just a group "of motorcycle enthusiasts who have joined to ride motorcycles together, organize social events, fundraisers, parties and motorcycle rallies," according to the CNN report.

So, why does the government believe those motorcyclists are also criminals? We decided to take a look at the alleged criminal past of the notorious motorcycle group to find out.

An "outlaw motorcycle gang" that operates around the world.

The Hells Angels have just roughly 2,500 members.

But the group has 230 chapters in the U.S., operates in 26 countries, and poses a threat on six continents, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The group is tied to drug trafficking, money laundering, and other criminal offenses.

The Angels were formed in 1948, getting their name from bold World War II bomber pilots, according to the History Channel.

They began getting a rough reputation after one of their members killed a spectator at a 1969 Rolling Stones concert just a few feet away from Mick Jagger, the History Channel noted.

A two-year government sting led to the arrest of 19 Hells Angels in South Carolina.

In June, the FBI announced that it had arrested 19 people tied to a South Carolina Hells Angels outfit called the Rock Hell City Nomad Chapter.

They were accused of racketeering, money laundering, and other crimes. Authorities said they seized methamphetamine, cocaine, and 100 automatic weapons as part of the investigation.

A former Hells Angels chapter president was convicted of massive mortgage fraud in January.

Former Sonoma County, Calif. Hells Angels chapter leader Raymond Foakes was sentenced to nearly six years in prison in January for his role in a multi-million-dollar mortgage fraud.

Foakes got caught falsifying mortgage applications so he could buy land he never intended to live on, the FBI said. Instead, he wanted to use the property to grow marijuana, the feds claimed.

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As the political turmoil in Iraq continues, insurgent groups are taking the opportunity to escalate their attacks and further destabilise the country. Their aim is as simple as it is deadly: to stir sectarian tensions and win back territory.

On 21 July, the Islamic State of Iraq announced a new campaign, Operation Breaking Walls, aimed at winning back territory previously lost to the US and Iraqi forces. The jihadists are seeking to undermine the Shia-dominated government of Iraq and reach out to the Sunni population.

July has been the deadliest month in Iraq in two years. The recent al-Qaida surge coincided with the month of Ramadan, and they vowed to wage a "sacred offensive". According to AFP, the death toll in Ramadan reached 411.

When jihadists began pouring into Iraq before and during the US-led invasion in 2003, they established themselves mainly in the western Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq where the local population initially tolerated them. However, before the US decided to surge in 2007 it began negotiating with tribal leaders and encouraged them to fight al-Qaida – whose excesses the tribes could no longer stand.

This budding movement, later called the Awakening, was crucial in driving back jihadists in western Iraq and allowed the US to focus more on combating the violence in and around Baghdad. Now that US forces have withdrawn and the political situation has deteriorated, al-Qaida is trying to change the balance of power again.

Recent propaganda videos shed ample light on its modus operandi. A video uploaded in late June shows graphic military operations against the Iraqi security forces and the Sunni Awakening tribesmen who continue to stand in the way of the jihadists. Dressed in civilian clothes and armed with silenced weapons, the jihadists make swift work of their killings and executions. The checkpoints are overwhelmed in the surprise attacks and security forces have little time to respond.

Al-Qaida propaganda videos are laced with typical sectarian rhetoric. The Shia are referred to as a "disease" to the Islamic world that has no cure besides death. Al-Qaida asserts that the Sunni politicians who work for the Shia government have failed to deliver anything to their constituents. To further this narrative, the video includes cunningly selective clips of Iraqi politicians.

In one clip, Tariq al-Hashemi, the fugitive vice-president, complains that the Sunni tribes have been left stranded by the Americans. In another clip, Sunni politician, Rafi' al-Isawi, warns that if the political process in Iraq fails, the politicians will be replaced by al-Qaida – exactly what the jihadists want. Prominent Sunni politicians such as Hashemi, deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlak and parliamentary speaker Osama al-Nujaifi are labelled "traitors" who were deceived by the Shia into joining the national unity government but given no real authority.

Perhaps more interestingly, the video shows a softer side to al-Qaida in Iraq. While jihadists who engage in gruesome beheadings and indiscriminate car bombings are not renowned for their mercy and compassion, they are nonetheless engaged in a campaign to win hearts and minds. The jihadists surprise tribal members of the Awakening in late-night visits to their compounds. Instead of killing them on the spot (which they would normally do) the jihadists warn them and hand out "repentance" notices. The jihadists give the tribesman one more chance in life. They are told to acknowledge that they have "left Islam" (a crime punishable by death) and to repent.

Al-Qaida does not necessarily want the fighters to switch sides, only to turn over their weapons and quit their jobs. There are no more chances after that. They later confront tribesmen who were previously warned by al-Qaida but who broke their oath. They are placed face down on the floor and quietly executed.

One of the more brazen attacks in Baghdad was the targeting of the counter-terrorism bureau on 31 July. Two car bombs exploded near the bureau and jihadists then stormed the building. Though Iraqi security forces quickly surrounded the building, the attack illustrates that the jihadists still have the capability to strike even the most sensitive of locations in the capital.

Another propaganda video, uploaded in mid-August, demonstrates just how sophisticated the jihadi operations are. They have live-fire training exercises in broad daylight and rehearse their attacks on security targets. In one of their operations, they storm the city of Haditha, in the Anbar province, in disguise and go from checkpoint to checkpoint killing the security forces.

The al-Qaida militants wear interior ministry "Emergency Response" uniforms and casually drive around the city in official Swat vehicles. The jihadists are heavily armed, use night-vision goggles and sophisticated communications equipment. Though the group is a mix of both Iraqi and foreign Arab jihadists, the men who use the walkie-talkies speak in an Iraqi accent. They understand, and copycat, the security "speech" in Iraq. The al-Qaida militants are so well disguised as members of the Iraqi security forces that at one point they even mistook each other for the real deal. In a dramatic "friendly fire" incident, jihadists shouted at each to stand down – not realising they were on the same side. Two of them were killed.

Iraq seems to be stumbling heavily when it comes to the security gains made over the past few years, but ultimately efforts to curb al-Qaida must rely heavily on a political solution to ensure the jihadists have no space to operate. If the Sunnis of Iraq, who continue to feel marginalised by the government, acquiesce to al-Qaida then the latter's ambitions of winning back territory and plunging the country further into chaos may be achieved.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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In the last few months, there has been a steady stream of reports regarding warrantless government surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The new reality that followed 9/11 led NSA whistleblower William Binney to resign after "the NSA began purposefully violating the Constitution" in the process of gathering information on virtually every U.S. citizen.

Government spying capabilities are vast, including everything from general hacking techniques learned from Germany to a new FBI domestic wireless surveillance unit to the massive spy campaign on Occupy Wall Street run by the post-9/11 Department of Homeland Security.

American tech companies like Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Google and various mobile carriers are reportedly turning over user information.

Meanwhile, the NSA hired Israeli contractors to bug the telecommunications network and is in the process of building a $2 billion spy center.

That's why this ACLU infographic from October bears repeating as it reminds us how the U.S. domestic surveillance empire began: 

SEE ALSO: Appeals Court Overturns Only Successful Case Against NSA Warrantless Wiretapping >

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It didn’t surprise me today to read that China was irked by Clinton’s recent comments that African nations should be wary of China, as their relationships were based on a need for natural resources bountiful in numerous countries:

“I will be talking about what that means, about a model of sustainable partnership that adds value rather than extracts it,” Clinton told a university audience in this West African capital. “That’s America’s commitment to Africa.”

This need for resources, particularly minerals and oil, could lead to extractive partnerships in which the African nations don’t benefit as much as they potentially could. Additionally, China has not shied away from doing business with nations that the US considers unsavory, the obvious example being Sudan throughout the Darfur crisis:

From Bloomberg:

China’s thirst for oil is causing bloodshed. So says New York-based nongovernmental organization Human Rights First, which on Mar. 13 released a report linking China’s rising imports of Sudanese oil with sales of Chinese small weapons to Khartoum, used to further the deadly conflict in the western region of Darfur.

China’s engagement with Africa supports a broader strategy for China in two main ways:

1. China often presents itself as the champion of developing countries. They grew quickly economically and have become a major player. Often, they present themselves as the juxtaposition to the developed, Western nations, an outsider who has power inside and is always looking out for other developing states. This is very good PR for the country, giving it strength and leadership in international organizations. It can also makes the US look as though they have no interest in the agendas of developing states, an advantage that China manipulates very effectively.

2. Expansion. China is looking to establish and economic, and in some cases, military, presence wherever they can. The String of Pearls refers to China’s extensive lines of communications between mainland China and South Sudan. China has increased economic ties to Venezuela recently. Africa is a place where the US is hogtied by ideals – the government doesn’t want to be seen doing business with dirty players, but it is at the expense of natural resources that are being snapped up by China. China already controls the majority of the world’s cobalt supply, an essential mineral for electronics found in Madagascar and the Congo. The more control they have over the resources available, the more leverage they have over the countries that need them – especially if they have near-monopoly over them.

So, while I am 100% sure that Clinton is very much invested in the human rights aspects of African nations dealing with China, her comments encouraging countries away from the monolithic country are very much about preserving US power. It’s all part of the game.

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A top federal immigration official filed a lawsuit accusing the Department of Homeland Security of bias against men back in May, but the explosive allegations just started heating up in the press in recent days.

James Hayes, who heads New York's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, claims ICE's Washington hub, where he used to work, had a "frat-house" atmosphere that humiliated men.

Here are some of the more shocking allegations of events from 2009:

• Suzanne Barr, who was Janet Napolitano's chief of staff for ICE, allegedly moved the entire contents of the offices of three male workers—including their name plates, phones, and computers—into the men's bathroom.
• Barr is accused of screaming at a male employee that she wanted his "cock in the back of" her throat, and sending sexual messages from another employee's Blackberry.
• Hayes claims that Barr promoted and rewarded male employees who played along with her "sexually charged" games.
• Janet Napolitano launched at least six different investigations against Hayes to retaliate against him for complaining about the harassment, according to the suit, which names her as a defendant in her capacity as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

On Friday, CNN reported that Barr was on paid leave from her current position as chief of staff for ICE Director Steve Morton pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

An ICE spokesperson said in a statement quoted by CNN that Barr had voluntarily stepped aside for the moment, and that ICE was reviewing the allegations.

Read the complaint here.

DON'T MISS: The Majority Of The FBI's Most-Wanted Domestic Terrorists Are Women >

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In a post on his blog, Ilya Kramnik today made a set of predictions regarding upcoming procurement plans for the Russian air force. Here’s a translation:

Combat aircraft:

• a second contract for 48 Su-35s in 2014 or 2015, with deliveries in 2016-20.
• a second contract for 24-32  Su-30SMs for naval aviation in 2013-2014, with deliveries in 2015-18.
• accepting the option on 16 more Su-34s, in addition to 124 already ordered, with deliveries through 2020. An additional large contract may be concluded after 2015, so that the air force has a total of 180-200 Su-34s by 2025.
• a contract for 48-72 MiG-35s in 2014-15, with deliveries through 2020. Without such a contract, MiG may have to be shut down.
• a second contract for 12-16 MiG-29Ks for naval aviation is also likely.
• a contract for 32-40 Su-25SM(or TM)/UBMs, with deliveries in 2017-22.
• two contracts for T-50 fifth-generation fighter jets. First one would be 8-12 aircraft for the Lipetsk combat training center. That contract is likely to be concluded in 2013, with deliveries in 2014-16. A second contract for 40-60 aircraft is likely to be concluded in 2015, with deliveries scheduled for 2016-22.

Transport and special aircraft:

• Contract for 30-40 Il-76MD-90As in 2013, with deliveries in 2016-20.
• Contract for 10 An-124-300s in 2015, with deliveries in 2018-22.
• Contract for 30-40 An-70s in 2015, with deliveries in 2019-25.
• 25-30 special purpose Tu-204/214s, with deliveries in 2015-25.
• Contract for 100 multi-functional transport aircraft in 2015, with delivery of the first 30 in 2019-25.
• Contract for 40 light transport aircraft in 2015, with deliveries in 2019-24. Strong possibility that these will be foreign aircraft, such as the Italian C-27J Spartan, assembled in Russia under license.

Kramnik further notes that the recent discussion of delays in fulfillment of the State Armaments Program will most likely affect the air force least and the navy the most. I tend to agree. The aircraft industry is in much better shape than the shipbuilding industry (or the tank/artillery industries, for that matter). And the Russian military is less likely to scale back its ambitions for the air force than it is for the navy, which has already largely been consigned to the role of a coastal protection force for the foreseeable future.

A delay in the development and construction of new destroyers won’t really affect the functioning of the navy too much at this point (given its current set of missions), as long as it can get its corvettes and frigates more or less on time and the Borei strategic submarines still get built.

Aircraft sales do provide the largest part of the Russian defense industry’s export earnings, however. So the question that arises for me is whether the industry will have the capacity to build all these aircraft in the expected time frame. Here we should distinguish between MiG, which (as Kramnik indicates) is desperate for orders in the aftermath of losing the Indian MMRCA tender, and Sukhoi, which has lots of orders for both the Russian military and foreign customers.

Will Sukhoi be able to build all those planes at the same time? Possibly, but it will depend to some extent on the company’s success in modernizing its production facilities.

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With Post 9/11 veteran unemployment hovering near nine percent and the services preparing to drastically cut forces, Australian mining companies have stepped up to grab some of that labor for their short staffed operations down under.

Seth Robson at Stars and Stripes reports the mines are looking for everything from plumbers and electricians, to heavy-equipment operators and project managers with pay ranging from $65K to 200K to start.

From Stars and Stripes:

Australia would be happy to open its arms to U.S. veterans, Kim Beazley, Australian ambassador to the U.S., said in comments posted by the Australian immigration department. “In Australia, we have a culture of assuming that men and women who have been through the defense forces arrive in the broader community with very great skills discipline and motivation and, therefore, we assume that a similar atmosphere surrounds those who are veterans of American armed services,” he said.

The immigration department has posted interviews with U.S. soldiers considering a move Down Under on its website. “The majority of skilled migrants end up taking out citizenship, and we welcome that,” Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship said. “We are not a nation that is reliant on guest workers. When people come to build Australia, we invite them to become part of the nation.”

Australian headhunters are looking for new hires at job fairs throughout the US, but Robson mentions Detroit and Houston specifically and that 400 to 500 positions need to be filled immediately.

If interested in an Australian mining jobs: Australia Info Mine, that lists positions and companies, and the Australian Department of Immigration seem like decent places to start.

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BOSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is looking into claims by a cyber security researcher that flaws in software for specialized networking equipment from Siemens could enable hackers to attack power plants and other critical systems.

Justin W. Clarke, an expert in securing industrial control systems, disclosed at a conference in Los Angeles on Friday that he had figured out a way to spy on traffic moving through networking equipment manufactured by Siemens' RuggedCom division.

The Department of Homeland Security said in an alert released on Tuesday that it had asked RuggedCom to confirm the vulnerability that Clarke, a 30-year-old security expert who has long worked in the electric utility field, had identified and identify steps to mitigate its impact.

RuggedCom, a Canadian subsidiary of Siemens that sells networking equipment for use in harsh environments such as areas with extreme weather, said it was investigating Clarke's findings, but declined to elaborate.

Clarke said that the discovery of the flaw is disturbing because hackers who can spy on communications of infrastructure operators could gain credentials to access computer systems that control power plants and other critical systems.

"If you can get to the inside, there is almost no authentication, there are almost no checks and balances to stop you," Clarke said.

This is the second bug that Clarke, a high school graduate who never attended college, has discovered in products from RuggedCom, which are widely used by power companies that rely on its equipment to support communications to remote power stations.

In May, RuggedCom released an update to its Rugged Operating System software after Clarke discovered that it had a previously undisclosed "back door" account that could give hackers remote access to the equipment with an easily obtained password.

The Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, which is known as ICS-CERT, said in its advisory on Tuesday that government analysts were working with RuggedCom and Clarke to figure out how to best mitigate any risks from the newly identified vulnerability.

EASILY AVAILABLE KEY

Clarke said that problem will be tough to fix because all Rugged Operating System software uses a single software "key" to decode traffic that is encrypted as it travels across the network.

He told Reuters that it is possible to extract that "key" from any piece of RuggedCom's Rugged Operating System software.

Clarke obtained RuggedCom's products by purchasing them through eBay.

He conducted the original research in his spare time with equipment spread out on the bed of his downtown San Francisco apartment. Earlier this year, he was hired by Cylance, a firm that specializes on securing critical infrastructure and was founded by Stuart McClure, the former chief technology officer of Intel Corp's McAfee security division.

Marcus Carey, a researcher with Boston-based security firm Rapid7, said potential attackers might exploit the bug discovered by Clarke to disable communications networks as one element of a broader attack.

"It's a big deal," said Carey, who previously helped defend military networks as a member of the U.S. Navy Cryptologic Security Group. "Since communications between these devices is critical, you can totally incapacitate an organization that requires the network."

So far there have been no publicly reported cases of cyber attacks that have caused damage on U.S. critical infrastructure.

The Stuxnet virus was used to cripple Iran's nuclear program in 2010, causing physical damage to a uranium enrichment facility in that nation. Researchers recently found pieces of another virus known as Flame that they believe been used to destroy data in facilities in Iran.

The report on the RuggedCom vulnerability is among 90 released so far this year by ICS-CERT about possible risks to critical infrastructure operators. That is up from about 60 in the same period a year earlier, according to data published on the agency's website.

"DHS works closely with public and private sector partners to develop trusted relationships and help asset owners and operators establish policies and controls that prevent incidents," said DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard. "The number of incidents reported to DHS's ICS-CERT has increased, partly due to this increased communication."

(Editing by Bill Trott)

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President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presided over the annual ceremony marking the Iranian defence industry's "national day", which is often used to highlight advances in military technology and to persuade the world that the sanctions deployed against the country have failed to stop them.

On this occasion, state media boasted of an upgrade to a short-range missile system, the Fatah-110. The two developments are a clear if veiled threat that any attack on its nuclear facilities by Israel or its ally America would be met with retaliation in the Straits of Hormuz and against American allies on the other side of the Gulf, the only likely target within Fatah's range of about 200 miles.

The defence show followed renewed threats in Israel last week that it was on the verge of taking a unilateral decision to attack Iran's nuclear sites before they are successfully buried beyond the reach of "bunker-busting" bombs.

President Ahmadinejad, despite recent comments that the "Zionist regime" was a cancerous tumour which would soon be "wiped out", insisted that the new weapons being unveiled were defensive.

"Defensive advances are meant to defend human integrity, and are not meant to be offensive moves toward others," he said. "I have no doubt that our defensive capabilities can stand up to bullying and put a halt to their plans."

The new airbase will be 130 miles from Iran's current main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in the centre of the country.

"If the enemy ever has the intent of attacking this soil, we will make the Persian Gulf their grave," the local provincial governor, Mohammad Javad Askari, was quoted as saying.

Western analysts say that despite regular announcements they cannot judge with certainty the level of sophistication of Iran's considerable missile arsenal, as technical details are rarely given, as on this occasion. The missiles, developed with help from North Korea among other anti-American allies, are a compensation for the poor quality of the air force, which has been damaged by years of sanctions.

However, there is no doubt that the arsenal is significant enough to do considerable damage to Iran's neighbours, many of them Sunni-led, American-allied oil states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with a visceral hostility to Tehran.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defence minister Ehud Barak, are said by Israeli media to be attempting to build a coalition in favour of an attack in cabinet, which under the country's coalition government it does not currently have.

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When the four-man crew of the Bradstone Challenger crossed the finish line at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes on August 12 2005, spirits were high. They had just smashed the world record for circumnavigating the British Isles, completing the journey in 27 hours and 10 minutes. Their powerboat, a 51ft Bladerunner, had averaged 55 knots (63mph), at one point reaching 72 knots (83mph). It was an impressive achievement, beating the old record by more than three hours and 40 minutes, and the record still stands today.

What nobody knew was that the sound of the finish cannon at Cowes marked the beginning of a race for ownership of the Bradstone Challenger. Seven years on, after a series of clandestine transactions worthy of a Bond film, the British boat is berthed in Bandar Abbas, on the southern coast of Iran, where the West fears it has been fitted out with a deadly array of weapons systems. The naval port is home to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy (IRGN), who hope the Bradstone Challenger’s record-beating speed will prove decisive in any military engagement with American and Royal Navy warships in the Persian Gulf.

Tensions are currently running dangerously high in the region. On Friday, Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, described Israel’s existence as an “insult to humanity”, just as Israel’s defence leaders openly debated whether to launch air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. If Israel does attack, all eyes will be on Iran’s response. Options include using its arsenal of Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, authorising Hizbollah to fire rockets at Tel Aviv from its bases in South Lebanon, and blocking the Strait of Hormuz with mines.

It’s the last option that most concerns the West. Thirty-five per cent of the world’s seaborne oil shipments pass through the narrow Strait. A blockade would lead to soaring oil prices and inevitably drag America’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, into any conflict. And a naval exchange might just represent Iran’s best chance of landing a blow on the West.

It would certainly explain why the Iranians have been busy acquiring Western speedboats. (In the past, they have bought fast patrol boats from Italy, too.) Acknowledging the David-and-Goliath discrepancy between its own armed forces and the West’s, Iran has developed various “asymmetric” approaches to warfare. On land, it has supported Hizbollah’s hit-and-run guerilla strikes against Israel. At sea, it has been perfecting the art of “swarm attacks”, in which up to 100 armed speedboats approach an enemy warship from all directions. Surprise, confusion and speed are key to their success. And unleashed in the Strait of Hormuz, which is only 20 miles across at its narrowest point, the consequences could be devastating.

“There is no doubt the asymmetric maritime threat is currently concentrating the minds of coalition naval forces operating in the Gulf,” says Dr Lee Willett, senior research fellow in maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute. “Swarm attacks are one of a number of asymmetric threats, which include the role of three Russian-made Kilo class submarines, the enduring risk from mines, and the presence of land-based cruise missiles. When combined, these threats present the US and its allies with a significant potential challenge, but it’s one they remain very focused on countering.”

Most of the speedboats in any swarm attack would be destroyed by US helicopter gunships, unmanned aerial vehicles and ship-mounted Phalanx close-in weapons systems (a radar-guided gattling gun that fires up to 4,500 rounds a minute), but it would only need one suicide boat to get through for such an attack to be successful. If the target were an aircraft carrier, the images of a stricken, $4.5 billion flagship would reverberate around the world like September 11.

“It’s the nightmare scenario,” a US naval officer confided in me when I was researching my new spy thriller, Dirty Little Secret, which features an Iranian swarm attack on the USS Harry S. Truman. “It’s the sort of thing that has captains in the Gulf breaking out in cold sweat in the middle of the night.”

In a show of strength, the Pentagon sent the USS John C Stennis, an aircraft carrier, to join the USS Dwight Eisenhower carrier in the Gulf, four months ahead of schedule. The USS Ponce, an amphibious transport dock, has also arrived to support counter‑mine operations. Carriers, however, are increasingly perceived as vulnerable in modern theatres of war, despite the protection of a formidable accompanying strike group – an “onion” layer of guided missile cruisers and anti-submarine destroyers or frigates, and an air wing of 80 aircraft.

Iran, for one, has long believed that large warships are at risk in the unique confines of the Strait after its own experience in April 1998, when the Americans launched Operation Praying Mantis, the US navy’s largest surface engagement since the Second World War.

Iran lost a frigate, suffered damage to another and lost one gunboat, but it also saw how attacks on commercial tankers by its own small, fast-moving Boghammer craft could be successful. The bombing of the USS Cole in Aden in 2000, in which a small boat packed with explosives killed 17 sailors, confirmed their thinking.

Since then, Iran has made no secret of its tactics. In 2008, a small swarm of speedboats buzzed the USS Hopper in what President Bush called a “provocative act”. And in recent months, its navy has been holding exercises featuring an array of heavily armed small craft, including unmanned high-speed Ya Mahdi vessels, Bavar 2 flying boats, Seraj-1 high-speed patrol boats and Zolfaghar fast attack craft.

The Bradstone Challenger has not been seen since it was purchased in 2009, but analysts suspect that the Iranians are keeping it under wraps for a reason. Its unique monohull design creates a stable firing platform from which to launch weapons at speed. At a gleeful press conference in August 2010, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi of the IRGN told reporters: “The Bladerunner is a British ship that holds the world speed record. We got a copy [on which] we made some changes so it can launch missiles and torpedoes.” Fadavi added that Iran would soon be reverse-engineering many Bradstone Challengers. “In case of a conflict, we will be everywhere and nowhere to face the enemies.”

But does Iran really possess the technology to copy the boat’s twin 1,000hp Caterpillar engines and Arneson surface drive propellers? Dr Theodore Karasik, research director at the Institute of Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, thinks so. “The Iranian defence industry prides itself in acquiring Western technology using false fronts and then cloning its own versions. Why haven’t we seen the Bradstone Challenger yet? It’s quite possible they are holding back some of their more potent capabilities for a surprise purpose.”

The speedboat would never have made it as far as Iran if the United States Department of Commerce had got its way. After passing through several private owners in the Mediterranean, the record-breaking boat was put up for sale by a broker as “the ultimate toy for someone looking for something a little bit special”. In January 2009, a third party in South Africa arranged for it to be shipped out of Durban on the Iran Mutafeh, a cargo ship registered to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL).

Both were on a UN-sanctions related watch list. After docking, the Iran Mutafeh changed its name to the Diplomat, hoisted a Hong Kong flag and re-registered with a company called Starry Shine, a known front for the IRISL. At this point alarm bells rang at the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. An export stop order was faxed to Durban, citing the speedboat’s US-made components, but the ship had already set sail for Iran.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” says Jeremy Watts, director of Ice Marine, the Surrey-based company that built Bradstone Challenger. “All that hard work and passion that we put into an amazing boat, only to see it in the hands of the enemy.”

Meanwhile, the American Navy remains bullish. Lt Greg Raelson, a spokesman for the US 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, told the Telegraph: “The US Navy is a flexible, multi-capable force committed to regional security and stability, always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation and the safe flow of maritime traffic in waterways critical to global commerce.”

Or, as a senior US defence official warned Iran last month: “Don’t even think about sending your fast boats out to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We’ll put them on the bottom of the Gulf.”

'Dirty Little Secret’ by Jon Stock (Harper Collins) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £13.99 + £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk

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Iran's Supreme Leader has ordered the country's Revolutionary Guards to intensify its campaign of terror attacks against the West and its allies in retaliation for supporting the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

According to Western intelligence officials, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the order to the elite Quds Force unit following a recent emergency meeting of Iran's National Security Council in Tehran held to discuss a specially-commissioned report into the implications for Iran of the Assad regime's overthrow.

Damascus is Iran's most important regional ally, and the survival of the Assad regime is regarded as vital to sustaining the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia which controls southern Lebanon.

The report, which was personally commissioned by Mr Khamenei, concluded that Iran's national interests were being threatened by a combination of the U.N. sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear programme and the West's continuing support for Syrian opposition groups attempting to overthrow the Syrian government.

Intelligence officials say the report concludes that Iran "cannot be passive" to the new threats posed to its national security, and warns that Western support for Syrian opposition groups was placing Iran's "resistance alliance" in jeopardy, and could seriously disrupt Iran's access to Hizbollah in Lebanon.

It advised that the Iranian regime should demonstrate to the West that there were "red lines" over what it would accept in Syria, and that a warning should be sent to "America, the Zionists, Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others that they cannot act with impunity in Syria and elsewhere in the region."

Mr Khamenei responded by issuing a directive to Qassem Suleimani, the Quds Force commander, to intensify attacks against the West and its allies around the world.

The Quds Force has recently been implicated in a series of terror attacks against Western targets. Last year U.S. officials implicated the organisation in a failed assassination attempt against the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington. It was also implicated in three bomb attacks against Israeli diplomats in February, planning to attack the Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijan while two Iranians were arrested in Kenya last month for possessing explosives.

Intelligence officials believe the recent spate of Iranian attacks has been carried out by the Quds Force's Unit 400, which runs special overseas operations.

"Unit 400 seems to have been involved in all the recent Iranian terrorist operations," said a senior Western intelligence official. "The Iranian regime now seems determined to retaliate for what they regard as the West's attempts to influence the outcome of the Syrian unrest."

Iran has been actively supporting the Assad regime's attempts to suppress the wave of anti-government protests that erupted in March last year. Iranian opposition groups claim teams of experienced Revolutionary Guard officers have been flying to Damascus on specially-chartered Iranian aircraft on a weekly basis to advise the Assad regime.

The extent of Iran's support for the Assad regime was exposed earlier this month when 48 Iranians were captured and taken hostage by Syrian opposition fighters. The Iranians, who are said to include senior Revolutionary Guard officers, claimed they were conducting "reconnaissance missions", and their capture by Syrian opposition fighters was deeply embarrassing for Tehran, which is demanding their immediate safe return to Iran. Syrian rebels have threatened to kill the hostages unless Iran ends its support for the Assad regime.

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Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, is expected to embark on his first state visit from Sunday, attending an international meeting in Iran.

Media reports from South Korea indicate that Kim, who inherited power after the death of his father in December, will take part in the six-day summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran from Sunday.

The organisation is made up of 120 member states that consider themselves independent of any of the major powers, but the venue for this year's summit has provoked criticism in the West because of Iran's defiance of international pressure over its nuclear programme.

North Korea is also standing firm in the face of criticism about its efforts to develop nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them.

Iran and North Korea are close allies and have reportedly exchanged technology and know-how in the face of United Nations sanctions.

Analysts believe the two states may be attempting to build a united front and perhaps attract other non-aligned nations to their corner.

South Korea's Arirang News quoted an Iranian spokesman for the summit as confirming that Tehran would welcome Kim on his first overseas trip since taking over North Korea.

Around 40 world leaders have already stated that they will attend the meeting, Iran says, although it has not been able to confirm whether Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the UN, will be present.

Ban, a South Korean, has been a vocal critic of Tehran's nuclear programme and earlier this week called on nations that will be attending the summit to pressure Iran to come clean on its nuclear ambitions.

Washington has asked that Ban not take part in the meeting and stated that Iran does not deserve to host the meeting due to its refusal to comply with international demands to provide details of its nuclear programme.

"Iran is trying to manipulate this NAM summit and the attendees to advance its own agenda and to obscure the fact that it is failing to live up to multiple obligations that it has to the UN Security Council, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and other international bodies," Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, told reporters in Washington.

If Kim does travel to Iran, it will signal yet another radical change from the leadership demonstrated by his predecessor, Kim Jong-il, who was famous for rarely travelling overseas and never travelled by aircraft.

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Sequester is coming, sequester is coming!

Everyone in Washington is running around crying sequester, when automatic defense cuts are supposed to kick in Jan 1, 2013, and cut hundreds of billions in defense spending, screaming: "Oh my! The sky will certainly fall!"

I have four words for them: Relax: No, it won't.

And as if to prove my point, the military is so flush The Army's hiring $90,000 a year acupuncturists to treat its troops. Times clearly ain't so tough.

Here's the thing, the US defense budget has nearly doubled since 2000, from $350 billion to about $690 billion, and yet politicians are short on excuses for why we can't trim a mere $50 billion annually.

Instead of anything concrete or specific, we hear obscure, borderline Orwellian, slogans like we have to "support our troops" or it will be "catastrophic to national security."

Yet somehow, acupuncturists, battlefield trained acupuncturists, are essential to "national security."

Slate reported this morning that the US Army is hiring acupuncturists for a pain clinic in Fort Sam Houston at a salary range of $68,000 to $89,000. The Air Force is also training it's doctors in "battlefield acupuncture," due in no small part to the efforts of one Col. Richard Niemtzow.

Niemtzow has "refined" the method of ear acupuncture to five points, all of which can be reached under a helmet.

Now certainly a guy as smart as Niemtzow knows that soldiers and their helmets are not fused together, so unless we plan on deploying acupuncturists to the front lines, his "refinement" of this method on the government dime has been a gigantic waste of time.

Slate's report comes on the heels of an absolutely epic squeal-fest by Ohio lawmakers trying to save military programs that the Department of Defense doesn't even want.

These include upgrading the M-1 Abrams tank (the last time we had a serious tank battle was over 20 years ago) at a cost of hundreds of millions, but more notably the continuation of the Global Hawk drone program at a savings of $2.5 billion over ten years, reports the Dayton Daily News.

Gen. Norton Schwartz (ret.), who was Air Force chief of staff until just Aug. 10 of this year, told Aviation Weekly that the outcomes didn't match the cost of the Global Hawk program.

"The reality is that the Global Hawk system has proven not to be less expensive to operate than the U-2, and in many respects the Global Hawk Block 30 system is not as capable—from a sensor perspective—as is the U-2,” he told Aviation Weekly.

And it's a ten year old program. It started in 2001, and has been refined since, and still has not met expectations.

Ohio lawmakers lost their minds though when the idea of cutting the program came up. Lost their bipartisan minds, that is.

Senator Sherrod Brown (D.) and Senator Rob Portman (R.), of the Senate Appropriations Committee the Senate Armed Services Committee respectively, both sought to keep these programs despite the Pentagon advising against. The defense programs are connected to jobs in Ohio, and these senators want to keep federal money in their districts because it serves as a stimulative effect to the local economy.

Spreading out fabrication of military equipment across many states is a commonly used tactic of defense contractors. It keeps bipartisan support for old systems which should be cut. Defense Secretary Leon Paneta says there are other national security risks to keeping these programs as well.

"If members try to restore their favorite programs without regard to an overall strategy, the cuts will have to come from areas that could impact overall readiness," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said during a brief in May.

"Every dollar that is added will have to be offset by cuts in national security," Panetta added. "And if for some reason they do not want to comply with the Budget Control Act, then they would certainly be adding to the deficit, which only puts our national security further at risk."

So not only are we willing to field dated equipment with expensive cost and poor outcomes, but we're willing to field expensive medical practices with no basis in fact.

That's what politicians mean when they say "support our troops."

Now: See My Trip Into A Gunfight In Afghanistan >

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In an oversaturated market where countless lawyers are unemployed or underemployed, choosing the right law school can make the difference between the job you want and no job at all.

Remember, tuition can be as high as $165,000 for the three-year degree and when you factor in cost of living, that number shoots up to almost $250,000. Plus, the bad schools can be just as expensive as the good ones.

We would like to invite lawyers, students and anyone with insight into the industry to take our survey to determine the best law schools for getting a competitive job.

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Brandon Raub, the former Marine taken into custody after federal agents questioned him about Facebook posts critical of the government, has been transferred to a Veterans Administration (VA) psychiatric ward on the other side of the Virginia.

The Rutherford Institute, Raub's legal council, released this statement: "Special Justice Walter Douglass Stokes for the General District Court for the City of Hopewell, Va., has denied an emergency motion filed ... to stop ... Raub from being forcibly transferred to a psychiatric facility more than three hours away from his family, friends and legal team."

Raub will be moved to the Veterans Hospital in Salem, Va., despite that fact that there is a compatible VA hospital in Richmond, about eight miles from Raub's home.

Recently, Raub gave an interview in which he said he was being treated "very well" and hadn't been given any medication at John Randolph Psychiatric Medical Hospital in Hopewell, Va. 

On August 16 authorities from the FBI, Secret Service, and Chesterfield County PD visited Raub's home. They questioned him about his Facebook posts – which are critical of the official story regarding 9/11 and refer to "starting a revolution" – then handcuffed him and placed him in a Chesterfield PD squad car before taking him to John Randolph.

On August 20 Raub was sentenced up to 30 days’ further confinement in a VA psych ward and involuntarily admitted to the Veterans Hospital in Salem.

The Rutherford Institute stated that Raub has been "detained against his will due to alleged concerns by government officials that his Facebook posts are controversial and 'terrorist in nature'' and are arguing that "the detainment order was procedurally improper, the result of an unlawful detention, and was based entirely on statements made by Raub that constitute protected free speech under the First Amendment."

Supporters argue that some of the more violent Facebook posts by Raub – such as "Sharpen up my axe; I'm here to sever heads." – are lyrics from rap songs.

John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, said: “This is not how justice in America is supposed to work—with Americans being arrested for doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights, forced to undergo psychological evaluations, detained against their will and isolated from their family, friends and attorneys. This is a scary new chapter in our history.”

SEE ALSO: Former Marine Brandon Raub Sentenced To Up To 30 Days In Psych Ward Over Facebook Posts >

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They're not too good at it yet, but the Wright Brothers weren't flying passengers to California in their first week either.

Also the technology requires a headset, physical contact by an actual piece of hardware - for now, something called an "EEG" headset. The flip side is that these pieces of technology are often researched and fielded by two different industries — video games and "hands-free" operators (the same guys who gave Stephen Hawking a voice) — and those two industries are renowned for ridiculous jumps in technology.

So, it's not much of a threat now, but it will probably be one in the future.

Geeta Dayal of Wired writes:

A team of security researchers from Oxford, UC Berkeley, and the University of Geneva say that they were able to deduce digits of PIN numbers, birth months, areas of residence and other personal information by presenting 30 headset-wearing subjects with images of ATM machines, debit cards, maps, people, and random numbers in a series of experiments.

Now these experiments weren't too successful, pulling pin numbers at a rate of one for every three participants. The experiment also relied on event-related potentials, meaning the subject needed to be presented a picture, or some type of stimuli, for "hackers" to phish information out of their brain waves.

Still, the researchers believe that their experiment was too simple, and that sophisticated code writers will be able to write complex malware for future devices, disguised as "apps," which the user would then download and use.

And, even though the technology isn't quite up to speed yet, the most prophetic indication may be that most of us carry super-smart, sophisticated machines with us every day, and they all use "apps."

Now: Check out these guns on a US Destroyer >

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A team of 200 U.S. Marines have begun patrolling Guatemala's western coast in an unprecedented operation to combat drug trafficking in Central America, the AP reports. 

Operation Martillo (i.e. Hammer) will target fast power boats and self-propelled "narco-submarines," primarily those of the Zeta cartel, along Central America's Pacific coast with the help of four UH-1 "Huey" helicopters.

The U.S.-led operation involves troops or law enforcement agents from Belize, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama and Spain.

"This is the first Marine deployment that directly supports countering transnational crime in this area, and it's certainly the largest footprint we've had in that area in quite some time," Marine Staff Sgt. Earnest Barnes of U.S. Southern Command told AP.

The last time the U.S. sent any significant aid and equipment into Guatemala was in the '50s and '60s when the CIA and the Green Berets provided funding, training and weaponry to support counter-insurgency efforts against a "communist threat".

That effort led to 36 years of war that left 200,000 dead, mostly indigenous Maya farmers, and numerous human rights violations before the U.S. pulled out in 1978.

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said in February that he would propose legalizing drugs in Central America—saying that the U.S.-backed the war on drugs had not diminished drug trafficking in the area— but on July 16 his government signed a treaty allowing the U.S. military to conduct the operations.

"We fight a highly mobile, disciplined and well-funded adversary that threatens democratic governments, terrorizes populations, impedes economic development and creates regional instability," U.S. Rear Adm. Charles Michel told AP, noting that authorities are able to stop only one out of every four suspected traffickers they spot.

SEE ALSO: 16 Maps Of Drug Flow Into The United States >

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