Short Takes – 2-14-23

Russian-linked malware was close to putting U.S. electric, gas facilities ‘offline’ last year. Politico.com article. ““This is the closest we’ve ever been to having U.S. or European infrastructure, I’d say U.S. infrastructure, go offline,” [Robert M.] Lee told reporters in a briefing. “It wasn’t employed on one of its targets, they weren’t ready to pull the trigger, they were getting very close.” Lee declined to offer details on what prevented the attack from succeeding, but said it was halted by a coalition of U.S. government and cyber industry groups.” Lee is well known to be very careful not to call wolf….

Here's why mysterious flying objects are suddenly popping up all over the place, according to the general leading the commands shooting them down. BusinessInsider.com article. Pull quote: “Gen. Glen VanHerck, the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command, said that NORAD started searching for much smaller, slower-moving flying objects, while also making adjustments to filtration based on altitude. Typically, NORAD's radar detection is searching for fighter jets or bombers, which move at high speeds.”

Agency Information Collection Activities: Comment Request; NSF's Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Pilot Survey. Federal Register NSF ICR 30-day Notice. “NSF is requesting OMB approval for the NSF to collect information from past and present participants and partners in NSF partnership programs. The information collection will enable the Evaluation and Assessment Capability (EAC) Section within NSF to garner quantitative and qualitative information that will be used to inform programmatic improvements related to partnership models at NSF including partnerships between NSF and other entities and funding opportunities that require or encourage partnerships between grantees.”

SpaceX’s Successful Super Heavy Booster Test with an Unfortunate Outcome. Karmactive.com article. A contrarian look at the recent SpaceX booster test. Pull quote: “Part of the FAA’s concern involves the impact of testing on the local ecology, as the Starbase site is adjacent to the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area. The video of the test showed flocks of birds startling into flight as the booster fired, and the power of the 31 engines also caused loose chunks of the Texas landscape to fall back to Earth.”