Use, abuse, and misuse of data by US military

"In 1977, two years after the last helicopter lifted off the rooftop of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, a retired Army general, Douglas Kinnard, published a landmark survey called The War Managers that revealed the quagmire of quantification. A mere 2 percent of America’s generals considered the body count a valid way to measure progress. “A fake—totally worthless,” wrote one general in his comments. “Often blatant lies,” wrote another. “They were grossly exaggerated by many units primarily because of the incredible interest shown by people like McNamara,” said a third. The use, abuse, and misuse of data by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War is a troubling lesson about the limitations of information as the world hurls toward the big-data era. The underlying data can be of poor quality. It can be biased. It can be misanalyzed or used misleadingly. And even more damning, data can fail to capture what it purports to quantify. We are more susceptible than we may think to the “dictatorship of data”—that is, to letting the data govern us in ways that may do as much harm as good. . . ." Read more: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514591/the-dictatorship-of-data/#ixzz2Uu0ckubm

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China steals anything it wants from US Military and its Contractors

I know everyone in Washington is fighting the "last war," but you would think a few of these "dinosaurs" would be bright enough to see what is being stolen right under their noses, and do something about it--

China Cyberspies Outwit U.S. Stealing Military Secrets - Bloomberg: "The lengthy spying operation on QinetiQ jeopardized the company’s sensitive technology involving drones, satellites, the U.S. Army’s combat helicopter fleet, and military robotics, both already-deployed systems and those still in development, according to internal investigations. Jennifer Pickett, a spokesman for QinetiQ, declined to comment as part of a general policy not to discuss security measures. “God forbid we get into a conflict with China but if we did we could face a major embarrassment, where we try out all these sophisticated weapons systems and they don’t work,” said Richard Clarke, former special adviser to President George W. Bush on cyber security."

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