The site uses Google's custom search engine technology, looking for Schema.org's JobPosting markup across job listing sites to identify jobs committed to veterans. Employers only have to add the JobPosting markup to their site to be crawled and listed in the NRD. Supporting organizations can also add the search box widget to their websites.

Google's announcement of the partnership cites President Obama's address this morning announcing new initiatives to find work for returning veterans.

According to the White House, over 850,000 U.S. veterans were jobless as of last month, and the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans was 12.1%. The government projects that over one million more people will leave military service in the next five years.

The White House has made veterans' initiatives, including the Google-powered National Resource Directory, available at whitehouse.gov/vets.

Detailed instructions for employers on how to participate in the National Resource Directory.

Following from last year's "National Cyber Security Programme," this recruiting initiative will attempt to attract hundreds of computer experts to the British armed forces. Part of a £650,000 cyber-security budget will be devoted to the program.

"Our forces depend on computer networks, both in the UK and in operations around the world. But our adversaries present an advance and rapidly developing threat to these networks...Future conflict will see cyber operations conducted in parallel with more conventional actions the sea, land and air operations."

Precise numbers are classified but a Ministry of Defense spokesman affirmed that the new cyber-recruits would number in the hundreds.

According to Thinq, General Jonathan Shaw of the Parachute Regiment will act as the chief of the new Ministry of Defense "cyber-operations group," overseeing the work of the new recruits. The group will be headquartered at the U.K.'s intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquartersand overseen by the Cabinet Office.

(The GCHQ grew out of the Government Code and Cypher School, based in great part at Bletchley Park. There, during the Second World War, Alan Turing broke the German Enigma code.)

GCHQ model photo by Cory Doctorow

Now, the Wall Street Journal says a soon-to-be-released Pentagon policy document will announce officially that a cyberattack can be a jus ad bellum, or act of war.

The finding of a cyberattack as an act of war is one that "for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force."

"If you shut down our power grid," one unnamed military official told the Journal, "maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks."

That's not just chest-beating. The notion of "equivalency" is based on the internationally-accepted Laws of War (formed from such agreements as the Geneva Conventions). This equivalency seem to be integral to the U.S. military's new official approach to cyber-threats.

However, retribution will depend on how closely the attack or the tools used to make it can be traced to a government entity. That will be the element of the report critics will probably focus on the most. What mechanisms will the military put in place to make legitimate determinations of blame?

The Pentagon will release the 12 unclassified pages of the 30-page document next month.

Other sources: PopSci

Especially to those in the military, or from military family, the day retains some of its original flavor. Even as it honors those who have died in military service, it affirms the desirability of peace and stands as a memento mori for those in uniform. To do our small part in celebrating it, we wish to highlight a few of the stories of technology in military service we have written in the last year.

I wouldn't call the American military "early adopters" but I'm not surprised that they have turned to social media for recruiting, as the New York Times reports.

Back in 2006, when I spoke at a State Department-sponsored conference on social media and democracy, the only group of governmental participants open to social media, and already using it, were the military. They were subscribing to RSS feeds, including search feeds, reading and commenting on blogs and participating on forums. So there is precedence for reaching out on social media sites.

Army Develops Android Phone for Battlefield

First, the U.S. Army's Captain Jonathan Springer developed the iPhone app, Tactical Nav, for battlefield mapping and artillery sighting. Now, Ft. Bragg has developed an integrated system for many of the same things based on the Android operating system. According to the Army's Web page on the project, the security of the system is paramount.

"The device, known as a Joint Battle Command-Platform, or JBC-P Handheld, is the first developed under an Army effort to devise an Android-based smartphone framework and suite of applications for tactical operations. The government-owned framework, known as Mobile /Handheld Computing Environment, or CE, ensures that regardless of who develops them, applications will be secure and interoperable with existing mission command systems so information flows seamlessly across all echelons of the force."

Using Public Data to Fight a War

How does a technology built for apartment-hunting end up being evaluated by the U.S. Army for use in Afghanistan? Cazoodle is using public data sources like Flickr and OpenStreetMap to build detailed guidebooks for American soldiers. Last week at Strata I sat down with company CTO Govind Kabra to find out how they do it.

Its project for the Army is to build a detailed database of information about places in Afghanistan, using only public sources on the Web. The goal is to describe in detail the towns and cities including everything from names, locations and populations, as well as lists and coordinates for schools, mosques, banks and hotels.

U.S. Military Can Restore a Country's Internet - Whether It Likes It or Not

Although attacks by governments against their own people using the Internet get more press, warfare between countries has been spreading online for some time. Most of the instances that have come to light have been viruses designed to stop, or slow down, activities in another country that the attacking country feels threatened by, or spying operations.

The United States, like most governments, has developed teams and tools to wage Web warfare. But not all the tools are what we would normally think of as offensive weapons. The U.S. military, it turns out, can force a country that has disconnected itself from the Internet back online.

iPhone App Lets Soldiers Map Their Battlefields

This isn't an app that lets a soldier make on-the-go journal entries, write poems about his or her feelings or check vitals a la a mood ring. Tactical Nav is an app that lets a soldier map and plot waypoints on a battlefield, take photos and share coordinates with fellow soldiers and units, direct artillery and call in medevac.

Its developer is 31-year-old Captain Jonathan Springer of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne, who reportedly spent $26,000 of his own money to develop the app. It is set for release next month in the Apple App Store

DARPA and Raytheon Building New Ad-Hoc Mobile Network for the Military

Coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have a major communications issue: military, security contractor and non-government organizations frequently need to communicate with each other during combat and other operations. But communications technology compatibility issues often prohibit them from doing so effectively.

DARPA contracted Ratheon in 2009 to build the "Mobile to Ad-Hoc Interoperable Network GATEway" (MAINGATE), a mobile network that both military and civilian organizations can use to communicate using any radio or wireless device. The agency announced last month that the system has now been tested for video, voice and data by both high- and low-bandwidth users.

Android Phones Go to War

Reports this week revealed that U.S. defense contractor Raytheon, maker of the Patriot missile defense system, is developing software for soldiers that runs on Google's Android operating system.

The software, called the Raytheon Android Tactical System, or RATS, has already been tested by some members of the U.S. Special Forces.

It involves a social-networking type of display where soldiers interact as "buddies" and track each others' movements on the battlefield.

Military-Grade Augmented Reality Could Redefine Modern Warfare

When explaining the concept of augmented reality to someone who has never heard of it, I find myself going through a series of common real-life and pop-culture examples to help them understand. Aside from explaining that the "1st and Ten Line" in football games and the computer vision of the Terminator are indeed forms of augmented reality, I often use examples from the military - the fighter pilot heads-up-display, for example - as well. In fact, the military has played a significant role in the early development of AR, and one company is attempting to make sure it is a large factor in the future of the technology as well.

A Chicago-based company called Tanagram Partners is currently developing military-grade augmented reality technology that - if developed to the full potential of its prototypes - would completely change the face of military combat as we know it.

Do you have a favorite story of the read/write Web in a military context? It doesn't have to be one of ours. Drop the URL in the comments section.

Flag and flower photo by Jackie

Back in 2006, when I spoke at a State Department-sponsored conference on social media and democracy, the only group of governmental participants open to social media, and already using it, were the military. They were subscribing to RSS feeds, including search feeds, reading and commenting on blogs and participating on forums. So there is precedence for reaching out on social media sites.

"We're working hard to increase our social media. We fully recognize that young people TiVo over commercials or are multitasking on their smartphones when the commercials come on...We have to reach out in forms like we're discussing to get them to want to know more, to join us in social media and extend the dialog."

The branding message remains consistent, if not terribly clear to me: "Army Strong." It plays out across a number of properties, including a website, Army Strong Stories, and a Go Army Facebook page (complete with exclusive X-Men movie footage).

Army Strong Stories is built like a blog, with a column of posts by various Army officers, links and video. There is an iPhone app you can download as well.

The cross-platform messaging includes a dedicated YouTube channel, a Twitter account and even a MySpace page. (Really?)

Like the Army or not, embracing social media is simple common sense for people whose "product" as it were, only sells itself to a small group. The rest need to see themselves in the Army to begin considering it as an option. Given the primacy of personal communications media in the lives of young people, no such appeal would be possible for long without it.

My question, however, is how energetic the recruiters are in engaging on an ongoing way with the users of social media. The PR command I dealt with were very energetic participants. It is uncertain whether the recruiting command is. And that will be, I think, the make-or-break in the long run.

"The device, known as a Joint Battle Command-Platform, or JBC-P Handheld, is the first developed under an Army effort to devise an Android-based smartphone framework and suite of applications for tactical operations. The government-owned framework, known as Mobile /Handheld Computing Environment, or CE, ensures that regardless of who develops them, applications will be secure and interoperable with existing mission command systems so information flows seamlessly across all echelons of the force."

The Army is inviting outside developers to create apps for the phone. The "Mobile /Handheld CE development kit" will be released to devs in July. The device's baseline app suite includes "mapping, blue force tracking, Tactical Ground Reporting, or TIGR tactical graphics and critical messaging (such as SPOT reports, Medevac and Mayday)."

Given the system being developed for is profoundly unlikely to make its way onto the marketplace for some time, if ever, it may not be as appealing as developing for the Android Market. Of course, designing an app that saves lives or prosecutes a war may be rewarding in itself to some developers.

The fact that the system is based on a technology many soldiers will come into service knowing, that the framework allows extensive, relatively quick adaptation through app creation and was created to interact with different outside structures, such as various radio networks, may insure its rapid adoption.

Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1St Armored Division will test the devices during the "Network Integration Rehearsal" at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range in October.

A4A

Last year, the Army also sponsored the Apps 4 the Army challenge. Over 75 days, the Army evaluated 53 submissions, choosing 15 winners and honorable mentions.

Gen. Chiarelli photo by Ashley Blumenfeld

Now, in a material indication of its priorities, China has released its budget expenditures at the start of its new parliamentary session. For the first time, the country's spending on internal security, including online censorship program and tools, has passed the yearly budget for the army and all other defense organization.

The budget for China's army, on the other hand, increased only 12.7 percent to $91.5 billion.

The power of the Jasmine Uprising in the Middle East as an example to people around the world seeking change could probably not find a better indicator than this shift in priorities for a county which is widely acknowledged as the world champion in the repression of internal dissent.

As the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Beijing Daily put it:

"Everyone knows that stability is a blessing and chaos is a calamity."

Kimberly Smith, a University of Texas, Dallas, grad student in Emerging Media Communications, thinks this priority accurately reflects the priorities of the Chinese in general. Smith spent the last year in China studying and making iPhone documentaries.

"I attended the Internet in China Conference at Peking University last year. Several Industry representatives were in attendance, and they appeared to be united in their view: respect Party rules, period. And, because The Party views social stability as a top priority (to maintain Party control), they will do what is in their power to ensure that the country continues it's steady, positive growth."

Are the people the final arbiters in their governments' choices, even if the country is not designed to reflect their choices? Are the people of China really supportive of these priorities, or is it only certain groups that benefit from these decisions?

Army photo by Schmeeve

The United States, like most governments, has developed teams and tools to wage Web warfare. But not all the tools are what we would normally think of as offensive weapons. The U.S. military, it turns out, can force a country that has disconnected itself from the Internet back online.

But what happens when a country shuts off the Internet. Recently, Egypt did so. Their motivations were internal. By shutting off the Internet in Egypt, its bosses hoped to interfere with the organization of domestic protests, keep debilitating information from getting out to a global audience and make it more difficult for panicking Egyptians to transfer their money out of the country.

But a country might do the same thing in order to keep an enemy from sending viruses, spying or committing other acts of web warfare. If that happened, most would think, game over for the Internet warriors. But not so, it seems.

According to an article on Wired, there are a host of methods by which the U.S. could restore the Internet to a country that has shut it off.

• Commando Solo: A USAF "airborne broadcasting center," the plane carries the equipment that makes it possible to broadcast on AM and FM radio and on UHF and VHF television signals. It also carries equipment that will restore Wi-Fi for the area below it. How is classified.
• FastCom: drone-based "cell towers"
• Satellites: some U.S. military satellites can provide internet access to the ground
• Dish & sat phones: sneaking in, or dropping in, small satellite dishes and satellite phones would be expensive, but possible

Psychological warfare would be a lot easier to accomplish using these tools than outright attacks.

Although we did ask contacts in the U.S. military for input on this story, they were not able to comment.

Computer photo by Mark Smith | trench warfare photo from Wikimedia Commons

Its developer is 31-year-old Captain Jonathan Springer of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne, who reportedly spent $26,000 of his own money to develop the app. It is set for release next month in the Apple App Store.

Springer, an artillery specialist on his third deployment in Afghanistan, has had an opportunity few app developers can match. He has tested the software in the most rugged and realistic environment possible, the theater of war.

Springer told Global Post the app would also good be for hunting, but in the here-and-now, his priority is his fellow soldiers.

"I've got to think what do my soldiers need to go into battle? What do my soldiers need that could save their lives? So that's what I'm thinking about right now."

Users can switch latitude and longitude, as well as "angular mils," an artillery measurement; a user can also switch to red light for when soldiers need to avoid being seen in dark or near-dark circumstances.

Military Mindset

Most app users are probably unaware that this is just the latest in a new field of military smartphone apps that include sharpshooting, missile-launching simulations and battlefield friend-finding.

As the son of a career sailor, I can assure you that serving military are far from anxious to share tactical details with civilians and their COs are even less excited by the notion. So unlike most developers, Springer seems to lack a website for his "product." He may be too busy shooting and being shot at.

So some of the questions one might have regarding such an undertaking remain unanswered, though I have sent them via the U.S. Army's Public Affairs staff. They include:

• How easy would it be to hack this app, especially given it will be available online?
• Does it replace sighting hardware or software artillery experts or even common soldiers already carry?
• How common are iPhones in country?
• Will you make an Android version?

If any of you have an answer to, or opinion about, any of these questions, please respond in the comments.

Images of app via Hammed Kohistani | other sources: Courier-Mail, PSFK

If RATS takes off, soldiers would carry smartphones with them into battle, says this Reuters report released on Wednesday. However, the phones would run identity recognition software so that enemy forces would not be able to unlock the device if they ever got their hands on one of them.

In addition to the soldier buddy tracking system described above, the Android OS could also support applications that deliver satellite images to the phone's large color touchscreen. Military satellites can focus in on minute features you can't see when using consumer-grade technology like Google Earth, so the software installed on RATS could potentially zero in on facial features or be used to read license plates.

The phones running these military-level Android apps wouldn't be standard Nexus Ones or Droids, of course, but specially designed handsets, each costing around $500 - the same price as unlocked consumer smartphones. So far, Raytheon has tested the software on handsets made by Motorola and HTC.

Raytheon would also design and install GPS tracking and encryption onto the phones, as well as communication software to provide coverage where signals don't exist.

Google was a Big Help, Says Raytheon

Raytheon credits Google for its help in the software's development. Says Mark Bigham, VP for defense and civil mission solutions at Raytheon, "We're trying to take advantage of smartphone technology to tailor for what soldiers may need in the field. Google has helped us push the limits of the phone."

Bigham also notes that Google would benefit financially if and when RATS became available to the defense market - a market that isn't just limited to the U.S. Besides the U.S. Army, Bigham says the Indian military is another potential customer for this Android-based technology.

Illustrations from Juhnke's presentation tell the company's story of how its technology could give American troops the upper-hand in hostile situations. First of all, the company is developing a system of lightweight sensors and displays that collect and provide data from and to each individual soldier in the field. This includes a computer, a 360-degree camera, UV and infrared sensors, stereoscopic cameras and OLED translucent display goggles.

With this technology - all housed within the helmet - soldiers will be able to communicate with a massive "home base" server that collects and renders 3D information onto the wearer's goggles in real time. With the company's "painting" technology, various objects and people will be outlined in a specific color to warn soldiers of things like friendly forces, potential danger spots, impending air-raid locations, rendez-vous points and much more.

In the above image, a spotter on a roof paints an area near his squad-mates in a red color, marking the area as a danger spot. The ability to virtually communicate the location of hostile forces to fellow soldiers is an invaluable technology to troops fighting in unfamiliar urban environments. The local fighters have a home field advantage because they are fighting in their back yards, in a way. Tanagram hopes to level the playing field - and then some - in an effort to help troops better understand their surroundings.

All of this technology can also be monitored from a central base location by military leaders. They can gather around a virtual map of the battlefield with live location data for their troops. Best of all, the system has a memory for the information put into it - which means soldiers new to an area that has been fought in before will have the benefit of knowing where previous danger spots were.

As futuristic and far-fetched as this seems, Tanagram is actually in the process of building this technology right now. The company is funded by a grant from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and plans on having a working proof-of-concept that runs on an iPhone by the first quarter of next year. Tanagram also hopes to have the server and client system operational as early as Q2 2011 as well as an open-source head-mounted display (HMD) client by the end of next year.

In May 2007, the Pentagon blocked access to 12 popular social media sites from .mil computers citing "bandwidth concerns," reports the Navy Times. In August 2009, the Marine Corps banned the same sites, this time citing security issues. Other services also began blocking social media sites at the direction of various commanders in certain locations. Sometimes those bans even led to the shutdown of personal blogs.

Unfortunately for military personnel, these blocking measures forced troops to use their own personal computers in order to communicate with friends and family via Facebook, Twitter and other social media services while stationed in the U.S. When deployed, they had to visit Internet cafes in order to gain access to these sites.

New Policy States: No More Blacklist

The new policy, announced Friday, seeks to balance the needs of troops to connect with their loved ones via social media while also maintaining an appropriate level of security. As the policy goes into effect, the DoD will require all military units to remove the social sites from their internal "blacklist." According to the Times, Lindy Kyzer, an advisor to the Army's Chief of Public Affairs on social media issues, said that all the units will be now be required to open access to social networking sites initially. Afterwards, if any commander does need to block sites for security purposes, those blocks can only be temporary. She continues, saying that the "DoD is moving away from the silly notion of having 'blacklisted' social media sites and saying, 'We're not going to lay down the hammer and tell you where you can and cannot go, we're going to mitigate risk as it comes."

In the blog post on the DoD's social media hub, service members are reminded that while the new policy opens up access to Facebook and the like, other sites like those containing gambling, pornography and hate-crime, are still banned. Also, personnel are advised that "everyone has a responsibility to protect themselves and their information online, and existing regulations on ethics, operational security, and privacy still apply."

The Social Sites of the DoD

Elsewhere on the DoD Social Media Hub, are links to other DoD social media sites including Twitter feeds for Price Floyd and the department itself, its Facebook page, Flickr account, YouTube account, uStream account and more. Blog posts on the site focus on how the department uses new media and one even points to a free iPhone app that combines Army technology news, social media and job postings in one location.

Those interested in reading the new policy in its entirety can do so here. In addition, the Department of Defense has also launched a SlideShare channel where they've posted several presentations about the new policy.

In attempts to balance communication, transparency, and operational security, the military has encountered both practical obstacles and general criticism. In a recent podcast, Carey said, "Most social networking tools come with no rules of the road. As the Internet moves towards user-generated content, we thought there was a void we could fill... to mitigate some of the security risks associated with social media."

Generally, military organizations have the options to reach out directly to large IT companies to configure customized security profiles and inherent OPSEC protection for personnel; traditionally, however, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have not been particularly receptive to working within that type of culture or framework. From the sharing-and-access social media pole to the security/military pole, both sides are resistant to different approaches to shared and social information. Still, Carey is an advocate for the usefulness of these tools, even behind a military firewall.

"We must remain a learning organization. As the Internet evolves, so must our workforce and its associated skills. To that end, we must be able to embrace change," Carey wrote in his blog post. "Many of our processes are rooted in the Industrial Age and will need to move toward the Information Age to remain relevant in the coming years."

With specific regard to social media and the American military, Carey stated, "Social media is an inherent part of the toolbox for members of the millennial workforce, while baby boomers are just adopting it. Social media tools should become the standard by which we can share and collaborate on information inside and outside the network boundaries."

He also highlighted green initiatives, mobile working, and the use of modern technological tools in recruitment efforts.

To see Carey's office's Policy and Guidelines for Secure Use of Social Media by Federal Departments and Agencies, click here for a full PDF.

While Carey's optimism is to be applauded, one wonders what our military-minded friends will have to say about OPSEC vis-a-vis social media. The battlefield isn't really Foursquare-compatible, and the military might actually have the last plausible use case for censorship. Every servicemember is probably aware of existing regulations for Internet and social media use; how do you think Carey's goals and statements will affect the state of affairs on the ground, and do you feel such a shift is needed or welcomed? Let us know your opinions in the comments.

He notes that the service-level agreements (SLAs) for all the hosted applications are the same as those offered in the operation's traditional on-site computing environment - that is, 99.999% uptime. Google only offers 99.9% as does Amazon S3...and yes, those extra digits make a world of difference.

In addition, DISA also uses the same information assurance process (the process of managing information-related risks) for the RACE applications as it does for any apps running on the traditional, on-site computing platform. They've even cut the security accreditation process from 80 days to 40 thanks to built-in information insurance controls in RACE. 

One of the most obvious benefits of a cloud computing infrastructure, though, is the speed of deployment. The cloud platform has cut the acquisition time for a new server from 6 months to 24 hours - a change that means DISA will now be able to rapidly deploy new applications to the military in record time. "That's a must for worldwide missions with ever-changing computing requirements," says Sienkiewicz.

RACE runs using VMware on HP blade servers. Defense Department customers can choose either Microsoft Windows or Red Hat Linux and are able to configure their server with up to 4 CPUs, 8 GBs of memory and up to a terabyte of storage. Test servers are $500 per month and production servers are $1200 per month. Next year, RACE will be deployed on the DoD's classified network (SIPRNet) as well. 

Free Publicity Ahead of a Full Launch?

As Jared Newman points out in a post on his PCWorld blog, Google will obviously get a lot of free press out of this - and not just from the tech press, but also from mainstream news outlets.  Google Voice already got a lot of press in the last week after Apple rejected Google's own Google Voice app from the iPhone App Store and ousted all third-party apps that made use of Google Voice. We don't want to be too cynical here (after all, this is a great cause), but we can't help but think that this announcement was timed to keep the public's attention on Google Voice.

Chances are that Google is getting closer to a full-blown launch of Google Voice or at least getting ready to allow users to send out invites to their friends.