One senior defense official said thousands of qualified participants were expected to join the initiative.

Details and rules were still being worked out but the competition could involve monetary awards, the Pentagon said.

The Pentagon has long tested its own networks using internal so-called 'red teams,' but this initiative would open at least some of the department's vast network of computer systems to cyber challenges from across industry and academia.

Participants must be U.S. citizens and will have to register and submit to a background check before being turned loose on a predetermined public-facing computer system, the Pentagon said.

It said other more sensitive networks or key weapons programs would not be included, at least initially.

'The goal is not to comprise any aspect of our critical systems, but to still challenge our cybersecurity in a new and innovative way,' said the official.

The Mejlis leaders are accused of staging mass riots on February 26, 2014 near the Crimean parliament. Also, the Mejlis is suspected of organizing the blasts of electricity transmission towers in the Kherson Region in east Ukraine that led to a complete blackout of the Black Sea peninsula overnight to November 22, 2015.

The US Air Force’s unquestioned aerial dominance does not come cheap.

For the Air Force’s 10 most expensive planes, operating costs per hour start at $58,059, and it only climbs from there.

The following graphic, based upon the Air Force’s cost per hour of flight estimations, lists the 10 most expensive planes to operate in descending order:

Designed as a doomsday plane, the Nightwatch is so expensive to operate due to both its size and its technical abilities. The plane is specially designed to survive electromagnetic pulses, with additional thermal and nuclear shielding. It also can refuel aerially and can fit up to 112 passengers.

Surprisingly, the much maligned F-35 is actually only the seventh most expensive plane per hour that the Air Force flies. The F-35′s costs are partially due to the lack of an efficient supply-chain for the aircraft, something that should be sorted out over the coming years.

Among the cheapest aircraft that the Air Force operates are Predator Drones and the A-10. These aircraft cost an estimated $1,500 and $11,500 per hour to operate, respectively.

ministry was deceptively benign. On Wednesday it announced that Chinese vessels had left the area around Jackson Atoll after freeing a grounded foreign boat.

In fact, Chinese vessels, both coast guard and navy, had swarmed around the uninhabited outcropping for weeks, preventing Philippine fishermen from reaching their traditional fishing grounds nearby.

China, like Russia, is trying to redraw borders by force, taking down the world’s rules-based order in the process. As Antony Blinken, deputy secretary of State, said in a speech last year, well before this incident, “In both eastern Ukraine and the South China Sea, we’re witnessing efforts to unilaterally and coercively change the status quo—transgressions that the United States and our allies stand united against.”

But Beijing believes China should be larger than it is at the moment. Its official maps draw a provocative dashed line around about 85 percent of the South China Sea. Beijing claims as Chinese all the islands, atolls, shoals, rocks, and other features inside that supposed boundary.

To inhabitants of the surrounding area, Beijing’s plan looks threatening. “The Chinese are trying to choke us by putting an imaginary checkpoint there,” Mayor Bito-onon said. “It is a clear violation of our right to travel, impeding freedom of navigation.”

China has used rough tactics against the Philippines before.

After the attempt to take Jackson Atoll, it’s clear Beijing will continue employing rough tactics, using the slightest excuse to bring its overwhelming power to bear. Chinese leaders obviously intend to annex the South China Sea one reef, shoal, or rock at a time, by force or guile, whatever it takes.

“Alcoa’s lightweight solutions have improved troop protection while reducing vehicle weight and assembly time,” Alcoa Defense President Eric Roegner stated in the release. “We look forward to building on our successful track record to help develop the next generation combat vehicle.”

The contract also includes research on aluminum forming technology, armor development, material fabrication, energy conservation and anti-corrosion technology, according to the release.

It might be mistaken for footage from a new video game.

But recent footage of a tank in fact comes from a real armed tank combating ISIS in the town of Ramadi in Iraq.

GoPro footage attached to the gun turret films the tank firing at stone buildings with explosive shells and a machine gun.

"The owner of the boat failed to tow it away after several attempts and abandoned it, dismantling some major equipment on board."

He said the boat had hampered navigation safety and the maritime environment, so the Ministry of Transport had cleared it from the reef and dealt with it "properly".

Observers said Beijing had "foiled a trap" set by Manila to use stranded boats to infringe upon Chinese territory, a tactic that had been used on China's Ren'ai Reef in the late 1990s.

"The Wufang Reef incident reminds me of the Ren'ai Reef case. They are almost the same," said Chen Qinghong, a researcher of South China Sea issues at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Beijing says Manila deliberately grounded a warship near China's Ren'ai Reef in 1999. The Philippines refused to remove the vessel — despite repeated demands by China — and reinforced the rusting ship's hull and deck. It also sent troops to guard the reef and to occupy it illegally.

"Such actions violated the spirit and provisions of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea by changing the status quo unilaterally," Chen said, adding that the incidents also infringed upon China's sovereignty.

The new Quantum Space Satellite (QUESS) program is no mere science experiment. China is already becoming a world leader in quantum communications technology; a satellite that delivers quantum communications will be a cornerstone for translating cutting-edge research into a strategic asset for Chinese power worldwide.

Cryptography operates through the use of an encryption key (such as a numbers pad), which, when applied to an encryption algorithm, can be used to decrypt or encrypt a message. Quantum entanglement is the act of fusing two or more particles into complementary “quantum states.” In such states, no particle can be independently described, instead the particles exist in a hazy shared quantum state that “collapses” when observed.

Quantum encryption thus takes advantage of this feature, using it to detect would-be eavesdroppers, whose presence causes quantum states to collapse and reveal their spying to legitimate parties. Additionally, the complexity of quantum mechanics makes it virtually impossible to reverse engineer the quantum key generated through quantum entanglement.

Quantum keys are thus theoretically impossible to crack by even quantum computing -- a theoretical form of supercomputing that promises to defeat traditional forms of encryption. (It is important to note, however, that all is not perfectly secure. Quantum secured communications, like other forms of encryption, are vulnerable to denial of service, physically tampering of the quantum communications device, human failures in operational security and impersonation of sender).

QUESS's function is to test the phenomena of quantum entanglement. Operated by the China Academy of Sciences, this 500kg satellite contains a quantum key communicator, quantum entanglement emitter, entanglement source, processing unit, and a laser communicator. QUESS will relay transmissions between two ground stations (one in China, and the other in Europe) transmitting quantum keys. Pan remarked that the distances involved (the QUESS orbits at an altitude of 1,000km) is ideal for testing quantum teleportation of photons. Additionally, the Austrian Academy of Sciences will provide the optical receivers for the European ground stations.

QUESS fits into a broader series of experimental quantum encryption programs which may be intended to address concerns over China's information security, particularly in the post Snowden era. Government, military, and financial networks are juicy targets for espionage, and quantum encryption promises to provide a level of potentially unbreakable encryption for these systems, as well as a sure-fire method to detect any attempts at intrusion.

That device is the SkyWall, and it looks a whole lot like a shoulder mounted rocket launcher. Which is to say, it looks terrifying and deadly, and at close range, it probably is. But the point isn't destruction. It's to get the projectile up in the air, where it can trap a rogue drone in its net and bring it down, all without a pesky gun.

It has a range of about 328 feet, high enough to get most UAVs (which technically have a flight ceiling of 400 feet).  It uses compressed air to launch, and can reload in about eight seconds. Despite its huge size, it can be used by a single operator, and has a smart scope to help hit the drone just right. Once the net grabs the UAV, a parachute deploys to bring to the ground.

The plan seeks to transform the 2.3-million-member People’s Liberation Army, which features 21st-century hardware but an outdated, Soviet-inspired command structure, into a fighting force capable of winning a modern war.

The first piece of the overhaul — announced by Xi during a grand military parade through Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 — calls for eliminating 300,000 PLA personnel by 2017.

Out are military cooks, hospital workers, journalists and some 10,000 members of the PLA’s famed troops of singers and dancers. Even so, China’s military will remain by far the world’s largest, with more than 600,000 more active service members than the U.S.

Advanced military actions such as intercepting rival aircraft, carrying out drone strikes and using special forces to extract hostages, demand the sort of close collaboration China’s army-centric military has lacked. Xi intends to fix that by reorganizing the armed forces into five branches under a joint-command structure modeled after that of the U.S.

PLA Air Force and PLA Navy, a new Rocket Force will be responsible for China’s nuclear arsenal and conventional missiles while a Strategic Support Force will oversee cyberwarfare and protect China’s financial system from attack

As part of the move toward a unified command, China consolidated its seven military regions into five “Theater Commands” or “Battle Zones,” with each service reporting to a single commander

Many will be watching to see how far beyond China’s borders the new zones reach and how the revamped military map will shape PLA activities in regional hotspots such as the South China Sea.

Four existing general departments will be divided into 15 smaller units responsible for everything from training and logistics to punishing corrupt officers and ensuring soldiers get sufficient education in Marxist ideology

One thing Xi has made clear: he has no plans to transfer control over the PLA to the government from the party, something foreign military experts say is needed to professionalize the services.

According to Air Vice Marshal M. Syaugi, the director general of defense planning at Indonesia’s defense ministry, the country is currently evaluating the purchase of the Chinese-made AF902 Radar/Twin 35 mm AA Gun/PL-9C Missile Integrated Air Defense System (AF902 FCS/35) to bolster its aerial defense capabilities.

Syaugi also said that the system was “as good as the Oerlikon,” referring to the Swiss-made Oerlikon SkyShield MK2 air defense system which is currently being used by the Air Force Special Forces (Paskhas) in the air force base in Pontianak, West Kalimantan.

While Syaugi’s comments were quite positive, it is unclear whether Indonesia will eventually decide to go with the air defense system and, if so, when a deal might be struck and finalized. Sino-Indonesian defense relations have tended to move quite slowly with respect to new firsts for a variety of reasons. For example, talks for Indonesia to purchase Chinese-made C-705 surface to surface missiles went on for a while before the confirmation that Jakarta would actually begin deploying the missiles on vessels.

Dr. Keith Joiner, who spoke exclusively to Background Briefing about his concerns, says the JSF is a completely software-driven aircraft, but is yet to be properly tested.

“[The aircraft] hasn’t done any cybersecurity testing yet,” he says. “The only system that has done cybersecurity vulnerability and penetration testing is the logistics software, so ordering spares.

“And it didn’t go very well. The most software-driven aircraft ever built hasn’t yet been tested against cyber security and the modern cyber warfare threats.”

The Navy Times reported Thursday that the US sent the USS John C. Stennis, two destroyers, two cruisers and the 7th Fleet to the South China Sea.

Earlier, it was reported that China had sent fighter jets to the Woody Island, which is one of the disputed Paracel Islands (Xisha) in the South China Sea.

MOSCOW, March 4. /TASS/. US Department of Defense has deployed two radio-electronic intelligence stations in the Kiev-controlled Markovo district of the Lugansk Region, the spokesman for the militia of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic, Igor Yashchenko, has said.

"According to our intelligence sources, the US Department of Defense representatives have placed two Trailblazer radio-electronic intelligence stations in the village of Kuryachovka, the Markovo district," the LuganskInformCenter news agency quotes him as saying.

The statement about North Korea readying its nuclear weapons came from the state-ran news and reported to have come from Kim himself while on a tour of an army artillery unit. The fear is that North Korea could use these weapons in preemptive attacks on South Korea. This terrifying possibility was underlined when the head U.S. military officer in South Korea stated that the Kim regime would use WMDs if they felt their power was endangered.

The latest version of the F-35's "magic" helmet, which allows wearers to "see" through the skin of the plane, is now being issued to pilots.

The Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS) is a key part of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The helmet incorporates LCD displays to take input from the aircraft's various sensors—radar, infra-red, and the electro-optical targeting system—and overlay them on the pilot's field of view.

The biggest one is the pilot's ability to "see" through the plane; the pilot can look down at his feet, for example, and the view from of the infra-red camera on the bottom of the plane will be projected onto his helmet visor—in effect giving the pilot x-ray vision. The F-35 has six such cameras, all forming the so-called the Distributed Aperture System.

Rockwell Collins, the contractor responsible for the helmet, has a demonstration video here:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested building a new city in northern Syria to house some of the millions of refugees escaping the country's civil war

He said that the city would be 4,500sq/km in area and its infrastructure could be built in cooperation with the international community

Turkey is currently home to an estimated 2.7 million Syria refugees who fled the five year civil war

Turkey has repeatedly sought to persuade its Western allies to help create a so-called safe zone inside Syria that could house Syrian refugee

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is more about America’s relationship to Afghanistan than the war itself. Marines want to survive and the journalists want the next fix — a shot of war or whiskey, either will do — and no one seems to care what the Afghans want.

At the heart of the migration crisis, explained General Philip Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, is a ‘resurgent, aggressive Russia’ that has ‘chosen to be an adversary and poses a long-term existential threat to the United States and to our European allies and partners’.

Putin’s chosen weapon, according to the General, is the migration crisis itself.

And in all this toxic mix, Islamic Fundamentalism is ‘spreading like a cancer, taking advantage of paths of least resistance and threatening European nations, and our own, with terrorist attacks’.

As a former KGB man who yearns to rebuild Russia into a global superpower, President Putin sees the world in terms of ruthless, hard-headed realpolitik — in stark contrast, I have to say, with our own pusillanimous leaders.