Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) is a general and complete term which includes aircraft as well as supporting ground, air, and communications infrastructure. UAS come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are viable for a broad range of civilian, commercial, and military applications. Current domestic use of UAS is limited to academic institutions, federal, state, and local government organizations that receive a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) and private sector entities that receive special airworthiness certificates by the FAA, and hobbyists who may only operate under tight...

Federal agencies need help, especially when it comes to improving their own cybersecurity practices. You may have read in the news about cyber attacks this year on unclassified e-mail networks at the Pentagon, the State Department, and even the White House. If any of you have ever applied for a security clearance, which some of you probably do in conjunction with the CyberCorps job application process, then you have probably been subject to the breach of background investigation information at the Office of Personnel Management. Similar compromises of sensitive information occurred with the...

Imagine you are a consumer who purchases an item online, but the product isn't what you bargained for. Because you don't want other consumers to waste their time or money, you take to social media to post an honest account of your experience. You are then aggressively approached by the company that sold you the substandard product and threatened with a stiff penalty unless you immediately take down the critical review. Buried in the fine print of the website's terms and conditions was an anti-consumer clause forbidding you from posting a negative review about the company. This scenario sounds...

The scientific method is regarded as the foundation of modern science. It ensures that scientific experimentation is neither arbitrary nor subjective, and that results can be replicated. Scientific evidence of human-induced climate change rapidly increased through the 1970s. By 1982, even oil giant Exxon's own scientists were reporting to management that climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions was likely to occur, and that the effects of this climate change could be catastrophic. Since the early 1980s when Exxon internally acknowledged the reality of climate change, the scientific...