THE PEN, THE SHIELD, OR THE SWORD? HOW THE UNITED STATES WINS THE HYPERSONIC ARMS RACE

In the past few years, China and Russia have developed offensive hypersonic missile capabilities that the United States currently can neither match nor successfully defend against. Such weapons are nuclear capable, have an unpredictable flight path, and significantly reduce reaction times for decision makers. This thesis analyzes the impact hypersonic missiles have on strategy and military combat systems to determine how the United States can best respond to China and Russia acquiring hypersonic weapons. It explores three main options: arms control negotiations, advancing the U.S. missile defense system, or the United States acquiring its own hypersonic weapons. The pros and cons of each option are weighed to determine the quickest, most affordable, and most effective approach to the hypersonic arms race.This thesis concludes that the United States should control only what it is capable of controlling: practicing transparency and confidence-building measures to set the international standard for conduct with hypersonic weapons, continuing to develop its missile defense system to keep pace with emerging threats, and acquiring hypersonic missiles to allow it the ability to operate forward-deployed forces without impediment is the best response to China and Russia.Lieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Anti-DreamBooth: Protecting users from personalized text-to-image synthesis

Text-to-image diffusion models are nothing but a revolution, allowing anyone, even without design skills, to create realistic images from simple text inputs. With powerful personalization tools like DreamBooth, they can generate images of a specific person just by learning from his/her few reference images. However, when misused, such a powerful and convenient tool can produce fake news or disturbing content targeting any individual victim, posing a severe negative social impact. In this paper, we explore a defense system called Anti-DreamBooth against such malicious use of DreamBooth. The system aims to add subtle noise perturbation to each user's image before publishing in order to disrupt the generation quality of any DreamBooth model trained on these perturbed images. We investigate a wide range of algorithms for perturbation optimization and extensively evaluate them on two facial datasets over various text-to-image model versions. Despite the complicated formulation of DreamBooth and Diffusion-based text-to-image models, our methods effectively defend users from the malicious use of those models. Their effectiveness withstands even adverse conditions, such as model or prompt/term mismatching between training and testing. Our code will be available at \href{https://github.com/VinAIResearch/Anti-DreamBooth.git}{https://github.com/VinAIResearch/Anti-DreamBooth.git}.Comment: Project page: https://anti-dreambooth.github.io

Time dependent analysis with dynamic counter measure trees

The success of a security attack crucially depends on time: the more time available to the attacker, the higher the probability of a successful attack. Formalisms such as Reliability block diagrams, Reliability graphs and Attack Countermeasure trees provide quantitative information about attack scenarios, but they are provably insufficient to model dependent actions which involve costs, skills, and time. In this presentation, we extend the Attack Countermeasure trees with a notion of time; inspired by the fact that there is a strong correlation between the amount of resources in which the attacker invests (in this case time) and probability that an attacker succeeds. This allows for an effective selection of countermeasures and rank them according to their resource consumption in terms of costs/skills of installing them and effectiveness in preventing an attack

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Military Defence and Security

The twenty-first century is now being shaped by a multipolar system characterized by techno-nationalism and a post-Bretton Woods order. In the face of a rapidly evolving digital era, international cooperation will be critical to ensuring peace and security. Information sharing, expert conferences and multilateral dialogue can help the world's nation-states and their militaries develop a better understanding of one another's capabilities and intentions. As a global middle power, Canada could be a major partner in driving this effort. This paper explores the development of military-specific capabilities in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Building on Canadian defence policy, the paper outlines the military applications of AI and the resources needed to manage next-generation military operations, including multilateral engagement and technology governance

Court support workers speak out: Upholding children's rights in the criminal justice system

The prevalence of sexual offences against children in South Africa continues to be among the highest in the world. The quality and accuracy of a child's testimony is often pivotal to whether cases are prosecuted, and whether justice is done. Child witness programmes assist child victims of sexual abuse to prepare to give consistent, coherent and accurate testimony, and also attempt to ensure that the rights of the child are upheld as enshrined in the various laws, legislative frameworks, directives and instructions that have been introduced since 1994. We draw on information from two studies that sought the perspectives of court support workers to explore whether a child rights-based approach is followed in the criminal justice system (CJS) for child victims of sexual abuse. Findings suggest varying degrees of protection, assistance and support for child victims of sexual abuse during participation in the CJS. The findings revealed that the rights of children to equality, dignity and not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way were undermined in many instances. Finally, recommendations are given on ways to mitigate the harsh effects that adversarial court systems have on children's rights.DHE

VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS OF GUAM’S DEFENSE POSTURE

Since the end of the Second World War, Guam has served as a linchpin of U.S. military power in the Indo-Pacific. As the United States’ westernmost territory in the world, Guam has been lauded as the place where America’s day begins. However, with its strategic importance and abundance of military combat power, Guam may be where America’s next war begins. Following decades of reform and modernization, the People’s Liberation Army presents a significant threat to the preeminence of U.S. military power in the region. This study uses a structured vulnerability analysis based on the principles of risk analysis, reliability engineering, adversarial analysis, and safety engineering to identify Guam’s critical vulnerabilities and formulate recommendations that enhance the territory’s defense posture. This study finds that Guam’s missile defense posture constitutes the island’s most significant vulnerability and recommends that congressional budgetary initiatives must remain focused on enhancing Guam’s missile defense capability and hardening defense infrastructure throughout the Pacific territories. Should modern warfare reach the shores of Guam, the U.S. military will have to fight for Guam before it can fight from it.Outstanding ThesisLieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited