Avevo sentito del tentativo di colpo di Stato di Bolsonaro ai danni di Lula, ma una cosa è ssentire la notizia, altra cosa è conoscere i dettagli.

Aveva affidato ad un gruppo militare il compito di UCCIDERE Lula. Come? Era indifferente, andava bene anche l'avvelenamento. In alternativa il Vicepresidente. E anche il Giudice della corte costituzionale, De Moraes, che da sempre indaga sui reati dell'estrema destra. Ma gli elettori dell'estrema destra qualche domanda non se la fanno mai? Mai mai?

Ma ci rendiamo conto? Questi sono gli amici della Meloni, che ovviamente non dice una parola su tutto questo.

Fortuna che ci restano podcast come questo.

open.spotify.com/episode/3phhc…

#bolsonaro #meloni #internazionale #podcast #notizie #brasile #colpodiStato

Gli hacker di NoName057(16) continuano i loro attacchi di Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) contro gli obiettivi italiani. Molti dei loro canali Telegram sono stati eliminati negli scorsi giorni, sinonimo che la moderazione del social network di Durov sta iniziando a portare i miglioramenti decantati.

Oggi gli obiettivi rivendicati in un post sul nuovo canale Telegram sono i seguenti:
❌Negozio online Parmalat SpA
check-host.net/check-report/234a0982kba8

❌Marcegaglia è un gruppo industriale che produce acciaio al carbonio e inox
check-host.net/check-report/234a0b66ka64

❌TechnoAlpin, specializzato nella produzione di sistemi di innevamento manuale e completamente automatico.
check-host.net/check-report/234a0cbek311

❌Leonardo è una delle più grandi aziende di ingegneria meccanica in Italia (dead on ping)
check-host.net/check-report/234a0ce3k64a

❌Alpi Aviation - produttore italiano di velivoli ultraleggeri
check-host.net/check-report/234a0de4k9a7
Mentre altri siti risentono delle connessioni anomale, il sito di Leonardo è perfettamente raggiungibile. Sinonimo che l’azienda ha tutte le mitigazioni del caso attive per poter reagire ad attacchi come quelli sferrati dal progetto DDoSia.

Ricordiamo sempre che gli attacchi DDoS non arrecano danni ai sistemi, ma per un periodo temporaneamente limitato non permettono un corretto accesso alle pagine web delle aziende colpite. Dopo l’attacco, tutto ritorna nuovamente disponibile.

NoName057(16) è un gruppo di hacker che si è dichiarato a marzo del 2022 a supporto della Federazione Russa. Hanno rivendicato la responsabilità di attacchi informatici a paesi come l’Ucraina, gli Stati Uniti e altri vari paesi europei. Questi attacchi vengono in genere eseguiti su agenzie governative, media e siti Web di società private

Che cos’è un attacco Distributed Denial of Service

Un attacco DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) è un tipo di attacco informatico in cui vengono inviate una grande quantità di richieste a un server o a un sito web da molte macchine diverse contemporaneamente, al fine di sovraccaricare le risorse del server e renderlo inaccessibile ai suoi utenti legittimi.

Queste richieste possono essere inviate da un grande numero di dispositivi infetti da malware e controllati da un’organizzazione criminale, da una rete di computer compromessi chiamata botnet, o da altre fonti di traffico non legittime. L’obiettivo di un attacco DDoS è spesso quello di interrompere le attività online di un’organizzazione o di un’azienda, o di costringerla a pagare un riscatto per ripristinare l’accesso ai propri servizi online.

Gli attacchi DDoS possono causare danni significativi alle attività online di un’organizzazione, inclusi tempi di inattività prolungati, perdita di dati e danni reputazionali. Per proteggersi da questi attacchi, le organizzazioni possono adottare misure di sicurezza come la limitazione del traffico di rete proveniente da fonti sospette, l’utilizzo di servizi di protezione contro gli attacchi DDoS o la progettazione di sistemi resistenti agli attacchi DDoS.

Occorre precisare che gli attacchi di tipo DDoS, seppur provocano un disservizio temporaneo ai sistemi, non hanno impatti sulla Riservatezza e Integrità dei dati, ma solo sulla loro disponibilità. pertanto una volta concluso l’attacco DDoS, il sito riprende a funzionare esattamente come prima.

Che cos’è l’hacktivismo cibernetico

L’hacktivismo cibernetico è un movimento che si serve delle tecniche di hacking informatico per promuovere un messaggio politico o sociale. Gli hacktivisti usano le loro abilità informatiche per svolgere azioni online come l’accesso non autorizzato a siti web o a reti informatiche, la diffusione di informazioni riservate o il blocco dei servizi online di una determinata organizzazione.

L’obiettivo dell’hacktivismo cibernetico è di sensibilizzare l’opinione pubblica su questioni importanti come la libertà di espressione, la privacy, la libertà di accesso all’informazione o la lotta contro la censura online. Gli hacktivisti possono appartenere a gruppi organizzati o agire individualmente, ma in entrambi i casi utilizzano le loro competenze informatiche per creare un impatto sociale e politico.

È importante sottolineare che l’hacktivismo cibernetico non deve essere confuso con il cybercrime, ovvero la pratica di utilizzare le tecniche di hacking per scopi illeciti come il furto di dati personali o finanziari. Mentre il cybercrime è illegale, l’hacktivismo cibernetico può essere considerato legittimo se mira a portare all’attenzione pubblica questioni importanti e a favorire il dibattito democratico. Tuttavia, le azioni degli hacktivisti possono avere conseguenze legali e gli hacktivisti possono essere perseguiti per le loro azioni.

Chi sono gli hacktivisti di NoName057(16)

NoName057(16) è un gruppo di hacker che si è dichiarato a marzo del 2022 a supporto della Federazione Russa. Hanno rivendicato la responsabilità di attacchi informatici a paesi come l’Ucraina, gli Stati Uniti e altri vari paesi europei. Questi attacchi vengono in genere eseguiti su agenzie governative, media e siti Web di società private

Le informazioni sugli attacchi effettuati da NoName057(16) sono pubblicate nell’omonimo canale di messaggistica di Telegram. Secondo i media ucraini, il gruppo è anche coinvolto nell’invio di lettere di minaccia ai giornalisti ucraini. Gli hacker hanno guadagnato la loro popolarità durante una serie di massicci attacchi DDOS sui siti web lituani.

Le tecniche di attacco DDoS utilizzate dal gruppo sono miste, prediligendo la “Slow http attack”.

La tecnica del “Slow Http Attack”

L’attacco “Slow HTTP Attack” (l’articolo completo a questo link) è un tipo di attacco informatico che sfrutta una vulnerabilità dei server web. In questo tipo di attacco, l’attaccante invia molte richieste HTTP incomplete al server bersaglio, con lo scopo di tenere occupate le connessioni al server per un periodo prolungato e impedire l’accesso ai legittimi utenti del sito.

Nello specifico, l’attacco Slow HTTP sfrutta la modalità di funzionamento del protocollo HTTP, che prevede che una richiesta HTTP sia composta da tre parti: la richiesta, la risposta e il corpo del messaggio. L’attaccante invia molte richieste HTTP incomplete, in cui il corpo del messaggio viene inviato in modo molto lento o in modo incompleto, bloccando la connessione e impedendo al server di liberare le risorse necessarie per servire altre richieste.

Questo tipo di attacco è particolarmente difficile da rilevare e mitigare, poiché le richieste sembrano legittime, ma richiedono un tempo eccessivo per essere elaborate dal server. Gli attacchi Slow HTTP possono causare tempi di risposta molto lenti o tempi di inattività del server, rendendo impossibile l’accesso ai servizi online ospitati su quel sistema.

Per proteggersi da questi attacchi, le organizzazioni possono implementare soluzioni di sicurezza come l’uso di firewall applicativi (web application firewall o WAF), la limitazione delle connessioni al server e l’utilizzo di sistemi di rilevamento e mitigazione degli attacchi DDoS

L'articolo NoName057(16) avvia la quarta Giornata di Attacchi DDoS. Qualcuno giù, Leonardo senza problemi proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Il Digital Services Act (DSA) è una delle normative più ambiziose mai adottate dall’Unione Europea per regolamentare le piattaforme digitali. Il suo obiettivo principale è garantire un ambiente online più sicuro e trasparente, bilanciando la libertà di espressione con la responsabilità delle piattaforme e la protezione degli utenti. Questo regolamento introduce nuovi obblighi per le aziende digitali, ridefinendo il modo in cui i contenuti vengono moderati e gestiti.

Cos’è il Digital Services Act?

Approvato nel 2022 ed entrato in vigore il 17 febbraio 2024, il provvedimento stabilisce regole chiare per le piattaforme online, obbligandole a contrastare la disinformazione, migliorare la trasparenza degli algoritmi e rendere più efficace la moderazione dei contenuti.

Si applica a tutti i servizi digitali, ma introduce requisiti più stringenti per le Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) e i Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs), come Google, Facebook, Amazon e TikTok.

Un principio fondamentale della normativa europea è che ciò che è illegale offline deve esserlo anche online, con l’obbligo per le piattaforme di intervenire per rimuovere i contenuti illeciti e proteggere gli utenti.

Obblighi di Rimozione dei Contenuti Illegali

Uno degli aspetti chiave di questa legge riguarda la gestione dei contenuti illeciti. Le piattaforme devono:

• Implementare sistemi di segnalazione chiari e trasparenti per la rimozione tempestiva dei materiali non conformi.
• Collaborare con Trusted Flaggers, enti certificati con competenze specifiche nella segnalazione di attività illecite.
• Garantire agli utenti strumenti di ricorso per contestare eventuali rimozioni ingiustificate.

Contenuti Illegali e Trusted Flaggers

Il regolamento non introduce una lista specifica di contenuti vietati, ma fa riferimento alle normative nazionali ed europee già in vigore. Tra le categorie interessate rientrano:

• Violazioni del copyright;
• Discorso d’odio e incitamento alla violenza;
• Materiale pedopornografico;
• Contenuti terroristici;
• Vendita di prodotti e servizi illegali.

Per migliorare l’efficacia delle segnalazioni, la normativa introduce la figura dei Trusted Flaggers. Questi enti devono dimostrare competenze specifiche nel rilevamento di contenuti illeciti, essere indipendenti dalle piattaforme e operare in modo obiettivo. I Coordinatori dei Servizi Digitali degli Stati membri certificheranno e monitoreranno le attività di questi segnalatori.

Trasparenza sugli Algoritmi

La nuova regolamentazione europea impone obblighi di trasparenza per le piattaforme, imponendo loro di spiegare chiaramente come funzionano gli algoritmi di raccomandazione e offrendo agli utenti alternative per personalizzare i contenuti visualizzati. In particolare:

• Le piattaforme devono chiarire perché certi contenuti vengono mostrati nei feed.
• Gli utenti devono poter disattivare la personalizzazione algoritmica.
• Verranno pubblicati report periodici per valutare l’impatto degli algoritmi sulla diffusione delle informazioni.

Sanzioni per le Piattaforme Non Conformi

Le aziende che non rispettano il regolamento rischiano sanzioni fino al 6% del loro fatturato annuo globale, come previsto dall’articolo 52 del DSA.. La Commissione Europea ha il potere di condurre indagini, richiedere report dettagliati e imporre misure correttive in caso di violazioni.

Per evitare una moderazione eccessiva dei contenuti, la normativa introduce:

• Un sistema di ricorso per gli utenti, che potranno contestare la rimozione dei propri contenuti.
• Organi indipendenti di supervisione, per garantire imparzialità nelle decisioni di moderazione.
• Regole più chiare per le piattaforme, evitando decisioni arbitrarie.

Quali Servizi Digitali Sono Coperti?

La regolamentazione europea si applica a una vasta gamma di servizi digitali, tra cui:

• Fornitori di accesso a Internet e infrastrutture di rete (VPN, VoIP, registrar di domini);
• Servizi di hosting, come cloud storage (Dropbox, AWS) e web hosting;
• Piattaforme online, tra cui social network, app store, marketplace digitali e servizi di condivisione di contenuti (Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Google Play, Apple App Store);
• Motori di ricerca, soggetti a obblighi specifici se rientrano tra i Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs).

Meccanismi di Ricorso per gli Utenti

Gli utenti che ritengono ingiusta una decisione di moderazione possono contestarla attraverso diversi canali:

• Reclamo interno: Le piattaforme devono offrire un sistema gratuito e facilmente accessibile per contestare la rimozione di contenuti, valido per almeno sei mesi.
• Organismi indipendenti di risoluzione delle controversie: Se il reclamo interno non porta a una soluzione soddisfacente, gli utenti possono rivolgersi a enti certificati dallo Stato membro di riferimento.
• Ricorso ai tribunali nazionali: È sempre possibile portare la questione in tribunale, senza dover prima passare attraverso i meccanismi di reclamo interno.

Le piattaforme sono obbligate a garantire che i reclami vengano gestiti in modo tempestivo, equo e trasparente, evitando decisioni arbitrarie.

Chi Vigila sul Rispetto della Normativa?

La supervisione è affidata alla Commissione Europea e agli Stati membri:

• La Commissione Europea controlla le piattaforme più grandi (VLOPs e VLOSEs) e gestisce le violazioni più gravi.
• Gli Stati membri devono designare un Coordinatore dei Servizi Digitali (Digital Services Coordinator) per monitorare le piattaforme nel proprio territorio.
• Le aziende digitali devono sottoporsi a revisioni indipendenti per garantire la conformità al regolamento.

Conclusione: Un Nuovo Equilibrio tra Sicurezza e Libertà

Questa regolamentazione rappresenta una svolta nella gestione di Internet da parte dell’Unione Europea. L’obiettivo è rendere il web più sicuro, senza limitare eccessivamente la libertà di espressione. Tuttavia, resta da vedere come le piattaforme applicheranno queste nuove regole nella pratica. Il Digital Services Act potrebbe diventare un modello globale, ispirando anche paesi extra-UE come il Regno Unito e gli Stati Uniti, che stanno valutando normative simili per regolamentare le piattaforme digitali. influenzando anche le politiche di altri paesi sulla gestione dei contenuti online.

L'articolo Digital Services Act: La Nuova Regolamentazione Europea sulla Moderazione dei Contenuti Online proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Su BreachForum un utente dallo pseudonimo EDRVendor ha venduto, dopo poche ore dall’annuncio, l’accesso ad una cassetta postale della polizia di stato italiana.

Oltre alla mail viene offerto anche l’accesso ai pannelli riservati alle forze dell’ordine dei principali social network: Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp e Instagram), TikTok e X.

Il prezzo di vendita è di 220 dollari e con 60 dollari in più era possibile avere in bundle anche un “mandato di perquisizione e un mandato di cattura”.

La reputazione di EDRVendor è molto alta su BreachForum e lo stesso utente, a garanzia della transazione, riporta i suoi feedback a 5 stelle su Escrow.

Abbiamo approfondito il profilo di EDRVendor e pare essere specializzato nella vendita di accessi governativi.

Istruzioni pronte all’uso direttamente dall’IaB

Cosa è possibile fare comprando accessi di questo tipo? La risposta è ovvia, ma se per caso avessimo qualche dubbio, EDRVendor offre anche qualche suggerimento.

Avere accesso alla cassetta postale di una forza di polizia genera una “credibilità” tale da commettere ogni sorta di illecito, proviamo a fare qualche riflessione in merito:

• Presentare richieste di dati di emergenza/richieste di ricerca che includono: Registri delle chiamate/Richieste di conformità delle forze dell’ordine (in combinazione con un mandato di comparizione/ordine del tribunale o come EDR);
• Sfruttare le Industrie Osint: (iscrivendosi alla posta elettronica del governo e richiedendo crediti gratuiti, soggetti ad approvazione);
• Estorsione/Scamming/Spooking/Vanità: Avere il potere di influenzare chi si vuole, quando si vuole;
• Diffondere il ransomware tra i ranghi del governo o dei singoli: Quale miglior catalizzatore per diffondere il ransomware?
• Phishing di governi o individui: È più probabile che le persone cadano nel vostro phishing se questo viene diffuso da una mail governativa;
• Richiedere l’accesso a pannelli di social media/forze dell’ordine e servizi di crittografia: Fingetevi un funzionario governativo e richiedete l’accesso ovunque. Scrivere e inviare lettere di raccomandazione: Perché no;
• Social Engineering contro altri funzionari governativi per aumentare i privilegi all’interno dell’infrastruttura governativa: Pivot, pivot, pivot!

Viene quindi riportata la possibilità di accedere ai portali dedicati alle forze dell’ordine (messi a disposizione dai social network) consente di richiedere informazioni di qualsiasi natura in merito ai profili degli utenti, giustificando la richiesta come relativa ad un’indagine in corso.

Inoltre, da quanto riporta l’Initial Access Broker, è possibile richiedere un EDR (Emergency Data Request) a seguito del quale vengono fornite informazioni quali: log di accesso, IP, numeri di telefono ecc. Per un EDR potrebbero essere richiesti anche documenti comprovanti l’indagine in corso, ecco perché nel bundle in vendita venivano offerti anche un “mandato di attesto e un mandato di perquisizione”.

EDRVendor, nel suo post di vendita, mette anche degli screenshot che dimostrano l’effettiva capacità di eseguire un EDR nei confronti dei vari social media.

Poter recuperare così “facilmente” informazioni su qualsiasi utente di un social media, apre a scenari di CSINT (Closed Source Intelligence) molto evoluti.

Sempre EDRVendor in uno suo post del 23 gennaio 2025 regala una guida molto evoluta sui tool e le tecniche di OSINT/Doxxing: post dal titolo “Best and Most Comprehensive Guide To Doxing/OSINT You Will Find. [FREE!|”.

Per concludere è importante capire che ruolo giocano gli IAB (Initial Access Broker) nel panorama dell’underground, aprendo le porte a gruppi hacker che poi sfruttano questi accessi per portare a segno attacchi più importanti e potenzialmente devastanti.

Abbiamo informato prima di scrivere questo articolo la polizia postale che ci ha detto che stanno già indagando sulla questione.

L'articolo 220$ per entrare nella Polizia di Stato Italiana: l’inquietante offerta di EDRVendor proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Split flap displays! They’re mechanical, clickety-clackity, and largely commercially irrelevant in our screen-obsessed age. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a ball making one of your own, though! [Morgan Manly] did just that, with tidy results.

An ESP32 C3 SuperMini serves as the boss of the operation, running the whole display. The display is designed to be modular, so you can daisy chain multiple characters together to spell longer words. Each module has 37 characters, so it can display the alphabet, numerals 0 to 9, and a blank. Each module contains a 28BYJ-48 stepper motor for controlling the flaps, and a ULN2003 driver board to run it and a PCF8575 IO expander to handle communciation. An A3144 hall effect sensor is also used for positional feedback to ensure the display always shows the right character. The flap mechanism itself is relatively straightforward—a drum with all 37 flaps is until the correct character is reached, with the blank flaps hosting a magnet to trigger the aforementioned hall effect sensor. The flaps themselves are 3D-printed, with filament changes used to color the characters against the background.

If you’ve ever dreamed of building a flap-display clock or ticker, you needn’t dream of finding the perfect vintage example. You can just build your own! The added bonus is that you can make it as big or as small as you like. We’ve seen some interesting variations on the split flap concept recently, too. If you’re cooking up your own kooky electromechanical displays, don’t hesitate to let us know!

hackaday.com/2025/02/20/3d-pri…

La pazienza mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Che le cose belle richiedono tempo per maturare
E crescono lentamente con stabilità.
La pace mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Che posso rimanere calma attraverso le tempeste della vita,
Indipendentemente dal caos che mi circonda.
La speranza mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Che tempi migliori mi aspettano
E che sarà sempre lì per guidarmi e sollevarmi.
L’umiltà mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Che posso raggiungerla
Non riducendo me stessa o facendomi piccola,
Ma concentrandomi sul servire il mondo
E sull’elevare chi mi sta intorno.
La gentilezza mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Di essere più dolce, indulgente e compassionevole
Verso me stessa
E verso chi mi circonda.
La fiducia mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Di non nascondere o reprimere i miei doni e talenti
Per far sentire gli altri più a loro agio,
Ma di abbracciare ciò che mi rende unica.
La concentrazione mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Che le insicurezze e i giudizi altrui
Non sono un mio problema.
Dovrei reindirizzare la mia attenzione
Dagli altri verso di me.
La libertà mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Che nessuno ha controllo sulla mia mente,
Sui miei pensieri e sul mio benessere,
Se non io stessa.
L’amore mi ha fatto visita
E mi ha ricordato
Che non ho bisogno di cercarlo negli altri,
Perché si trova già dentro di me.

Tahlia Hunter

Mad Men

On the evening of October 4, 1957, Neil McElroy was enjoying cocktails in Huntsville, Alabama, fresh from a doomsday tour of the United States. McElroy, who was about to become the secretary of defense, was chatting with the army general John Medaris and the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun during a casual reception held as part of McElroy’s tour of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. It was one of many visits the secretary designate and his entourage were making around the country as he prepared to lead the Pentagon.
Huntsville should have been the least memorable stop for McElroy, who had been traveling the past few weeks in a converted DC-6 transport aircraft reserved primarily for the secretary of defense. Along the way, he was plied with fine liquor and deluxe accommodations, all while getting a crash course in overseeing a military at the dawn of the age of nuclear Armageddon.
The new position was a big change for McElroy. His last job was heading Procter & Gamble, the consumer products company based in Cincinnati, Ohio. McElroy, who had no prior experience in government, was one of the “industrialists” Eisenhower had brought to the capital in the belief that business-style leadership could help straighten out government.
The media had not been kind to McElroy after Eisenhower picked him to head the Pentagon. The native Ohioan had made his name in the nascent field of “brand management,” penning a famous letter admonishing Procter & Gamble executives on the importance of promoting the company’s soaps to the proper consumer markets so that the products would not compete with each other. “Soap manufacturer Neil McElroy is president’s choice to succeed Wilson,” The Milwaukee Journal declared on August 7. Another report mocked McElroy’s experience in advertising, saying that he had been responsible for “vital activities in persuading housewives to buy one bar of soap or another.”
Now McElroy and his entourage were being wined and dined across the country by military officials pitching their soon-to-be boss on the importance of their aircraft, missiles, and bases in case of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union—all in between plenty of martinis. At Strategic Air Command, near Omaha, Nebraska, they were greeted with a table covered in whiskey, ice, and “fixings,” before being shown the control room, where military commanders could launch a nuclear attack. Later, General Curtis LeMay, the head of Strategic Air Command, personally piloted a demonstration of the new KC-135, a refueling aircraft, for McElroy and his staff.
At Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert north of Los Angeles, the group met General Bernard Schriever, the head of the Western Development Division, which was responsible for developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. McElroy and his entourage took an immediate liking to the air force general, who was “extremely able” and could “shoot golf at par.” In Colorado, at North American Aerospace Defense Command, better known by its acronym NORAD, the group was assigned luxury suites at the Broadmoor, whose mountainview rooms were stocked with bottles of scotch and bourbon. The next day they were briefed on the calculus of a survivable nuclear war, where commanders had to weigh the lives of three million civilians versus protecting a key military site. It was a world, McElroy’s aide, Oliver Gale, wrote, “where horror is as much a part of the scene as manufacturing cost is in the soap business.” The final stop on McElroy’s itinerary was Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, a quiet southern town in Alabama whose economy was rapidly shifting from cotton mills to rocket production. General Medaris, commander of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, was polite but unimpressed by McElroy. The problem with a businessman is that he can “become a sort of czar, surrounded by subordinates who carry out his orders and obey his whims without daring to question his judgment,” he wrote in his memoir just a few years following that meeting. “This gives him the illusion that he knows all the answers. He rarely does, outside his own general field.”
Neither were McElroy and his staff impressed with the army general, who sported a black mustache and was known for dressing in old-fashioned officer riding breeches. Medaris was a “salesman, promoter, who pushes a bit more than might be considered palatable,” wrote Gale, who worked for McElroy at Procter & Gamble and was following him to the Pentagon. Coming from an advertising man, the description was telling. Medaris was trying to sell the services of von Braun and his group of German rocket scientists, who were now based in Huntsville but could not seem to shake their Nazi past. “Von Braun was still wistful about what would have happened if [the V-2s] had all gone off,” Gale recorded in his journal, “not because he was sorry that Germany did not win the war (apparently) but because he was sorry his missiles, his achievements, had not been more successful.”
Even in Huntsville, the Germans found themselves stymied by the military, starved for funds, and frozen out of the space work they desperately wanted. They were stuck working, yet again, on suborbital missiles. The problem was not scientific know-how but classic bureaucratic rivalry. By the fall of 1957, von Braun’s army group had developed the Jupiter-C missile, a four-stage rocket that could have been shot into orbit, if only the army was allowed to launch it. It was not, and so the fourth stage of von Braun’s Jupiter-C was filled with sand, rather than propellant, to ensure it would not leave the atmosphere. Medaris had reason to be skeptical of the incoming defense secretary and his visit. McElroy was replacing Charles “Engine Charlie” Wilson, another captain of industry appointed by Eisenhower. As defense secretary, Wilson threw himself into budget cutting with a passion, carrying out Eisenhower’s New Look defense policy, which emphasized advanced technology, such as nuclear weapons and airpower, over conventional forces. Yet satellites, in Wilson’s view, were “scientific boondoggles.” He did not understand what purpose they would serve for the military. When Wilson had visited Huntsville, army officials tried to impress him with their work, only to have the money-conscious defense secretary interrogate them on the cost of painting wood in his guest quarters.
With McElroy’s visit in the fall of 1957, just days away from becoming secretary of defense, it did not seem apparent to Medaris that the new Pentagon chief would chart a different course. As Medaris, McElroy, and von Braun exchanged pleasantries over drinks, an excited public relations officer interrupted the party with news. The Russians had launched a satellite, and The New York Times was seeking comment from von Braun. “There was an instant of stunned silence,” Medaris recalled.
News of Sputnik was a surprise, but it should not have been. In 1955, the Eisenhower administration announced plans to launch a small scientific satellite as part of the upcoming International Geophysical Year, which would run from July 1957 to December 1958. Not to be outdone, the Soviets countered with their own satellite launch plans. It was always a race, but one in which the United States assumed it had a natural advantage. The Soviet Union could not produce a decent automobile; how could it possibly hope to best the United States in rocket science? In the meantime, American plans for a satellite launch had fallen behind schedule.
However flawed the Soviet Union’s consumer goods industry, the regime had an advantage when it came to military and space research. An authoritarian state could focus resources on a specific goal, like a satellite launch, without the bureaucratic wrangling or public pressures that afflicted a democracy like the United States. The Eisenhower administration, prompted by its civilian scientists, wanted to keep its scientific satellite launches separate from its missile programs, even though the underlying technology was nearly identical. That was why the White House opted instead for the navy’s Vanguard, much to von Braun’s disappointment.
Now, with the soon-to-be defense secretary in front of him, and Sputnik circling overhead, the words began to tumble out of von Braun. “Vanguard will never make it,” the German scientist said. “We have the hardware on the shelf. For God’s sake turn us loose and let us do something. We can put up a satellite in sixty days, Mr. McElroy! Just give us a green light and sixty days!”
“No, Wernher, ninety days,” Medaris interjected.
McElroy had been the guest of honor, but now everyone circled von Braun, peppering the German rocket scientist with questions. Was it really true that the Soviets had launched a satellite? Probably, von Braun replied. Was it a spy satellite? Probably not, though its size and weight, if accurately reported, meant that it could be used for reconnaissance. And what did it all mean? It meant that the Soviets had a rocket with a sizable thrust, von Braun said.
The general and the rocket scientist spent the rest of the evening trying to persuade McElroy to let them launch a satellite. It is likely that the details were well beyond the grasp of McElroy, who had no background in technical issues. The conversation did impart to McElroy at least the importance of the satellite launch, which he might have otherwise missed. At first glance, the satellite did not seem like an immediate threat to the incoming defense secretary. Sputnik weighed 184 pounds and its sole function was to circle the earth, emitting a beep that could be tracked from the ground. For McElroy, the man most closely tied to the response to Sputnik, the launch was something of a fascinating footnote to a pleasant cocktail party. His aide, Gale, devoted more space to describing a recent evening meal of exotic seafood on the coast of California than he did to the world’s first satellite launch. Yet Sputnik was about to trigger a chain reaction that, by the New Year, would engulf all of Washington.
—
Years later, a myth emerged that the Soviet “artificial moon” immediately prompted people around the country to stare up at the sky in fear and apprehension. “Two generations after the event, words do not easily convey the American reaction to the Soviet satellite,” a NASA history covering the time period states. “The only appropriate characterization that begins to capture the mood on 5 October involves the use of the word hysteria.”
In fact, there was no collective panic in the first few days following the launch. It was not immediately clear—except to a small group of scientists and policy makers—why the satellite was so important. For those involved in science and satellites, like von Braun and Medaris, the Soviet satellite circling the earth was proof that politics had hampered the American space effort. Yet for most Americans, the beeping beach ball initially produced a collective shrug.
That Sputnik failed to shake the heartland to its core was best demonstrated in Milwaukee, where the Sentinel’s bold large-type headline on October 5 announced, “Today, We Make History.” In fact, the headline had nothing to do with Sputnik but referred to the first World Series game to be played in Milwaukee. News of Sputnik was buried deep in the paper’s third section, where the reporter noted merely that news of the unexpected launch had “electrified” an international meeting in Washington to discuss satellites.
In the days following the launch of Sputnik, the Washington bureaucracy moved in slow motion. Eisenhower’s attention in the weeks leading up to Sputnik was focused on much more earthbound matters. The standoff over the first attempt to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, under court order had ended with the president’s sending in federal troops. By comparison, the launch of a satellite armed with nothing more than a beacon did not initially seem like something that was going to capture public attention. At a National Security Council meeting held on October 10, Eisenhower listened as his advisers hashed out ideas for responding to Sputnik. Perhaps the administration should emphasize “spectacular achievements” in science, like cancer research? Or the successful launch of a missile that could travel thirty-five hundred miles? Few in the administration seemed to understand what the Soviets had instinctively grasped: the psychological power of a space launch. General Nathan Twining, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the United States should not become “hysterical” over Sputnik. Eisenhower saw Sputnik as a political stunt. He also knew something that the public did not know: in addition to the military’s rocket programs, which were public, the United States had been secretly working on the development of spy satellites, which would prove much more important for the strategic balance than a silver ball beeping from the heavens. In the weeks following Sputnik, the administration’s policy was simply to downplay Sputnik’s importance. General Curtis LeMay called it “just a hunk of iron,” and Sherman Adams, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, derided concerns over a space race as “a celestial basketball game.” The more that the administration tried to dismiss the Soviet accomplishment, the more fodder it gave for political opponents to accuse Eisenhower of allowing the United States to fall behind the Soviet Union. For Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Senate leader, Sputnik was an opportunity to be fully exploited. In his memoir, Johnson wrote that he got the news of Sputnik while hosting a barbecue at his ranch in Texas. That evening, he walked out with his wife, Lady Bird, to look for the orbiting Soviet satellite. “In the West, you learn to live with the Open Sky,” he later wrote. “It is part of your life. But now, somehow, in some new way, the sky seemed alien.” When Johnson looked up in the night sky, what he saw was not Sputnik but a heavenly political gift that would allow him to hammer the Republicans in the months, and possibly years, ahead. “Soon, they will be dropping bombs on us from space like kids dropping rocks onto cars from freeway overpasses,” Johnson proclaimed. Eisenhower, who had so deftly managed his image as a political leader, found himself stumbling. From a technical standpoint, he was more right than wrong. Though the Soviets were somewhat ahead of the United States in booster technology, the United States had a number of strategic advantages that were not known to the public. In addition to the spy satellite technology being developed, the CIA the year before had begun flying a reconnaissance aircraft in the earth’s stratosphere. By flying at seventy thousand feet, the Lockheed U-2 spy aircraft was designed to evade detection by ground radar while flying over the Soviet Union and capturing pictures of military bases. The aircraft—and the flights—were top secret. Also secret was that the U-2 flights had already proved that the “bomber gap”—a suspected Soviet advantage in bombers—did not exist. With news of Sputnik, Eisenhower worried about a perceived “missile gap.”
Eisenhower refused to be swept up in mass hysteria, however. “Now, so far as the satellite itself is concerned, that does not raise my apprehensions, not one iota,” he told a throng of reporters, just days after the Soviet launch. The administration only helped its critics by providing confusing and contradictory statements about the importance of Sputnik. In that initial press conference, Eisenhower claimed that the “Russians captured all of the German scientists in Peenemunde.” In truth, the United States through Operation Paperclip had taken the cream of the crop, but the Germans in the United States were stuck filling the fourth stage of their Jupiter-C with sand. As the weeks passed, the staid articles about Sputnik gave way to sensational coverage. Drew Pearson, the American writer known for his influential Washington Merry-Go-Round column, claimed that “technical intelligence experts” were predicting that the Soviets might try a moon launch on November 7, to commemorate the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. “The same missile that launched the 184-pound Sputnik, our experts say, also could shoot a small rocket 239,000 miles to the moon,” Pearson wrote. “The Russians might fill the nose cone with red dye and literally splatter a Red Star on the face of the Moon.”
Pearson’s moon prediction was an outrageous conflation of conjecture and exaggeration, but on November 3, just a month after Sputnik, the Soviets indeed launched a second, larger satellite. Sputnik 2 carried a dog named Laika on a one-way mission to space. It was taken as purported proof that the Soviets would soon be able to launch a man in space (though unlike with Laika the dog, sending a human into space would require the ability to bring the person back safely to earth). The launch sparked panic in the United States and worldwide protests from animal lovers.
Sputnik tapped into a narrative that artfully wove Hollywood, science fiction, and good oldfashioned fearmongering. The public understood that satellites were somehow connected to the ability to launch ICBMs, but the subtleties of terms like “throw weight,” or the payload a ballistic missile could carry, were not readily apparent. It took some time, politics, and editorializing, but within a few weeks the American public’s initial curiosity and mild apprehension over Sputnik turned to full-blown panic. Eisenhower was right about the science, but he had misjudged the national mood. The administration’s response to Sputnik was a mess, but one thing was clear: the solution was going to be formulated by a soap maker from Cincinnati.
—
McElroy arrived in Washington just in time for peak Sputnik hysteria. The new defense secretary’s first few weeks at the Pentagon were marked by an endless parade of military chiefs and presidential advisers, all making suggestions about who should be in charge of space. The air force, not surprisingly, wanted to be in charge of a nascent aerospace force. The navy, which was stumbling with Vanguard, argued incomprehensibly that space was an extension of the oceans. And the army wanted to conquer the moon. Another proposal envisioned creating a tri-service organization. None of the suggestions made a particularly convincing case for ownership or offered a solution to the mismanagement that had led to the current crisis.
One meeting in particular appears to have resonated with McElroy shortly after he arrived at the Pentagon. Ernest Lawrence, the famed nuclear physicist, along with Charles Thomas, a former Manhattan Project scientist and the head of the agribusiness company Monsanto, visited the Pentagon chief and over the course of a meeting that lasted several hours proposed that the secretary establish a central research and development agency with responsibility for all space research. It was a concept that drew on the legacy of the Manhattan Project, the World War II– era government project to build the atomic bomb.
McElroy latched onto the idea, likely because it sounded a lot like the “upstream research” laboratory he had established at Procter & Gamble. Whether the visitors’ suggestion sparked the idea—or merely reinforced a thought he already had—is impossible to know. But on November 7, McElroy wrote to his chief counsel to find out if, as defense secretary, he had the authority to set up a research and development agency without seeking new legislative authorities. The answer from counsel was yes, although it was not clear Congress would agree. By the time McElroy showed up on November 20 on Capitol Hill, his idea had a name, and it was called the Defense Special Projects Agency, a space agency that would make sense of the various rocket programs and other space technology ideas. The new agency would consolidate the Pentagon’s missile defense technology and space programs while also pursuing, as the defense chief put it, the “vast weapon systems of the future.” Many of the members of the President’s Science Advisory Committee were not enthusiastic about this proposal. Fearful of military pressure to hasten an arms race, Eisenhower had purposely selected the panel to represent the interests of the scientific community over military advisers. The scientists on the committee were not necessarily against the Pentagon’s consolidating its rocket programs, though they wondered whether it made sense to place ballistic missile defense and space programs all in one agency. As one committee member put it, missile defense was an urgent priority, while there was “no urgency on Mars.”
More fundamentally, the science advisers were concerned about placing the space agency under military control. They eventually acquiesced, likely because James Killian, the president’s newly appointed science adviser, supported it. The panel did convince the president that a civilian agency, not a Pentagon agency, should ultimately be responsible for nonmilitary space programs. Eisenhower, in his approval of the new organization, made clear that “when and if a civilian space agency is created, these [space] projects will be subject to review to determine which would be under the cognizance of the Department of Defense and which under the cognizance of the new agency.”
The reception within the corridors of the Pentagon to the Defense Special Projects Agency was ice cold. The military services viewed it as an attempt to usurp their authority and steal their money. The new agency was a threat to their turf, and their budgets, and they quickly went on a public offensive to undermine support for the proposal. The air force general Schriever told Congress the new agency would be a “very great mistake.” If the military wanted to prove that it did not need a centralized agency for rocket programs, its best bet was to prove that it could launch a satellite into space on its own. To that end, in December, all eyes were on Vanguard, the navy satellite that Wernher von Braun had warned McElroy was doomed to failure.
—
On December 5, 1957, in the midst of Washington battles over the creation of a new research agency, hundreds of reporters and curious onlookers gathered at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to watch the launch of Vanguard. When Sputnik launched in October, John Hagen, the director of the Vanguard program, admitted the navy rocket was five months behind schedule but blamed the Soviet head start on “unethical conduct,” as if a surprise satellite launch were the equivalent of cheating at a tennis game. Now, after hurried preparations, Vanguard Test Vehicle No. 3 was ready for launch. Yet the day of the scheduled launch, technical problems kept pushing back the countdown, and America’s best hope for catching up with the Soviets became the butt of jokes. The Japanese newsmen called the rocket “Sputternik,” the Germans dubbed it “Spaetnik” (a play on the German word for “late”), and the jaded news crews from Washington, D.C., christened it “civil servant,” because it “won’t work and you can’t fire it.” Finally, the next day, December 6, the countdown to launch began. As the count reached zero, Vanguard lifted off. From beaches just two or three miles from the launch site, hundreds of eager people gathered to watch and cheered as shooting flames marked the liftoff, though giant plumes of smoke obscured their view. The few dozen or so official viewers gathered at a hangar not far from the launchpad could see exactly what unfolded: they watched as the navy’s rocket lifted a few feet up and then exploded in a massive fireball, toppling over into the sand. In a sad testament to the failed launch, the satellite itself was thrown out of the third stage of the rocket during the explosion and was found not far away, still emitting the beeping signal that was supposed to mark the United States’ first foray into space.
The day of the Vanguard disaster, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a rare note of “non-concurrence” to the establishment of McElroy’s proposed research agency—a bureaucratic expression of extreme disagreement. Had Vanguard not just gone up in a literal ball of flames, he might have had a stronger argument. The new defense secretary held firm, and the next month Eisenhower formally approved the creation of the new agency. McElroy agreed to just one small change to his proposal: to avoid confusion with other, similarly named endeavors, like the Office of Special Operations, the new division would be called the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA.
ARPA was still an idea more than an organization, and not everyone in Washington was optimistic that a new government bureaucracy would be the solution. The frenetic days leading up to the new agency’s opening its doors were a mix of highs and lows in the space race. On January 31, 1958, the von Braun team, which had finally been allowed to join the space race, successfully helped launch Explorer 1, based on its Jupiter-C, putting in orbit the first American satellite. That success was quickly overshadowed by the second attempted launch on February 5 of the navy’s Vanguard, which broke apart just shy of a minute after launch.
On February 7, ARPA was officially founded with an intentionally vague two-page directive, which established it as an independent agency that reported directly to the secretary of defense. The directive mentioned no projects, or even specific research areas, not even space. “The Agency is authorized to direct such research and development projects being performed within the Department of Defense as the Secretary of Defense may designate,” the directive read. The only hint as to the ultimate purpose for this new agency came just weeks earlier during President Eisenhower’s State of the Union address: “We must be forward looking in our research and development to anticipate the unimagined weapons of the future.”

#RocketScience #ARPA #DARPA #USA #ColdWar #history #Mcelroy