Free Republic

Awkward. Members of the House Intelligence Committee were not briefed on the plans the White House announced today for a new cyber integration center modeled on the National Counterterrorism Center, a source with knowledge of the discussions told POLITICO. And they’re not happy about it. The Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, projected to have a staff of 50 when it is fully operational next year, is funded by a $35 million line item in the “black budget” request for intelligence funding. Representatives from the Office of the Director for National Intelligence briefed committee members on the budget last week,

Cyberwarfare is waged on a massive scale the world over. Ostensibly friendly nations zap each other's electronic nerve cells frequently, and with reckless abandon. On a single day in 2008, the Pentagon was hit by would-be intruders 6 million times in 24-hour period. Before Sept. 11, 2001, the highest annual figure for cyber attacks against the Pentagon was 250,000.

NEW YORK, Jan. 26 — World chess champion Garry Kasparov defeated computerized challenger Deep Junior on Sunday in the first of six games pitting human wit against computer logic.KASPAROV FORCED the Israeli-programmed Deep Junior into a position from which it could not win, compelling the human moving its pieces to resign four hours into the game. Both players’ queens, the most powerful pieces on the board, were captured by the end of the game, leaving them to use less powerful knights, bishops and rooks. That gave the advantage to Kasparov, who used white pieces and moved first. “Once he was...