WebProNews

Tag: engineer

  • F-35 Program: Stolen Secrets and Lockheed’s “Exaggeration”

    F-35 Program: Stolen Secrets and Lockheed’s “Exaggeration”

    An employee of one of Lockheed’s suppliers was arrested en route to Iran last week on suspicion of attempting to smuggle secret F-35 Joint Strike Fighter documents there.

    Back in November, the investigation initiated when customs officials and homeland security agents said they intercepted a shipment Mozaffar Khazaee was sending to Hamadan, Iran. The 59 year old engineer was said to have claimed that the boxes labeled “Household Goods” only contained personal items. However, an Agent of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, declared in an affidavit that there were “thousands of pages contained in dozens of manuals/binders relating to the JSF program.”

    Mozaffar Khazaee, a citizen of both Iran and America, formerly worked for Pratt & Whitney as a military contractor. Court documents indicate he was responsible for carrying out engine part strength tests and officials state the documents he attempted to send included design outlines of the fighter’s jet engine that were labeled as subject to export restrictions.

    On January 9, Khazaee was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, after traveling from Indianapolis to Newark. Per a statement by the prosecutors, Tehran was his final destination.

    The discovery of this incident might exacerbate the already precarious nuclear deal the U.S. and 5 additional countries have with Iran. As stated by the Fiscal Times, the consequences of the leaked information are that the whole F-35 program will be compromised as well.

    This news has come tandem to reports that Lockheed “greatly exaggerated” just how many U.S. jobs were created by the F-35 fighter jet, (the Pentagon’s costliest weapons program).

    “The real figure, based on standard estimating procedures used in other studies in the field, should be on the order of 50,000 to 60,000,” the Center for International Policy reported today.

    As for Khazaee’s indictment, although he has not been arraigned yet in the case, he is currently being detained in New Jersey before heading to Connecticut where he will face charges. Those charges comprise two counts of transporting, transmitting and transferring in interstate commerce goods obtained by theft, conversion or fraud.

    He could face up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Obama offers To Forward Resume` of Out-of-Work Engineer

    5:30 Monday evening saw the first Google+ hangout for the President. Many people had several inquiries for the leader of the free world. Fort Worth, Texas resident Jennifer Weddel was one of the participants int the live video conference. She told the President that her husband had been laid off for over 2 years and has not been able to find steady work as an engineer since. According to a source, Obama then proceeded to tell the woman:

    “Well Jennifer, I don’t know your husband’s specialty, but I can tell you that there’s a huge demand around the country for engineers, demand is especially high for specialized engineers in the high-tech industry.”

    He continued:

    “If your husband’s in that field, then we should get his resume and I’ll forward it to some of these companies that are telling me they can’t find enough engineers”

    After that he stated that he insisted that she send him her husbands resume` stating that:

    “I meant what I said.”

    Weddel commented saying:

    “I appreciate your response Mr. President, I’ll have to take you up on that.”

  • Paul Baran – Internet Pioneer Dies at 84 Years Old

    You might know of the famous Tim Berners-Lee, or even Al Gore, but most of you reading this have never heard of a man named Paul Baran. Which is a shame, cause he’s an engineer who created much of the technology which would eventually lead to the culmination of the internet.

    Baran earned his master’s degree in Engineering from UCLA in 1959, and began working for the RAND Corporation that same year. Upon his hiring, he was charged with developing a communications system which could withstand a nuclear attack.

    I won’t go into a lot of the techno-jargon associated with Baran’s work. Basically, he crafted a communications system which relied on a large amount of nodes, of which many of them could go down and communication could still be possible. “Redundancy” was the key; as 50% of the nodes in the communication array could go down and messages could still be sent.

    In order for data to be sent across a network of such a large size at ample speeds, the messages had to be broken down into what Baran referred to as “message blocks”. Once sent across the network, the blocks are then unraveled into their original message. This came to be known as “packet switching“, and is one of the fundamental ideas behind the internet.

    Originally, Baran tried to sell his work to AT&T. They laughed and scoffed at his research, stating it simply wouldn’t work for voice communication. However, in 1969, the US government developed a system called the Arpanet. They used Baran’s ideas along with others to create a system which would stay online until eventually being replaced by the internet itself.

    Baran’s contributions to modern day technology didn’t end with packet switching. He also developed tech which would be a part of the first ATM product. In 1985, he founded Metricom, which would become the first wireless internet company. The next time you walk through a metal detector, realize that a lot of Baran’s work went into those as well.

    If you would like to learn more about the life of Paul Baran, or leave a message in remembrance of his work, you can find more information at FamousDead.com