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The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed Thursday.

This news follows Wyden's push last year that forced the FBI to admit that it was also buying Americans' sensitive data . Now, the senator is calling on all intelligence agencies to "stop buying personal data from Americans that has been obtained illegally by data brokers."

"The US government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans' privacy are not just unethical but illegal," Wyden said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines. “To that end, I request that you adopt a policy that, going forward," intelligence agencies "may only purchase data about Americans that meets the standard for legal data sales established by the FTC.”

Enlarge / On the left, LiqudPiston's High Efficiency Hybrid Cycle engine, on the right, a 25 hp Kohler KDW1003 diesel engine. (credit: LiquidPiston)

Rotary engines have an aura of cool. In games of Top Trumps , the V12 might have been king, but a rotary was a joker, a wild card. A lack of mainstream success no doubt contributes; there are reasons they were never commonplace, including their oil-burning apex seals, which created emissions and fuel-consumption headaches.

LiquidPiston thinks it has those problems solved, however, and in the process, it created a new internal combustion engine that's small and efficient. It has demonstrated its tech on the bench and in a go-kart, but also in uncrewed aerial vehicles for the US military.

While little about the rotary engine merits the word, in a "traditional" Wankel rotary, a triangle-shaped rotor turns within a chamber during its combustion cycle. Apex seals are fitted at the apices of the rotor, but they need constant lubrication with oil, plenty of which burns during combustion. So, a Wankel engine needs constant oil top-ups while dealing with the products of that burnt oil. And those apex seals wear down.

Enlarge (credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket )

The leader of a private Discord server who allegedly leaked top-secret military documents has now been identified by “a trail of evidence” as Jack Teixeira, "a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard," The New York Times reported . US officials are now seeking to talk to Teixeira after days of searching for the leaker, including coordinating with Discord after the private server was deleted.

An earlier Washington Post report had identified the leaker as OG, a young man who was allegedly working on a military base while posting photos of hundreds of confidential documents for months on a private Discord server before US authorities caught on.

Members of the Discord server where the leak seemingly originated have been defensively protecting the target of the US manhunt—some of them teenage boys who told the Post that they wouldn’t reveal his true identity because they consider OG to be “family” and an “uncle.” These Discord community members told the Post that they had not yet been contacted by authorities.

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In a press conference that Ars attended today, Department of Defense officials discussed the benefits of partnering with Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon to build the Pentagon’s new cloud computing network. The multi-cloud strategy was described as a necessary move to keep military personnel current as technology has progressed and officials’ familiarity with cloud technology has matured.

Air Force Lieutenant General Robert Skinner said that this Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract—worth $9 billion—would help quickly expand cloud capabilities across all defense departments. He described new accelerator capabilities like preconfigured templates and infrastructure as code that will make it so that even “people who don’t understand cloud can leverage cloud” technologies. Such capabilities could help troops on the ground easily access data gathered by unmanned aircraft or space communications satellites.

“JWCC is a multiple-award contract vehicle that will provide the DOD the opportunity to acquire commercial cloud capabilities and services directly from the commercial Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) at the speed of mission, at all classification levels, from headquarters to the tactical edge,” DOD’s press release said.

Enlarge / A Project Nimbus cloud contract with the Israeli government has some Google and Amazon workers upset. (credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images )

Hundreds of Google workers and their supporters gathered near the company's downtown San Francisco offices Thursday, raising signs that read "No Tech for Apartheid" and filling the air with chants of "Tech from Amazon and Google! You can't claim that you are neutral!"

Similar scenes unfolded outside Google and Amazon offices in New York and Seattle, and a Google office in Durham, North Carolina. Google and Amazon employees were joined at the rallies by tech workers from other companies and Palestinian rights organizations. They all convened to protest Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon's cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.