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Virtual terrorismInterview with <em>Virtual Terror</em> author Daniel Wagner
“One of the characteristics of Virtual Terrorism is that it allows countries like North Korea (and Iran) to punch well above their weight in the cyber arena, and conduct their own form of ‘diplomacy’ on the cyber battlefield. These countries have already attacked the U.S. and other countries – all countries with the capability to do so, do so,” says Daniel Wagner. “The best way to fight it is to help ensure that as many people as possible understand what it is, what some of the challenges are in fighting it, and what can we do about it.”
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The Russia connectionGRU's suspected plan to link Skripal poisoning to Steele Dossier
The Telegraph is reporting that Russian military intelligence – a year before the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal – planted online evidence of a false connection between the former Russian agent and Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who researched Donald Trump’s Russia connections during the 2016 campaign.
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PrivacyCloaking location on mobile devices to protect privacy
We agree to give up some degree of privacy anytime we search Google to find a nearby restaurant or use other location-based apps on our mobile devices. The occasional search may be fine, but researchers says repeatedly pinpointing our location reveals information about our identity, which may be sold or shared with others. The researchers say there is a way to limit what companies can glean from location information.
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Public healthMeasles spreads in anti-vaccination community in Oregon
An outbreak of measles spreads across a “hot spot” anti-vaccination community near Portland, Oregon. Twenty-three cases have been comfirmed, with twenty of those who contracted the highly contagious virus not vaccinated against measles because of their anti-vaccination beliefs.
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Oil spillsNew decision-making tool for oil spill clean-up
Engineers have created an interactive decision tree aimed at finding the best solution for specific oil spill scenarios. Numerous chemical dispersant technologies are available to address different types of oil spills and countless variables and external conditions can play into the effectiveness of any given dispersant. The decision-making tool helps bridge this gap to determine how a dispersant technology will perform under different spill scenarios.
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Climate threatsNear-term climate prediction “coming of age”
The quest for climate scientists to be able to bridge the gap between shorter-term seasonal forecasts and long-term climate projections is “coming of age,” a study shows. The research has shown the true capabilities of near-term climate predictions, out to just a few years ahead.
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Mexico violence2018 sets recod for violent death inMexico
In 2018, Mexican police investoigators opened 33,341 murder investigations related to to drug and gang violence, setting a new record, according to the latest data published by the Mexican authorities. The overwhelming majority of those killed were menm but 861 women also lost their lives. The 2018 figures are the largest since national records began in 1997.
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PrivacyOn Facebook and Twitter, even if you don’t have an account, your privacy is at risk
Individual choice has long been considered a bedrock principle of online privacy. If you don’t want to be on Facebook, you can leave or not sign up in the first place. Then your behavior will be your own private business, right? A new study shows that privacy on social media is like second-hand smoke. It’s controlled by the people around you.
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Election interferenceForeign interference in US elections dates back decades
Americans have spent the last 18 months wondering about Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump would not be the first U.S. politician that foreign powers tried to help. In fact, two campaigns, in 1940 and 1960, featured bold attempts by hostile foreign powers to put their preferred candidates in the Oval Office. While neither was successful, both highlight a vulnerability in the American political system that, for the first time, has become the subject of major public discussion.
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Cyber operationsQuestioning the effectiveness of offensive cyber operations
Great-power competition in the twenty-first century increasingly involves the use of cyber operations between rival states. But do cyber operations achieve their stated objectives? What are the escalation risks? Under what conditions could increasingly frequent and sophisticated cyber operations result in inadvertent escalation and the use of military force? The answers to these questions should inform U.S. cybersecurity policy and strategy.
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WargamesBenefits of next-generation wargames
Technological advances for game engines and cloud architectures are fueling the development of next-generation wargames that can increase insights for policymakers. Researchers say that the new technologies are making wargame tools more accessible and providing strategists with more insights.
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Migrants & healthWHO: Migrants do not bring diseases into Europe
A new report by the World Health Organization disputes a belief that refugees and migrants bring exotic communicable diseases into the European region. The report is based on evidence from more than 13,000 documents. It provides a snapshot of the health of refugees and migrants who comprise about 10 percent of the nearly 1 billion population in 53 European countries.
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Water securitySierra snowpack could drop by nearly 80% by end of century
A future warmer world will almost certainly feature a decline in fresh water from the Sierra Nevada mountain snowpack. Now a new study that analyzed the headwater regions of California’s 10 major reservoirs, representing nearly half of the state’s surface storage, found they could see on average a 79 percent drop in peak snowpack water volume by 2100.
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Our picksSurveillance: a political solution; securing 5G; the state of cybersecurity, and more
· Surveillance is a tech problem, but it requires a policy solution
· Do USF police radios work on campus? Lawsuit raises questions, campus shootings raise the stakes
· Former MS-13 member who secretly helped police is deported
· If 5G is so important, why isn’t it secure?
· The state of cybersecurity today
· Education industry not making the grade for cybersecurity
· Government can’t force people to unlock phones using facial recognition, fingerprints: Federal judge
· Scientists warn of climate ‘time bomb’ for world’s groundwater
· Shutdown delays training for storm spotters, “the nation’s first line of defense against severe weather”
· Senators worry that new D.C. Metro railcars could carry cyber risk
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The Africa watchKenya’s terror woes; Al-Qaeda disciples; normalizing Ebola, and more
· Thousands of Nigerian refugees fleeing Boko Haram forced back by Cameroon
· Al-Qaeda disciples still a potent threat to African business hub
· America’s new policy in Africa is an attempt to contain Chinese and Russian influence
· IMB: Gulf of Guinea led the world for piracy in 2018
· Abiy’s Ethiopia pardons 13,000 accused of treason or terrorism
· Ebola has gotten so bad, it’s normal
· In eastern Burkina Faso, local grievances help militancy take root
· Rwanda’s Khashoggi: Who killed the exiled spy chief?
· Legacy of Benghazi: Marine force stays ready for quick Africa deployment
· Ethiopia allows almost 1 million refugees to leave camps, go to work
· Zimbabwe in ‘total internet shutdown’ amid violent crackdown
· Burundi to change its capital city
· The changing face of terrorism in East Africa
· Latest attack may deal new blow to Kenya’s global terror ranking
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Iran’s nukesWeapons experts: Archives show that Iran was likely developing nuclear warheads
Documents in the Iranian nuclear archive captured by Israel last year show that Iran built an underground facility, which was likely used for the development of nuclear warheads, a paper published Friday by the Institute for Science and International Security charged.
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ExtremismGerman police raid suspected KKK members' homes
German police on Wednesday conducted raids on several properties throughout Germany connected to an extremist group which associates itself with the American Ku Klux Klan. Germany’s domestic intellig agency said around forty people are either under surveillance or investigation for connections with the extreme-right group.
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ExtremismThe KKK is active in Germany
The KKK’s sway on the racist, far-right end of the spectrum has declined as other, more contemporary hate groups have emrged as part of the alt-right. In Germany, however, some violent groups on the right fringe have associated themselves with the KKK. An author of a recent book on the KKK in Germany discusses the danger of the KKK and why it has emetrged on the German right fringe.
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TerrorismFar-right German journalist implicated in firebombing of Hungarian center in Ukraine
A Polish man accused of involvement in the firebombing of a Hungarian cultural center in western Ukraine last year says he received instructions on the attack from a German journalist who has worked as a consultant for a German parliament deputy with the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
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CybersecurityData breaches are inevitable – here’s how to protect yourself anyway
It’s tempting to give up on data security altogether, with all the billions of pieces of personal data – Social Security numbers, credit cards, home addresses, phone numbers, passwords and much more – breached and stolen in recent years. But that’s not realistic – nor is the idea of going offline entirely. In any case, huge data-collection corporations vacuum up data about almost every American without their knowledge. As cybersecurity researchers, we offer good news to brighten this bleak picture. There are some simple ways to protect your personal data that can still be effective, though they involve changing how you think about your own information security.
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DronesDrones to make traffic crash site assessments safer, faster, more accurate
In 2016, there were more than 7 million police-reported traffic crashes in which 37,461 people were killed and an estimated 3,144,000 were injured. Idling in a long highway line of slowed or stopped traffic on a busy highway can be more than an inconvenience for drivers and highway safety officers. It is one of the most vulnerable times for “secondary accidents,” which often can be worse than an original source of the slowdown.
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FloodsConnected vehicles’ windshield wipers could help prevent flooding
We’ve been promised all kinds of benefits from a future of connected vehicles, but flood control? One of your car’s oldest features has been put to a new, high-tech use by University of Michigan researchers. Utilizing a test fleet in the city of Ann Arbor, engineers tracked when wipers were being used and matched it with video from onboard cameras to document rainfall. They found that tracking windshield wiper activity can provide faster, more accurate rainfall data than radar and rain gauge systems we currently have in place.
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The long view
TerrorismDeaths from terrorism fell for the third consecutive year, after peaking in 2014
The Global Terrorism Index 2018, just released by the Institute for Economic & Peace (IEP), shows the total number of deaths decreased by 27 percent in 2017, with the largest falls occurring in Iraq and Syria. A drop in fatalities was also reflected in country scores with 94 countries improving, compared to 46 that deteriorated. Alongside the fall in terrorism, the global economic impact of terrorism has also dropped, decreasing by 42 percent to $52 billion in 2017.
TerrorismIslamic State greater draw for U.S.-born recruits than al Qaeda
ISIS has been more successful than its predecessor organization, al Qaeda, in drawing Americans to its cause. Whereas al-Qaeda was more reliant on preexisting connections to the region or Islam, an ISIL candidate recruit is more likely to be younger, less educated, and a U.S.-born citizen.
The Russia connectionRussian social-media-interference operations “active and ongoing”: Senate Intel Committee
The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign sought to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election by deepening divisions among Americans and suppressing turnout among Democratic voters, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee. “What is clear is that all of the [Russian social media] messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party — and specifically Donald Trump,” the report says. “Increasingly, we’ve seen how social media platforms intended to foster open dialogues can be used by hostile foreign actors seeking to manipulate and subvert public opinion,” said the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina). “Most troublingly, it shows that these activities have not stopped.”
Democracy imperiledThe time of the trolls
The West woke up to the threat of Kremlin trolls in 2016, however it had already been very damaging in 2014–2015. The Ukraine crisis saw the deployment of trolls to Facebook and VKontakte, as well as YouTube and Twitter. The investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election showed that trolling was never completely dependent on a technology like bots, nor that it was predominantly about Kremlin employees sitting somewhere in Russia manufacturing anti-Clinton propaganda. Rather, it was ordinary Americans and Europeans that were sharing the messages launched by trolls, and often posting them themselves.
China syndromeChina exerting “sharp power” influence on American institutions
China is penetrating American institutions in ways that are coercive and corrupt, while the United States has not fully grasped the gravity of the situation, a Hoover Institution expert says. “An ultimate ambition for global hegemony” is driving China’s multifront efforts to manipulate US state and local governments, universities, think tanks, media, corporations, and the Chinese American community, said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Hoover.
CybersecurityAI advancement opens health data privacy to attack
Advances in artificial intelligence have created new threats to the privacy of health data, a new study shows. The study suggests current laws and regulations are nowhere near sufficient to keep an individual’s health status private in the face of AI development.
Airport securityAirport security screening without queues
Researchers have invented a device that could be developed into ultra-sensitive cameras for security screening which would not require people to queue at airports. Other applications could include smaller and safer sensors for driverless vehicles.
MigrationGlobal migration rates steady since 1990, high return migration
On today’s increasingly crowded globe, human migration can strain infrastructure and resources. Accurate data on migration flows could help governments plan for and respond to immigrants. Yet these figures, when available, tend to be spotty and error-ridden, even in the developed world. Researchers have developed approaches to estimate migration rates, but even the best of these rely on unrealistic assumptions about the mass movement of people and yield migration rates that can fall far below reality.
CybersecuritySignificance vulnerabilities discovered in high-performance computer chips
Researchers have uncovered significant and previously unknown vulnerabilities in high-performance computer chips that could lead to failures in modern electronics. The researchers found they could damage the on-chip communications system and shorten the lifetime of the whole computer chip significantly by deliberately adding malicious workload.
EncryptionNew Australian law would compel tech firms to hand over encrypted data
Australia’s parliament earlier today (Thursday) passed a controversial measure which will force tech firms to give police access to the encrypted communications of suspected terrorists and criminals. The law, fiercely opposed by big tech firms, has engendered heated debate over national security and privacy at a time law enforcement agencies are struggling with how to access encrypted information to monitor illegal activities. The passage of the law may have global implications for encrypted communications. Critics say the law may unleash unintended consequences.
Nuclear wasteU.S. must start from scratch with a new nuclear waste strategy: Experts
The U.S. government has worked for decades and spent tens of billions of dollars in search of a permanent resting place for the nation’s nuclear waste. Some 80,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste from defense programs are stored in pools, dry casks and large tanks at more than seventy-five sites throughout the country. “No single group, institution or governmental organization is incentivized to find a solution,” says one expert.
EMPFriendly electromagnetic pulse improves survival for electronics
An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, emitted by a nuclear weapon exploded high above the United States could disable the electronic circuits of many devices vital to military defense and modern living. These could include complicated weapon systems as well as phones, laptops, credit cards and car computers. Also, in trouble might be home appliances, gas station pumps and bank accounts. Military equipment – and some civilian equipment, too — are designed to be immune to various levels of EMP, and the validity of these designs has been tested and improved by a “friendly” EMP generator installed in a recently renovated facility at Sandia National Laboratories.
Search & rescueFoldable drone flies through narrow passages in rescue missions
Researchers have developed a new drone that can retract its propeller arms in flight and make itself small to fit through narrow gaps and holes. This is particularly useful when searching for victims of natural disasters.
Disaster zonesHouses in hurricane strike zones are built back, but bigger
A study of hurricane-hit areas of the United States has revealed a trend of larger homes being built to replace smaller ones in the years following a storm. The research shows that the sizes of new homes constructed after a hurricane often dwarf the sizes of those lost.
Water securityNational Climate Assessment: Will U.S. water problems worsen?
Upmanu Lall is director of the Columbia Water Center, chair of Earth and Environmental Engineering, and the lead author of the chapter on water resources in the latest U.S. National Climate Assessment. The report, issued two weeks ago, paints a troubling picture of the nation’s climate future, including projected droughts and extreme precipitation events that could worsen already existing problems with U.S. water supplies and infrastructure. Lall discusses the climate change-driven water challenges the U.S. faces, and ideas for how the nation can respond.
AfricaAfrican terrorist groups driven by local issues
Africa’s three leading Islamist terrorist groups — Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), Boko Haram of Nigeria, and Somalia’s al-Shabab — are mostly national and regional movements. Terrorism experts say that each has its own priorities, and each is fighting a local enemy. There is no operational coherence or coordinated direction among them, even as they use the same jihadist propaganda.