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Drones vs. balloonsIsrael deploys tracking system to fight incendiary balloons and kites
Israel’s famed military prowess has come up against a decidedly low-tech adversary, the humble party balloon, and found itself thwarted. Over the past few weeks, the residents of the Gaza Strip have let loose a barrage of colorful kites with burning tails as well as festive balloons, sometimes condoms, with fuel-soaked strips of cloth. They land inside Israeli territory, often starting serious fires. Israel has now deployed a system to track balloons and kites carrying burning material across the border.
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Border securityTrump wants to prosecute all illegal border crossings without splitting up families. That will be a challenge.
When President Donald Trump on Wednesday backed down from an immigration policy that separated migrant families, he pledged to continue his “zero tolerance” approach: Parents would still be prosecuted for illegally crossing the border, but their families wouldn’t be split up. But legal and logistical challenges will make it exceedingly difficult for his administration to accomplish both goals. To do so, federal agencies need to find space for thousands of children and adults as they await criminal and civil immigration proceedings. And another federal agency must find a way to do so without running afoul of the law.
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ImmigrationAsylum seekers are not a “burden” for European economies: Study
Does the arrival of asylum seekers lead to a deterioration in the economic performance and public finances of the European countries that host them? The answer is no, according to economists who have estimated a dynamic statistical model based on thirty years of data from fifteen countries in Western Europe. On the contrary, the economic impact tends to be positive as a proportion of the asylum seekers become permanent residents.
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The Russia connectionTwitter release reveals the Kremlin’s news impersonation game
On 18 June, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released around 1,100 names of Twitter accounts linked to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), the Kremlin’s disinformation and propaganda outfit. The new release brings the total number of known IRA-linked Twitter accounts to around 3,800. Analysis of the pages reveals that a major pillar of the Kremlin’s social media influence campaigns revolves around the impersonation of local news sources in order to gain trust among audiences and insert narratives into mainstream public discourse. This strategy of camouflaging disinformation channels as seemingly credible sources is even more prevalent in the IRA’s domestic efforts.
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GunsJust how many guns do Americans own? (And why do estimates vary so widely?)
There is no official count of how many guns Americans own. But the best available calculations make it clear that the number has grown by tens of millions in recent decades, leaving the United States ever more densely armed than other countries. A June 2018 report from the Small Arms Survey estimates that American civilians own 393 million guns, both legally and otherwise, out of a worldwide total of 857 million firearms. That’s up from 270 million civilian-owned guns domestically, and 650 million globally, in 2007.
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Nuclear detectionEnhanced detection of nuclear events thanks to deep learning
A deep neural network running on an ordinary desktop computer is interpreting highly technical data related to national security as well as — and sometimes better than — today’s best automated methods or even human experts.
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Natural disastersThe lessons of natural disasters for the world
Historians are part of a global study that will shed light on how to better deal with the prediction and aftermath of environmental disasters in the Indian Ocean region, including tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
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Planetary securityNew national near-Earth object preparedness plan released
A new multiagency report outlines how the U.S. could become better prepared for near-Earth objects—asteroids and comets whose orbits come within thirty million miles of Earth—otherwise known as NEOs. While no known NEOs currently pose significant risks of impact, the report is a key step to addressing a nationwide response to any future risks.
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Our picksChild separation & int. law; surprise nuke attack; What Plum Island is really like, and more
• The short-sightedness of Obama-era cyber operations policy
• So what’s Plum Island really like? One reporter’s inside tour
• Plum Island group tours halted by Homeland Security
• “Zero tolerance” and the detention of children: Torture under international law
• Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy leaves no room for discretion
• Email hacking: A constant threat to political aspirations
• Prove it: Nuclear posture and the fear of surprise attack
• More deceit uncovered in Iran deal
• Southern Poverty Law Center has been labeling Christian groups “extremist” — now they’re fighting back
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The Russia watchRussia scanned 50 states’ election systems; NRA & Russia; did Putin buy the World Cup?, and more
• “Coincidence Number 395”: The N.R.A. spent $30 million to elect Trump. Was it Russian money?
• What does the British government know about Trump and Russia?
• Julian Assange met repeatedly with lobbyist for Russian oligarch linked to Donald Trump’s campaign manager
• Obama cybersecurity czar: Russian hackers likely scanned election systems in all 50 states
• Did Putin buy the World Cup? The FBI’s not saying—yet
• Litvinenko widow threatens to sue RT over ‘libelous’ claims
• The Olympic destroyer hackers may be targeting biochem threat prevention now
• Senate defense bill pushes Trump to get tougher on Russian hacking
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The Russia connectionWeak response to Russian meddling emboldened Moscow, official says
Russia was emboldened by the lack of a decisive response by President Barack Obama’s administration during the 2016 presidential election and will seek to interfere in future elections, a former top U.S. official said. Victoria Nuland, whose portfolio at the State Department made her a leading Russia official under Obama, made the comments 20 June during a hearing at the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting a sweeping investigation of Russian actions in the United States.
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BioterrorismGerman police find large quantities of castor seeds in bioweapon suspect’s apartment
German police investigators have found more than 3,000 castor bean seeds in the Cologne apartment of a 29-year old Tunisian, who was arrested last week for making a biological weapon. The quantity of castor seeds was much larger than initially thought. Castor beans are used in making the toxin ricin. The suspect, who is married to a German woman, had been under police surveillance for contacts with Islamist extremists.
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Cybersecurity24-hour view of cyberattacks in Florida
The Internet of things (IoT) – smartphones, vehicles, smart buildings, home appliances and other devices that use electronics, software and sensors – have transformed the way people around the world live and work. But not without risks. Data breaches and cyberattacks affect millions of businesses and households each year, hindering the integrity of critical systems, leaking private information and paralyzing Internet infrastructures.
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EncryptionQuantum encryption to protect communications from hackers
Securing highly sensitive information, such as hospital records and bank details, is a major challenge faced by companies and organization throughout the world. Researchers have shown that a new quantum-based procedure for distributing secure information along communication lines could be successful in preventing serious security breaches.
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DronesFAA should integrate drones into U.S. airspace for better security
Introducing drone operations into the nation’s airspace can provide substantial benefits to society, such as preventing derailments, inspecting cell phone towers, delivering medical devices to patients in cardiac distress, and assisting firefighters, says a new congressionally mandated report by the National Academies of Sciences. However, an overly conservative approach to safety risk assessments at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which the report says tends to overestimate the severity and likelihood of risks from many types of drone operations, can be a significant barrier to introduction and development of this emerging and rapidly changing technology.
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DronesDrones could be used to detect dangerous “butterfly” landmines
It is estimated that there are at least 100 million military munitions and explosives of concern devices in the world, of various size, shape and composition. Millions of these are surface plastic landmines with low-pressure triggers, such as the mass-produced Soviet PFM-1 “butterfly” landmine. Drones could be used to detect dangerous “butterfly” landmines in remote regions of post-conflict countries.
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Climate threats: MitigationClimate change will soon hit billions of people, and many cities are taking action
By mid-century, billions of people in thousands of cities around the world will be at risk from climate-related heat waves, droughts, flooding, food shortages and energy blackouts, but many cities are already taking action to blunt such effects, says a new report from a consortium of international organizations.
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Our picksRural veterinarian shortage; better disaster preparedness; cyberweapons, and more
• Shortage of rural veterinarians puts farmers, food supply at risk
• Congress needs to back legislation supporting disaster preparedness
• Here’s what Trump actually achieved with North Korea
• On the theft and reuse of advanced offensive cyber weapons
• Santa Rosa approves $447 million budget to spur fire recovery
• For National Guard, lava disaster presents real-world mission
• On the theft and reuse of advanced offensive cyber weapons
• Lawmakers urge Google to end partnership with China’s Huawei
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The Russia watchRussia & social media; Russian Brexit influence; Obama weak Russia response, and more
• Timeline: Trump’s acts of accommodation/engagement with Russia, Nov. 2016-June 2018
• A conversation with Clint Watts on influence and information in the social media era
• Russian influence in the Brexit vote? We don’t really know how to deal with that
• How to tackle “weapons of mass disinformation – WMD for the modern age”
• Others emulate Russia’s influence campaigns
• Obama criticized in Senate for not doing more on Russia meddling
• West vs Russia: winning hearts and minds in the Western Balkans and EAP Countries
• Russian-linked group tied to Winter Olympics attack is now targeting biochemical researchers
• Hackers who sabotaged the Olympic games return for more mischief
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SyriaA first: Israeli air strike kills dozens of pro-Assad Iraqi fighters in Syria
Israel has not commented on background-only briefing by a senior U.S. official, who said that Israeli air-strike early Monday morning killed 52 Assad regime-allied troops eastern Syria. What is notable about the attack is its location — the town of al Hari in Deir Ezzor, near the border with Iraq, hundreds of miles from Israel – and the fact that among those killed were 22 members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militia.
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Family separationWhat's happening at the border? Here's what we know about immigrant children being separated from their families
The attention of the nation has turned to Texas and its border with Mexico after the Trump administration enacted the “zero tolerance” policy, resulting, so far, in about 2,000 children being separated from their parents at the border. Here’s what we know.
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Family separationTrump and Sessions can end immigrant family separations without Congress’ help
Only Congress can provide the comprehensive immigration reform that would address the fundamental problems plaguing the American immigration system, including the statuses of undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. However, current immigration laws give the executive branch considerable discretion in deciding which immigrants to detain and release from custody. President Donald Trump has at his disposal a variety of alternatives – other than separating families – that would promote his stated goal of deterring migration from Central America. Those alternatives could avoid violating international human rights norms.
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The long view
TerrorismTerrorism cost EU countries $212 billion between 2004 and 2016
The European Union (EU) countries lost around €180 billion ($212 billion) in GDP terms due to terrorism between 2004 and 2016, according to a new study. According to the study, changes in economic behavior could be the reason behind the observed negative effects on economic growth, as people and companies change their purchasing, saving and investing behaviors following terror attacks. The UK (€43.7 billion) and France (€43 billion) suffered the highest economic losses in GDP terms due to terrorism.
The Russia connectionRussia’s active measures architecture: Task and purpose
Russia’s latest iteration of the Soviet-era tactic of “active measures” has mesmerized Western audiences and become the topic de jour for national security analysts. In my last post, I focused on the Kremlin’s campaign to influence the U.S. elections from 2014 to 2016 through the integration of offensive cyber hacking, overt propaganda, and covert social media personas In this post, I focus on the elements of Russia’s national power that execute active measures abroad.
The Russia connectionRussia’s corruption, influence “a matter of national security”: U.K. Parliamentary panel
“Dirty” Russian money is undermining Britain’s efforts to stand up to the Kremlin and supports President Vladimir Putin’s campaign “to subvert the international rules-based system,” a British parliamentary report says. “The scale of damage that this ‘dirty money’ can do to U.K. foreign-policy interests dwarfs the benefit of Russian transactions in the City,” Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat said today (21 May) ahead of the release of the report. “Over the years, Moscow has turned from being a corrupt state to an exporter of instability. Russian corruption and influence has become a matter of national security,” he added.
Cyberspace & the lawCyber and international law in the 21st century
“Cyber space is not – and must never be – a lawless world. It is the U.K.’s view that when states and individuals engage in hostile cyber operations, they are governed by law just like activities in any other domain,” said the U.K. Attorney General Jeremy Wright, QC MP, on 23 May 2018, setting out, for the first time, the U.K.’s position on applying international law to cyberspace. “What this means is that hostile actors cannot take action by cyber means without consequence, both in peacetime and in times of conflict. States that are targeted by hostile cyber operations have the right to respond to those operations in accordance with the options lawfully available to them and that in this as in all things, all states are equal before the law.”
Cyberspace & the lawFailing to keep pace: The cyber threat and its implications for our privacy laws
“The time has come — indeed, if it has not already passed — to think seriously about some fundamental questions with respect to our reliance on cyber technologies: How much connected technology do we really want in our daily lives? Do we want the adoption of new connected technologies to be driven purely by innovation and market forces, or should we impose some regulatory constraints?” asked NSA General Counsel Glenn Gerstell in a Wednesday presentation at Georgetown University. “Although we continue to forge ahead in the development of new connected technologies, it is clear that the legal framework underpinning those technologies has not kept pace. Despite our reliance on the internet and connected technologies, we simply haven’t confronted, as a U.S. society, what it means to have privacy in a digital age.”
BiosecurityBiosecurity: Do synthetic biologists need a license to operate?
Advances in gene editing technology and the drop in costs make it possible for individuals to perform more sophisticated molecular biology experiments in private spaces. This hobby attracts a variety of people and has been hailed as a way to democratize genetic engineering. A few recent stunts raise concerns about what are the hazards of individuals with gene-editing capabilities.
BiosecurityGrowing concerns about DIY gene editing
There is a growing concerns regarding the rising popularity of do-it-yourself (DIY) gene editing. From the horsepox de novo synthesis to public stunts at conventions where biohackers injected themselves with HIV treatment, it is becoming difficult to ignore why these actions are dangerous.
BiothreatsClade X pandemic exercise: Preventing the worst outcomes in future pandemics
The outbreak of a moderately contagious and moderately lethal novel pathogen precipitated a catastrophic end to the scenario in Clade X, the day-long pandemic tabletop exercise hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The scenario opens with the present-day outbreak of a new, serious respiratory disease in Germany and Venezuela. Clade X quickly causes widespread, worldwide anxiety as case counts and deaths mount. Within a year, 150 million people die from the disease—15 million in the United States alone.
PandemicsLittle-known virus could become the next global pandemic
A little-known virus discovered twenty years ago could become the next global pandemic. A recent outbreak of Nipah in South India has renewed interest in the virus, which has a mortality rate of up to 70 percent and has no vaccine or cure. “Emerging infections have resulted in the most devastating infectious diseases that humanity has ever faced. These include HIV, tuberculosis, measles and smallpox. History has taught us that emerging infections can be major threats,” says Stanford University epidemiologist and Nipah expert Stephen Luby.
BiosecurityBolstering the body’s defenses against public health, national security threats
Military service members, first responders, and civilian populations face severe threats from pathogens with pandemic potential, toxic chemicals, and radioactive materials, which can all quickly and powerfully overwhelm the body’s innate defenses. And though significant public and private investment has been focused on the development of traditional medical countermeasures such as drugs, vaccines, and biologics to guard against the worst effects of these health threats, current countermeasures are often limited in their effectiveness and availability during emergencies. PREPARE aims to develop new class of generalizable medical countermeasures that safely and temporarily tune activity of protective genes.
GunsRAND to help oversee high-quality research on gun violence
Every day in the United States, close to 100 people are killed by guns, and for every death, two more are injured. The gun-related murder rate in the U.S. is 25 times higher than the rate in 22 other high-income nations. About two-thirds of gun deaths in the United States are suicides. The RAND Corporation has been selected to help oversee a philanthropic fund that will support high-quality research on issues related to gun violence.
Energy securityWe can get 100 percent of our energy from renewable sources: Scientists
Is there enough space for all the wind turbines and solar panels to provide all our energy needs? What happens when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow? Won’t renewables destabilize the grid and cause blackouts? Scientists say that there are no roadblocks on the way to a 100 percent renewable future.
EarthquakesQuestions raised about the predictive value of earthquake foreshocks
No one can predict when or where an earthquake will strike, but in 2011 scientists thought they had evidence that tiny underground tremors called foreshocks could provide important clues. If true, it suggested seismologists could one day warn people of impending temblors. A new study has cast doubt on those earlier findings and on the predictive value of foreshocks, and instead found them to be indistinguishable from ordinary earthquakes.
Apocalypse tomorrow?Alien apocalypse: Can any civilization survive climate change?
In the face of climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss, creating a sustainable version of civilization is one of humanity’s most urgent tasks. But when confronting this immense challenge, we rarely ask what may be the most pressing question of all: How do we know if sustainability is even possible? Astronomers have inventoried a sizable share of the universe’s stars, galaxies, comets, and black holes. But are planets with sustainable civilizations also something the universe contains? Or does every civilization that may have arisen in the cosmos last only a few centuries before it falls to the climate change it triggers?
Climate risksEconomic models significantly underestimate climate change risks: Experts
Policymakers are being misinformed by the results of economic models that underestimate the future risks of climate change impacts, according to a new study. The researchers say that “mounting evidence” that the “integrated assessment models” used by economists “largely ignore the potential for ‘tipping points’ beyond which impacts accelerate, become unstoppable, or become irreversible.” As a result “they inadequately account for the potential damages from climate change, especially at moderate to high levels of warming,” due to rises in global mean temperature of more than 2 Celsius degrees.
HurricanesFuture hurricanes: Stronger, slower, wetter
Scientists have developed a detailed analysis of how twenty-two recent hurricanes would be different if they formed under the conditions predicted for the late twenty-first century. While each storm’s transformation would be unique, on balance, the hurricanes would become a little stronger, a little slower-moving, and a lot wetter.