• DATA SECURITYThis Tiny Chip Can Safeguard User Data While Enabling Efficient Computing on a Smartphone

    By Adam Zewe

    Researchers have developed a security solution for power-hungry AI models that offers protection against two common attacks.

  • IMMIGRATIONThe Right’s Bogus Claims about Noncitizen Voting Fraud

    By Walter Olson

    Bogus claims of widespread voter fraud, even when they do not stoke hatred and fear of the foreign‐born, are grossly irresponsible. They exacerbate polarization and malign honest election administrators. Most of all, they undermine public confidence in our election system. The more people believe elections are rigged, the more they are likely to turn their discontents in a direction other than electoral politics. Some will go the passive route of resignation, withdrawing from civic involvements, making themselves the perfect subjects for strongman rule. Others will turn to militia activity or outright violence. Either way, the consequences for the American experiment in liberal democratic self‐rule will be unfortunate.

  • IMMIGRATIONMore Than 1.7 Million Illegal Entries in First Six Months of Fiscal 2024

    By Bethany Blankley, The Center Square

    More than 1.7 million foreign nationals have illegally entered the U.S. in the first six months of fiscal 2024, the greatest number for this time period in U.S. history. The 1,733,496 who illegally entered in the first six months of the fiscal year outnumber the 1,547,866 who illegally entered in the first six months of fiscal 2023 by more than 185,000.

  • ELECTION SECURITYCash-Strapped Election Offices Have Fewer Resources After Bans on Private Grants

    Pushed by conservative activists over the last four years, 28 states have banned outside funding in elections over the past four years. These activists based their campaign on claims, rejected by the courts and federal regulators, that such private grants – for example, by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan — during the 2020 presidential election benefitted democratic voters.

  • CHINA WATCHAfD's EU Election Ticket Unchanged Despite China’s Spying Scandal

    Maximilian Krah, the candidate of the far-right, populist AfD in June’s European elections, will stay on as candidate even though, on Tuesday, his senior aide was charged with spying for China. As is the case with other European far-right populist parties, the AfD is critical of NATO and the EU, and supports many of the policies of Russia and China.

  • NUCLEAR WORKFORCEThe U.S. Navy Has a Nuclear Workforce Problem

    By John P. Barrientos

    The U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered fleet has been central to the country’s ability to project power globally for decades. But this world-class nuclear navy—including all current U.S. aircraft carriers and submarines—is under threat amid a steady exodus of highly trained officers and enlisted personnel.

  • OUR PICKSNuclear Friend-Shoring? | ShotSpotter Keeps Listening for Gunfire After Contracts Expire | Cisco Firewalls Hacked to Access Government Networks, and more

    ·  Nuclear Friend-Shoring? Issues With Uranium Enrichment Cooperation
    The U.S. could cooperate with foreign partners on uranium enrichment to wean nuclear power plants off Russian fuel. But should it?

    ·  How States Are Investigating and Prosecuting the Trump Fake Electors
    The current status of nationwide efforts to hold accountable the people behind the 2020 fake electors plot

    ·  The Unreality of Columbia’s ‘Liberated Zone’
    What happens when genuine sympathy for civilian suffering mixes with a fervor that borders on the oppressive?

    ·  Congressional Push for Oil Sanctions Puts Biden in a Bind
    New measures to punish Iran, Venezuela, and Russia could raise crude prices and hurt Biden in an election year

    ·  ShotSpotter Keeps Listening for Gunfire After Contracts Expire
    Internal emails suggest that the company continued to provide gunshot data to police in cities where its contracts had been canceled

    ·  ‘ArcaneDoor’ Cyberspies Hacked Cisco Firewalls to Access Government Networks
    Sources suspect China is behind the targeted exploitation of two zero-day vulnerabilities in Cisco’s security appliances

  • WORLD ROUNDUPWill Fearless and Tireless Robots Lead to More Terrifying Wars? | Reopening the Pegasus Spying Scandal | India Delivers Supersonic Cruise Missiles to Philippines, and more

    ·  Will Fearless and Tireless Robots Lead to More Terrifying Wars?
    The proliferation of autonomous weapons will affect the future conduct of warfare. But we do not know how.

    ·  Anti-Piracy Lessons from the Seychelles
    The success of the Seychelles Coast Guard shows how regional states, however tiny, can play an outsized role not only in countering piracy but also in maritime security in general

    ·  Amid China Tensions, India Delivers Supersonic Cruise Missiles to Philippines
    India and Philippines have ramped up defense cooperation as concerns over an increasingly assertive China deepen in both countries

    ·  Seven Teenagers Arrested in Australia Anti-Terrorism Probe
    The suspects, who are between 15 to 17 years old, were associates of the 16-year-old boy charged in the April 15 attack on Assyrian Bishop

    ·  Spain: Court Reopens Investigation in Pegasus Spying Scandal
    Spain and France will share information from their separate investigations into the use of Pegasus software to spy on their politicians

    ·  Is Iran’s Strategic Patience at an End?
    While this round of conflict appears to be over, more escalatory situations are likely to occur, and the likelihood of an extensive war between Iran and Israel has indeed risen

  • MISSILE DEFENSE15 Things You Don’t Know About Israel’s Air Defense Systems

    By John Jeffay

    Israel has sustained attacks from enemies throughout its history and has invested heavily in high tech defense technologies that are the envy of the world’s military.

  • HAZARDOUS MATERIALSTransporting Hazardous Materials Across the Country Isn’t Easy − That’s Why There’s a Host of Regulations in Place

    By Michael F. Gorman

    Transporting hazardous materials such as dangerous gases, poisons, harmful chemicals, corrosives and radioactive material across the country is risky. But because approximately 3 billion pounds of hazardous material needs to go from place to place in the U.S. each year, it’s unavoidable.

  • SUPPLY-CHAIN SECURITYBaltimore Bridge Collapse Tests U.S. Supply Chains

    By Zongyuan Zoe Liu

    The Baltimore bridge accident and the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have raised concern about the security of global supply chains. But supply chains have been resilient thus far, and U.S. efforts to fortify them are accelerating.

  • DEEPFAKESDeFake Tool Protects Voice Recordings from Cybercriminals

    By Shawn Ballard

    In what has become a familiar refrain when discussing AI-enabled technologies, voice cloning is enabling increasingly sophisticated scams and deepfakes. The Federal Trade Commission held a Voice Cloning Challenge to encourage the development of technologies to prevent, monitor and evaluate malicious voice cloning.

  • EXTREMISMCampus Antisemitism Surges Amid Encampments and Related Protests at Columbia and Other U.S. Colleges

    College campuses have been the site of many tense anti-Israel protests and antisemitic incidents since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. Anti-Zionist student groups on over a dozen U.S. college and university campuses have established “encampments” in recent days to ostensibly protest Israel’s actions in Gaza and their academic institutions’ alleged “complicity” in those actions.

  • IRAN’S NUKESIran's Nuclear Activities 'Raises Eyebrows' at IAEA

    By Biresh Banerjee and Zachary Crellin

    Iran’s enrichment of uranium and a lack of access to international monitors is fueling suspicions about its nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency said its committed to promoting dialogue with Tehran.

  • OUR PICKSDoing the Math on the Dangers of AI | The Next US President Will Have Troubling New Surveillance Powers | Zumwalt-Class Stealth Destroyer, and more

    ·  A National Security Insider Does the Math on the Dangers of AI
    Jason Matheny, CEO of the influential think tank Rand Corporation, says advances in AI are making it easier to learn how to build biological weapons and other tools of destruction

    ·  One Problem for Renewables: Not Enough Rare Earths. One Solution: Recycling. But There’s a Hitch.
    New report includes a detailed breakdown of the metals present in our electronic garbage, and how often they are being recycled

    ·  Zumwalt-Class Stealth Destroyer: Hypersonic Missile Truck or Giant Failure?
    Zumwalt will be pushing ten years old once its hypersonic weapons are installed, assuming its current yard period wraps up on schedule. That’s a sizable share of its service life

    ·  Extreme Right-Wing Terrorist Group Terrorgram to Be Banned in UK
    The move would mean support for the group would be illegal, with punishments of up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine

    ·  German Culture Scene Unites Against Far-Right AfD Party
    An alliance of some 4,500 theaters, galleries and cultural institutionssays it sees an AfD success in the June European elections as an existential threat to the pluralist democracy

    ·  The Next US President Will Have Troubling New Surveillance Powers
    Over the weekend, President Joe Biden signed legislation not only reauthorizing a major FISA spy program but expanding it in ways that could have major implications for privacy rights in the US

  • WORLD ROUNDUPJapan’s Remarkable Call for American Leadership | Germany Arrests ‘Chinese Spy’ in Second AfD Scandal | China Weaponizes Disinformation Against Taiwan, and more

    ·  Germany Arrests ‘Chinese Spy’ in Second AfD Scandal
    Hard-right opposition party rocked by claims of Beijing infiltration and Russian cash

    ·  Israel Offers No Evidence for UN Refugee Agency Terror Claim
    International donors suspended $450 million in funding after Israel claimed staff had joined the October 7 Hamas attacks

    ·  Pessimistic Young Germans Turning to Far Right, Says Study
    German teenagers and young adults find themselves increasingly unsatisfied and likely to vote for the far right, according to a survey. Fears about prosperity are highlighted as a possible cause

    ·  Climate Change and Extreme Weather Impacts Hit Asia Hard
    Asia is warming faster than the global average

    ·  Copernicus Report Shows Year of Weather Extremes in Europe
    Drought, wildfires, floods and record heat in Europe: last year was one of extreme climate impacts for humans and nature. But there’s also some positive news

    ·  How Would China Weaponize Disinformation Against Taiwan in a Cross-Strait Conflict?
    What might China’s future disinformation operations against Taiwan focus on and how can Taipei and its partners combat them?

    ·  Japan’s Remarkable Call for American Leadership
    Japan clearly takes its role as America’s ally seriously

  • CHINA WATCHChinese Government Poses 'Bold and Unrelenting' Threat to U.S. Critical Infrastructure: FBI

    FBI Director Christopher Wray on 18 April warned that risks the government of China poses to U.S. national and economic security are “upon us now”—and that U.S. critical infrastructure is a prime target. He said that partnerships, joint operations, and private sector vigilance can help us fight back.

  • CHINA WATCHSpyware as Service: What the i-Soon Files Reveal About China’s Targeting of the Tibetan Diaspora

    Governments are increasingly incorporating cyber operations into the arsenal of statecraft. This sophisticated integration combines open-source intelligence, geospatial intelligence, human intelligence, and cyber espionage with artificial intelligence, allowing for the gathering and analysis of ever-expanding data sets. Increasingly, such operations are being outsourced.

  • IRAN’S THREATIran versus Israel: Who Has the Military Edge?

    By Kian Sharifi

    In the event of a direct conflict with Iran, Israel would have the military superiority, both offensively and defensively, experts say. But they say the threat posed by Iran’s arsenal of drones and missiles should not be dismissed. Even so, Israel maintains military supremacy.

  • IRAN’S THREATVitriolic Reactions to Arouri's Killing Highlight His Importance to the Iranian Regime’s “Axis of Resistance”

    The death on 2 January 2024 of Saleh Al-Arouri, a leading Hamas financier and military leader, resulted in threats of retribution against Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah and other regional proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

  • CYBERSECURITYIsrael’s Cybersecurity Market is Maturing, and Just in Time

    By Zachy Hennessey

    As tensions around the world rise and cyber threats multiply like digital rabbits, the Israeli cyber scene’s maturation seems like a saving grace.

  • SCHOOL SAFETYTennessee Is Ramping Up Penalties for Student Threats. Research Shows That’s Not the Best Way to Keep Schools Safe.

    By Aliyya Swaby

    After a former student killed six people last year at the private Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, state leaders have been looking for ways to make schools safer. Their focus so far has been to ramp up penalties against current students who make mass threats against schools. Months after the killings, legislators passed a law requiring students who make such threats to be expelled for a year. But a large body of research shows these zero-tolerance measures are not the most effective way to prevent violence in schools.