Our picksScience Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak | How the World Ran Out of Everything | Looking for 2,100 Migrant Children, and more

Trojan Shield: How the FBI Secretly Ran a Phone Network for Criminals (Joseph Cox, Vice)
For years the FBI has secretly run an encrypted communications app used by organized crime in order to surreptitiously collect its users’ messages and monitor criminals’ activity on a massive scale, according to a newly unsealed court document. In all, the elaborate operation netted more than 20 million messages from over 11,800 devices used by suspected criminals.

Everything Is Overcomplicated  (Samuel Arbesman, The Atlantic)
An internet outage exposes the gap between how we think technology might work and how it actually does.

The Most Damning Parts of the Senate’s Capitol Riot Report  (Justin Rohrlich, Daily Beast)
Emails were sent instead of picking up the phone. Riot gear was stuck in a locked bus. Less than 10 Capitol cops were trained to use “less-than-lethal” munitions.

The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak  (Steven Quay and Richard Muller, Wall Street Journal)
The Covid-19 pathogen has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus.

How the World Ran Out of Everything  (Peter S. Goodman and Niraj Chokshi, New York Times)
Global shortages of many goods reflect the disruption of the pandemic combined with decades of companies limiting their inventories.

NATO Allies Need to Speed Up AI Defense Co-operation  (Financial Times)
As Russia intensifies cyber hostilities and China weaponises artificial intelligence, joining forces in the field of high-tech warfare will feature high on the list of topics discussed by Nato allies at a summit next week. But the transatlantic alliance’s 30 members will need to move fast if they aim to make up lost ground

Why Strong Artificial Intelligence Weapons Should Be Considered WMD  (Mark M. Bailey, HSToday)
The concept of “strong” Artificial Intelligence (AI), or AI that is cognitively equivalent to (or better than) a human in all areas of intelligence, is a common science fiction trope. From HAL’s adversarial relationship with Dave in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey to the war-ravaged apocalypse of James Cameron’s Terminator franchise, Hollywood has vividly imagined what a dystopian future with super intelligent machines could look like – and what the ultimate outcome for humanity might be. While I would not argue that the invention of super-intelligent machines will inevitably lead to our Schwarzenegger-style destruction, rapid advances in AI and machine learning have raised the specter of strong AI instantiation within a lifetime, and this requires serious consideration. It is becoming increasingly important that we have a real conversation about strong AI before it becomes an existential issue, particularly within the context of decision making for kinetic autonomous weapons and other military systems that can result in a lethal outcome. From these discussions, appropriate global norms and international laws should be established to prevent the proliferation and use of strong AI systems for kinetic operations.

U.S. Doesn’t Know Whether 2,100 Migrant Children Have Been Reunited with Their Parents, DHS Says  (Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News)
Up to 2,100 children who were split up from their families near the U.S.-Mexico border during the Trump administration may still be separated from their parents, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report prepared for President Biden.
Some of those children may have found a way to reunite with their parents, but the U.S. government has no records documenting their reunifications, the Family Reunification Task Force created by Mr. Biden said in its first progress report, which was made public Tuesday.

Pipeline Cybersecurity Solutions Suffer from Oversight Divide  (Rebecca Kern, Bloomberg)
Several committees oversee pipeline cybersecurity in Congress. Collaboration needed to prevent future hacks like Colonial Pipeline.

House Communications Vendor Compromised by Ransomware Attack  (Leigh Ann Caldwell and Rebecca Shabad, NBC News)
An online vendor that provides constituent services for House offices has been compromised by a ransomware attack, NBC News confirmed Tuesday morning. David O’Boyle, a spokesman for the House chief administrative officer, confirmed the attack on the vendor, iConstituent, in a statement. The vendor told O’Boyle’s office that “their e-newsletter system was hit with a ransomware attack,” he said, noting that the system is an external service available for House offices to buy. “At this time, the CAO is not aware of any impact to House data,” O’Boyle said. “The CAO is coordinating with the impacted offices supported by iConstituent and has taken measures to ensure that the attack does not affect the House network and offices’ data.” The vendor did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. The attack was first reported by Punchbowl News, which said nearly 60 House offices have not been able to get constituent information for several weeks because of the situation.