Our picksDisrupting Hackers, Not Just Indicting Them | U.S. Navy Ditches Futuristic Railgun | Feds Used Face-Recognition Tech in 2019-20, and more
·DOJ’s Future Is in Disrupting Hackers, Not Just Indicting Them
·Rising Seas and Coastal Flooding to Swamp 140 Million
·U.S. Arrests More Than a Dozen in Capitol Riots, among The Most Made Public in a Single Day
·U.S. Says ‘Pipe Bomb’ Found in Home of Ex-Cop Charged in Capitol Attack
·Domestic Terrorism Connected to Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs) Is Possible Over July 4th Weekend, DHS Warns After ‘Monitoring Online Chatter’
·Extremists Use Minecraft and Roblox to Recreate Christchurch Attack
·U.S. Navy Ditches Futuristic Railgun, Eyes Hypersonic Missiles
·California Tests Off-the-Grid Solutions to Power Outages
·20 Federal Agencies Used Face-Recognition Tech in 2019-20
·Colonial Pipeline Attack Shows Why Cyber Insurance Is Needed
DOJ’s Future Is in Disrupting Hackers, Not Just Indicting Them (Joseph Marks, with Aaron Schaffer, Washington Post)
The Justice Department is increasingly aiming to disrupt adversaries’ hacking activity rather than just call it out in indictments.
The most prominent recent example of such disruption came last month when the department seized more than $2 million in bitcoin from the Colonial Pipeline ransomware hackers — effectively stealing back the ill-gotten gains of the Russian cybercriminals. In another example in April, the department removed backdoor access to thousands of computers that China-linked hackers had created using a devastating Microsoft bug.
Those are far more direct and harmful blows against hackers’ capabilities than the typical Justice Department tactic of indicting hackers — including from adversary governments’ military and intelligence units — who are almost guaranteed to never face trial in a U.S. courtroom.
Rising Seas and Coastal Flooding to Swamp 140 Million (Ben Webster, The Times)
Around the world 267 million people live on land that is less than two meteres above sea level, which is most at risk from rising seas and storm surges, according to research using lidar, a method of measuring elevation on the Earth’s surface using pulsed laser light.
U.S. Arrests More Than a Dozen in Capitol Riots, among The Most Made Public in a Single Day (Spencer S. Hsu and Rachel Weiner, Washington Post)
More than a dozen arrests in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot were announced or unsealed Wednesday, revealing charges against alleged supporters of extremist right-wing groups including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois, and individuals accused of attacking the property of news media. The arrests ranked among the most made public in a single day and came as an alleged Oath Keepers member reached an unexpected plea deal with prosecutors in the largest conspiracy case brought against those accused of obstructing Congress as it met to confirm the 2020 election results. Mark Grods, 54, of Mobile, Ala., became the second from the anti-government group publicly to flip in the 16-defendant conspiracy case and cooperate with prosecutors in the latest sign of movement in the investigation.
