• Data 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.

  • DNC becomes latest organization to disavow Women’s March amid anti-Semitism scandal

    In a major blow, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has joined the long list of groups that have broken with the Women’s March over allegations of anti-Semitism. The move comes a day after Women’s March co-president Tamika Mallory refused to explicitly condemn Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan on the ABC show, The View, in a heated exchange with hosts Sunny Hostin and Meghan McCain, who grilled Mallory about the hate preacher’s anti-Semitic views.

  • Fascist Forge: A new forum for hate

    White supremacist online forum Fascist Forge advertises itself as a “Home for the 21st Century Fascist,” and attracts some of the movement’s most extreme adherents. The forum emphasizes violent tactics. Some users advocate the creation of small terrorist cells, while others share how-to guides on guerrilla warfare, including military field and operation manuals, and instructions for building homemade bombs. Others suggest targeting infrastructure or recommend attacking people they perceive to be enemies of the white race.

  • Just between us

    Media investigation has found that President Donald Trump has had at least 18 interactions with Vladimir Putin – four letters, five in-person meetings, and nine phone calls – and that Trump has not shared details of these interactions — what was discussed and what the two leaders agreed to — with members of his administration. Trump went to some length to conceal his dealings with Putin from the State Department, the Pentagon, the NSC, and the U.S. intelligence community: Just following the official Hamburg meeting, for example, Trump confiscated the interpreter’s notes before he and Putin left the room. “What’s disconcerting is the desire to hide information from your own team,” said one Russia expert. “The fact that Trump didn’t want the State Department or members of the White House team to know what he was talking with Putin about suggests it was not about advancing our country’s national interest but something more problematic.”

  • Facebook deletes hundreds of Russian troll pages

    Facebook announced it had shut down more than 360 pages and accounts, with some tied to the Internet Research Agency (IRA). from the United States to Germany, Facebook has come under immense pressure to combat fake news, disinformation campaigns, and hate speech on its platforms.

  • Amazon, Facebook and Google don’t need to spy on your conversations to know what you’re talking about

    If you’ve ever wondered if your phone is spying on you, you’re not alone. One of the most hotly debated topics in technology today is the amount of data that firms surreptitiously gather about us online. You may well have shared the increasingly common experience of feeling creeped out by ads for something you recently discussed in a real life conversation or an online interaction. Tech companies don’t need to listen to your phone calls or read you emails. Simply put, tech firms routinely gather so much data about you in other ways, they already have an excellent idea what your interests, desires and habits might be.

  • Huawei industrial espionage in Poland leads to calls for boycott

    The Chinese telecom giant’s industrial espionage activities in Poland have prompted calls for the company to be banned. The United States is leading the push for a boycott, but many EU governments remain undecided. Huawei offers a capable 5G technology, which represents a quantum leap in wireless communication speed, and which will be key to developing the Internet of Things (IoT), including self-driving cars. Critics charge that much of that technology was stolen from Western companies by Chinese intelligence agencies, for which Huwawei serves as a front.

  • Reducing prison radicalization by placing terrorists in general prison populations

    New research shows people imprisoned on terrorism offenses stand a better chance of being rehabilitated when placed in general prison populations, than when kept in isolation or in a separate location with other terrorists. The study challenges the traditional view that violent extremist offenders will spread their radical ideology amongst other prisoners.

  • On what grounds can the FBI investigate the president as a counterintelligence threat?

    “Let’s stipulate for purposes of argument that Putin has compromising information on Trump, and that the FBI has Trump on tape unambiguously pledging fealty to Putin and promising to serve as his agent in carrying out a number of concrete orders from the Russian president to damage U.S. intelligence operations (for example, by exposing U.S. spies and U.S. intelligence operations),” Harvard Law School’s Jack Glodsmith writes. In this situation, could the FBI seek a FISA warrant premised on the claim that the president was an agent of a foreign power? “The answer based on [my analysis] may be ‘no,’ at least to this extent: the FBI cannot act in a way that is legally premised on second-guessing the president’s national security bona fides. On this view, the FBI can fully investigate Russia’s interference with the 2016 election, including matters involving the president, as it has been doing for a while now. But it cannot cross the line of taking investigative steps premised on the president’s threat to national security. The Constitution leaves crossing that line up to Congress and the American people.”

  • Drone jamming system to protect European airports, public spaces

    Airports could be equipped with technology capable of detecting and bringing down drones that stray into their air space, according to Dan Hermansen, chief technology officer of Danish anti-drone firm MyDefence. The company has developed a drone alarm and protection system that is being installed at a number of prominent sites around Europe, including an airport. It has the potential to prevent the kind of costly disruption that hit London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports recently.

  • Trump's threat of national emergency declaration explained

    During a visit to the southern border Thursday, President Donald Trump again threatened to use emergency powers to bypass Congress and get billions of dollars to pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border as a partial U.S. government shutdown over the issue stretched into its 20th day. What does such a declaration mean?

  • Terrorists and the southern border: Myth and reality

    Taken at face value, rhetoric from the White House and DHS would lead Americans to believe that the United States is facing a terrorism crisis at our southern border. The situation being described is one in which thousands of terrorists have been stopped crossing our southern border to infiltrate the Homeland. If that were true, that would indeed be a crisis. Nicholas Rasmussen, who served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) under Presidents Obama and Trump, writes that “In reality, no such crisis exists. U.S. federal courthouses and prisons are not filled with terrorists captured at the border. There is no wave of terrorist operatives waiting to cross overland into the United States. It simply isn’t true. Anyone in authority using this argument to bolster support for building the wall or any other physical barrier along the southern border is most likely guilty of fear mongering and willfully misleading the American people.”

  • What we know about the effectiveness of universal gun background checks

    This Tuesday, newly dominant House Democrats revealed legislation that would require all gun buyers go through a background check, regardless of whether they buy a weapon from a licensed dealer, collector at a gun show, or stranger in a parking lot. Universal background checks are popular and enjoy political momentum. Poll after poll shows they win near universal approval. But it’s worth asking how effective universal background checks are at reducing gun violence. And the real-world evidence that they reduce crime is more complicated than the political momentum might suggest.

  • Manafort wanted polling data sent to Ukrainians

    When, during the 2016 campaign, Paul Manafort sent Trump campaign’s internal polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik – a cut-out for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence branch — he intended that data to be handed off to two Kremlin-allied Ukrainian oligarchs, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov. Manafort told his accountant in August 2016 he was expecting $2.4 million from Ukraine in November 2016. His spokesman insists that money was payment for an old debt and not the data.

  • New geopolitical power dynamics created by renewables

    Political and business leaders from around the world have outlined the far-reaching geopolitical implications of an energy transformation driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy. In a new report, experts say the geopolitical and socio-economic consequences of a new energy age may be as profound as those which accompanied the shift from biomass to fossil fuels two centuries ago.