• Scorecard on hate crimes in 57 OSCE nations released

    Against a backdrop of rising reports of hate crimes, Human Rights First and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday released their annual analysis of hate crime reporting by the 57 participating states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a security- and human rights-focused intergovernmental organization comprising governments from North America, Europe, and Central Asia. The report notes that many OSCE governments remain unwilling or unable to meet even basic standards concerning the reporting of hate crimes.

  • Differences in social status, politics encourage paranoid thinking

    Paranoia is the tendency to assume other people are trying to harm you when their actual motivations are unclear, and this tendency is increased when interacting with someone of a higher social status or opposing political beliefs, according to a new study.

  • Fecal bacteria contaminated surface water after Hurricane Harvey

    Hurricane Harvey was an unprecedented rain event that delivered five consistent days of flooding and storms to Texas last August. Now, researchers have substantiated that the storm caused high levels of fecal contamination to be introduced into waterways draining into the Gulf of Mexico and impairing surface water quality.

  • For first time, arson balloon lands in Be’er Sheva, raises concerns of increased terror

    An arson balloon landed in the major southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva for the first time on Monday evening, raising fears that the range of terror devices employed by Palestinian terrorists, which have caused numerous fires in Israeli border communities, is increasing.

  • How the Russian government used disinformation and cyber warfare in 2016 election – an ethical hacker explains

    The Soviet Union and now Russia under Vladimir Putin have waged a political power struggle against the West for nearly a century. Spreading false and distorted information – called “dezinformatsiya” after the Russian word for “disinformation” – is an age-old strategy for coordinated and sustained influence campaigns that have interrupted the possibility of level-headed political discourse. Emerging reports that Russian hackers targeted a Democratic senator’s 2018 reelection campaign suggest that what happened in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election may be set to recur.

  • Social media manipulation rising globally: Report

    The manipulation of public opinion over social media platforms has emerged as a critical threat to public life. Around the world, government agencies and political parties are exploiting social media platforms to spread junk news and disinformation, exercise censorship and control, and undermine trust in media, public institutions and science.

  • Spotting spies in the sky

    The use of drones for surveillance is no longer in the realm of science fiction. Researchers have developed the first technique to detect a drone camera illicitly capturing video. The new technology addresses increasing concerns about the proliferation of drone use for personal and business applications and how it is impinging on privacy and safety.

  • Midterms first Kremlin hacking target revealed: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri)

    In 2016, on orders of President Vladimir Putin, the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence branch, launched a broad and effective hacking and disinformation campaign to help Donald Trump win the presidency. The Kremlin is already busy orchestrating another hacking and disinformation campaign to shape the outcome of the 2018 midterm elections.

  • With hacking of U.S. utilities, Russia could move from cyberespionage toward cyberwar

    Even before the revelation on 23 July that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer systems of U.S. electric utilities and could have caused blackouts, government agencies and electricity industry leaders were working to protect U.S. customers and society as a whole. These developments highlight an important distinction of conflict in cyberspace: between probing and attacking. The distinction between exploiting weaknesses to gather information – also known as “intelligence preparation of the battlefield” – and using those vulnerabilities to actually do damage is impossibly thin and depends on the intent of the people doing it. Intentions are notoriously difficult to figure out. In global cyberspace they may change depending on world events and international relations. The dangers – to the people of the United States and other countries both allied and opposed – underscore the importance of international agreement on what constitutes an act of war in cyberspace and the need for clear rules of engagement.

  • Gun play: The rise and fall of Maria Butina's wannabe Russian NRA

    Maria Butina’s motives, movements, and connections have become a subject of intense scrutiny and debate, and have resulted in a diplomatic standoff with Moscow. But her sudden emergence seven years ago — at the age of 22 — as a well-connected gun-rights activist also caught many off guard in Russia, where the gun issue has long been on the political fringe.

  • Between you, me, and Google: Problems with Gmail's “Confidential Mode”

    With Gmail’s new design rolled out to more and more users, many have had a chance to try out its new “Confidential Mode.” While many of its features sound promising, what “Confidential Mode” provides isn’t confidentiality. At best, the new mode might create expectations that it fails to meet around security and privacy in Gmail.

  • Extremists’ crimes in Germany down, but number of extremists rising

    Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, in a new report says extremists’ criminal activity in Germany has declined, but that the numbers of potential extremists has risen. The BfV’s annual report especially noted a sharp increase in members of the radical far-right Reichsbürger movement.

  • Senate committees to hold hearings on Russia, recommend additional punitive measures

    Two Senate committees – the Foreign Relations Committee and the Banking Committee – announced they will hold a series of hearings on Russia. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) tasked Senators Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, with holding hearings on the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), and asked them to recommend to the Senate additional measures that could respond to or deter what he called “Russian malign behavior.”

  • Maria Butina's own words belie claim that charges are “trumped up”

    Maria Butina was arrested in Washington, D.C. on 15 July on charges of illegally acting as an agent of the Russian government in a covert operation aimed at infiltrating the U.S. political establishment. According to Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a 21 July phone call that Maria Butina’s arrest was an “unacceptable act” and the charges against her were “trumped-up.”

  • Attacks by Muslim terrorists receive far greater press attention than attacks by non-Muslims

    Terrorist attacks committed by Muslim extremists receive 357 percent more U.S. press coverage than those committed by non-Muslims. The findings, based on all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015, show that terrorist attacks committed by non-Muslims (or where the religion was unknown) received an average of 15 headlines, while those committed by Muslim extremists received 105 headlines. The disparity in coverage is out of sync with reality, given that between 2008 and 2016 white and rightwing terrorists carried out nearly twice as many terrorist attacks as Muslim extremists.