• Second part of Secure Flight is phased in beginning Saturday

    Starting Saturday, some travelers will begin providing their birth date and sex when booking their airline reservations; Secure Flight aims to match passengers’ names against the government’s terrorism watch list

  • Pakistani jihadists attacked Pakistani nuclear sites three times since 2007

    When Pakistan was developing its nuclear weapons infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s, its main concern was that India would overrun these nuclear weapons facilities in an armored offensive; Pakistan thus chose to locate much of its nuclear weapons infrastructure to the north and west of the country — but this decision means that most of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are close to or even within areas dominated by Pakistani Taliban militants and home to al-Qaeda

  • Power companies seek federal funds for smart grid

    The Obama administration has placed a priority on smart grid technology, and Congress has approved $3.4 billion in federal grants for smart grid projects nationwide

  • Study highlights air cargo security failings

    New study: “these weak spots [in air cargo security] increase the security risk of worldwide transport, which can result in the disruption of logistical processes with considerable economic losses”

  • Kemesa: Solving the identity theft problem

    The ideal solution to the online identity theft problem is to not transmit personal information to Web sites in the first place; with Kemesa’s Shop Shield, personal information can not be stolen because it is never revealed during the online transaction process

  • University of Detroit Mercy receives cyber security research contract

    The aim of the $551,500 federal contract is to develop and disseminate the knowledge necessary to ensure that the software that enables America’s business and critical infrastructure is safe and secure

  • phd 4 u: British researcher receives first ever doctor of texting

    Texts are much more about maintaining and building relationships rather than passing on raw facts; as such they tend to include a lot of information which is irrelevant but entertaining

  • Israel equips its tanks with anti-missile systems

    During the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, twenty-two Israeli Merkava tanks were damaged by Russian Kornet anti-tank guided missiles fired by Hezbollah fighters; the Israeli military determined that most of the missile hits could have been averted if the tanks had been equipped with available anti-missile systems

  • U.K. authorities made more than 500,000 surveillance requests last year

    U.K. police, councils, and the intelligence services made about 1,500 surveillance requests every day last year; this is the annual equivalent to one in every 78 people being targeted

  • NRC seeks tighter oversight of often-lost radioactive devices

    A 3 August proposal by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) would expand the agency’s oversight, giving federal and state officials more muscle by stiffening regulations on almost 2,000 items — mostly industrial gauges containing radioactive material; there are approximately 2 million radioactive devices in factories, hospitals, research facilities — and the GAO estimates that up to 500,000 of those devices are unaccounted for

  • In-building public-safety communication a growing business

    The 9/11 attacks exposed a major weakness: rescue personnel had no communication coverage inside the towers; regulations now require that first responders have communications coverage everywhere in a building — or at least 95 percent of it; as businesses and local governments face deadlines for complying with these requirements, businesses offering in-building communication services will benefit

  • Study: No high engineering dropout rate

    New study from Purdue University busts two education-related myths - - that engineering has a higher dropout rate than other majors and that women do not as well as men

  • New titanium alloys offer better IED protection

    Titanium deforms and retains damage from strong impacts and fast applied forces — such compression on the metal can happen when it is hit by bullets or explosives; metallurgy theory provides a greater understanding of the material at the atomic scale — an understanding which will lead to the production of more resilient titanium

  • U.K. MPs have doubts about a biometrics IT system for screening students

    The Home Affairs Committee looked at the role of the National Biometric Identity Service (NBIS) in student visa applications as part of a report into migration processes; universities have already voiced their concerns that the enrollment of students will depend on the untested NBIS, and the MPs say they share this concern

  • U.S. military speeds up preparation for attack on Iran's nuclear facilities

    The Obama administration’s six-month exploration of ways short of war to persuade Iran to halt its accelerated march to the bomb has, so far, yielded nothing; these efforts, however, have allowed Iran more time and space to build more centrifuges, enrich more uranium, launch a plutonium path to the bomb, and test more sophisticated missiles; the administration can take a hint, and it is now accelerating preparations for a military attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities