Cyber Realism in a Time of War | QAnon-inspired Violence | Cryptography

How the U.K. and the Senate Judiciary Committee Are Being Dangerously Foolish About Cryptography  (Susan Landau, Lawfare)
In the 2016 showdownbetween Apple and FBI over the locked San Bernardino iPhone, a significant portion of the publicunderstood that doing away with security protections to enable law enforcement investigations invited other intruders—including “hackers, other government agencies, foreign spies, cyber criminals, and terrorists”—in to hack devices. It’s unfortunate and, in fact, dangerous that the Senate Judiciary Committee members and the U.K. Home Office don’t yet fully appreciate that. With an approach that may or may not simplify the investigation of CSAM, lawmakers are seriously risking making all of us, children and adults alike, much less secure.

Michigan Judge Rejects Entrapment Motion to Allow Trial in Alleged Plot against Governor  (Reuters)
A judge in Michigan on Tuesday denied an entrapment motion made by defense lawyers for three men accused of conspiring to kidnap the state’s governor, according to local media reports, meaning their trials may proceed. Jackson County Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson’s ruling will allow terrorism, gang affiliation and firearm charges to move forward against defendants Paul Bellar, Joseph Morrison and Pete Musico, the Detroit Free Press reported. They are among 13 men facing federal and criminal charges stemming from a plot to abduct Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, threaten law enforcement and attack the state legislature. The alleged plot was motivated by opposition to state coronavirus restrictions and the 2020 presidential election in 2020. The court did not immediately respond to a request for more information from Reuters. Defense attorneys filed the entrapment motion in an effort to get Wilson to throw out the charges. Attorneys sought to weaken the state’s case against the defendants following testimony by an FBI informant on Monday, according to the Free Press.

Middle East No Longer Region Most Affected By Terrorism, Global Report Finds  (Patrick Ryan, The National)
The Middle East and North Africa is no longer the region most affected by terrorism, a global report has found. The weakening of ISIS in the region has played a key role in the improved performance in the Global Terrorism Index, which measured the amount of terrorist-related incidents over the course of 2021. Sixteen countries in the region improved their score from the previous year, with three showing no change in performance. Only Algeria recorded an increase in the number of terrorist-related deaths. “Fatalities in the Mena region accounted for 39 per cent of the total global deaths from terrorism between 2007 and 2021,” the report said. “However, since the defeat of ISIS the region’s share of the global total has dropped substantially. “It accounted for only 16 per cent of global deaths, behind South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in 2021.” The annual report is put together by the Institute for Economics and Peace, a global think tank with headquarters in Sydney. The number of deaths worldwide from terrorism in 2021 was 7,142, which represented an annual fall of 1.2 per cent. The 2021 figure was a third of the deaths recorded in 2015, the report said. “Terrorist attacks are becoming less deadly in the region with less than one person killed on average per terrorist attack in 2021,” authors said.