OUR PICKSHow Blockchain Immortalizes Extremism | Securing Space | Wet Winter Boosts California's Reservoirs, and more

How to Mitigate Insider Risk at Federal Agencies  (Mike Crouse, HSToday)
It’s not about collecting every kernel of data there is. Instead, the goal is to collect the right data at the right time – then to apply policies vetted by insider risk stakeholders.

Extremist NFTs: How Does Blockchain Immortalize Extremism?  (Chamila Liyanage, GNET)
Blockchain allows users to preserve unique art, games, and photographs. One of the famous examples is the art collection by Beeple, who sold a piece named ‘Everydays: the First 5,000 Days’ (2021) for a record $69.3 million. Islamic extremism is now receiving a boost from the blockchain, which allows extremists to create and preserve extremist artefacts indefinitely, potentially inspiring future pseudo-religious extremist generations.  These artefacts can be passed on, and increase in sentimentality with time.  What if Islamic extremists seize the technological opening of blockchain to create artefacts that inspire further generations of extremism? This article examines the pseudo-religious sentimentalism of Islamic extremism, expressed through their artefacts on the blockchain, and questions how such artefacts would increase extremist appeal and affect individual behavior, and how to mitigate this unique threat. This article focuses particularly on the Islamic extremist content on blockchain made available by OpenSea, the world’s largest online non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.  

Violent Assemblages: Rethinking Screens, Media, and Lone Wolf Terrorism  (Manfredi Pozzoli, GNET)
Terrorist acts often confront the public with gruesome images and unthinkable suffering. Understanding the motivations of terrorist attacks is no easy task. In the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Robert Pape wrote a foundational essay, offering a clear interpretation of their rationale.  Pape argued that terrorism follows the same “coercive logic” as conventional forms of warfare: just like regular combatants, terrorists seek to obtain specific, limited concessions from their targets, often of territorial nature. Their deaths, no matter their excessive brutality, still serve limited political causes. Media, in this equation, act as violence amplifiers: recording and diffusing terrorist violence becomes a tactical way to enhance pressure on target governments. Pape’s account gained much traction in security studies, and its assumptions still provide the theoretical backbone of many contemporary policy papers in Europe and North America.
Yet, contemporary ‘lone wolf’ terrorism does not fit this logic. Actors such as the Christchurch mosque shooter seek no concessions, nor do they have any specific political calculations in mind when conducting their attacks. In his manifesto, the shooter, who was not affiliated with any single extremist group, rants about his aim of accelerating racial tensions into an eventual ethnic-religious war. How, then, can we hope to understand – and stop – seemingly incomprehensibly isolated acts of terrorism?
Explanations of contemporary lone wolf terrorism must start by rethinking the way we understand the online, social media-based environment. Rather than seeing social media platforms as passive stages on which the struggle for and against radicalization and terror is played out, we should allow for the possibility that media demonstrate a particular form of agency, resembling both a layered assemblage and a lure. Through non-linear and complex media, lone wolf terrorism displays two functions: one of connection and one of performance.

New Resources to Tackle Rising Threat of Cyberattacks in Health and Public Health Sector  (HHS)
HHS Cybersecurity Task Force Provides New Resources, including a new platform, Knowledge on Demand, to provide free cybersecurity training to the health sector workforce as well as an updated Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices 2023 Edition and a Hospital Cyber Resiliency Initiative Landscape Analysis.

Government Must Work with Private Sector to Secure Space, Experts Say  (Kirsten Errick, Nextgov)
Several former federal officials argued government should protect the industrial base without hindering innovation for space technologies.

Wet Winter Boosts California’s Reservoirs  (AFP / VOA News)
A very wet winter has left California’s reservoirs looking healthier than they have for years, as near-record rainfall put a big dent in a lengthy drought.
A series of atmospheric rivers — high altitude ribbons of moisture — chugged into the western United States, dousing a landscape that had been baked dry by years of below-average rain.

The West Braces for the Most Epic Snowmelt in 40 Years  (Chad Hecht, Scientific American)
Communities across the U.S. West are preparing for flooding and mudslide disasters as record snow begins to melt.