• Law enforcement, and domain name registrars discuss ways to tackle net crooks

    Police and other law enforcement agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom are increasingly turning their attention to domain names as an Internet choke-point that can be used to shut down Web sites selling counterfeit goods and enabling the trading of pirated movies and child pornography

  • Are your phones really secure?

    Breakthroughs in technology have enabled malicious actors to listen in on any conversation using your phone even when not in use; eavesdroppers have circumvented encrypted audio channels by relying on a relatively simple principle in physics — resonance; by tapping into an object’s natural resonance, spies have turned phones and phone cables into listening devices even when they are not in use; researchers at Teo, a manufacturer of secure telecommunications equipment, were able to capture human voices using standard phones, unplugged Ethernet cables, or even a rock; to address this security gap, Teo has designed its IP TSG-6 phones with special vibration dampening circuitry and materials that render them impervious to these types of listening devices

  • Android apps send private data in the clear

    Cell phones running the Android operating system fail to encrypt data sent to and from Facebook and Google Calendar, shortcomings that could jeopardize hundreds of millions of users’ privacy; Facebook’s recently unveiled always-on SSL encryption setting to prevent snooping over insecure networks — but the encryption is no good, meaning that all private messages, photo uploads, and other transactions are visible to eavesdroppers

  • Harris Corp. awarded $9 million Army contract to boost biodefense

    The U.S. Army recently signed a $9 million deal with Harris Corp. to bolster the army’s biological defense capabilities; Harris will provide the Army’s Joint Biological Point Detection System (JBPDS) with its advanced Falcon II AN/PRC-150 high-frequency radio system; the radio system is capable of detecting and identifying biological warfare agents and will automatically send alerts to headquarters when it senses the presence of these agents; JBPDS is a portable self-contained unit designed to automatically detect and identify airborne biological agents

  • Border bottlenecks hamper trade

    Last year, U.S. exports to Mexico totaled $163 billion, and imports from Mexico totaled $229.6 billion; nearly 80 percent of that trade crosses through land border ports on trucks and railcars; the 1.8-million strong Border Trade Alliance says bottlenecks at border crossings hamper this trade and make it more costly to grow it; the Alliance urges Congress and the Obama administration to invest in border ports of entry, including hiring more staff; Obama’s proposed 2011 budget includes only 300 new Customs and Border Protection officers, while Republicans propose shrinking the Border Patrol by 870 agents

  • Studying wait times at modified truck fast lane

    Western Washington University has received $49,000 to conduct field research on wait times and lane reconfiguration at the U.S.-Canada border; the university’s Border Policy and Research Institute will collect and analyze data on wait times as part of a pilot to examine alternative use of the dedicated Free and Secure Trade truck lane at the Blaine crossing

  • New SPEXER security radar offers new capabilities in threat detection

    Cassidian, the renamed defense and security division of EADS, is showing its new security radar; the company says that SPEXER 2000 is the first security radar using the newest radar technology of Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA); by electronic guidance of the radar beam, this technology enables the sensor to fulfill several tasks at the same time while increasing the detection capability substantially; therefore, one SPEXER 2000 can replace two or more conventional radars

  • A warming world would add billions to shipping costs

    As anyone with a boat knows, many sorts of marine life can attach themselves to a hull below the waterline; on a large ship, the weight of such hitchhikers — everything from algae to barnacles to small colonies of coral — can weigh as much as ten tons; the U.S. shipping industry spends more than $36 billion each year in added fuel costs to overcome the drag induced by clinging marine life or for anti-fouling paint that prevents that life from hitching a ride in the first place; global warming will see the problem of hull-clinging creatures worsen substantially

  • Agriculture industry concerned over expansion of E-Verify

    As Congressional lawmakers look to expand the E-Verify program to crack down on undocumented workers, businesses have become increasingly uneasy with the proposal; Arizona, Utah, and Mississippi have required all employers to use the system, and House GOP leaders are following their lead and pushing to make the system compulsory for all businesses across the United States; critics fear that making the program mandatory could destabilize critical sectors of the economy; the agriculture industry is particularly concerned as they depend heavily on undocumented workers for labor and worry that mandating the system could potentially jeopardize millions of jobs in the industry; proponents of expanding E-Verify believe that it is a better alternative to the existing I-9 screening process which has been easily circumvented with forged documents

  • Jeb Bush and former Mexican president to headline ASIS 2011

    Former governor of Florida Jeb Bush and former president of Mexico Vicente Fox have both agreed to speak at this year’s upcoming ASIS International annual conference in Orlando, Florida; the two former elected officials will be the event’s keynote speakers along with Burt Rutan, the designer of SpaceShipOne, the first privately built manned spacecraft to reach space; last year roughly 22,000 professionals from more than ninety countries attended; this year’s conference is scheduled to take place from 19 September to 22 September 2011; it was estimated that 21 percent of buyers attending last year’s conference were planning on procuring at least $5 million worth of security products and services for the year

  • Oil giants struggle to find more oil

    Last week Exxon Mobil Corp’s annual financial report showed that the world’s largest oil company was struggling to find more oil; the report revealed that Exxon had only replaced 95 percent of the oil that it pumped out of the ground over the last decade; Exxon now holds more natural gas reserves than oil for future production; the company has replaced its natural gas reserves at higher rates than oil; in recent years large western oil companies have found that most of the accessible oil fields have been tapped, while new regions have been difficult to access both technically and politically; in 2010 Chevron announced that it had only replaced one barrel for every four it produced and Royal Dutch Shell PLC recently announced that next year it will produce more gas than oil for the first time in its company’s 104-year history

  • Hummingbird-sized UAV developed

    A bird-sized unmanned aerial vehicle that flaps wings for propulsion and hovering has been developed by the U.S. company AeroVironment; The aircraft has a wingspan of 6.5 inches and has a total flying weight of two-thirds of an ounce, which is less than the weight of a common AA battery

  • Industry wants current safety law extended rather than see it toughened

    Before the House Homeland Security committee, Timothy J. Scott, the chief security officer of Dow Chemical Co., urged Congress permanently to reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) bill; under CFATS chemical facilities are required to address a range of critical security concerns including protecting facilities against attacks and preventing the theft of dangerous chemicals; currently, more than 35,000 facilities that use or store chemicals are required to meet CFATS regulations; DHS has worked with facility owners to mitigate risks with custom developed security plans at more than 2,000 “high risk” sites

  • Airport Screeners allowed to unionize and bargain collectively

    John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), last Friday announced that he would authorize unions to bargain on behalf of the TSA’s 45,000 airport screening officers; unions will be allowed to bargain collectively over specific issues including regulations on vacation time and shift assignments, workplace transfers, and recognition for good work; topics that unions usually bargain for like pay, retirement, benefits, disciplinary standards, job qualification rules, safety equipment and where it is deployed will not be open to negotiation; this unique arrangement is designed to allow DHS the flexibility to quickly reassign screeners, change procedures, and alter equipment in response to a security threat; Pistole hopes that this arrangement will boost employee morale and performance; in surveys on employee morale and job satisfaction, TSA often performs poorly compared to other government agencies

  • DHS reducing reliance on contractors

    The Obama administration has sought to reduce the government’s dependence on contractors that the Bush administration relied upon so heavily during the formation of DHS; DHS has reviewed approximately 100 service contracts to see which should be assigned to an internal department rather than an outside vendor; the contract review project will serve as a template for future evaluations of all the department’s approximately 10,000 service contracts