• Why the U.S. needs an infrastructure bank

    The U.S. aging infrastructure will eventually constrain economic growth; government alone can no longer finance all of the nation’s infrastructure requirements; a national infrastructure bank (NIB) could fill the gap; the NIB could attract private funds to co-invest in projects that pass rigorous cost-benefit tests, and that generate revenues through user fees or revenue guarantees from state and local governments; investors could choose which projects meet their investment criteria, and, in return, share in project risks that today fall solely on taxpayers

  • Chinese cyber attacks hit U.S. law firm which is suing China for stealing Web filtering code form a U.S. company

    The Los Angeles-based law firm Gipson Hoffman & Pancione sued China for lifting Web-filtering code developed by U.S. company Cybersitter; Chinese companies and government agencies stole the code in order to use it in the Chinese government’s effort to create tighter Web censorship and tracking system (China’s Orwellian name for the project” “The Green Dam Youth Escort monitoring program”); on Monday, Chinese hackers began to hack the law firm’s computer systems, in a manner strikingly similar to the attacks by Chinese intelligence operatives on Google, Adobe Systems, and 32 other Western companies

  • China tries to contain damage from Google dispute

    The Chinese government says it will try to persuade Google to continue its operations in China, but expect Google – and other foreign companies — to “respect local law and regulations and local culture and customs to shoulder social responsibility”; Google already made concessions to Chinese law and regulations by allowing the government to dictate what users can – and cannot — find when they do Google searches; Google’s decision to leave China came after Chinese intelligence agents hacked the Gmail accounts of political dissidents and human rights activitists

  • U.S. looking for intellectual property offenders

    The Trade Act of 1974 mandate that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) “identify countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection”; the USTR has just called for public comments to point out foreign governments that have not lived up to their obligations to protect U.S. intellectual property rights; last year, the USTR investigated 77 U.S. trading partners for possible intellectual property rights violations, resulting in 45 countries being placed on either the Priority Watch List or the Watch List for their weak intellectual property rights protection regime

  • Cyber exercise to target financial firms

    The test, which starts 9 February, will have different scenarios for each of four different types of businesses: Financial firms, retailers, card processors, and general businesses; on each day, participants will receive a description of a specific scenario for their category of business, building on the previous day

  • Bruker’s Autonomous Rapid Facility Chemical Agent Monitor advances to DHS Phase IIIb

    Bruker uses its proprietary RAID Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS) technology for the Autonomous Rapid Facility Chemical Agent Monitor Program, which is designed for long-term monitoring of ambient air for the presence of hazardous chemical vapors in the interior or exterior of critical government buildings, subways, airports and other facilities; the company says it has also developed a new product – the DE-tector — which uses next-generation IMS technology with selectivity and specificity that approaches that of mass spectrometry

  • Google to pull out of China following government-sponsored cyberattacks

    In order to operate in China, Google agreed to implement stringent government-dictated censorship as to what Chinese consumers can – and cannot – find when doing Google searches; Google’s compliance with Chinese censorship was harshly criticized by human rights and freedom-of-speech organizations, but Google responded that this was the cost of doing business in China; the Chinese government’s hacking of Gmail accounts in order to monitor political dissidents proved to much for Google, though, and the company is now set to end its operations in China

  • Google’s decision a rare show of defiance in China

    Google’s decision to leave China is a rare show of defiance in a market where the government punishes those who do not play by the rules; in industries from automaking to fast food, companies have been forced to allow communist authorities to influence — and sometimes dictate — their choice of local partners, where to operate, and what products to sell; many high-tech companies operating in China are forced to open their intellectual property and industrial secrets to their Chinese competitors – or to Chinese government officials, who pass on that property to Chinese companies – allowing these Chinese companies to reverse engineer and copy Western companies’ products and solutions; Western companies have struggled to make headway against intense competition from Chinese rivals – rivals who enjoy the fact that the Chinese government writes rules which tilt the playing field in favor of Chinese companies

  • Maryland wants to become cybersecurity’s Silicon Valley

    Governor Martin O’Malley: “Our federal facilities are a big part of the reason that we not only think that Maryland can be the national epicenter for cybersecurity, the fact of the matter is our state already is the epicenter of cybersecurity for our country and therefore an important epicenter for the entire world”

  • U.K. firm says its scanning technology meets security, privacy concerns

    Cambridge, U.K.-based TeraView says it is developing terahertz body scanners which use light from upper end of the infra-red spectrum, with a wavelength between 0.1 and 1mm; the scanners do not produce an image but a “fingerprint” — rather than blurry pictures of naked tourists, a TeraView scanner would return absorbance data that could be automatically analyzed to approve travelers or alert airport staff to investigate further

  • Implant Sciences targets $2 billion U.S. explosives detection market

    Implant Science estimates that the total U.S. market for explosives detection technologies may be greater than $2.0 billion by 2011; the company has launched a strategic initiative to sell its products to U.S. domestic law enforcement agencies and other security organizations that protect both public and privately owned critical infrastructure

  • Mirion delivers SPIR Detect to Italy

    California-based company delivers its radiation detection product to Italy’s Civil Defense Authority; the Italians say they will deploy the monitors to protect critical infrastructure facilities

  • Keyboard strokes reveal who you are – and whether your are stressed

    The rhythms of a person’s typing style are stable over time, allowing computers and ATMs to identify you; researchers suggest key strokes could be used not only to verify identity but also to detect stress or even spot early signs of Alzheimer’s disease

  • Debate intensifies over full-body scanners

    The Christmas Day near-bombing invigorated an already-keen interest in whole-body scanners; there is debate going on over the effectiveness – and health risks – of the two main technologies available: millimeter-wave radiation and backscatter radiation; some suggest soft chemical ionization as an alternative

  • Court finds Taser use by police officer during traffic stop was “excessive force”

    In what legal scholars describe as a landmark ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit could set the first broad judicial standards for the use of Tasers; the case involves a California police officer who tased a passive driver during a routine traffic stop in 2005; the court found that the facts of the case clearly show that the driver was never a threat to the officer