• The FBI Is Breaking into Corporate Computers to Remove Malicious Code – Smart Cyber Defense or Government Overreach?

    By Scott Shackelford

    The FBI has the authority right now to access privately owned computers without their owners’ knowledge or consent, and to delete software. It’s part of a government effort to contain the continuing attacks on corporate networks running Microsoft Exchange software, and it’s an unprecedented intrusion that’s raising legal questions about just how far the government can go.

  • A Jan. 6 Commission is Crucial to Understand the Reality of the Attack, and the Alternate Reality of the Attackers

    A dangerous rift currently exists in the public perception of Jan. 6 – a rift that may have grave implications for the future of American democracy, Fadi Quran and Justin Hendrix write. Polls show that a small majority of Republicans continues to believe in the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen due to widespread election fraud, and that there were left-wing infiltrators who were responsible for the violence at the Capitol. Why does it matter that such voters believe in these untruths? Because, as the unclassified version of a report on the threat posed by domestic extremism from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) suggests, “narratives of fraud in the recent general election” may well contribute to an increase in future violence.

  • Smartphone-Powered Emergency Alert System

    Computer science researchers have created and tested a new, Bluetooth-based system for disseminating emergency messages in an urban environment. The researchers say they wanted to fix inefficiencies in how emergency or hazard messages are disseminated. The messages are usually sent to the public through broadcast media or physical signs. 

  • Reducing Inappropriate Use of Force by Police

    A new report outlines policy and procedural recommendations for reducing use of inappropriate police force from behavioral and social science experts. “There is a crisis in the United States and beyond right now with respect to relations between police and the communities they serve,” says one of the report’s authors. “Large scale efforts thus far to improve these relations have failed and it is time for a new set of strategies based on behavioral and social science.”

  • Tighter Gun Laws Help Reduce Mass Shooting Violence: Research

    President Joe Biden recently called for tougher gun laws to reduce mass shooting violence. Columbia University researchers have conducted research related to measures proposed by Biden, including on the impact of state gun laws and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994; the use of high-capacity magazines in high fatality shootings; and the effects of exposure to gun violence on children.

  • California's Wildfire Season Has Lengthened, and Its Peak Is Now Earlier in the Year

    California’s wildfire problem, fueled by a concurrence of climate change and a heightened risk of human-caused ignitions in once uninhabited areas, has been getting worse with each passing year of the 21st century.Researchers have found that the annual burn season has lengthened in the past two decades and that the yearly peak has shifted from August to July.

  • Syrian Missile Explodes Near Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Reactor

    A Syrian missile landed and exploded about forty miles from Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona. The IDF described the incident as unintentional: A Russia-made SA-5 was launched by a Syrian air defense unit, aiming at an IDF aircraft attacking Syrian military targets near Damascus. It appears that the Syrian missile had missed its target, and continued its flight trajectory which carried it all the way to the Negev desert, about 300 kilometers south of Damascus. There is unease in Israel over the fact that the missile managed to evade Israel’s robust anti-missile defenses.

  • Mathematics Professor and University Researcher Indicted for Grant Fraud

    A federal grand jury in Carbondale, Ill. On Wednesday returned an indictment charging a mathematics professor and researcher at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale (SIUC) with two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement. The prosecution is part of the Justice Department’s ongoing China Initiative. Led by the Department’s National Security Division, the China Initiative is a broad, multi-faceted effort to counter Chinese national security threats and safeguard American intellectual property.

  • “I Felt Hate More Than Anything”: How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War

    By Gisela Pérez de Acha, Kathryn Hurd, and Ellie Lightfoot

    Steven Carrillo, a 32-year-old Air Force sergeant, wanted to incite a second Civil War in the United States by killing police officers he viewed as enforcers of a corrupt and tyrannical political order — officers he described as “domestic enemies” of the Constitution he professed to revere. Carrillo’s path to the Boogaloo Bois shows the extremist anti-government group is far more organized and dangerous than previously known.

  • Iran Says 60 Percent Enrichment “Under Way” at Natanz Site

    Iranian officials say the country has begun enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, higher than it has ever done before, despite ongoing talks between Tehran and world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran had committed to keep enrichment to 3.67 percent. Recently it has been enriching up to 20 percent, saying the deal was no longer enforceable. Enriching uranium to 60 percent would be the highest level achieved by Iran’s nuclear program, it is still short of the 90 percent purity needed for military use.

  • UN Watchdog Confirms Assad Used Chemical Weapons against Civilians

    The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Monday released the findings of the second report by the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT). IIT concludes that units of the Syrian Arab Air Force used chemical weapons in Saraqib on 4 February 2018.Since 2011, the year the civil war in Syria began, the Assad regime has launched atleast 336 chemical attacks, using Sarin and chlorine, against Sunni civilians.

  • In a Year of Racial and Political Turmoil, This Black Gun Group Is Booming

    By Lakeidra Chavis and Agya K. Aning

    The National African American Gun Association was founded as a refuge from the discrimination and fear that often come with being Black and armed in America. Thousands of new members have joined its ranks in 2020.

  • Strengthening Nuclear Storage Research

    Today, nuclear power utilities store over 80,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel across the nation. Since the fuel will remain in dry storage longer than was expected, scientists are working to better understand exactly how the fuel behaves under extended storage conditions, how the canisters age, and the forces the two would undergo when shipped and stored for long periods.

  • Combining News Media and AI to Rapidly Identify Flooded Buildings

    Artificial intelligence (AI) has sped up the process of detecting flooded buildings immediately after a large-scale flood, allowing emergency personnel to direct their efforts efficiently. Now, researchers have created a machine learning (ML) model that uses news media photos to identify flooded buildings accurately within 24 hours of the disaster.

  • Improving Vehicle Inspections at Security Checkpoints

    Federal agencies screen an average of 235,000 vehicles every day for illegal contraband, explosives and other potential threats in the United States. Currently, federal law enforcement personnel (LEP) perform a visual search of the undercarriage using mirrors, or, if available, an under-vehicle inspection scanner. The scanning units are expensive, have moderate resolution and require vehicles to go only five miles per hour. DHS S&T is changing that.