• Drones used by police, firefighters raise privacy concerns

    DHS is accelerating the use of unmanned drones by police and firefighters around the country with the intent of detecting fires, radiation leaks, and other potential threats, but Congress and privacy advocacy organizations think the se of drones raises several privacy issues

  • Wynyard Group takes New Zealand Police forensics solution global

    Developed in 2007, New Zealand Police technology called EVE (Environment for Virtualized Evidence) allows enforcement officers rapidly to analyze seized electronic goods such as mobile phones, PCs, and other storage devices for evidence and intelligence

  • Improved disaster resilience is imperative for U.S: report

    A new report from the National Academies says that it is essential for the United States to bolster resilience to natural and human-caused disasters, and that this will require complementary federal policies and locally driven actions that center on a national vision – a culture of resilience; improving resilience should be seen as a long-term process, but it can be coordinated around measurable short-term goals that will allow communities better to prepare and plan for, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse events

  • Seeing through walls with the help of laser systems

    Inspired by the erratic behavior of photons zooming around and bouncing off objects and walls inside a room, researchers combined these bouncing photons with advanced optics to enable them to “see” what is hidden around the corner

  • UAVs with dexterous arms to help in infrastructure repair and disaster recovery

    With current technology, most UAVs perform passive tasks such as surveillance and reconnaissance missions, tasks which are performed well above ground; researchers are interested in how UAVs might interact with objects at or near ground level; a UAV with dexterous arms could perform a wide range of active near-ground missions, from infrastructure repair and disaster recovery to border inspection and agricultural handling

  • Seeing through walls, clearly

    Research and tests show, for the first time, the ability to use t passive WiFi radar for through-the-wall (TTW) detection of moving personnel – and do so covertly

  • New forensic tool automates RAM forensic investigations

    New tool enables computer forensic investigators to analyze and make use of information contained in volatile memory; memory analysis produces important, case-relevant data for investigators that cannot be obtained from disk analysis, such as running applications, open files, and active network connections

  • DHS develops active shooter national guidance

    DHS has selected a training program from the Center for Personal Protection and Safety (CPPS) as resource in developing national guidance for how to respond to an active shooter situation

  • Critics charge DHS chemical plant security program a failure

    In 2006 Congress passed the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program, or CFATS, which set security standards chemical plants had to meet; there are 4,400 chemical plants covered by CFATS, of which 120 are considered especially dangerous, as a chemical release– accidental or as a result of a terrorist act — in any one of them would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties; after four-and-half years and $480 millions spent on CFATS, not a single plant of the 4,400 had been fully inspected; of the 120 riskiest plants, 11 had a preliminary inspection done; not a single site security plan has been approved

  • Improving landmine detection – and air travel safety

    It is estimated that there are about 110 million active landmines lurking underground in sixty-four countries across the globe; each year as many as 25,000 people, most of them civilians, are maimed or killed by landmines; the mines not only kill and maim, they can paralyze communities by limiting the use of land for farming and roads for trade; researchers offer a better way to detect landmines – a method which can also be used in airports to help thwart possible terrorist threats

  • Forget blizzards and hurricanes, heat waves are deadliest

    Tornadoes, blizzards, and hurricanes get most of our attention because their destructive power makes for imagery the media cannot ignore; for sheer killing power, however, heat waves do in far more people than even the most devastating hurricane; Hurricane Katrina and its floods, which devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, exacted a death toll of 1,836 people; the heat wave which enveloped Europe during the course of three excruciating weeks in August 2003 of that year, killed an estimated 70,000 people

  • Identifying potential pre-quake signals

    Changes in seismic velocity — changes in the speeds at which seismic waves move through the Earth’s crust — have been identified during and after many earthquakes; do these changes also happen before an earthquake, and could they be measured as a way to predict a quake on the way?

  • Federal mapping tool used in Gulf spill expanded to Arctic

    A new federal interactive online mapping tool used by emergency responders during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has been expanded to include the Arctic, and will help address numerous challenges in the Arctic posed by increasing ship traffic and proposed energy development

  • Earthquake risk looms large in the Pacific Northwest

    A comprehensive analysis of the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Northwest coast confirms that the region has had numerous earthquakes over the past 10,000 years, and suggests that the southern Oregon coast may be most vulnerable based on recurrence frequency

  • New study probes insider threat in financial services sector

    New study found that those committing insider fraud are taking a “low and slow” approach, escaping detection for long periods of time and costing targeted organizations an average of $382,000 or more, depending on how long the crime goes undetected; managers and accountants cause the most damage from insider fraud and evade detection longer