• Georgia passes anti-cyber whistleblower bill

    Despite the vigorous objections of the cybersecurity community, the Georgia legislature has passed a bill which would open independent researchers who identify vulnerabilities in computer systems to prosecution and up to a year in jail. Critics of the bill say that Georgia has positioned itself as a hub for cybersecurity research, but the bill would make cybersecurity firms think twice about relocating to Georgia.

  • Former Justice Stevens’s call for repealing the2nd Amendment: Compelling, hazardous

    On 27 March, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an op-ed article calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Gregory Magarian, a former clerk for Justice Stevens and now a law professor specializing in constitutional law, says that Justice Stevens makes a compelling historical and legal case for amending the Constitution to repeal the Second Amendment, but that the path he advocates would present distinctive challenges and hazards.

  • A court case could set precedent for climate change litigation

    A closely watched federal trial pitting two cities against major oil companies has taken surprising and unorthodox turns. Stanford researchers examine the case, which could reshape the landscape of legal claims for climate change-related damages.

  • Czechs extradite alleged Russian hacker Nikulin to U.S.

    The Czech Justice Ministry has announced that an alleged Russian hacker wanted by both Washington and Moscow has been extradited to the United States. Yevgeny Nikulin is accused of hacking big Internet companies including LinkedIn and Dropbox in 2012 and 2013. The FBI links him to the hacking of the Democratic Party’s servers during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.

  • Lawmakers urge State Department to counter Russia’s anti-Semitic propaganda

    S ix senators called on called on Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan to commit to countering anti-Semitic Russian propaganda identified by the intelligence community, the Anti-Defamation League, and social media networks. The senators pressed Sullivan to devote part of the $120 million recently provided to the State Department to counter Russian disinformation to specifically target Russian anti-Semitic propaganda.

  • Busting Russia’s fake news the European Union way

    The U.S. has been rocked over the last two years by claims that the Russian government directly attempted to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. Such efforts may be relatively new in the U.S. But they are part of a much larger global push by the Kremlin to affect politics across the European Union and exploit citizens through the internet. I study computer hacking, malware and the role of the internet in fraud and deception by various actors. And I believe that the Europeans have something to teach the United States about how to protect citizens subject to Russian internet propaganda.

  • Restoring subways in the event of a bioterrorist attack

    Only a week after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, envelopes containing anthrax spores were sent to several media companies and two senators. As a result, twenty-two people were infected and five died. Since these incidents, the U.S. has increased its efforts on measures countering bioterrorism. That incident stemmed from spores sent to individuals and offices where the reach was somewhat contained. Imagine if the spores had been taken onto a mass transit platform — like the subway. A subway incident can bring a whole city to a halt, and the effects can last much longer in the form of lingering fear and mistrust.

  • Remotely monitoring nuclear reactors

    A new U.S. Department of Energy project to develop the first detector able to remotely monitor nuclear reactors will also help physicists test the next generation of neutrino observatories. Nuclear reactions produce telltale antineutrinos – the antimatter counterpart of neutrinos. The new detectors will be designed to measure the energy of such antineutrinos and the direction from which they come, allowing monitoring of reactors from a distance of 25 kilometers to verify nonproliferation agreements.

  • Saudi Arabia will face 9/11-related lawsuits in U.S.

    A federal judge in New York has denied Saudi Arabia’s request to dismiss lawsuits claiming that Saudi Arabia materially assisted the 9/11 attackers. Saudi Arabia had enjoyed broad immunity from 9/11-related lawsuits in the United States, but that changed in 2016 when the U.S. Congress overrode a veto by President Barack Obama to allow such cases to proceed.

  • Case of Dutch lawyer ties Rick Gates to Russian intelligence

    The government’s sentencing memorandum filed in the case of Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan, who pleaded guilty in February of lying to the FBI, shows Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates knowingly communicated with someone tied to the Russian intelligence service (GRU) in the fall of 2016.

  • Active shooter drills may reshape how a generation of students views school

    Increasingly, schools are turning to active shooter drills and videos to prepare students and staff to face a gunman. As a sociologist who studies the social impacts of security strategies, I am concerned about the unintended ethical and political consequences of these exercises.

  • Taking up the fight against fake news

    In February, the Justice Department charged thirteen Russians with stealing U.S. citizens’ identities and spreading “fake news” with intent to subvert the last U.S. presidential election. The case is still unfolding, and may do so for years. In the meantime, researchers have built a tech-based solution to the dissemination of malicious misinformation. The algorithms they developed reveal patterns to help identify misinformation

  • “Information statecraft”: Conflicts reshaped by authoritarian attack on discursive space

    As artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into digital advertising, disinformation operations and legitimate political communications will gradually become concerted, automatic, and seamless. An expert argues that for students of disinformation — including the Russians who to date have not even had to leverage such sophisticated web technology to mislead American voters — the new information ecosystem presents a vast land of opportunity.

  • Analysis: Adding a citizenship question to the census could screw over Texas

    A census question on citizenship could undercount populations in states with large numbers of poor and/or Hispanic residents — states like Texas. And an undercount would cut into the state’s representation, and its federal services.

  • U.S., EU states expel dozens of Russian diplomats over nerve agent poisoning

    President Donald Trump has ordered the expulsion of sixty Russian “intelligence officers” in response to the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in England, while fourteen European Union members and Ukraine also announced expulsions. The nearly simultaneous announcements on 26 March signaled a united front in the face of the use by Russian intelligence operatives, on the orders of Vladimir Putin, of military-grade nerve toxin against Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, in the English city of Salisbury.