• FedEx loses -- then finds -- radioactive rods

    The shipment of radioactive rods sent from Fargo, North Dakota, to Knoxville, Tennessee, posed little threat, but its misplacement underscores the need to track low-hazard materials that could be used in small-scale terrorist attacks, experts say; as al Qaeda has shifted its tactics from 9/11-scale attacks to smaller attacks which aim to create fear and do economic damage, there is growing concern about low-radiation materials which are widely used in research, medical facilities, and industry; such materials may not be suitable for a nuclear bomb, but could be used to create “dirty bombs,” which cause fewer casualties but can release hazardous materials when they explode

  • Police radar can identify suicide bombers

    The radar guns police use to spot speeding motorists fire microwave pulses at a car and measures the Doppler shift of the reflected signal to calculate its velocity; researchers found that the strength and polarization of the reflected signal — the “radar cross section” — can also measure the reflected signal created by the most common arrangements of looped wiring typically used by suicide bombers

  • IAEA: Iran forced to stop enrichment on 16 November

    The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported Tuesday that Iran’s uranium enrichment program had shut down a week ago; the stoppage of the enrichment program coincides with the release of detailed expert studies of the Stuxnet virus; the conclusion of the cyber experts is that Stuxnet was aimed not at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor, as initially thought, but rather at destroying Iran’s centrifuge farms; the sustained cyber attacks has already reduced the number of operating centrifuges from 4,920 in May 2009 to 3,772 in September 2010; it appears that the covert campaign Israel and the United States has been conducting against Iran’s nuclear weapons program — a campaign which includes the assassination of Iranian scientists and engineers, blowing up of machinery and supplies, attacks on Revolutionary Guard facilities, and seizing of technology shipments to Iran — is beginning to take its toll

  • Behavior-based solution keeps airports secure, passengers' privacy intact

    Israeli company WeCU says its behavior-based security solution addresses many of the problems now encountered at U.S. airports; the WeCU concept exploits human characteristics and behavior: when a person intends to carry out a particular activity or has a significant acquaintance or involvement with a subject, he carries with him information and feelings that are associated with the activity or the subject; the WeCU system identifies this associative connection by actively exposing the person being screened to stimuli targeted at a specific threat, followed by detection of the person’s physiological reaction, or response, to the stimuli through nonintrusive biometric sensors; the system detects the individual’s reaction without his or her knowledge and without requiring their cooperation, and without interfering with routine activities

  • Spotting illicit nuclear activity from a distance

    French scientists unveil a plan to place antineutrino detectors off the coast of rogue nations suspected of operating clandestine nuclear reactors; their idea is to turn a supertanker into an antineutrino detector by kitting it out with the necessary photon detectors and filling it with 10^34 protons in the form of 138,000 tons of linearalkylbenzene (C13 H30); the plan is to sink the tanker in up to four kilometers of water off the coast of a rogue state, and the supertanker would then watch for the telltale signs of undeclared antineutrino activity

  • North Korea enriches enough uranium for two nuclear bombs a year

    A report by three Western visitors to North Korea says North Korea is now operating an industrial-scale centrifuge farm to enrich uranium, with up to 2,000 centrifuges; the plant could make 30 to 40 kilograms of highly enriched uranium per year, enough for one or two nuclear weapons has

  • Report: Terrorists target the Reichstag

    Terrorists may have been planning an attack on the Reichstag, the home of the German parliament and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Berlin. Two suspected culprits are already believed to be in Berlin.

  • Nuclear DUI: DOE IG finds cause for concern

    There are about 600 OST (Office of Secure Transportation) agents — that is, drivers who have permits to haul nuclear weapons, weapons components, and special nuclear material (SNM) around the country; the Department of Energy inspector general investigated reports that some of these drivers are drunk on the job; a new report found 16 incident, of which 2 were of “particular concern”

  • Chinese cyber spies target British defense official

    A high official in the British Ministry of Defense was targeted by a sophisticated Chinese spear phishing operation that aimed to steal military secrets; the plan was foiled last year when the official became suspicious of an e-mail she received from a contact she had met at a conference

  • Qaeda's new tactics: heavy economic damage, low-cost operations

    In a detailed account of its failed parcel bomb plot three weeks ago, al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen said late Saturday that the operation cost only $4,200 to mount, was intended to disrupt global air cargo systems and reflected a new strategy of low-cost attacks designed to inflict broad economic damage; the organization said the fear, disruption, and added security costs caused by the packages made what it called Operation Hemorrhage a success

  • Germany braces for terrorist strikes

    Germany is bracing for possible terrorist attacks amid growing signs that Islamic extremists are preparing at least one assault somewhere in the country in the coming weeks, possibly in the capital, Berlin; authorities in Berlin are racing to track two suspected suicide bombers believed to be planning to strike a prominent location; police are combing through travel and visa records and scrutinizing arrivals from the Mideast and South Asia as they hunt the pair; meanwhile, German officials say that a second group of terrorists is reported to be planning to travel to Germany in the coming weeks to launch a small-arms attack on one or more urban centers in the next three months

  • Non-lethal device deters hostile divers

    Hostile divers may be deterred from approaching U.S. Navy ships, sea ports, off-shore oil rigs, and other infrastructure facilities with an acoustic device that overwhelms them with the amplified sound of their own breath; the device generates low frequency underwater sound that interferes with breathing, induces disorientation, panic, uncontrolled ascent to surface, and decompression sickness

  • U.S., Kazakhstan complete secret transfer of Soviet-era nuclear materials

    In the largest such operation ever mounted, U.S. and Kazakh officials transferred 11 tons of highly enriched uranium and 3 tons of plutonium some 1,890 miles by rail and road across the Central Asian country; the nuclear material, which could have been used to make more than 770 bombs, was moved from a facility feared vulnerable to terrorist attack to a new high-security facility

  • China "hijacked" sensitive U.S. Internet traffic to Chinese servers

    Highly sensitive Internet traffic on U.S. government and military Web sites was briefly “hijacked” and routed through Chinese servers earlier this year; for eighteen minutes on 8 April, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications firm rerouted e-mail traffic to and from Web sites of the U.S. Senate, the Department of Defense, along with “many others” including NASA and Department of Commerce

  • TSA: Religion offers no exemption from airport screening

    An airline passenger was thrown out of the San Diego airport for rejecting a full-body scan and pat-down groin check and instead insisting on passing through a metal detector; the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says the agency will not allow airline passengers to get out of body imaging screening or pat-downs based on their religious beliefs; TSA chief John Pistole said that passengers who refuse to go through a full-body scanner machine and reject a pat-down will not be allowed to board, even if they turned down the in-depth screening for religious reasons; “That person is not going to get on an airplane,” Pistole said yesterday in a congressional committee testimony