• Critics of dog-scent lineups charge such lineups are "junk science"

    Law enforcement has relied on dogs for many years for scent tracking or sniffing out drugs or explosives; dogs have become more and more popular in what is called dog-scent lineups, in which dogs are supposed to determine whether the scent of anyone in a police lineup was present at the crime scene; critics say this not much more than junk science

  • Counterfeit chips may hobble advanced weapons

    While most computer security efforts have until now been focused on software, tampering with hardware circuitry may ultimately be an equally dangerous threat; the Pentagon now manufactures in secure facilities run by American companies only about 2 percent of the more than $3.5 billion of integrated circuits bought annually for use in military gear

  • The brief

    Vetting a chip with a hidden agenda is not easy, and chip makers cannot afford to test every chip; also, today only Intel and a few other companies still design and manufacture all their own chips in their own fabrication plants; other chip designers — including LSI Corp. and, most recently, Sony — have gone “fabless,” outsourcing their manufacturing to off-shore facilities known as foundries

  • US CERT: BlackBerry app may be spying on you

    A new BlackBerry application has the ability to turn their smartphone into a surveillance tool

  • Questions raised about Obama's smart grid funding

    For the smart grid project to succeed, the business case for it needs to be widely accepted by the stakeholders involved (skeptics would say that if efficiency-mindedness was at the top of the agenda in utility boardrooms and state regulatory agencies, then no federal stimulus money would be needed to install these kinds of technologies); also: the Obama plan envisions a joint public-private smart grid expenditure of $8.1 billion — the government’s $3.4 billion is being matched by $4.7 billion in private investment; a recent analysis of what it would take to build a unified national smart grid put the tab for such a grid at $400 billion

  • Canadian government finds support for Internet surveillance scheme

    The Canadian federal government wants to broaden its Internet surveillance capabilities; the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the watch-dog over Canada’s spy agencies, supports the idea

  • Schools are spearheading the use of biometrics

    Approximately 10 percent of U.K. schools are deploying biometric technologies, according to Alasdair Darroch, director of Biostore

  • Obama's approach to illegal immigration has businesses worried

    The Bush administration tried to reduce that number by trying to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the country; the Obama administration announced a new strategy: going after an illegal immigrant’s employer and its managers

  • DHS to boost cybersecurity spending in 2010

    Of the $43 billion DHS 2010 budget, about $397 million is aimed at addressing cybersecurity issues; the amount is $84 million, or about 27 percent, higher than the $313 million that was allocated for information security spending in 2009

  • How credible -- and serious -- is the cyber threat the U.S. faces?

    New report examines recent cyber attacks on South Korea and asks whether whether the attacks constituted an act of war and whether they could have been the work of a terrorist group; the answer is no on both counts; the U.S. dependence on digital technology makes it somewhat more vulnerable to cyber attacks than other nations,

  • Israel says it will continue to listen-in on Hezbollah communication

    Hezbollah has its own communication network in Lebanon, separate and independent from the government’s sanctioned carrier networks; Israel says that bugging the organization’s network does not amount to a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty

  • Kent State to train lab workers for biocontainment

    The increasing number of high-containment laboratories and the constant threat from emerging diseases and bioterrorism require more extensive biosafety training of the highest caliber, and more facilities in which to offer this training

  • Obama announces $3.4 billion investment in smart grid

    President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the U.S. transition to the smart grid; applicants say investments will create tens of thousands of jobs

  • Tech projects to receive big chunk of second wave of stimulus spending

    Information technology projects will receive significant funds, implementation director says;

  • Obama announces $3.4 billion investment in smart grid

    President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the U.S. transition to the smart grid; applicants say investments will create tens of thousands of jobs