• China's big surveillance push

    In China’s latest push to keep tabs on its citizens, police in Beijing have ordered supermarkets and shopping malls throughout the city to install high-definition security cameras; the recent order comes as part of a broader expansion in monitoring technology which includes the addition of millions of surveillance cameras over the past five years and large increases in domestic security spending

  • Pakistani spies track immigrants in U.S.

    Last week the indictment of two Pakistani-Americans pulled back the veil on the extent of Pakistan’s spy network in the United States; led by Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the country’s efforts in the United States are primarily aimed at influencing lawmakers, keeping track of the Pakistani Diaspora, stifling dialogue critical of its military, and stymieing India — the country’s chief rival

  • Designing a more effective crystal ball

    A new model for crowdsourcing predictions called Aggregative Contingent Estimation System (ACES) is transforming the way future events are forecast — combining the collective knowledge of many individual opinions in a unique way that improves accuracy beyond what any one person or small group of experts could provide

  • Researchers tout efficacy of reporting suspicious activity in foiled terror plots

    Following the death of Osama bin Laden and with fears of a retaliatory attack on the rise, public policy researchers are touting the efficacy of the new “See Something Say Something” campaign which encourages individuals to report any suspicious activity they see; of the sixty-eight stopped terrorist attacks from 1999 to 2009, nearly 40 percent of the plots were stopped following a report of suspicious activity; critics say that the “See Something Say Something” campaign inundates law enforcement officials with tips that could take valuable time and resources from real investigations

  • 7/7 attacks could not have been prevented: report

    An inquest into the 7 July 2005 attack on London transportation concluded that any suggestion MI5 could have stopped the attacks was “based to a considerable extent on hindsight”; there were failures in the response by emergency workers — confusion, a shortage of first aid supplies, and radios that did not work underground, but the report concludes that government errors had not increased the death toll

  • Geographers predicted bin Laden's hideout location

    They do not work for the CIA or military intelligence, but undergraduate students at UCLA two years ago helped develop an analytical tool which allowed them to predict Osama bin Laden’s hiding place — well, almost predicted: their model said that there was a 80.9 percent chance that bin Laden was hiding in the town of Abbottabad, where he was killed on Sunday by U.S. special forces; the students used a theory called “island biogeography”; the theory says that species on large islands are much more likely to survive a catastrophic event than species on small islands; “The theory was basically that if you’re going to try and survive, you’re going to a region with a low extinction rate: a large town,” says the professor who guided the research

  • Michigan cell snooping furor

    The furor over Apple surreptitiously planting tracking software in users’ iPhones and iPads comes on the heels of reports that police in Michigan were using a portable device capable of scanning and downloading cell phone contents in a very short time

  • Safeguarding the private and public sector from insider threats

    While most discussion of insider threats have focused on cyber security concerns, a recent panel at the Government Security Convention and Expo in Washington, D.C. discussed the potential physical threats posed by insiders;businesses, government agencies, and other organizations are vulnerable to a host of threats from insiders including corporate espionage, workplace violence, and the loss of sensitive materials or data; panelists discussed efforts to reform the Federal Protection Services, which is charged with securing roughly 9,000 federal facilities, the latest technologies in detecting cell phones in secure areas, new body scanners, as well as the legality of stepped up security measures

  • Kentucky releases homeland security terrorist reporting app

    Kentucky’s Office of Homeland Security (KOHS) recently released an iPhone app designed to allow people to anonymously report any suspicious activity they see; the app, called, Eyes and Ears on Kentucky, captures tips in real-time and is capable of providing additional information using the iPhone’s camera and GPS features; the app comes as part of the broader national DHS “See Something Say Something” campaign which will gather tips from across the nation and allow local, state, and federal law enforcement officials to sift through reports of any suspicious activity

  • Lockheed developing autonomous and covert rover

    A surveillance robot aims to operate around humans without being detected by them; the machine uses a laser scanner to builds a 3D computer model of its surroundings and uses a set of acoustic sensors to distinguish the proximity and direction of footsteps

  • TSA considering "identity-based" screening

    TSA does not call it “profiling,” but “identity-based screening”; the department is asking for public comments on the proposed system; “Physical screening will likely never go away completely, but the idea of adding identity-based security makes good sense and it’s an idea we’re actively exploring,” the department says

  • Israeli military intelligence to monitor groups critical of Israel

    Israel believes that at least some of the organizations criticizing its policies pursue a broader agenda: the delegitimization of Israel; in response, Israel’s Military Intelligence several months ago created a unit within its research division, dedicated to monitoring left-wing groups; the new MI unit will monitor Western groups involved in boycotting Israel, divesting from it, or imposing sanctions on it; the unit will also collect information about groups that attempt to bring war crime or other charges against high-ranking Israeli officials, and examine possible links between such organizations and terror groups

  • Beijing to track individual movement through cell phones

    Beijing could soon track the daily movements of seventeen million residents by tapping into their cell phones; authorities have proposed a program designed to help ease traffic congestion by providing up to the minute data on an individual’s movements; critics say that this is an attempt by authorities to prevent large crowds from forming; the proposed plan comes as Chinese officials have grown increasingly worried about domestic unrest in light of the mass protests sweeping across the Middle East; Chinese police forces turned out in full force after anonymous calls for mass protests were posted online; the government has also placed more than eighty activists under house arrest while others have gone missing

  • Officials say unified government-wide databases with shared access is the future

    Federal agencies are looking to reduce the “stove piping” of information by using a “person-centric view” to open proprietary databases that store information within a particular agencies to allow state, local, and federal agencies to access it and share information; these databases depend on developing common identification and access systems where employees would use a single credential to access information; the Department of Justice and the FBI have rolled out programs that embrace this philosophy; N-DEx is a database that collects criminal case files, past histories, and other pertinent information and makes it available to investigators at all levels

  • Free program to detect suspicious vehicles unveiled

    Funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and administered by the TSA, the First Observer program encourages parking lot operators to watch for oddities such as improperly parked cars, civilians conducting surveillance, and strange odors such as diesel from gasoline vehicles