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UK.gov dismisses Tory claims U.K. cyberspace is not well defended
On Friday, the U.K. Conservative Party unveiled its national security plans, charging that the current Labor government has left U.K. cyberspace defenseless; the government dismissed the Tory claims, saying that many of the proposals in the Conservative Party’s plan are already being implemented
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Tories say they will set up a permanent “War Cabinet”
The Conservative Party is favored to win the next general elections in Britain, which will be held before the summer; on Friday the party’s leader, David Cameron, set out the party’s national security plan, emphasizing cybersecurity
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Michigan in cyber-security partnership with DHS
Michigan will deploy EINSTEIN 1, the DHS-run cyber security system which all federal agencies are required to use; EINSTEIN 1 automates the collection and analysis of computer network security information from participating agency and government networks to help analysts identify and combat malicious cyber-activity
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MIT researchers develop a smart anchor which mimics the razor clam
The razor clam is about seven inches long by an inch wide, but it can dig into the ocean floor at a rate of about a centimeter a second; researchers also say that in a measure of anchoring force, or how hard you pull before an anchor rips out of the soil compared to the energy required to embed the anchor, razor clams beat everything, including the best anchors, by at least a factor of 10
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U.S. Navy's PANDA technology to detect "deviant" ships
There are tens of thousands of ships on the high seas every day, carrying millions of containers, entering and leaving hundreds of ports in dozens of countries; monitoring this vast amount of traffic to make sure that none of the containers is carrying WMDs is humanly impossible; Lockheed Martin has developed the PANDA Maritime Domain Awareness program to help the U.S. Navy and intelligence community keep a closer eye on the global maritime traffic
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Revelations about Iran's facility raise questions about U.S. intelligence
Both the 2003 “slam dunk” assertion about Iraq’s WMDs, and the 2007 NIE’s conclusion that Iran had “halted” its nuclear weapons work, were absurdities; we should worry about the fact that they came to the surface — and influenced policy
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ShotSpotter, Inc. says its technology saves lives
The Mountain View, California-based company says that in the first half of 2009 its technology saved the lives of 57 gunshot victims; this represents a 138 percent increase from the first half of 2008
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U.K. authorities made more than 500,000 surveillance requests last year
U.K. police, councils, and the intelligence services made about 1,500 surveillance requests every day last year; this is the annual equivalent to one in every 78 people being targeted
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China says it has installed 2.75 million CCTVs since 2003
Government plans to expand the surveillance system into the largely neglected countryside, and marry it to a face recognition database
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NSA to build $2 billion data center in Utah
The NSA major data center — in Fort Meade, Maryland — has maxed out the capacity of the Baltimore area power grid; the super-secret agency is building a second data center in San Antonio, Texas, and has revealed plans to build a third center — a mammoth, 65 MW, $1.93 billion in Camp Williams, Utah
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U.K. government to give up on massive Internet snoop scheme
The Home Office admits that its IMP (Interception Modernization Program) — the cost of which was to be £2 billion over ten years — cannot be realized because the technology does not yet exist
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Company in the spotlight: Distillery Software
Aussie company produces software designed to distill knowledge and intelligence from raw information by linking disparate information elements
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U.K. information commissioner: data collection trend will be reversed
Richard Thomas, the outgoing U.K. information commissioner: “If you are looking for a needle in a haystack, it does not make sense to make the haystack bigger”
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IARPA dedicates a permanent home on the campus of U Maryland
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) prepares to open a University of Maryland research site to develop tools, methods to combat future threats
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Aerostats used along India-Pakistan border and in other hotspots
Unpowered blimps have been used for two decades now; the one aerostat Kuwait owned alerted its leadership to the Iraqi tanks rolling toward the border in 1990; India, Pakistan buy them to bolster their border security
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The long view
How DHS Laid the Groundwork for More Intelligence Abuse
I&A, the lead intelligence unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) —long plagued by politicized targeting, permissive rules, and a toxic culture —has undergone a transformation over the last two years. Spencer Reynolds writes that this effort falls short. “Ultimately, Congress must rein in I&A,” he adds.