• 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

  • U.K. government drops central database scheme

    Burden of storing communication logs will now fall to ISPs

  • RAID surveillance system deployed along border

    Aerostats differ from blimps in that blimps are powered, while aerostats are anchored to the ground through a cranked tether that also supplies electrical power

  • 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

  • Pocket-size choppers for soldiers, first responders

    Norwegian company successfully tests a tiny helicopter — it is just over 10 cm long and weighs 0.5 grams; it will be used to look inside a building, over a hill or crest, or down a tunnel

  • DARPA seeks deep-learning AI to cope with flood of information

    The growing use of UAVs to loiter over enemy territory and send images and streaming videos back to HQ has created a glut of information; DARPA seeks a better, deeper, and more layered artificial intelligence to help the intelligence community cope with the avalanche of information coming in

  • Dennis Blair ousts ONI Inspector General

    Last November, the Inspector General (IG) at the U.S. Office of National Intelligence issued a report in which he highlighted ongoing problems inside ONI and the intelligence community, including poor communication, turf battles, incompatible computer systems, and mission confusion; last Friday, Dennis Blair, director of ONI, fired the IG

  • California politician wants to censor online maps

    The twin developments of improved satellite imagery and the availability of such images on Google Maps lead many to worry that among the main beneficiaries of these developments are terrorists; in California a law is being debated which would blur features of sensitive buildings and sites

  • Privacy advocates: fusion centers threat to civil liberties

    U.S. intelligence fusion centers — in which federal, state, and local authorities collaborate in collecting, analyzing, vetting, and disseminating intelligence to first responders on the ground in an effort to disrupt terrorist or criminal activity — have grown dramatically since 9/11: DHS now recognizes 70 such centers, and they engage 800,000 state and local law enforcement officers; privacy advocates worry

  • U.K. Tories charge government's legal dodge over Comms database debate

    The U.K. government last year revealed plans for creating a massive central database of e-mail, Web browsing, telephone, and social networking data; U.K. law mandates that such a database be approved by parliament; Tories charge that the government is using the European rules obliging data retention by ISPs — rules which come into effect today — to begin assembling this centralized system, or its prototype

  • Swimming pool game inspires robot detection

    Researchers use the Marco Polo game to solve a complex problem — how to create a system that allows robots not only to “sense” a moving target, but intercept it

  • Trend: Manned-unmanned UAVs for battle, domestic surveillance

    In both military and domestic missions, there are situations in which UAVs are preferable, and other situations in which manned aircraft are preferable (or even required); the solution: manned UAVs

  • NSA may offer "billions" for a solution allowing eavesdropping on Skype

    Skype continues to be a major problem for government listening agencies, whether intelligence agencies tracking terrorists or the police trying to listen in on criminals; rumor has it that NSA is willing to pay handsomely for a Skype-code-breaking solution

  • Random checks as effective as terrorist profiling

    Profiling is a waste of time and resources in security screening; the problem is that too much time is spent repeatedly screening members of the profiled group who are not actually terrorists,

  • Square root bias and airport security screening

    Say someone from profiled Group P is 16 times more likely to be a terrorist than someone from the average Group A; using the square root bias, people from Group P should be screened only four times more often then people in Group A (4 is the square root of 16); this reduces the number of people from Group P who are subjected to repeated screenings from 16 to 4 — but it still screens people from Group P more than the average person