Economic security

Everything you’ve heard about China’s stock market crash is wrong

This week’s Chinese stock market implosion has been widely viewed as a reaction to the Chinese government’s devaluing the yuan on Aug. 11—a move many presume was a frenzied bid to lower export prices and strengthen the economy.

This interpretation doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. First, Chinese investors haven’t been investing based on how the economy is doing, but rather, based on what they think the government will do to prop up the market. 

Law & order

Charted: Where America’s law schools and lawyers stand politically

Law might be the most politicized profession in the United States. While there are plenty of relatively apolitical corporate or divorce lawyers, many lawyers work for the government (an estimated 8% of the total). More presidents have been lawyers than any other profession, and a majority of sitting senators right now are lawyers.

Forensics

Eye in the Sky

Ross McNutt has a superpower — he can zoom in on everyday life, then rewind and fast-forward to solve crimes in a shutter-flash. But should he?In 2004, when casualties in Iraq were rising due to roadside bombs, Ross McNutt and his team came up with an idea. With a small plane and a 44 mega-pixel camera, they figured out how to watch an entire city all at once, all day long. Whenever a bomb detonated, they could zoom onto that spot and then, because this eye in the sky had been there all along, they could scroll back in time and see - literally see - who planted it. 

Health security

Google teams up with health firm to develop AI surgical robots

The robots will aid surgeons in minimally invasive operations, giving operators greater control and accuracy than is possible by hand, minimising trauma and damage to the patient. Some systems allow surgeons to remotely control devices inside the patient’s body to minimise entry wounds and reduce blood loss and scarring.

Military strategy v. grand strategy

One Presidential Debate You Won’t Hear: Why It is Time to Adopt a Sensible Grand Strategy

The contemporary theory and practice of grand strategy by the United States can be summarized in the sound byte uttered in 2001 by President George W. Bush shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, “You are either with us or you are with the terrorists.”

Hidden treasury

Lost Nazi train is merely a sliver of theft ‘beyond imagination,’ says historian

The train is believed to be one that reportedly disappeared in 1945 loaded with gold, gems, art and guns bound for Berlin, one of several trains the Nazis used in an attempt to save their war plunder from the advancing Allies. According to local lore, the train vanished after entering a network of tunnels under the Owl Mountains.
Almost immediately the World Jewish Congress issued a statement calling on Poland to restitute any stolen property discovered aboard the train.

Health security

Patients fooled by fake drugs made with poison and brick dust

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that as many as one million people die every year worldwide from ingesting counterfeit medications.

In Pakistan, in 2012, in one incident alone, 120 people died after taking counterfeit heart medicine.

...John Clark, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), says analysis of fake drugs seized in the U.S. has shown traces of pesticides, rat poison, brick dust and paint, among other ingredients.

Clark, now Chief Security Officer and Vice President of Global Security for Pfizer pharmaceuticals, says the counterfeiters aren't necessarily intending to poison people. He says they're looking for the cheapest binding agents available to maximize their profits.

Financial security

Islamic State Plotting ‘Second Blow’ to U.S. Financial System in Bid to ‘Purify the Earth of Corruption’

The Islamic State group revealed over the weekend that at the centerpiece of its goal to bring down America is a concerted effort to weaken the U.S. dollar and replace it with gold currency.

A video posted Saturday warned of the “dawning of a new age” in which replacing the dollar with gold would deliver “the second blow to America’s capitalist financial system of enslavement … casting into ruins their fraudulent dollar note.”

The first blow, it said, was the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Health security

Are we addicted to technology?

Just five minutes after meeting sleep and energy expert Dr Nerina Ramlakhan in her central London clinic, she delivers some bad news.

"You've got the classic pattern of someone who's in a fatigue cycle," she says.

"You're running on survival energy. Your sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive. I would guess you feel pretty shattered mid-afternoon which would mean you are running on adrenalin, noradrenalin, cortisol."

Cybersecurity

‘Aerial Assault’ Drone Helps Hackers Penetrate Internet Networks by hovering above

If you are a hacker and want to infiltrate Internet networks in areas out of reach, you can try this new drone. Aerial Assault drone is a unmanned aerial vehicle which is available for $2,500 and has the ability to hover about the target network, sniff vulnerabilities in the PCs below and report back to the owner.
The Aerial Assault drone houses a raspberry Pi running Kali Linux, a distro built specifically for pen testing of networks and devices. Once it is in the air, Aerial Assault can sniff insecure devices and networks and store that information locally or beam it back to the pilot.

Innovationa & technologies

The great equalizer

Technology makes it easier to be a small fish in a big pond

It's a new form of corporate Darwinism: Tech-forward companies will survive while those that refuse to evolve – or evolve too slowly – tend to die out. The same survey uncovered that 99% of companies identified as “leaders” have embraced technology in some capacity, with 78% invested in cloud services and applications, and 42% of those leaders have demonstrated improved business metrics as a result of their tech advancements.

Economic security

Thousands attend anti-austerity rallies across UK

Tens of thousands of people have taken part in anti-austerity demonstrations in UK cities.

The biggest march was in London, where thousands of people attended a rally outside the Bank of England before marching to the Houses of Parliament.

Union leaders and celebrities including Russell Brand and Charlotte Church have addressed crowds, while protests also took place in Liverpool and Glasgow.

Economic security

On-demand used car buying and selling comes to L.A.

Bay Area start-up Shift recently rolled out its on-demand car buying and selling service in Los Angeles, providing what it calls the “full end-to-end experience” of buying or selling a used car -- from your desktop or phone. At its core, it’s like Craigslist, but a slew of features brings it closer to on-demand counterparts like grocery delivery service Instacart and postal service Shyp.

Snowden

Assange says Snowden’s escape to Russia was his idea

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange could have played a role in the decision by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to seek asylum in Russia, instead of Latin America. Assange says it was he who advised Snowden to turn to Moscow for refuge.

Snowden “preferred Latin America, but my advice was that he should take asylum in Russia despite the negative PR consequences, because my assessment is that he had a significant risk of being kidnapped from Latin America on CIA orders…kidnapped and possibly killed,” Assange said in an interview with The Times.

Cybersecurity

U.S. developing sanctions against China over cyberthefts

The Obama administration is developing a package of unprecedented economic sanctions against Chinese companies and individuals who have benefited from their government’s cybertheft of valuable U.S. trade secrets.

The U.S. government has not yet decided whether to issue these sanctions, but a final call is expected soon — perhaps even within the next two weeks, according to several administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Ukrainian crisis

$1.8 bln IMF Ukraine Bailout Funds Discovered in Kolomoyskyi's Cyprus Kitty

A huge chunk of the $17 billion in bailout money the IMF granted to Ukraine in April 2014 has been discovered in a bank account in Cyprus controlled by exiled Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, the German newspaper Deutsche Wirtshafts Nachrichten [DWN] reported on Thursday.

In April last year $3.2 billion was immediately disbursed to Ukraine, and over the following five months, another $4.5 billion was disbursed to the Ukrainian Central Bank in order to stabilize the country's financial system.

Innovationa & technologies

Cheap C.H.I.P. reduces the barrier to global connectivity

A kickstarter campaign to launch a computer costing just USD9 is another important milestone on the road to hyper-connectivity, creating risks and opportunities for insurers.

The C.H.I.P. is a tiny computer equipped with a 1 GHz ARM processor, 512 MB of DDR3 RAM, 4 GB of storage, and Bluetooth connectivity, all in a package smaller than a box of cigarettes. It runs on a Debian Linux operating system, is designed to work with most monitors and keyboards, and comes pre-loaded with a number of apps and a web browser.

Middle East

​​‘Gaza used as arms-testing laboratory’: British Jews condemn UK-Israel arms trade

Manchester Jews for Justice for Palestinians have harshly criticized the “UK’s complicity in Israeli war crimes” in an open letter and called for an end of the arms trade between the UK and Israel.“We deplore the UK’s complicity in Israeli war crimes, most recently the massacres and destruction of homes and livelihoods in Gaza last summer,” the group wrote in a letterpublished on the blog Mondoweiss.

“It is well known how Israel has expelled the Palestinian population from their land and enforced a systematic, military and illegal occupation against those that remain. What is less well known is that the UK has been aiding and abetting Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.”

Mass surveillance

Orwellian Justice Upholds NSA Spying on Americans: Court of Appeals Upholds Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance

The threshold issue is whether plaintiffs have a reasonable expectation of privacy that is violated when the Government indiscriminately collects their telephone metadata along with the metadata of hundreds of millions of other citizens without any particularized suspicion of wrongdoing, retains all of that metadata for five years, and then queries, analyzes, and investigates that data without prior judicial approval of the investigative targets.

Corruption

Anti-corruption war is non-negotiable, Buhari replies Jonathan’s ministers

President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday replied former Nigerian ministers who questioned the sincerity of his anti-corruption war, saying it is not intended to rubbish the name of anyone.

The ministers, who served in the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, had in a statement cautioned against selective anti-corruption war and warned against labelling the Jonathan government as corrupt.

International security

The Growing China-Russia Relationship

Increasingly, Russia and China are forging a stronger partnership, much to the dismay of other countries especially the U.S. China is the ascending world power, Russia the former superpower, and the U.S. still the preeminent global superpower. This relationship does not come as much of a surprise; Russia and China lack close relations with many highly developed countries and in some ways, this partnership is out of convenience. Both have divergent ambitions and goals though a mutual distrust of the U.S. and the west is more than enough to elicit cooperation. Regardless, in many ways closer collaboration between the two countries despite differences stands to benefit both.

Biosecurity

DTRA studying synthetic biological means to combat antibiotic resistance

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Chemical and Biological Technologies department and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are studying the potential use of synthetic biological delivery methods against pathogens, they announced Wednesday.

This research aims to provide an alternative to traditional antibiotic methods as certain pathogens develop resistance to current treatments. Their research, lead by James Collins of MIT, focuses on antimicrobial peptides (AMP) that are able to eliminate bacteria without causing secondary issues through lysis.

Forensics

Rats To Detect Mines

For thousands of years man has been using animals for various needs – for food, for fighting, for company or more. Although a lot of us may be scared of them, it seems rats have come in particularly handy lately. Turns out rats are the most suitable animal for tracking mines. They have a highly developed sense of smell and can scan large areas, and most of all, rats are too small and light to trigger the mines.

Electronic surveillance

Lawyers plan challenge to arrests based on secret cellphone tracking

Defense lawyers in Baltimore are examining nearly 2,000 cases in which the police secretly used powerful cellphone tracking devices, and they plan to ask judges to throw out “a large number” of criminal convictions as a result.

“This is a crisis, and to me it needs to be addressed very quickly,” said Baltimore’s deputy public defender, Natalie Finegar, who is coordinating those challenges. “No stone is going to be left unturned at this point.”

Military

No More Double Standards for Women in the Military

Last week, two female Army officers and West Point graduates made history when they successfully passed Army Ranger School, known as one of the most physically challenging and difficult leadership schools in the military.

Not only is this a phenomenal personal accomplishment, but they have paved the way for other women to advance in the military hierarchy. While a proud nation congratulated the women on their incredible achievement, it demonstrated how outdated and discriminatory the Selective Service law is.

Nuclear security

US confident Pakistan is aware about its responsibilities on nuclear weapons 

The White House today said it is confident that Pakistan is aware of its responsibilities with regard to the safety and security of its nuclear weapons.

The White House remarks in this regard came a day after two leading American think tanks in a report said that in a decade, Pakistan would have more than 350 nuclear weapons; thus making it in possession of third largest stock piles of nuclear weapons after the US and Russia.

Nuclear security

From Hiroshima to Marshall Islands: Nuclear Weapons Must Be Banned

With the exception of North Korea, nuclear weapon states have ceased the testing of nuclear weapons. However, these states still collectively hold nearly 16,000 nuclear warheads in their stockpiles today. Many of these weapons of mass destruction are ready to be launched in minutes. Whatever the nuclear weapon states learned from the tests, the overriding lesson for us must be: the continued possession of nuclear weapons exposes the entire world to an unacceptable risk of a humanitarian catastrophe.

WMD conspiracy

Men Sentenced for Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction

Brian Cannon, 37, Terry Peace, 47, and Cory Williamson, 29, have been sentenced for conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in attacks against federal government agencies. The defendants planned to attack critical infrastructure while motivating militia groups in other states to rise up and join them in removing government officials who they believed had exceeded their Constitutional power.

“In this case, anti-government ideology and rhetoric morphed into dangerous extremism and led these defendants to arm themselves and travel to a meeting to pick up pipe bombs and other explosives intended for attacks,” said U.S. Attorney John Horn of the Northern District of Georgia. “The attacks planned by the defendants, while rare, posed a serious threat to not only the safety of our public servants, but also all other members of the community.”

Surveillance

INTELLIGENCE FILE: Monitoring the boycotters

A senior Israeli military source revealed recently that a special unit inside the Research Division of Military Intelligence has been assigned to monitor the activities of the BDS movement.

The unit was created as a result of lessons learned from the Mavi Marmara incident.
In May 2010 a fleet of six boats organized by pro-Palestinian groups sailed from Turkish ports in a concerted effort to lift the siege of Gaza. While the activists with various nationalities aboard five boats surrendered to the demands of the Israel Navy and stopped their voyage, the Mavi Marmara crew and passengers refused to obey the order. 

Law enforcement security

SUSPECT ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH FATALLY SHOOTING HARRIS COUNTY DEPUTY DARREN GOFORTH

Miles is accused of killing Deputy Darren Goforth, 47, in northwest Harris County. Investigators say Deputy Goforth had worked an accident scene at around 8:30pm, then went to a gas station on Telge and West Road. As he was pumping gas, detectives say Miles approached Deputy Goforth from behind, said nothing and fired multiple shots. Once he fell to the ground, authorities say Miles fired more shots at the deputy. Deputy Goforth was pronounced dead at the scene.

Environmental & defense security

HOW OBAMA’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES ARE UNDERMINING THE US MILITARY AND NATIONAL SECURITY

When President Obama declared earlier this year that “climate change” represents “an immediate risk to our national security” he was absolutely right. (H/T John Droz)

Only, the key detail he forgot to mention is precisely why it represents such a risk: because his administration’s crazed faith that renewable energy represents a solution to “climate change” is severely impacting the defensive capabilities of the US military.

Personal data security

The biggest lesson from Ashley Madison is about security, not fidelity

Once IPO bound, Ashley Madison is almost certainly doomed to shutter following a ruinous hack. As an early indication of its inevitable shutdown, parent company Avid Life Media announced yesterday that CEO Noel Biderman is stepping down.

Likewise, its 37 million users may never recover from having their most private thoughts and fantasies spread around the Web.

The website that helps married people have extramarital affairs promised discreet encounters and robust security. It even had a “full delete” service that purported to delete “all traces of your usage” for a fee. And even after the attack, the website still flaunts a gold and purple medallion icon with the words “trusted security award” next to it.

Hidden treasury

Nazi gold train: Russia may lay claim to any treasure

Polish authorities have hit back at an apparent Russian attempt to claim to preemptively the contents of a buried Nazi train, reasserting the nation's ownership of any World War Two treasures.

"The analysis we have conducted with our lawyers quite clearly states that if the train is found it will be owned by the State Treasury," said Piotr Zuchowski, a vice minister for conservation, in an interview with Poland's Radio Jedynka.

Economic security

China vs. US: Who Is Richer?

With a self-reported 7% average growth in GDP, China has made it known to the world that it is fast becoming an economic powerhouse. But can it ever be as rich as the United States? That is yet to be seen, although, pundits are interested in how China has been able to transform its economy and lift many of its citizens out of poverty. It has inarguably changed itself from a nation that depended on foreign donors to the one that mints millionaires almost every month.

International security

Russia vs. NATO War Almost Broke Our 66 Times In 12 Months

Russia and NATO are engaged in an "action-reaction cycle" that is difficult to stop. History is full of examples of tensions that escalated into war even when neither side intended it. Something similar could happen between Russian and NATO forces. According to the European Leadership Network, a war between Russia and the West almost broke out 66 times between March 2014 and March 2015.

Cybersecurity

Can Hackers Leave Us Cold This Winter?

If a hacker is capable of breaking in to our computer systems, with a little more effort surely they could disrupt larger targets as well. The American government believes that there is a growing threat of a cyber attack against critical infrastructures, such as the U.S. natural gas infrastructure.

American Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, mentioned that the utility sector is a central one in dealing with cyber threats, and recently there are growing concerns of attacks against natural gas compressor stations. These stations are in charge of transferring the natural gas via pipes to commercial, private and municipal consumers. Disrupting these stations with a cyber attack could damage the security of the process of transferring gas to consumers and even cause delays for industries relying on it.

Financial security

Bitcoin Technology Piques Interest on Wall St.

Most people still think of Bitcoin as the virtual currency used by drug dealers and shadowy hackers looking to evade the authorities.

But the innovations that helped turn Bitcoin into the most popular virtual currency are now being viewed as a potentially enormous disruptive force for several industries, including accounting, music and journalism.

Nowhere, though, are more money and resources being spent on the technology than on Wall Street — the very industry that Bitcoin was created to circumvent.

Terror threat

Scott Walker: Islamic Terrorists Likely Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border

Islamic terrorists are “most likely” smuggling themselves across the Mexican border,Scott Walker said Friday.

The Wisconsin governor’s campaign billed his speech at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C., as a major foreign-policy address, but Mr. Walker’s remarks represented little new in the way of policy proposals. Instead he blasted President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton and his GOP presidential rivals while also arguing for his strident immigration policy.

Biosecurity

Labs cited for 'serious' security failures in research with bioterror germs

Amid concerns about the potential of a laboratory insider unleashing a deadly bioterror pathogen on the public, President Obama ordered greater scrutiny of workers with access to the riskiest microbes five years ago. The goal of the resulting regulations was to prevent something like the 2001 anthrax letter attacks — or worse — from happening again.

Federal regulators have secretly threatened to revoke permits to study bioterror pathogens from at least six labs — including those operated by Brigham Young University in Utah, the University of Hawaii-Manoa and the California Department of Public Health — because they failed to take required actions to assess the behavior and trustworthiness of their workers, plus other kinds of safety violations, records obtained by USA TODAY show.

Old widespread intel tradition

Post Office “Secret Black Sites”— What They’re For and Why You Can’t Afford Not Knowing!

It has been known that some post offices have a “secret room” in which the U.S. Post Inspection Service utilizes to conduct investigations into mail fraud. A few years ago, however, a document complete with floor plans surfaced from a military insider proving that these rooms are not only used for mail fraud but also could be used for other government agendas as well. 

As with most things in our culture these rooms serve a dual purpose. It is believed that these facilities can also be used as black site detainment centers in the event of a national emergency or if a red alert were to be issued.  

Public security

3 Reasons Tightening Movie Theater Security isn't the Answer

Visiting an actual movie theater for the first time in years was a strange, if not relatively unpleasant experience. The snack bar girl itched red welts on her arms that made me wary of seat cushion bedbugs. Movie previews advertised a phone app alerting older people with sensitive bladders when a boring scene came on so they could go pee.

Intel barter deal

German intelligence agency delivers data to NSA in exchange for software use

Germany's domestic intelligence agency agreed to turn over information on its citizens to the U.S.National Security Agency (NSA) in exchange for the use of the American group's XKeyscore software.

The program allows the German agency to “rapidly analyze” metadata that it had already collected, according to German newspaper Die Zeit. The paper said it saw documents demonstrating this agreement between the two countries. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said in the 2013 document that it would share information with the U.S. that is relevant to the NSA's mission.

Terror threat

Obama Ignored Islamic State Intelligence For A Year

War On Terror: Reports that Barack Obama received detailed information on the virulent Islamic State terror group in his daily briefings for over a year and did nothing makes him officially our "being there" president.

Leading from behind once again, as he flew to Estonia to draw a red line that Russia shouldn't cross after it finishes gobbling up Ukraine, President Obama told reporters, "We will not be intimidated" by the second beheading of an American journalist and warned that we would "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State.

Innovations & technologies

Wearable technology is about to hit the battlefield

The new technology aims to use high-end printing technologies to create stretchable electronics that could be embedded with sensors and worn by soldiers, a defense official said, and could ultimately be used on ships or warplanes for real-time monitoring of their structural integrity.

The US government is contributing $75 million over five years, he said, and companies, managed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, will add $90 million, with local governments chipping in more to take the total to $171 million.

Aerospace

MAKS: Can Russia’s ‘Caspian Sea Monster’ rise again?

The Soviet Union’s once-secretive “Caspian Sea Monster” has resurfaced at the MAKS air show, minus the stacks of short-range nuclear missiles meant to obliterate Western defences in a sea-skimming sneak attack.

The original "KM" ekranoplan – designed to travel at high speeds just 150m above the ocean on a cushion of air – was created in the mid-1960s and is arguably one of the oddest weapons to emerge during the Cold War. The "Lun-class" follow-on was outfitted with six missile tubes and entered service with the Soviet navy in the late 1980s.