International security

North Korea willing to hold talks with US, ex-spy chief says

North Korea has "enough" willingness to hold talks with the U.S., a former intelligence chief from the rogue country believed to be the mastermind behind a deadly attack on South Korea told the country's president on Sunday.

The Blue House, South Korea's presidential office, reported Sunday the news of the meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Yong Chol, a senior official of the North's ruling Worker's Party, during the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics, according to Yonhap News Agency.

"President Moon pointed out that U.S.-North Korea dialogue must be held at an early date even for an improvement in the South-North Korea relationship and the fundamental resolution of Korean Peninsula issues," spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said of the meeting.

The two met for an hour in Pyeongchang, the host city of the 2018 Winter Olympics, according to Yonhap.

Biosecurity

Suspicious mail triggers illness at Virginia military base

Three people at a northern Virginia military base were transported to a medical facility and were in stable condition Tuesday after a suspicious piece of mail was opened and nearly a dozen people felt ill.

A spokeswoman for Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall said people in the office on the Marine Corps side of the base had reported that as soon as the mail was opened they began feeling poorly and complaining of sore throats.

Leah Rubalcaba said 11 people were initially assessed, and three were transported for medical care.

The Arlington County Fire Department said on Twitter that the three are stable and the investigation is ongoing.

The Marine Corps said the building was evacuated, and several Marines are receiving medical care. The Corps said the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI are conducting a joint investigation.

Public security

Rio military deployment stirs controversy in Brazil

Twelve days after Brazil's President Michel Temer deployed the military to boost security in the state of Rio de Janeiro, criticism about the move continues.

Officials have so far provided little detail about what has been achieved while residents complain about harassment and intimidation.

The general in charge of the operation said Rio was a "test case" for military deployments in other parts of Brazil.

The move came after a surge of violence in the state during Rio's carnival.

President Temer issued a decree on 16 February putting the military in charge of security in Rio de Janeiro arguing that he was "taking this extreme measure because the circumstances demand it".

Financial safety

Why we put money into bizarre cryptocurrencies like ponzicoin and cryptokitties

Some initial coin offerings seem like scams (and some are), but behavioural research shows our emotions are part of why people buy in to cryptocurrencies for fruits and vegetables or crypto trading even if cool-headed rationality screams at us not to.

An initial coin offering is just like an initial public offering. But, instead of shares, what’s being sold are cryptocurrency “coins” or “tokens”. These are similar to virtual currencies found in computer games, enabling you to buy goods or services within an ecosystem.

Around half of the initial coin offerings launched last year have already disappeared or failed. This has potentially cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars.

The boom in initial coin offerings is a textbook example of how our emotions drive us to be overly optimistic and to become fixated on the spectacular gains made by others. Companies and designers can also appeal to our emotions and our conceptions of ourselves by appearing to adopt moral positions.

This mix of emotions lets “irrational exuberance” over getting rich quick (while doing the world a favour) overwhelm our reason and willpower.

M&A

By Light Merges with Axom Technologies, Expanding Business Focus on Intelligence Community

By Light Professional IT Services LLC (By Light) announced today it is merging with Axom Technologies, as Axom becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of By Light and will operate as a separate division.

Axom was created with a mission to serve the nation by delivering secure, state of the art information technology, cyber solutions, and engineering services. As the leading Internal Service Provider (ISP) deploying, maintaining, and securing networks that provide connectivity and interoperability, Axom has a strong understanding of the needs surrounding the intelligence community. By Light provides comprehensive hardware and software systems engineering solutions for the design and implementation of both classified and unclassified government networks. Together, By Light and Axom can offer an expanded range of scalable, cost effective enterprise-wide services to both existing and new customers, while also increasing the competitiveness of the combined company for highly sought-after work in the Defense and Intelligence communities.

“Our merger with Axom represents a significant milestone in the achievement of our vision to strengthen our services offerings, expand our client base, and provide additional professional growth opportunities for our employees,” said Bob Donahue Jr., CEO and Founder of By Light. “With the skills and experience of Axom, By Light is better positioned to support customer needs now and in the future.”

Cybersecurity

Why Cybersecurity Is About More Than Prevention-Focused Products

Breaches of Equifax, HBO and Uber made headlines in 2017, and 2018 will have its own share of high-profile breaches. As the threat landscape continues to evolve, cybercriminals are becoming more creative and expanding their attack vectors. The industry spends billions trying to protect against every imaginable threat, but experts tell you that, no matter how much you spend, it's never enough.  

The mistake most companies make is that they focus solely on security products, thinking: "If I have this product, then I am safe." The reality is that a security product focuses on only one attack vector (e.g., email), but you need to think about more than just email to truly be safe. But where to start? There is an endless supply of products and services available for every known vulnerability and attack vector a company could possibly have. In other words, without knowing better, a company could spend everything down to its last dime on cybersecurity.

Outer space

US Space Corps could launch in 3 years, key lawmaker says

Congress’ strongest supporters of a new Space Corps have not given up the fight, slamming the U.S. Air Force for wasted time as Russia and China pose a growing threat to America’s vital satellites.

“We could be deaf, dumb and blind within seconds,” House Armed Services Strategic Forces ranking member Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., said Wednesday at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum on space. “Seldom has a great nation been so vulnerable.”

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, and the Corps’ biggest champion on Capitol Hill, said a space-focused service could be built in three to five years. By year’s end, Rogers, R-Ala., expects an independent report, required by the 2018 defense policy law, about how that process might look.

Firearms smuggling

Correction: Firearms Smuggling Charges story

Two citizens of Kyrgyzstan living in the Washington metropolitan area are accused of smuggling firearms to the Russian republic of Chechnya.

A release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia says 28-year-old Tengiz Sydykov and 27-year-old Eldar Rezvanov were arrested Tuesday on charges of international trafficking in firearms, smuggling and other offenses.

A criminal complaint says the residents of Alexandria, Virginia, purchased more than 100 disassembled firearms and tried to ship them to Chechnya without a license, using false shipping inventories and disguising the parts as kitchen utensils and car seat covers. Postal employees told investigators the pair made parcel shipments nearly daily.

The men appeared in federal court Tuesday and were ordered held pending a detention hearing Thursday. Each faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Public security

'Gun-free school zones' take weapons from kids, not cops

President Trump has repeatedly mocked the idea of a “gun-free” school zone in the weeks since a Florida rampage, saying schools should be heavily guarded and fortified and teachers should carry concealed guns, air marshal-style.

"You have a gun-free zone, it's like an invitation for these very sick people to go there," Trump told a gathering of governors at the White House on Monday.

A gun-free zone “is like target practice" for school shooters like Nikolas Cruz, the accused shooter at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Trump told an interviewer on Saturday. “They see that and that's what they want. Gun-free zones are very dangerous. The bad guys love gun-free zones.”

A gun-free school “is a magnet for bad people,” the president tweeted last Thursday.

Immigration security

US Supreme Court rules immigrants can be detained without bail

The US Supreme Court has ruled that immigrants held in long-term detention do not have the right to periodic hearings to argue their release.

The 5-3 verdict overturns a 2015 appeals court ruling that said detained immigrants awaiting deportation must have a bond hearing every six months.

The high court's five conservatives were in the majority in the ruling.

The decision applies to any immigrant, including those with legal permanent status or who are seeking asylum.

The case will now go back to the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to consider whether the US Constitution requires bond hearings for detained immigrants.

In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote: "Immigration officials are authorized to detain certain aliens in the course of immigration proceedings while they determine whether those aliens may be lawfully present in the country."

Nuclear security

‘Nuclear war between Russia and US will bring end to civilization’

By training its European allies to use their nuclear arms, the US is moving towards an atomic war with Russia, forgetting that it would mean the end of the human civilization, retired Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky told RT.

The US military is preparing the armed forces of the European countries for the use of tactical nukes against Russia, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said on Wednesday. He added that the presence of American non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe is a major stumbling block in the path of disarmament. 

“No one can say how serious the threat really is” from the US actions, Buzhinsky, the Chairman of the Executive Board of the PIR-Center, said. However, he pointed out that “the military people are getting ready. The Russian military is preparing and the American military does the same. And it’s for the politicians to warn the public that such preparations are being made.”

Electronic warfare

US To Procure Jam-Resistant GPS Satellites

The U.S. Air Force wants 22 new GPS satellites that are built to resist jamming and electronic interference. The service expects to spend $2 billion on the new satellites for the GPS 3 constellation in the next five years. The production of all 22 satellites is expected to be worth as much as $10 billion, as reported by popularmechanics.com.

“The GPS 3 that we are moving toward is more jam-resistant, and it is intended to be able to operate in a contested environment,” Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson told reporters.

The constellation of 31 GPS 2 satellites currently in orbit will remain operational until at least 2021. The Air Force has already ordered 10 GPS 3 satellites from Lockheed Martin to start replacing the older GPS 2 network, with the first GPS 3 sat launching in March 2018 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. However, the Air Force has now decided it needs to quit buying up those GPS 3 satellites and go back to the drawing board.

Innovations & technologies

U.S. Army Troops to Get New Sci-Fi Helmet

The U.S. Army is testing a new helmet designed to offer full ballistic protection to a soldier's entire head. Looking like something out of Starship Troopers, the Integrated Head Protection System (IHPS) protects a soldier's entire head, including for the first time the face and jaw, from injury. The helmet, developed by 3M subsidiary Ceradyne Systems, is scheduled to head to the troops next year.

Army helmets were first issued in the years leading up to World War I. The helmets, made of simple pressed steel, were heavy and offered very little in the way of real protection against bullets. Helmets offered protection against grazing bullets, ricochets, and shrapnel, but against rifle rounds they were next to useless. The use of heavy steel made covering a soldier's head below the ears impractical.

Forecasting

One of Wall Street's most-followed forecasters has a wild new prediction for the US economy

One model that forecasts the US economy's performance could shock even President Donald Trump if it ends up being accurate.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow model projects that gross domestic product would increase at a 5.4% annualized rate in the first quarter.

The last time the economy grew that much was in the third quarter of 2003. If correct, this would be the first period of more than 5% growth since the third quarter of 2014. Additionally, the forecast is much higher than that of the most bullish economist polled in the Blue Chip forecast.

The model spiked Thursday after the Institute of Supply Management released monthly data on US manufacturing, which raised the outlook for the biggest driver of growth: consumer spending. Also, data on construction spending raised the Atlanta Fed's forecast for business investment via real private fixed-investment growth.

Opinion

How To Reform Federal Intelligence And Law Enforcement Agencies

Political partisanship offends the fundamental norms that should control the unelected—and often unremovable—officials who wield daunting powers in criminal investigation, prosecution, and counter-intelligence. IC officials are entrusted with their powers precisely because they are expected to be nonpartisan in administering them. Personal political biases must never sway their investigative and prosecutorial choices, even if they convince themselves that the success of particular political candidates would harm the country. That decision is for voters to make, not unelected bureaucrats.

Partisanship not only mars public confidence, it also impairs the IC’s ability to serve its core function of protecting the nation. Partisanship hamstrings the intelligence bureaucracy’s ability to weigh the credibility of raw intelligence. In but one example, it is highly likely that the “dossier” the Clinton campaign and the DNC sponsored and used to spy on the Trump campaign used unknown individuals connected to the Kremlin as sources.

Cybersecurity

An Approach 'Essential To Creating Robust, Sustainable Cyber Security'

James Goepel: In my experience, most organizations relegate cyber governance to the I.T. staff because their leadership sees cyber security as a technology issue. These leaders fail to appreciate that a cyber security incident can have a profound impact on the organization’s bottom line. From substantial fines and penalties imposed by regulations like Europe’s GDPR, which amount to 4 percent of an organization’s global revenue, to the cost of remediation, data breach notifications, lost business, loss of brand reputation and lost intellectual property, a single cyber security incident can quickly force an organization out of business.  

We need a cultural shift to a point where organizations finally treat cyber security risks as a business issue and govern cyber security with the same level of leadership engagement as financial risks. The leaders’ participation is critical, because only the leadership has the knowledge and visibility to define the organization’s budgets, priorities and, ultimately, its risk tolerance. This leadership-driven, business-focused approach to cyber governance is essential to creating robust, sustainable cyber security.

Financial safety

SHOULD BRITAIN’S CRACKDOWN ON DIRTY MONEY WORRY RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS?

“More anti-Russian hysteria,” agreed the dandy. “It’s just like back home. Suddenly, I don’t feel safe anymore.”

The reason for their concerns? Sweeping new powers that U.K. lawmakers introduced earlier this year to crack down on the estimated £90 billion ($126 billion) currently being laundered through companies and luxury real estate in central London. Known as unexplained wealth orders, the new investigative powers allow British law enforcement to demand that any person holding property or assets worth more than £50,000 ($70,000) in the U.K. explain the origin of their wealth. The new powers—coupled with an aggressive mood in Parliament and among law enforcement authorities toward money laundering—threaten to destroy the low-regulation financial culture that until recently made London an attractive place to park often-dubious money for a swath of the world’s elite. And particularly for oligarchs from the former Soviet Union.

“Basically, they are reversing the burden of proof,” says Alexei (the Venetian dandy), a Russian businessman who has lived in London for over 20 years. (He asked for anonymity when discussing his financial affairs.) The British authorities “can label you guilty until you show that you are innocent. London was always an easy place to do business. Now, I think people will think twice about investing there.”

Law & order

Thirteen Russians: a Defense Lawyer Decodes the Mueller Indictments

“A courtroom is not a place where truth and innocence inevitably triumph; it is only an arena where contending lawyers fight not for justice, but to win.”

Though there is disagreement  about the exact wording used by the legendary defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, in describing what he did better than anyone of his day, perhaps of any day, the sentiment outpaces its many incarnations and puts to rest the preaching that trial proceedings or pleadings are necessarily a welcome home to justice.

Ultimately, it’s a search in look for a happy and honest end that, for most, is ever present but just never quite gets there.

Darrow spent his life in the trenches of migrant and trade union camps among anarchists and suffragettes… those who believed collective struggle was more than slogan driven chants that seem to find an almost recurring desperate chorus each and every electoral cycle.

European security

German lawmaker calls for end to ‘failed’ European Defense Agency

The European Defence Agency has failed and should be scrapped, according to a member of the European Parliament.

The Brussels-based EDA was set up in 2004 and has just seen an increase to its budget. However, the European Greens say the organization has failed to fulfill its mandate.

“Until today, the EDA has not been able to increase member states’ cooperation on defense research, development and procurement projects ― most are still exclusively national,” said Reinhard Bütikofer, a spokesman for security policy and shadow rapporteur for the Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament.

“A more efficient cooperation mechanism must be set up to finally address the structural problems of the defense sector,” the German MEP added. “The agency has failed ― it has not been able to deliver on the capabilities, cooperation or the market. It should [be] phased out.”

People smuggling

‘Don’t struggle if you’re raped’

In a lurid pink hotel room in Edo State, southern Nigeria, a trafficker is arranging to smuggle us across the continent to Libya -- and ultimately Europe.

Fluorescent lights flicker intermittently inside the hotel, which doubles as a brothel and serves as the headquarters of tonight's operation.

We are posing as would-be migrants attempting to reach Italy with the help of our "pusherman" -- one of an army of brokers who work alongside smugglers on the Nigerian end of the migrant route from Africa to Europe.

Edo State is Nigeria's trafficking hub and one of Africa's largest departure points. Each year, tens of thousands of migrants are illegally smuggled from here. They're refugees fleeing conflict or economic migrants in search of better opportunities in Europe, most having sold everything they own to finance the journey.

Climate security

Study: Climate Change Threatens Major Crops in California

California currently provides two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts, but according to a new studypublished Tuesday, by the end of the century California’s climate will no longer be able to support the state’s major crops, including orchards.

The report, published in “Agronomy,” warns that the increased rate and scale of climate change is “beyond the realm of experience” for the agricultural community, and unless farmers take urgent measures, the consequences could threaten national food security.

“For California, as an agricultural leader for various commodities, impacts on agricultural production due to climate change would not only translate into national food security issues but also economic impacts that could disrupt state and national commodity systems,” the report warns.

Gun control

Lawmakers again reject assault-weapons ban as gun bills move to floors

Lawmakers in both chambers voted down an assault-style weapons ban Tuesday, the third such vote in the last week, even as they moved forward with a bill to impose restrictions on some gun sales and set up a program allowing trained teachers to carry firearms in the classroom.

Students and parents of victims of the Feb. 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland that left 17 dead gave testimony, with many choking back sobs. They urged lawmakers to approve the assault weapons ban and remove the “marshal” program to arm teachers.

“No matter how much practice you have, it’s not anything compared to the real thing,” said Annabel Claprood, 16, a student at Stoneman Douglas. “I’ve done drills, but I did not have the feelings that I felt sitting on the floor because there was a mass shooter two seconds away from me.”

Privacy security

Warrantless surveillance law proves it’s time to take privacy into our own hands

The warrantless surveillance law, otherwise known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, gained mass attention back in 2013 when Edward Snowden leaked information that the NSA was using it to spy on Americans’ text messages, phone calls, emails and internet activity — all legally, and without warrants.

That bill has been passed by the U.S. Senatefor another six years and has now been signed into law by President Trump — a further extension of what should be an Orwellian cliché but remains quite real.

Naturally, this has caused quite the uproar over not so much the intent of Section 702, but rather how this law could (or will) be interpreted. The act allows the NSA to monitor the communications of foreigners located outside of the U.S. to gather foreign intelligence — which is the law’s intended purpose.

These practices have already hurt our image abroad when it was discovered that the NSA spied on Angela Merkel and the former president of Brazil. However, the domestic use of the law rightfully has caused many to fear further overreaching of the NSA into the lives of American citizens.

Forensics

The Forensics 664 vMethod: Accurate and Specific Forensic Toxicology Screening
An estimated 183,000 drug-related deaths occurred worldwide in 2012, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2014 World Drug Report [1] and more than 300 million people (7% of the global population) used an illicit drug last year. These statistics clearly display a critical need for law enforcement agencies to undertake specific and accurate drug testing. Forensic toxicology screening identifies drugs and their metabolites, chemicals, volatile substances, gases and metals in human tissues for law enforcement purposes. It relies on the identification of unknown compounds from complex samples and information-rich data sets.
During recent years, mass spectrometry, and specifically LC-MS/MS has become the industry’s preferred method for forensic toxicology screening due to its sensitivity, selectivity and accuracy over conventional methods such as GC, GC-MS and UV detection.
An ideal approach is quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (QTOF-MS) as it provides high-resolution, accurate-mass data for full-scan information of both precursor ions and all product ions. An LC-MS/MS-based toxicological screening method has recently been developed that includes the retention times for 664 forensic compounds. When combined with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and HR-MS/MS information, the retention time enables more accurate compound identification and an enhanced ability to identify structurally similar isomers.
This is the first verified method for forensic drug screening using the X500R QTOF system and data generated from this method offer more confirmation criteria than nominal mass triple quad workflows. The unique high-resolution spectra deliver unrivalled confidence in reporting the detected analyte. Cross-referencing the data with a forensic library gives added confirmation and the method reduces the risk of reporting false positives and false negatives that could compromise an investigation.

Defense

‘National security ecosystem’ should embrace agility in workforce, Navy undersecretary says

Navy Undersecretary Thomas Modly believes the key to implementing the new national defense strategy, not to mention prevailing in any future conflicts, is agility.

“In a word, I believe the National Defense Strategy calls for a Navy and Marine Corps team in which agility is the defining characteristic,” Modly said at a Feb. 23 AFCEA lunch. “It is a term which describes the overall organizational quality that has determined and will determine who and what survives in any increasingly complex, competitive, rapidly changing and unpredictable environment. This is the environment we face today, so I think we will ultimately be judged on how well we transition our forces and our supporting organizations … to a future in which agility is the defining characteristic.”

He backed up that idea with some interesting evidence: Word count. He counted the number of times certain words appeared in the national defense strategy document, presenting a kind of analog word cloud, the data behind the visualization. Modly noted that the words “agile” or “agility” were only mentioned six times, far fewer than “lethality,” which appeared 15 times; “competition” or “competitor,” which appeared 37 times; or “defend” and “defense,” which appeared 44 times.

Drones

Russian Military Developing Long-Range Supersonic Missile-Lobbing Drone

Designed to infiltrate far into an enemy's territory, the new system will carry both guided and unguided munitions.

Russia is working on a long-range unmanned strike system, Zvezda, the official television channel of the Russian Ministry of Defense, has learned.

Speaking to the television channel, Alexander Nemov, deputy chief of the research department at the 30th Central Scientific Research Institute outside Moscow, confirmedthat the large unmanned aircraft would appear sometime in the next few years.

"Development work is currently underway on a long-range unmanned system capable of carrying out unmanned low-altitude supersonic flights, and striking both stationary and mobile targets at operational-strategic depth," the officer explained.

International security

RUSSIA 'SERIOUSLY ALARMED' BY U.S. THREAT OF MILITARY ACTION AGAINST ASSAD AS VIOLENCE CONTINUES IN SYRIA

A leading Russian diplomat has condemned those advocating military intervention against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose war against rebels and jihadis has recently escalated in the last insurgent-held suburbs of Damascus.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Monday that such military action would violate United Nations Security Council Resolution 2401, which was passed Sunday. It calls for a 30-day cessation of hostilities among warring parties in the eastern Ghouta region outside the Syrian capital. Before it was passed, Russia successfully lobbied to include language in the document that exempted operations against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (successor to former Al-Qaeda branch the Nusra Front) and other groups considered terrorist organizations by the council.

Poll results

Does money equal happiness? It does, but only until you earn this much

Don't envy Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg for their wealth: They may not be much happier than the manager of your nearest In-N-Out Burger.

That's the conclusion of a recent study that found $105,000 to be the ideal income for life satisfaction in Northern America. Earnings past that point tended to coincide with a lower levels of happiness and well-being, researchers found.

The study from Purdue University, published in Nature Human Behavior, draws from the Gallup World Poll of over 1.7 million people that asked individuals to rate their lives from "worst possible" to "best possible" on a scale of 0-10.

Those ratings were then analyzed alongside reported household incomes to determine an ideal earnings point for every region of the world, what the study calls a "satiation point."

That point for life satisfaction varies around the world, researchers found, from $35,000 in the Caribbean to $125,000 in New Zealand. Past that, lead author Andrew T. Jebb said, “there’s a certain point where money seems to bring no more benefits to well-being in terms of both feelings and your evaluation."

Cybersecurity

CYBER TALENT WANTED: Military, Intelligence Community Strive to Retain Cyber Workforces

The private sector has for years lured cyber talent away from the government with promises of higher compensation. To counter this, leaders within the military and intelligence community are implementing a slew of programs that they believe will boost retention.

The Army is closely monitoring retention rates for its cyber workforce, including officers, enlisted soldiers and civilians, said Todd Boudreau, deputy commandant of the U.S. Army Cyber School at the Cyber Center of Excellence in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

“We do know that there is a challenge to retain that workforce,” he told National Defense in an interview.

While the Army recognizes that it cannot pay as much as the private sector can, there are ways that the service can entice its workforce to stay in government, said Sgt. Maj. Karl Pendergrass, the Army’s cyber training and education directorate sergeant major.

One example includes special incentive pay for jobs that are deemed to be particularly critical, he noted.

The Army is currently exploring ways to piggyback off of a Pentagon program to incentivize service members to have proficiency in certain languages, he said.

Climate security

Threat of Climate Change Is Forcing Norway to Drop Millions on Its Doomsday Vault

Today’s addition of 70,000 new seeds to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault brings the total number of crops stored at the Arctic facility to over one million. It’s an important milestone—but to keep the vault running, and to protect it from the effects of climate change, the Norwegian government is going to have to spend upwards of $13 million in upgrades.

The Estonian onion potato, black-eyed peas, Bambara groundnuts, and Hunter barley used to brew Irish beer are among the 70,000 deposits made today at Svalbard. That brings the total number of seeds deposited at the facility to a whopping 1,059,646, according to the BBC.

The Doomsday Vault, as it’s been dubbed, opened exactly ten years ago today, and it’s there on Svalbard Island—halfway between the mainland of Norway and the North Pole—to protect the world’s seeds in the event of cataclysmic climate change, mega-droughts, nuclear war, or whichever apocalypse-inducing event we might be able to think of. Only one of the vault’s three chambers are full, but that’s not stopping the Norwegian government from contemplating some much-needed upgrades. There are still well over a million unique varieties of crops that still need to be stored at the site.

Privacy security

Surveillance watchdog investigates security risks of GCHQ IT contractors

But Computer Weekly has learned that GCHQ has submitted new evidence to a hearing in the UK’s most secretive court revealing that about 100 IT industry contractors have “privileged user” access to the surveillance agency’s live computer systems following a policy change “a few years ago”.

The Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO), the UK’s overseer of surveillance laws governing the intelligence services and law enforcement, told Computer Weekly it was taking seriously claims that contractors could misuse their trusted status to access databases containing intercepted telephone, internet and email records of individuals, or other highly sensitive intelligence records.

“We recognise the importance of the need for reviewing the security arrangements for contractors which may have access to sensitive data, particularly given the recent leaks by contractors in other countries. We began work last year, and it’s going to be a focus for our inspection activity in 2018,” said an IPCO spokesman.

Navy

US Eyes Adding Nuclear Cruise Missiles to Zumwalt Stealth Destroyers As Well As Submarines

U.S. Air Force General John Hyten, head of U.S. Strategic Command, has suggested he’s interested in arming a variety of ships with a new nuclear-tipped cruise missile, including the stealthy Zumwalt-class destroyers, as well as guided missile submarines, or SSGNs, and attack subs. This only renews concerns about whether or not a potential opponent might then dangerously mistake a conventional missile barrage for the start of a nuclear exchange and the possibility that the weapons could make it more likely that the United States would launch a nuclear strike in general.

According to a recent report by Military.com, Hyten made his comments in a speech and while taking subsequent questions during a gathering at the National Defense University's Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 16, 2018. Earlier in February 2018, President Donald Trump’s Administration released a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that called for development of nuclear sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM), as well as modifying some existing Trident D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) with lower yield nuclear warheads, both ostensibly to offer a “flexible” response to an adversaries own “limited” nuclear strikes.