The Surveillance Catalog - The Wall Street Journal. As the Internet has grown to handle more data, monitoring companies have had to keep up.
Interception now can mean taking all the traffic from the Internet backbone and funneling it through devices that inspect the packets of data, determine what is inside them, and make decisions about whether to copy them for law enforcement. Document Trove Exposes Surveillance Methods. CNN: Feds investigating Springfield pump failure as possible cyber attack - chicagotribune.com.
November 18, 2011|CNN Federal officials say they are investigating whether a cyber attack may have been responsible for the failure of a water pump at a public water district in Springfield last week.
But they cautioned that no conclusions had been reached, and they disputed one cyber security expert's statements that other utilities are vulnerable to a similar attack. Joe Weiss, a noted cyber security expert, disclosed the possible cyber attack on his blog Thursday. Weiss said he had obtained a state government report, dated Nov. 10 and titled "Public Water District Cyber Intrusion," which gave details of the alleged cyber attack culminating in the "burnout of a water pump. " Weiss declined to identify the state -- or the region -- where the water utility was located, saying the report was marked "For Official Use Only. " Carrier Bush suffers widespread toilet outages. By Joshua Stewart - Staff writer Posted : Monday Nov 14, 2011 18:33:35 EST The Navy’s newest aircraft carrier has a messy problem. Since deploying in May, the Norfolk, Va. -based carrier George H.W.
Bush has grappled with widespread toilet outages, at times rendering the entire ship without a single working head. But it’s no laughing matter. The sailors blame the ship’s vacuum system. The ship, commissioned in January 2009, is wrapping up a deployment in the Persian Gulf. Tell us: Toilet troubles Have you experienced this on your ship? Pull The Cyber War Trigger, If We Have To.
One of the most disturbing aspects of our nation’s current response to cyber attacks is a creeping passivity that permeates discussions surrounding the topic.
Fueled by less-than-robust, defense-oriented national and DoD cyber strategies, some of the leading voices in the US’s national security establishment seem to have given up the fight without even entering the arena. Such attitudes are not only counter-productive, they undermine our current cyber security efforts as well as the nation’s security as a whole.
There is plenty the nation can do to secure its cyber infrastructure and those efforts should be championed by the national security establishment. It is certainly true that our cyber infrastructure needs to be better protected. Numerous studies have pointed to vulnerabilities within both governmental and private sector IT networks that could be exploited by those wishing to do us harm. That brings me to a meeting of cyber security experts held earlier this week in Washington. A New Intelligence Org on Climate Change is Needed, DSB Says. The U.S. intelligence community needs an organization that can assess the impacts of climate change on U.S. national security interests in an open and collaborative manner, according to a new report from the Defense Science Board (DSB).
The Director of National Intelligence should establish a new intelligence group “to concentrate on the effects of climate change on political and economic developments and their implications for U.S. national security,” said the DSB report on “Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security” (large pdf). Prisons bureau alerted to hacking into lockups. MIAMI — Federal authorities are concerned about new research showing U.S. prisons are vulnerable to computer hackers, who could remotely open cell doors to aid jailbreaks.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons is “aware of this research and taking it very seriously,” spokesman Chris Burke told The Washington Times. Mr. Burke was reacting to research by private experts who found that the security systems in most American prisons are run by computer software vulnerable to hackers. “You could open every cell door, and the system would be telling the control room they are all closed,” said John J. Strauchs, a former CIA operations officer who helped develop a cyber-attack on a simulated prison computer system and described it at a hackers’ convention in Miami recently. The security systems in most American prisons are run by special computer equipment called industrial control systems, or ICS. Newest Army Weapon to Thwart Bombs: Paintball Guns. You’re a soldier on patrol in Afghanistan.
Walking down the road, you spot a strange object far away, sticking out off to the side. Is it a bomb? How should you even check? If the Army’s latest research project pans out, you might just whip out your paintball gun. On Wednesday, the Army announced that it’s in the market for a paintball system that can detect the presence and type of different explosives. It’s another foray into the field of bomb-hunting technology. That’s standoff explosive detection, a field the Defense Department has shown great interest in as terrorists and insurgents have become better and more frequent users of improvised explosive devices. The paintball idea is comparatively low-tech.
So fill up some paintballs with bomb-detecting goop and fire away, right? U.S. Works to Counter Spying Risks.