Light to non-existent posting until March 2 due to looming deadlines

India’s plans for the 2010 Commonwealth Games include roof-top snipers, food tasters for the athletes and their families, and the closing of schools and courts to cut traffic, officials said Monday. “We’re quite determined to provide a safe and secure games,” Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said at a press conference in New Delhi.

Police said Greg Denny, 37, of Hemet, went to Cherriebelle Hibbard's home on Jan. 15, handcuffed her at gunpoint and forced her husband, who is his cousin, to buy a plane ticket. He then used a fake badge to get through security at Lindberg Field Airport and put her on a plane to her home country, where she remains, according to a police report. Denny was arrested three days later, after his cousin Craig Hibbard realized that he was not a U.S. marshal. Riverside County District Attorney spokesman John Hall said prosecutors have not decided whether he will face charges, which could be state or federal. In his letter, the congressman quoted TSA spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino as saying that Denny "apparently followed the law enforcement procedures." "If TSA screening officers followed guidelines, then the existing procedure is fundamentally flawed," Issa wrote. "On the other hand, if TSA agents did not adhere to procedure, then the officers suffer from either a lack of training or extreme complacency."

In the meantime, Olympic security officers have been instructed that they are authorized to physically use force to defend themselves or others when necessary. To prepare them, tunnel guards are undergoing two to three hours of training with law enforcement in verbal de-escalation skills and self-defense.

That should solve the problem ...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell disagrees with those who claim President Obama has endangered U.S. security. "To suggest that somehow we have become much less safer because of the actions of the administration, I don't think that's borne out by the facts," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Powell also defends the policies of the Bush administration in which he served, and notes that Obama has continued most of Bush’s security measures.

The couriers pedaled through downtown at high speed on a chase that traversed sidewalks and busy streets, said LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith. Eventually, one of the messengers was able to grab the thief's shirt and pull him to the ground. The man then took off on foot and the couriers reclaimed the bike. "This was a wild, high-speed bicycle chase through crowded streets of the Jewelry Mart," Smith said. "We are now looking for a 30-year-old man with a torn shirt, a possibly sprained ankle, as well as road rash."

Gotta love it ...

“The drug traffickers ambushed them,” he said. “It was a particularly brutal attack. They fired on the three patrol boats with guns and mortars. All three boats were destroyed.” The police source said that 12 bodies had been recovered, but that three were missing. He also confirmed that the head of the anti-narcotics squad, Lt Khin Maung Yee, was among the dead.

They don't mess around there in Burma, do they ...?

Police officers in the Bronx burst in on a man who was beating his mother with a frying pan Sunday night and fatally shot him, the police said.

It’s supposed to be a tranquil place; a peaceful vantage point on a troubled world. But these days the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) spend as much time looking nervously over their shoulders as they do gazing at Earth, fearful of the growing amounts of man-made detritus hurtling erratically through orbit. Several times over the past few years the orbiting platform has been forced to use its boosters to avoid a possible collision. Most dramatically, in March 2009, its crew had to take refuge in the attached Soyuz return craft when a chunk of debris from a US launcher passed within a mile of the fragile structure.

Bruce Schneier, a Minnesotabased security expert and author, and other critics say many of the measures, including the most recent ones implemented after the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit, are simply adopted to create a sense of security that something is being done in response to these new threats, but actually do very little to enhance safety. "This is a stupid game and we should stop doing it," Mr. Schneier said.

Released on January 19, the new PGP Desktop 10.0 product brings new support for Windows 7, MacOS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and two flavors of Linux: Ubuntu and Red Hat. The software also works on Windows Vista, XP, and 2000, earlier editions of Mac OS, and Windows Mobile and BlackBerry phones, said Karthik Krishnan, senior director of product management, in a briefing for Betanews. Version 10 also adds greater ease of use and new capabilities not provided by the Bitlocker feature in Windows 7 and Vista, for instance, according to Krishnan. For example, if you lose your encryption password, you can now retrieve it by successfully answering Q&A challenges incorporated into the desktop software.

I don't know whether I like the sound of that or not ... I guess if your managing data for a large group it would be necessary ...

The DataTraveler 5000 meets FIPS 140-2 level 2 certification for transportation of classified materials and level 3 certification is pending. It goes the extra mile with a 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption scheme. They’ve also included the XTS cipher ECC algorithms that meets Suite B standards required by the US Department of Defense. This is being marketed as a device for government agencies, and it’s pretty hardcore. After 10 “intrusion attempts” (which we hope isn’t just a mistyped password), the the drive locks down and destroys the encryption key. The case of the thumb drive is a sealed titanium-coated steel body that’s tamper-proof and waterproof.

Back in 1987 when there was a rash of robberies and killings of tourists in Florida, the state authorized Carrying a Concealed Weapon (CCW) law, in hopes that it would discourage shootings in restaurants and public places. To the dismay of those who advocate stricter gun laws, the CCW law resulted in random shootings plummeting. The possibility of someone carrying a gun in the local McDonald’s discouraged those who might have been tempted to shoot the place up.

"What really is it that draws a young person being raised in the United States to want to go and be at a camp in Yemen and then come back to the United States with the idea of committing harm within the United States?" Napolitano asked without citing specific cases. "Where in that person's formulation is there an opportunity to break that cycle?" 

As a general rule, they just want to TALK about it because they've hit that magical age when pissing off their parents is what they need to do to convince themselves that they are discrete adults. If we were really interested in solving this particular problem (along with a lot of other related problems) we would make the age of majority match the age of biological maturity ...

A Mission Impossible-style memory stick that self-destructs its data if stolen has been developed by a Wallingford inventor. Norman Shaw, 57, of Market Place, designed and built the Security Guardian in a bid to help safeguard the 50 million items of personal data that go missing in Britain each year. The device automatically deletes files when lost or stolen and an inbuilt GPS tracking device can pinpoint its exact whereabouts anywhere in the world to within 30 yards.

The Israeli government has a long history of hunting down its enemies, as it did, famously, with members of Black September, the Palestinian terrorist group that killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Let's not forget Nazis ...

“So a senior member of the government has just discovered that playing with toy guns breeds violence. Following the same line of thought, the minister should also ban play stations, the Wii and all other video games with guns where you can shoot down and kill thousands at the press of a button.

I think it's safe to assume that they'll get around to it ...

The report -- which Brent Layton is in the process of reading thoroughly -- detailed virtually everything that happened in the Sept. 8 ambush. It tells how James Layton was shot by insurgents who wore flak jackets, Afghanistan army gear and carried recoil-less rifles -- as he tended to a wounded soldier.

Stratfor, an Austin-based global intelligence firm specializing in international risk management, said the rhetoric in Stack's rant clearly matches the USA Patriot Act's definition of terrorism: a criminal act that is intended to "intimidate or coerce a civilian population to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping." "When you fly an airplane into a federal building to kill people, that's how you define terrorism," said Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican whose district includes Austin. "It sounds like it to me."

I can't picture anyone raised American thinking that Stack's chosen course of action could do anything more than draw peoples attention to his manifesto, and he says as much in the manifesto ... Essentially, by doing a splashy suicide, he writes what would otherwise be a digital manifesto in blood ...

For Politics Daily, I reached out to three U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts to analyze the killing, which has generated worldwide headlines and could lead to more violence in the Middle East. One expert is a former deep-cover operative, another is a terrorism expert, and the third worked in counterintelligence and also has experience as a crime investigator. Their speculation about who is responsible is based on press reports of the assassination and their combined decades of covert experience. All the U.S. experts, who still have working ties to our intelligence community, agreed that, as one of them put it, the killing looks like "classic tradecraft" for Israel.

'Un-named experts' should probably be assumed to mean that it's all lies ...

The police say it started with a dispute over the treatment of a woman on the street.  When the bank security officer was called in to help, shots rang out and he was struck. The Central District in Baltimore at night on weekends is a bustling place and at 2 a.m. after the bars let out, a couple leaving a club were headed to their parked car in front of Bank of America when a group of men made advances toward her.  The man sought out the bank's security officer, James Ball, for help. "One of the suspects went into his vehicle, pulled out a handgun and fired multiple shots.  We believe he was trying to strike our intended victim and our security guard tried to intervene and was subsequently hit and killed," said Anthony Guglielmi.

Today's the day, every day ...

The robber made off with Grizzle’s platinum ring valued at $21,000, her wedding band, her $350 purse and its contents valued at more than $400, according to the report.

Richard's Second Law: It's cheaper to be invisible than it is to be invincible.

For more than seven years, South Bay resident Eric Drew has been fighting two tough battles: one to stay alive in the face of a deadly disease, and the other to make sure that if he survived, he would still have his identity.

Three short comments neatly characterize the missing case of a San Diego area family, Joseph McStay, 40, his wife, Summer, (32, 37 or 43?), and their two young children, Gianna, 4, and Joseph, 3. A San Diego Sheriff's Office spokesman, Lt. Dennis Brugos, said recently: "It's an absolute mystery," and "At this point there is nothing that jumps out." Family members have said, "Quite out of character."

Interesting ...

The idea of flying tourists into space goes back to the 1980s, when NASA and the Space Transportation Association appointed a panel to examine the possibilities. I was a member of their steering committee. The panel concluded that there was a viable market for space tourism — if launchers and spacecraft of suitable safety and reliability could be developed. Several companies are now chasing that goal. The leader among them is Virgin Galactic, a company that brought together Sir Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur who founded Virgin Airways, and Burt Rutan, designer of record-breaking, innovative aircraft.

And then there was the outrage that the assassins had used Western European passports, as opposed to someone else’s, as if the problem, primarily, was one of etiquette. (What is the right nationality to wear to an assassination?)

Computer and flash memory products manufacturer, Corsair Memory, Inc. announces Flash Padlock 2 secure USB flash drive with 256-bit AES encryption and a rugged rubber enclosure. This new drive features with user-definable personal identification number or PIN (4-10 digit) which can be entered using the drive’s integrated numeric keypad.

A nuclear submarine fire at the Zvezdochka shipyard in north Russia's Arkhangelsk Region was put out at 05:58 a.m. Moscow time (02:58 GMT) on Saturday, according to a company source. Local authorities said the fire had started in the hold of the third compartment of the K-480 Ak Bars nuclear submarine being scrapped on Friday at about 02:45 p.m. (11:45 GMT). None of almost 70 people involved in the firefighting operation has been injured.

After 9/11, cockpit doors were sealed, air marshals were added and airport searches became more aggressive, all to make sure an airliner could never again be used as a weapon. Yet little has been done to guard against attacks with smaller planes. That point was driven home with chilling force on Thursday when a Texas man with a grudge against the IRS crashed his single-engine plane into an office building in a fiery suicide attack. One person inside the building was also killed. "It's a big gap," said R. William Johnstone, an aviation security consultant and former staff member of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. "It wouldn't take much, even a minor incident involving two simultaneously attacking planes, to inflict enough damage to set off alarm bells and do some serious harm to the economy and national psyche." 

It goes without saying that an airliner pilot couldn't do the same thing despite the air marshals and searches. How do we know. Because they don't mention it in the article ...

Security forces in Ivory Coast opened fire on hundreds of protesters in southwestern Gagnoa town Friday, killing an undisclosed number of people and wounding others, hospital sources said. An opposition politician at the march estimated the number of dead at five but there was no independent confirmation. The violence is the latest in a spate of demonstrations in the world's top cocoa grower since President Laurent Gbagbo dissolved the government and the electoral commission a week ago, after a row over voter registration. 

Hmmm ... I wonder why they don't mention whose security force they're referring to. The force obviously isn't that interested in the security of the protesters ...

The Orange County Sheriff's Department called the suspect the most prolific bank robber in Orange County history. He was given the moniker because in some of the heists, he used blue paper for demand notes. Investigators say his demand notes usually read, "large bills quickly." The so-called "Blue Note Bandit" is suspected in a string of as many as 15 robberies over the last two months, mainly in south and central Orange County. 

Giving a anonymous serial criminal a public moniker is a double-edged sword, security-wise. It reduces the invisibility of the criminal but also reduces the invisibility of the jurisdiction assigned to catch the criminal ...

In many serious injury cases the insurance company that represents the defendant will hire a private investigator to follow you and secretly video you going about your normal daily activities.

It's been a case of car owners against the city. But on Thursday, the car owners scored big. Surveillance video shows a New York City sanitation truck plowing snow, as well as plowing into a dozen cars in Manhattan. It happened on West 110th Street between Broadway and Columbus during last week's big snow storm. "Now I'm livid," resident Grant Held said. "I want to see justice." Surveillance video from Held's builiding on West 110th street showed the sanitation truck approaching and smashes into his car.

According to the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department, Juan Gabriel Gonzalez, 29, forced his way into Brother’s Market by cutting a hole into the roof, and was caught on tape collecting cash and other items throughout the building as smoke began to accumulate. Gonzalez, who is from the Lindsay and Visalia area, was alone inside the store. An autopsy conducted Thursday revealed the cause of his death as smoke inhalation, but lab results are still pending.

Twenty more violators of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) imposed total gun ban were arrested by combined police and military authorities during checkpoint operations in various parts of the country on Wednesday. Reports from the National Election Monitoring and Action Center (NEMAC) showed that the latest 20 violators were composed of 18 civilians, a government employee and an active personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). NEMAC reports said the latest violators yielded 16 firearms, composed of 13 low-powered and three high-powered guns; eight different kinds of bladed weapons and 118 various types of explosive devices.

Comelec appears to be seizing power in the Philippines ... odd that no one in the MSM is talking about it ...

Six soldiers were reportedly wounded after alleged members of the New People's Army ambushed a military truck in Sorsogon province Thursday, a military spokesman said. In a text message, 9th Infantry Division spokesman Major Harold Cabunoc said that at 11 a.m., around six NPA rebels ambushed the truck loaded with 30 soldiers who were involved in a tree-planting ceremony in Barangay (village) Montecarmelo, Castilla town. Five soldiers were wounded after the truck crashed into bushy ravine near the roadside, Cabunoc said.

Yeah ... a tree-planting ceremony ... that's the ticket ...

The spacecraft are now leaving our solar system, having travelled for over 30 years. They are still doing valuable work and have just made a discovery concerning the outer edge of the magnetic influence of our sun. It has been a revelation to scientists, but that is somewhat complex magnetic physics dealing with words like 'heliosphere' and 'heliosheath'. These craft have established a few records, one of which is that they are now the third and forth satellites to leave the solar system. The first two were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, which were launched in 1972 and 1973. The two Voyagers were launched just days apart, in 1977, and have turned out to be among the most successful space adventures ever. In the case of the Pioneers, they each carried a small metal plaque with a message from us earthlings to any intelligent being who might find the spacecraft out in space one day. The plaques were designed with a mathematical code that intelligent beings would be able to crack.

It doesn't seem nearly that long ago ... must be some sort of time dilation ...

No legal definition exists for them. While a refugee who fits the strict definition given by the Geneva Convention is, at least in principle, provided some legal protection, such as the right to food and shelter and the freedom to practice his religion, an internally displaced person is virtually invisible, his story never told, and his rights nonexistent. A United Nations report “Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement” defines internally displaced persons (IDP) as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border.”

The tendentious semantics that surround the word terrorism have infected much debate about counterterrorism, and have involved other words in that debate. Probably the leading example is the perennial question of “Is it crime, or is it war?” None of the enormous verbiage devoted to that question has shed any light on, or advanced public understanding of, the nature of terrorism or how to deal with it. Of course terrorism is criminal; it involves actions such as killing or assaulting innocent people, which are covered by ordinary criminal statutes whether or not there are any laws specifically defining terrorist crimes. And if the use of military force is one of the tools available for countering terrorism — and it is — then one can choose to call it war as well. The application of either or both of these labels, or any other label, does absolutely nothing to resolve the issues of ethics and practical effectiveness, and not only of legality, raised by such difficult questions as how to handle detained terrorist suspects and whether to conduct targeted killings of terrorists still at large. Labels cannot substitute for analysis and principled discussion.

"I receive a text from my daughter saying, 'Dad, these girls are going to jump me at lunch, I'm afraid and I can't take this anymore,'" Gerard said. Michael Gerard said right after that text message, he rushed to the school."And all I was met with is, 'Well you can go downstairs and check on her and make sure she's safe,'" Gerard said. "All their remedy was, was 'just don't go outside.'"Gerard said he wasn't allowed to speak to school administrators and ended up leaving."Seventeen minutes from the time I left the school, my daughter got jumped," Gerard said.

Russell says Yates was alone on the lower deck of the riverboat casino when something happened and he ended up in the Ohio River. Yates was reportedly disabled and used a wheelchair. Russell says Harrah's employees noticed something was wrong when they apparently saw Yates on the casino's security video. Harrah's workers found his body in the water and rushed the man to the hospital, but it was too late.

A robber catches a beatdown from grandma, and it was all caught on tape. A 75-year-old woman jumps into action during a robbery. It happened at a Massachusetts convenience store after a man tried to steal money from the cash register. Granny started taking swings with anything she could get her hands on, including the price scanner.

The technique wasn't particularly effective, but she certainly gets an E for effort ... the baddy's own mom will be laughing at him from now on ...

From the series of targeted killings carried out in response to the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich to a spree of car bombings and sniper attacks in recent years, "the Israelis have never really stopped assassinations," Baer said. "They've just gotten better at it." Here are some of the most elaborate operations attributed to the Israelis and their secretive spy force, Mossad, in press accounts -- even though the government has disavowed involvement in almost every instance. 

Interesting list ...

I’d like to think I fall somewhere in between pundits calling for an all out military strike on Iran and those who seem think a nuclear armed Iran would be a good thing.  A military strike would be irresponsible and probably impractical, but I have to take contention with the idea that Iran having the bomb wouldn’t threaten American lives.  Even with short and medium range delivery capabilities, which Iran has, there are numerous American military targets in Iraq and Afghanistan that would possibly be threatened.

So far, joining that particular club has had a calming influence ... knowing that you could easily become a smoking glass crater if you screw up has that effect ...

Israel can also not overlook the fact that Pakistan’s military is a match to its own. The PAF pilots surprised Israeli Air Force, when flying mostly Russian aircraft they shot down several relatively superior Israeli aircraft in air combat in the 1973 Arab Israel war, shattering the invincibility myth of Israeli pilots who believed themselves to be too superior in skill and technology. The Pakistanis happened to be assigned to Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces on training missions when the war broke out and, unknown to the Israelis then, they incognito undertook combat missions.

Don't kid yourself ...

CNET tech news blogger Chris Matyszczyk contends that Buzz is the latest example of  imperfect technology desgined to bend consumer behavior to suit the business goals of tech giants. "It is in the financial interests of Facebook and Google to have as much information made public as possible," says Matyszcyk, a creative director who advises major coporations on marketing and content creation. "The gaucheness with which both Facebook and now Google Buzz have gone about such a noble, selfless pursuit of their future is quite staggering."

The Transportation Security Administration has apologized to a boy allegedly forced to take off his leg braces during screening at Philadelphia International Airport. Bob Thomas, a Camden, N.J., police officer, says it happened in March when he and his wife were flying to Orlando, Fla., with their 4-year-old son, Ryan. The boy wears leg braces because he is developmentally delayed. Thomas says a screener told the family the boy had to take off his braces. The case was featured in a column in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The couple, who run a home-based bookkeeping, accounting and computer programming business, have been customers of Citizens Financial, which is based in Illinois, for 30 years. They maintained personal and business checking accounts with the bank as well as a $30,000 home equity line of credit, which was linked to the business checking account. [The judge's ruling indicates the credit line was $50,000, but the plantiffs' lawyers say this is incorrect.] In February 2007, someone with a different IP address than the couple gained access to Marsha Shames-Yeakel’s online banking account using her user name and password and initiated an electronic transfer of $26,500 from the couple’s home equity line of credit to her business account. the money was then transferred through a bank in Hawaii to a bank in Austria. The Austrian bank refused to return the money, and Citizens Financial insisted that the couple be liable for the funds and began billing them for it. when they refused to pay, the bank reported them as delinquent to the national credit reporting agencies and threatened to foreclose on their home.

Hmmm ... this should be interesting. What's the point of putting your money in a bank that isn't able to keep it secure ...

A Senate committee approved a bill to clarify Utah firearms laws and allow gun owners to display and threaten to use their guns in self-defense. The panel passed the bill on Tuesday, despite Democrats who voiced concern that the bill might increase violence.

As long as the quality of the violence increases as well, I'm all for it ...

Law enforcement officials shot holes Thursday in a proposal that would give citizens more legal leeway to defend themselves with a gun, saying it was unnecessary and would increase shootings. “We have enough people in the state killing each other. This will make it easier,” Howard County Attorney Bob Sivick said. “I don’t think that’s good public policy.” Sivick and a deputy chief of the Omaha Police Department both testified in opposition to the measure, LB889, introduced by State Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial. Proponents of the bill, which included the National Rifle Association, said current state law might force people who killed someone in self-defense on their own property or car to defend themselves again against manslaughter or murder charges or against a civil lawsuit.

Meanwhile, U.S. law enforcement officials need to be part of the dialogue in Washington when it comes to formulating counterterrorism policies. Currently, they are allowed to comment on proposed federal policies, but they not invited to the discussions when the policies are being hashed out, he said.

Perhaps a casino security boss or two ...

Philippines police are preparing to file charges against political warlords throughout the country to control violence in the run-up to the presidential elections in May. They are cracking down on at least one hundred armies allegedly maintained by politicians. Police commandos are scouring the island province of Masbate in the central Philippines for private political armies in an effort to control electoral violence.

I don't suppose cracking down on them is expected to affect how many votes they get ...

Dubai police appealed for an international manhunt Tuesday after releasing names and photos of an alleged 11-member European hit squad accused of stalking and killing a Hamas commander last month in a plot that mixed cold precision with spy caper disguises such as fake beards and wigs. The case — as presented by Dubai authorities — rings of clockwork espionage and detailed planning that included suspects riding the same elevator as Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was slain in an ambush-style attack in a luxury hotel room that took no more than 10 minutes. But questions emerged about the list of suspects after Dubai authorities released pictures, names and passport photos identifying them as six Britons, three Irish and one each from France and Germany. Ireland said the three alleged Irish citizens on the wanted list do not exist. In Germany, officials said the passport number give by Dubai for the lone German suspect is either incomplete or wrong.

Sounds vaguely old-school ...

United Launch Alliance is taking a wait-and-see approach in deciding how to pursue the medium-class launch market after it phases out the stalwart Delta 2 rocket family. "We're waiting for the market to shape up," said Michael Gass, ULA president and CEO. "So the major driver is what's going to be the size of the market." The company operates the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle fleet, made up of the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rocket families, for a broad range of U.S. military, NASA and commercial payloads. But current schedules call for ULA's smallest rocket, the Delta 2, to be retired in late 2011. The Delta 2 has long been a favorite booster for medium-class Earth observatories, planetary exploration probes and military satellites.

We "artificial people" are totally vulnerable to the pass-through metal detectors. They give you an authentic-looking little card at the hospital with dates and surgeons which you are to present to the appropriate authority before you pass through. They won't even look at it — nor should they. It could be counterfeit, after all. But at least it might be a clue that you don't have to be held at gunpoint through the ordeal. As the machine gongs you as a potential master assassin, the feds swarm — just like on the docks in Gloucester. "Please do not move, sir. Step over here." A series of humiliating pats, rolldowns, wandings and scrutiny ensues. Humiliating, because everyone who passes by looks at you as a pathetic troublemaker — which, of course, I am. But I am not a hijacker! "Mommy, is he a bad man?" a little girl asks as I sit in the glass cage in front of every passing passenger. "Don't look, dear," she answers. When he asks me if these are my shoes, I say, "No, those are," and touch my boots on the table. Omigod, I thought they were going to arrest me right then and there. "Sir, you have violated federal regulations. We will now have to rescreen everything in sequence."

The real intentions of the suspect were not immediately clear but the possession of knives clearly states he was planning some terrorist act, sources said. The flight after brief delay was allowed to leave for Birmingham, sources added.

Yup, that definitely proves it, alright ...

Funny ...

Colorado residents are exercising their Second Amendment rights in record numbers. Gun sales surged to a new high before President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. One year later, gun sales surpassed the record set in 2008, despite the recession's strong grip.

TAMPA - Shooting spree suspect Andre Watkins' brother was the hit man in the high-profile slaying of an NFL star's pregnant girlfriend, Watkins' attorney confirmed. Van Brett Watkins, 49, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder following the November 1999 shooting of Cherica Adams, girlfriend of former Carolina Panthers receiver Rae Carruth. Adams' unborn child survived the shooting but has significant disabilities.

Hmmm ... the family that slays together, and all that I guess ...

"At least 20 jawans of Eastern Frontiers Rifles (EFR) have been killed in the attack at the Silda camp and the condition of two is stated to be very critical," district magistrate N S Nigam told PTI from Midnapore. The Maoists launched another attack on a CRPF camp at Dharampur in the district tonight. A group of 40 armed Maoists attacked the camp around 8.30 pm in Lalgarh engaging the jawans in an exchange of fire. Nigam said at least 100 Maoists armed with sophisticated weapons came on motorcycles and four-wheelers, exploded landmines near the Silda camp before barging inside with a volley of fire around 5.30 pm. There were 51 EFR jawans and officers in the camp when the attack took place, sources said. The attack took most of the jawans by surprise as they were either "whiling away their time in the camp or busy in the kitchen cooking", a senior police officer said. 

Sometimes I wonder if they're just making this stuff up ... anyway, today's the day, every day, fellas ...

The Washington Times reports that, "it was a rough week for gun rights in colorado. First, Colorado State University voted to ban concealed firearms on campus. Then, the University of Colrado went a few steps further and cracked down on another nefarious threat: Nerf guns." University campus security officials banned students' plans for a 'human vs. zombies' game, since the players wanted to utilize the poular orange-and-green toy weaponry. The University of Colorado has already banned simulated guns, which include those that shoot spongy Nerf balls. A nationwide craze on college campuses, the game involves 'zombie' students trying to eliminate 'human' students by socking them with Nerf balls or socks. The moment a 'human' has been tagged, he becomes a zombie and is forced to wear a bandana around his head.

If college were always this fun, everyone would go ...

"You're on the 405. It's afternoon rush hour in July. And then...an 8-point-5. You feel the freeway shaking under your car... What do you do now?" asked veteran LA firefighter/disaster preparedness expert Kevin Mason of a suddenly quiet group.

Bend waaaaayyyy over ...

The Soviet Golf-II sub, the K-129, sank in 1968 in the Pacific, northwest of Hawaii, in circumstances that have never been explained. It was carrying three ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. According to the newly-released papers, despite the difficulties of reaching the vessel some three miles down, Richard Nixon ordered the creation of a task force to bring it to the surface. The project was nearly cancelled due to soaring costs and concern that it might damage improving US-Soviet relations. However, a portion of the sub was eventually winched to the surface by the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a specially-designed salvage ship using a unique lifting cradle.

A generation or two ago, eyebrows hardly may have been raised at the notion that a dad's job included taking his son out back and teaching him how to throw a proper punch. But with seismic societal shifts on everything from spanking to schoolyard tiffs, some dads say arming Junior with the proper fist and block is not on their parenting to-do lists.

It will either be the parents that teach them about violence or it will be the police. I think they're better off learning about it from the parents ...

"I'm angry about what they did to me," Steward-Baker said about the group of young people charged with attacking and robbing her. "And the police officers [who] could have prevented it and the security guards could have prevented it."

It would likely be more productive to be mad at yourself (and your parents) for having gotten to the age of fifteen without having developed the minimal martial arts skill it would have taken to have defeated your foes, yourself ...

Britain's Ministry of Defense unveiled a robot hand that could defuse bombs and a luminous goo that flows around soldiers’ moving bodies but hardens to protect them if they are hit and a uniform that conducts electricity. The innovations were among the first fruits of the initiative that aims to harness scientific innovation for rapid use on the battlefield.   They are being funded by grants from the MoD's Center for Defense Enterprise, which encourages private companies to bring their products straight to the government for development. Officials say that 15 in every 100 applications are tested and about two are then developed.  But, the event held in Oxford on Friday looked more like a convention for dreadlocked and ponytailed Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts than a Ministry of Defence event.

King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer on Friday ruled in favor of the Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Washington Arms Collectors, National Rifle Association and five individual plaintiffs, declaring the city of Seattle's gun ban at public places is in direct violation of Washington state's firearm pre-emption law.

Gotta love it ...

MANILA, Phlippines -- A landmine planted by communist insurgents prematurely detonated in Masbate on Friday morning foiling a CPP/NPA plan to ambush government security forces in the province. Nobody was hurt in the explosion that was caused by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) packed in a tin can with 5-inch nails to enhance fragmentation. Investigators believe the landmine was rigged by local NPA insurgents to ambush government troops when it accidentally exploded.

PUNE / NEW DELHI: In the first major terror strike since the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, at least nine people, including a foreigner, were killed and 32 injured when a bomb ripped through the landmark German Bakery in Pune's upscale Koregaon Park Saturday evening. The blast occurred around 7.30 p.m. after a waiter at the bakery-cum-restaurant, a popular haunt of foreigners, noticed an unattended bag lying in the premises. It exploded when he attempted to open the bag, union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told reporters in New Delhi."According to information received from the state police and Intelligence Bureau, a bomb/explosive occurred at the German Bakery around 7.30 p.m.," Pillai said, adding that eight people, including a foreigner were killed and 32 were injured. A foreigner was also among the injured.

Cisco IronPort Encryption Appliance devices contain two vulnerabilities that allow remote, unauthenticated access to any file on the device and one vulnerability that allows remote, unauthenticated users to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges. There are workarounds available to mitigate these vulnerabilities. Cisco has released free software updates that address these vulnerabilities.

Terrorism isn’t just bombs and guns… it’s increasingly virtual, as computer networks around the world get more sophisticated. Movies are starting to recognize this: consider Live Free or Die Hard’s “Fire Sale,” which eschewed the series’ usual brand of terrorism for digital havok. And the US Government seems to recognize it too: next week, they are opening their doors to the public to see just how well the government does responding to a full-fledged attack of cyber terrorism. The simulation — dubbed Cyber ShockWave — will include top intelligence and security officials, bringing them together in a simulacrum of the “White House situation room” to respond to a complicated cyber terrorism attack of which none of the key players will have any previous knowledge.

Hmmm ...

I’d urge anyone who has already recovered from a BSoD or infinite reboot loop after installing this week’s patches to scan their systems with several different security tools, as the rootkit buried in atapi.sys is likely just there to hide the presence of a larger, more systemic malware infection. Restoring from a known-good backup would be ideal, however most home users sadly do not have backup images to rely upon.

I have found that the root cause is an infection of %System32\drivers\atapi.sys, and that replacing this file with a clean version will get the system booting normally.

Instructions included ...

Wow. Had Flint actually shot the gun, he would presumably have been entitled to have the jury consider his defense-of-others defense. (Such a defense would generally be roughly similar to a self-defense defense, and use of deadly force is generally allowed in self-defense against sufficiently serious threats.) But because Flint merely brandished the gun, he’s a felon — even if he reasonably believed that brandishing the gun was necessary to save his fiancee’s life. That is simply absurd.

Police in Florida said a 73-year-old man managed to rob three banks before he was arrested on a tip resulting from surveillance video. Tampa police said James Bruce, 73, who walks with a slow shuffle, robbed a Bank of America Jan. 15, a SunTrust bank Feb. 1 and a second Bank of America Feb. 10, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported Friday. Each time, police said the unarmed Bruce handed a teller a note asking for $600.

Even before the new security measures were announced, Kevin Desmond, general manager for King County Metro Transit, said he was discussing contract changes with Olympic Security that would allow its guards to act beyond its current orders to only "observe and report" illegal activity. The enhanced security measure was sparked by the release of a surveillance video showing a teenage girl kicking, punching and stomping on a 15-year-old girl Jan. 28 on the Westlake Station tunnel platform while unarmed security guards watched. It was "not only troubling but unacceptable to see images of uniformed security officers standing by and taking no action while someone is being beaten and robbed," McGinn said in a statement Thursday.

Restrictions on action like this are typically the result of the jurisdictions Risk Mgnt. trying to avoid litigation from what it sees as unskilled labor or the police union trying to prevent job loss to what it sees as skilled labor.

The military contingent alone will require nearly twice the 2,500 soldiers Canada has in Afghanistan. Police and contract security agents must screen up to 1.6 million ticket holders and protect 5,500 athletes and officials -- while preparing for domestic protesters, who a year ago announced preparations for "Riot 2010." Vancouver's location just 30 miles from the U.S. border could elevate the threat of a terrorist attack, analysts said. U.S. authorities this week began fully staffing a $4.5-million, multi-agency Olympics Coordination Center in nearby Bellingham, Wash. The North American Aerospace Defense Command is providing air and marine surveillance on both sides of the border, while Canadian CF-18 Hornets are prepared to intercept any unauthorized aircraft that might penetrate the tightly restricted airspace around the main Olympic sites in Vancouver and Whistler, located 62 miles away along a twisting mountain highway.

George, a senior at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., missed his Aug. 29 flight back to school—although he said his checked luggage made it onboard."If I had been a terrorist, I would have been the luckiest terrorist around, because my bag would have blown up and I would have been sitting in a jail cell," George told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from school Wednesday.

He makes a very good point ...

A British jury cleared a father who used a samurai sword to defend his family against intruders who broke into his home, court documents show. David Fullard, 47, was prosecuted at Hull Crown Court for nearly cutting an ear off one of two men who barged their way into Fullard's home last March, ultimately being found not guilty of unlawful wounding, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

Hopefully, this signals a much-needed shift in British attitudes about self-defense ...

With the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics days away, the World Sikh Organization of Canada is urging Sikh spectators to review the policy that permits the wearing of the kirpan, a religious dagger, into all venues.  “As the Olympics get closer, people get more and more excited, so I wanted to refresh the community of the policy,” WSO Canada President Prem Singh Vinning said on Wednesday.  He said while most Sikhs seem to know the provision exists, it’s important they read and follow the guidelines closely in order to minimize the security issues that could arise.

An eight-year Mesa police veteran faces an internal investigation and criminal charges after a store video apparently showed him concealing an item and leaving a store without paying for it while off duty last week. Officer Mark Cormier, who works in the department's Homeland Security Office, is accused of shoplifting an item worth less than $15 from the Sportsman's Warehouse at Greenfield and Baseline roads, said Sgt. Ed Wessing, a department spokesman.

Now Halavonich has filed a civil lawsuit in Aiken County claiming employees at the Hotel Aiken and 100 Laurens bars in Aiken allowed her to be drugged and altered evidence. And, she claims, ADPS intentionally mishandled her case, causing her permanent and serious injuries. Halavonich's lawsuit demands $1 million plus punitive damages and court costs. Staff at the upscale downtown bars where the board-certified forensic psychiatrist was socializing were negligent as "she was drugged by another customer in full view of the bartender and security cameras," she claims. The suit also states staff altered surveillance video "which removes those portions depicting (her alleged attacker) placing an unknown drug into Plaintiff's drink."

Train vs. Bus video ...

Orange County sheriff's officials say the "Blue Note Bandit" has struck a 15th time, this time at a bank in Laguna Niguel. Authorities say the robber, who earned his nickname because he gives blue notes to tellers, demanded money Tuesday from a teller at a Home Savings of America branch. FBI agents say he has robbed 15 banks in Southern California since late November. It's not clear how much money he has taken.

Richard's Second Law of Security: It's cheaper to be invisible than it is to be invincible ...

In a memorandum explaining the order, Lane wrote, "By direction of the Nevada Supreme Court, we are improving safety and security in the courthouse. There have been examples across the nation of violence occurring in the courthouse by people using weapons brought in by courthouse staff. To improve courthouse security, no one is allowed to possess or bring a weapon into the courthouse..." Law enforcement personnel, bailiffs, district attorney's investigators, juvenile and adult Parole & Probation Department personnel, state prison officers and other staff assigned to guard prisoners are not covered by the new rule. Their weapons must be carried or properly secured. For anyone desiring to carry a banned item into the courthouse, any trial judge in his own courthouse is allowed to grant permission to a person to have a weapon. A request form must be completed for review by the appropriate judge, who must then approve or deny the request in writing.

Pushing our way past the people intent on doing nothing but laying blame and playing armchair quarterback, we come to the bottom line conclusion that, "Yes, more could have been done." In other articles we'll get to the ideas that could have been put to good use by federal, state and municipal organizations, but for now, let's look at the most important part of a comprehensive emergency readiness plan, and that is the preparedness levels of individuals and families. We find that the biggest obstacle to improved comprehensive family emergency readiness education are the misconceptions surrounding the true nature of preparedness. So, to set the stage for better education, and ultimately better public safety, let's take a look at some of these myths and set the record straight.

There are lots of people out there who have data on their computer that they don’t want unauthorized people accessing. Whatever you need to keep safe from your collection of 80’s music to personal information like medical records encryption is the way to go. Onix International has announced that the latest EncryptStick Version 4.1 flash drive is now available.

The ministry was responding to a United Daily News report that quoted unidentified military sources as saying the day before that Taiwan has substantively dropped its plan to purchase submarines from the United States, a move the sources said would intangibly help mend a rift in U.S.-China relations. The ministry insisted, however, that the report is not true. Stressing that submarines are indispensible to realize a strategy of "resolute defense and effective deterrence, " the military has for years put submarines on its priority procurement list, the statement said.

It was also revealed yesterday that the federal government is demanding $5 million in compensation from the Australian Submarine Corporation over defects that have kept HMAS Collins incapacitated. Under the contract with the government, which is worth $170 million a year to the corporation, that is the maximum compensation payable, a senate estimates committee heard.

The country's sole submarine, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman, suffered a technical defect that prevented it from diving for three months. The problem was fixed last week. The defect forced the RM1 billion plus French-built Scorpene submarine to delay tropical water trials that were scheduled to be completed by the end of January.

In late autumn 1974, the Irish Republican Army began a bombing campaign in England. In October bombs exploded in two pubs in Guildford, killing 5 people and injuring 65 others. Some six weeks later two more bombs exploded in pubs in Birmingham. Twenty one people were killed and nearly two hundred were injured. Few would disagree that all the incidents were acts of terror. Following the Birmingham bombings, the British Government rushed through Parliament the Prevention of Terrorism Act, providing new powers to the police, port officials and the Secretary of State, and radically curtailing people’s civil liberties. Four people were subsequently convicted for the Guildford bombings and six people for the Birmingham bombings. All had been interrogated and abused over many days before they signed confessions. After spending 14 and 16 years respectively in prison for crimes they did not commit, with their lives ruined, the convictions against them were quashed and they were all released. These ten people had experienced terror at the hands of the police, followed by the terror of wrongful conviction and imprisonment. The boundary line between the prevention of terrorism and the terror of prevention had become blurred, illustrating only too well the difficulties of trying to answer the question: what is terrorism?

Very interesting analysis ...

Tarnovsky used a highly detailed (and time consuming) process of analyzing the Infineon SLE 66 CL PE chip using an electron microscope to identity the core of the chip and create a “bridge map” that enabled him to bypass the chip’s integrated tamper-prevention measures using tiny needles to tap the system’s data bus. This was after soaking the chips in acids and rust removers to remove the chip’s shells and delicate mesh wiring. The process took Tarnovsky about nine months, but once it was done he had access to not only any data on the computer, but to critical information that could be used to create counterfeit chips.

Piece of cake ... uhhh ... really complicated cake, that is ...

"The events surrounding this incident are troubling, and the video images distressing," Metro Transit General Manager Kevin Desmond said in a news release Tuesday. "The county executive has ordered us to work with the Sheriff's Office to review the circumstances surrounding this incident and seek advice from other security experts to determine whether we need to change our security protocols." The guards, who work for Olympic Security Services, provide security throughout the transit system. According to the contract with Metro, guards with Olympic Security Services are instructed not to intervene when witnessing suspicious behavior or criminal activity, but to "observe and report" and radio the Metro Transit Control Center, which relays requests for assistance to the appropriate law-enforcement agencies.

What's the opposite of 'security service' ...?

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to disqualify a mayoralty candidate in a Masbate town. Chief Superintendent Perfecto Palad, commander of the PNP Directorate for Integrated Police Operations in Southern Luzon, claimed that Ricardo Bulanon, who is running for mayor in San Pascual town, was not only implicated in some irregularities as provincial jail warden of Masbate but also for violating the nationwide election gun ban. Bulanon, it was recalled, was collared in a checkpoint with a provincial jail guard in Barangay Tugbo, Masbate City during the first day of implementation of gun ban on January 10 after they yielded handguns. “There is a reasonable ground for disqualification of the above-mentioned subject candidate (Bulanon) for the violation of RA (Republic Act 8294 (Illegal Possession of Firearms),” said Palad, citing a clarification made by the regional director of Comelec in Calabarzon area.

I suspect that there will be a lot of this between now and the elections in May ...

Raipur, Feb 9 (IANS) Two special police officers (SPOs) were injured Tuesday in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district when Maoist insurgents ambushed a contingent of some 300 policemen, officials said. The incident took place in the early hours Tuesday in Gorkha village in the state’s restive Bastar region when a team of District Force and SPOs was on its way to Gachanpalli village to find 12 missing persons on the order of the Supreme Court, officials here at police headquarters told IANS. The police contingent that left for the thickly forested village from Injeram base camp, some 500 km south from state capital Raipur, after 10 p.m. Monday came under Maoists attack at about 5 a.m. Tuesday when it had reached Gorkha village. 

I don't think they're using the word 'police' very much like we do ...

Additionally:

A 300-man Chhattisgarh Police party, dispatched to find 12 “missing” persons in order to produce them before the Supreme Court by February 15, was ambushed by the Naxalites early on Tuesday and had to make a tactical retreat. Special Police Officer (SPO) Hari Ram, who was acting as the police party’s guide, lost both his legs in a landmine explosion while another policeman sustained injuries. Hearing a petition filed by Himanshu Kumar of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, the Supreme Court, on February 8, had ordered the Chhattisgarh government to produce before it 12 persons alleged to have gone missing after having filed petitions seeking a CBI probe into the deaths of 12 persons in an anti-Naxal operation in Dantewada district. The apex court had given the state government time till February 15 to produce the 12 petitioners.

I guess that makes a little more sense ...

The malware toolkit behind the Zeus botnet has become one of the most successful iterations of such a package yet discovered, but that doesn't mean that competitors aren't always on the rise. According to researchers at Symantec, the newer, more expensive SpyEye botnet kit is starting to grow in popularity as attackers seek out a new platform for more easily and effectively building their zombie armies. While recognizing that the Zeus bot kit is still "the most established" crimeware kit on the underground economy, SpyEye, which was first observed in Dec. 2009 and retails for roughly $500 on many Russian underground forums, appears to be gaining a bigger audience, said Symantec expert Peter Coogan in a recent blog post. SpyEye remains nascent and is not yet widely in use, but it has all the hallmarks of an attack that could become a much bigger fish in relatively short order, he said.

That's nice ...

A cool Cassini pic ... click for full size ...

The Axis Q1910 and Q1910-E Thermal Network Cameras use thermal imaging to detect people and incidents with greater reliability than standard video cameras in conditions that include darkness, haze, dust, and smoke. The first camera is designed for indoor surveillance; the second for outdoor use. Thermal cameras create images based on the heat that radiates from any object, vehicle, or person. "We see a great demand from customers in high-end professional applications to enhance their IP surveillance systems with thermal network cameras," said Fredrik Nilsson, general manager of the company. "Up until now, there have been no full-featured thermal network cameras available on the market, and analog thermal cameras are expensive and have proven a challenge to integrate with modern video surveillance systems. The Axis Q1910 and Q1910-E change this by being the first security and surveillance thermal cameras that mesh perfectly with any network video system...." Both cameras provide 160 x128 resolution, 8.33 frames per second, and a 17-degree angle of view. They support H.264 and Motion JPEG, audio, local storage, and Power over Ethernet. The Q1910 and Q1910-E are priced at $2,999 and $3,499, respectively.

Kinda pricey but ...

Netbook users worried about storing sensitive data on their portables are being offered the world's first whole-disk encryption that will run useably on Intel's Atom processor. According to UK distributor, Security IP, C4KNetbook from Spanish company Secuware has been written from the ground up to enable transparent hard disk encryption on a class of processor not normally thought to be capable of handling its demands. Despite its single core, low clock speeds, and more limited instruction pipelining, the Atom chip does have some hidden features that belie its image as a basic part. On more recent versions of the Atom this will include hyperthreading, a feature missing on many apparently more powerful Intel chips.

Defense officials on the island that has fallen behind in the military balance of power with China had agreed with Washington in 2008 to a study on upgrading Taiwan's aging submarine fleet but will stop pushing the item to keep peace with Beijing, said a source close to the Defense ministry in Taipei. "Taiwan isn't asking for the submarines anymore," the source told Reuters. "The biggest consideration was the warming of relations with mainland China." Defense officials on the island that has fallen behind in the military balance of power with China had agreed with Washington in 2008 to a study on upgrading Taiwan's aging submarine fleet but will stop pushing the item to keep peace with Beijing, said a source close to the Defense ministry in Taipei. China has blasted the United States over a planned $6.4-billion arms package for Taiwan, saying it would place sanctions on U.S. firms that sell weapons to the island.

The submarine, named St. Nicholas, is being built at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk in northern Russia, RIA Novosti reported Monday. The 580-foot long submarine will be operated by a crew of 107 and is designed to carry as many as 16 Bulava missiles along with torpedoes, the news agency said. Capable of a maximum depth of almost 1,500 feet and an underwater speed of 29 knots, the sub is expected to cost more than $700 million to build.

Hmmm ...

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik reiterated the State Government’s tough approach towards the Maoists by announcing that there is no question of talks with the ultras till they give up arms. This is for the second time in 10 days that Naveen has ruled out talks with the ultras. Agreeing with the call given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that doors for talks with the ultras are open if they surrendered arms and stopped violence, Naveen said that there cannot be any dialogue with them till they did so.

I guess it's worth a try ... they can't be too bright if they're maoists ...

Vitamin D, the start-up founded by three former Palm executives, said on Monday that it is ready with the final Version 1.0 of its software for Windows and Mac, which enables people to use a standard Webcam as a security system. The company, which caught some interesting things on tape during beta testing, said that the single camera version of its software will continue to be free, as it was during beta testing. A version of Vitamin D Video that works with two cameras will cost $49, while a high-end edition that supports an unlimited number of cameras running off a single computer will cost $199. The software works on both Macs and PCs and has as its biggest selling point the fact that it can pick out humans as opposed to just motion, allowing users to more easily pore over hours upon hours of surveillance footage. 

Hmmm ... may have to take the single-camera version for a test-drive ...

In less than three months, a man known, only by a nickname that was given by law enforcement, has robbed at least 14 Orange County banks, authorities said. The first three robberies attributed to the suspect, done in early December, were done in consecutive days. Since then, a $20,000 reward has been issued for information leading up to the arrest of the man, described as a 6-foot Caucasian man of average build. He is believed to be about 180 pounds. He has brown hair and was described by some witnesses as having crooked, gapped teeth. Authorities dubbed the robber "The Blue Note Bandit" after he used a blue sheet of paper as a demand note. In more than a dozen robberies, he has seldom strayed from his repetitive mode of operation, Amormino said.

He must be keeping his mouth shut ... always a good policy for your security operation, but one the bad guys seldom see fit to adopt ...

Members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) were ambushed by suspected communist rebels along the national highway at Brgy. Bading, Uson town in Masbate on Sunday afternoon, the military reported Monday. Major Harold Cabunoc, spokesperson of the 9th Infantry Division, said that the PNP personnel were on board a Toyota Hilux police vehicle with plate number SHS 687 when they were attacked with improvised explosive devices. The explosion injured PO1 Ronnel Rodriguez, who was hit by shrapnel debris on his left leg, and PO1 Michael Sauro who slightly injured his eyes due to the blast.

Also:

At least 10 private armed groups have been dismantled across the country since the government launched a crackdown on such organizations following the Nov. 23 massacre in Maguindanao province, police said on Monday. Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina, spokesman of Philippine National Police (PNP), said most of the disbanded groups came from Region IV-A, which is composed of the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon. Espina attributed the neutralization of the private armed groups to more aggressive police operations and to the installation of more checkpoints nationwide to enforce a nationwide gun-ban in preparation for the May 10 elections.

I wonder if any of this will go away after the election ...?

“This is a horizontal cave and is much bigger than the Japanese discovery,” he said referring to the recent findings by a Japanese spacecraft, Kaguya. This spacecraft had discovered a tunnel which was 65 m wide and 80 m deep in the volcanic Marius hill range on the lunar surface. “This finding would go a long way in India’s quest to set up a permanent base on the Moon. Such wide tunnels could sustain underground lunar outposts, while the ceilings could help protect astronauts from space radiation, meteoroid impacts and wild temperature fluctuations (up 300 degree centrigrade) that is commonplace on the lunar surface,” Mr Arya explained. 

Interesting ...

Deep inside millions of computers is a digital Fort Knox, a special chip with the locks to highly guarded secrets, including classified government reports and confidential business plans. Now a former U.S. Army computer-security specialist has devised a way to break those locks. The attack can force heavily secured computers to spill documents that likely were presumed to be safe. This discovery shows one way that spies and other richly financed attackers can acquire military and trade secrets, and comes as worries about state-sponsored computer espionage intensify, underscored by recent hacking attacks on Google Inc.

Encryption developers probably shouldn't look forward to resting on their laurels anytime soon ...

“He put his hand out as if asking someone to help but not one came,” the Welshman said. “There was definitely less movement after I dropped them. “The Taliban are used to machine guns but as soon as you get a sniper on the ground, it puts the fear of God into them.” While Fusilier Williams was happy to avenge his friend, it was not without cost. “Night-time is the worst time because you cannot get the images out of your head, especially what happened to the young lad I hit in the throat,” he said.

The worst case of terrorism during the Olympics was at the Munich Games in 1972, when Palestinians killed 11 Israeli athletes. Hosting the Summer Olympics for the first time since 1936, many hoped the Games could help heal racial wounds left by Adolf Hitler. However, the friendship and spirit generally felt at the Olympics was shattered on the morning of September 5th when eight Arab terrorists stormed into the Olympic village raiding a building that housed the Israeli contingent. Two Israelis were killed as the terrorists broke into the athletes' rooms and nine more were taken as hostages. The terrorists demanded the release of more than 200 Palestinians serving time in Israeli jails. After unsuccessful negotiations, the terrorists took the hostages to a military airport in Munich to fly back to the Middle East. While at the airport German sharpshooters opened fire killing three of the Palestinians. During a gun battle all nine hostages, one policeman and two terrorists were killed. After a day of mourning it was determined the Games should go on with flags flying at half-staff. 

I remember watching this in real-time, or as close to it as you could get before the invention of the 24-hour news cycle ...

Romania's recent decision to allow U.S. missile interceptors on its territory was welcomed by Washington, but understandably raised suspicion in Moscow. Russia was concerned about the U.S. missle shield plan and asked for an explanation from the U.S. side, said the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement issued Friday. Analysts say the Romanian decision came at a crucial moment when Washington and Moscow are about to sign a successor document to the expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1). 

Hmmm ...

"The race to the Moon is one the United States has already won," says John M. Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute, professor at George Washington University, and a key NASA advisor. "The stated target for Russia to send people to the Moon is 2025 and for China there is no formal target, but 2030 is a reasonable estimate. The United States can, and probably will, be back to the moon before then. Much more likely is a global cooperative effort to explore space beyond low-Earth orbit."

Maybe ... it concerns me that with four decades of REALLY INTENSE technological improvement since the first trip that they think it will take twice as long to get ready to go now as it did the first time ... there ought to be a Boy Scout merit badge for building a do-it-yourself moonshot by now ...

You don't have to sacrifice your looks to protect yourself. Let me tell you about how I protect myself. First and foremost, I carry a gun and a knife with me at all times, and I have taken self-defense classes. I keep myself in shape in case I need to run or fight. I'm extremely vigilant when I go out, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. I keep myself free of distractions while in public, like cell phones and iPods. I wear sensible footwear and sensible clothing. By "sensible clothing", I mean nothing flashy, expensive, or provocative. I can easily blend into a crowd. Notice how nowhere in the above paragraph did I mention gaining weight, wearing baggy clothing, or generally looking like a hag. If you want to do that stuff, go right ahead, but please don't fall into the trap of believing that you NEED to take those measures in order to be safe. You don't.

Argentina has gone through some fairly rough times in the last decade or so, so they are generally worth listening to on the subject of security ...

In these days of high vulnerability of cyber space and the amazing ingenuity of cyber crooks, the first test that any new gadget has to pass is one of security. No gadget or software can be 100 per cent secure. Still, there should not be any gaping holes that can be exploited for committing crime or to settle personal scores between its user and the intruder. Admittedly, like the iPhone, the iPad has only limited security options. While no major flaw in its structure has yet been reported, it has some weak features that should be kept in mind by prospective buyers. First, if stolen, it has no feature like the one in the iPhone that would permit the Administrator to lock it from an unauthorised possessor. The belief, however, is such a facility will be introduced once iPad use becomes widespread. Next comes the issue of encryption, which is one sure way of protecting data that has fallen into wrong hands from being compromised. The first reports are that iPad has the same encryption structure as the iPhone. At least one expert, Daniel Hoffman, CTO of SMobiles, is of the view that iPhone encryption is “worthless” and can be easily bypassed. If this were so, there are grounds to be anxious about iPad security. Also, the OS employed by both the gadgets allows only one-third of applications to run on the device at any point of time. It is therefore unlikely that any major security upgrade to run in the background is feasible at all. One major concern is ‘jailbreaking', an action by the user, after hacking the device, to install software not sold through Apple Store. And we must remember that jailbroken iPhones had recently undergone any number of malware attacks. One is, therefore, anxious that a similar fate should not befall the iPad.

Hard-drive vendors are now building self-encrypted drives (SEDs) to adhere to the OPAL standard defined by the Trusted Computing Group. OPAL hard drives eliminate data breaches as a result of stolen or lost PCs, by ensuring that every byte of data on the hard drive is encrypted using the hard drive's internal electronics. Softex's SecureDrive product allows for easy set up and configuration of the encryption and access rights and allows for multiple authentications mechanisms such as fingerprint, smart card, RFID cards and TPM passphrase. SecureDrive also allows administrators to remotely perform a secure erase of the data from the drive to simplify PC end of life processing. Seamless integration with the new Intel vPro Technology Remote Encryption SDK allows for PC's (powered on or off) to be remotely unlocked by the I/T administrator to perform management tasks such as software installation and patch management.

As Israel keeps threatening the regional countries with war, Egyptian maritime sources say the Israeli navy has deployed two missile ships to the Persian Gulf. Citing the sources, Yediot Ahronot reported Saturday that two Israeli missile ships passed through the Suez Canal en route to the Red Sea on Thursday morning. 

If I were the Israelis and I knew Iran was planning to do something 'impressive' for February 11, I would be positioning to re-supply the sub(s) I had laying in the deep water off of Muscat ready to punish any foolishness ...

First, if it is possible, begin packing at least two to three days in advance. At least try to have all important items packed a day in advance. Nothing is more stressful than packing the day you are leaving for an exotic vacation and you leave your digital camera. Second, since Cobb County is approximately a 30-40 minute drive, depending on which area of Cobb you are coming from; adding another 15-20 minutes onto your commute will assure that you arrive at the airport with plenty of time to check-in, maneuver through security, and catch the monorail to your perspective gate. In addition to, avoiding any potential traffic delays, that could hinder your arrival time to the airport. Finally, wear comfortable clothes in case you are patted-down, hopefully you won't feel that the pat-down is too intrusive, if you are wearing clothing that you can feel relaxed in.

And don't forget to vote anti-incumbent until you get good security that doesn't make you feel like a criminal suspect ...

Three days before the official start of the campaign period for national candidates, the number of violators of the nationwide gun ban imposed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last month continues to rise, police records show. Based on official government records as of Saturday, a total of 678 gun ban violators have been caught by authorities since the prohibition on guns and other explosives took effect on January 9. Of this number, 573 are civilians, 48 are policemen, 30 are government employees and 27 are soldiers. A total of 555 firearms – 248 of which are high-powered weapons, have already been confiscated since the gun ban took effect, police records show. Also seized were 118 bladed weapons and 761 replica firearms.

Every day this sounds more and more like a purge ...

Darth Vader's uniform is among roughly 80 props and related objects from the six "Star Wars" films included in the traveling exhibit that opens at the museum Wednesday and runs through April 25. "Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination" originated at Boston's Museum of Science in 2005 and is presented by the Bose Corp. In addition to the props, video footage and a number of related classes, talks and special children's programs, the exhibit comes with a number of ultra-cool hands-on exhibits.

I hope they make it to Vegas ...

“Because of the sensitive nature of the data, the hard drives are fully encrypted with TrueCrypt. Our coaches must use their YubiKey with a static password and an additional string to unlock the computers to allow the OS to boot,” says Matthew G. Hile, Research Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Missouri Institute of Mental Health. “We expect to serve at least 80,000 Missourians with this system in the next few years.”

Can you mention this to some of your associates in other jurisdictions ...?

On August 1, 1966, a student named Charles Whitman climbed the bell tower at The University of Texas at Austin and began shooting students, faculty and staff. Whitman killed 14 people and wounded 32 others before he was shot and killed by officers from the Austin Police Department. This was the deadliest university shooting in history until the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, where 32 people were killed. The difference that day in Austin was the presence of armed civilians nearby that were able to respond when Charles Whitman began brutally killing anyone that he saw. Using their weapons, regular civilians began returning fire to Whitman's position. Using the suppressive fire from the civilians as cover and a distraction, three officers and a civilian armed with his personal firearm were able to enter the bell tower and kill Whitman before he killed any more innocent people.

Hmmm ... I never heard this version ...

There are five features of comparison in the CPR Corollary which make it identical to Concealed Carry of Handguns or vice-versa. This is feature #6, the idea that both should strive for a goal of public education and intervention as optimal safety for person and community when in the absence of first responders. The main idea is that it is a one-sided issue, and that there is no room for opposing views. After all, who could be for the criminal? It would be like letting somebody die for lack of CPR. Anti-gun means anti-liberty and pro-crime by interfering with and discouraging self-defense. Gun control abandons the people by letting them die. After all, gun control activists do not have to live with the consequences of your taking their advice.

Interesting analogy ...