More recent desktop computers are powerful enough to drive, and in some cases enhance harder-to-crack encryption algorithms such as AES, enabling the option of running encrypted devices as standard. This takes away the need to worry about whether or not a certain piece of data should be encrypted, and indeed it removes the risk of forgetting. But full-disk encryption brings with it another challenge, that of key management. For an individual user installing their own software it’s not such an issue – you set up your own password and keep tabs on it in the normal way (hopefully not by writing it on a post-it and sticking it on the wall). Meanwhile, for a company, keys need to be managed at a central point. While tools exist for this, someone needs to maintain them and respond to user requests when keys are forgotten.

A veteran FBI official drew on 30 years of experience with the bureau to talk to local police about managing an "unstructured" crisis — one like the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, where coordinated shooting and bombing incidents took place across the city formely known as Bombay. While a similar incident has not taken place in the United States, the speaker, Danny Coulson, a retired deputy assistant director for the FBI, spoke at the annual Mid-Hudson Association Chiefs of Police Command Development Training Seminar last week about preparing patrol-level officers to handle such an attack. Coulson emphasized the importance of patrol and school resource officers because they are usually the first law enforcement officials to respond to a crisis. SWAT teams often don't get there until a while later, when it could be too late, he said."The SWAT is not the answer, it's an answer," he said.

Last November, researchers with the Clemson Conservation Center, North Charleston, S.C., held a video conference with Hamburg Area students. The center is restoring the H.L. Hunley, a Confederate submarine that sank Feb. 17, 1864. No one knows why the submarine sank. That's where the students come in. Two witnesses - a Union sailor aboard the ship that the Hunley sank and a Confederate soldier waiting on shore - reported seeing a blue light in the waters. It is speculated the Hunley's lantern cast that light, so the researchers have asked the students to recreate and test a working lantern replica. "We had a bunch of kids who said, 'Wow, I get it. We're not just playing around. This is the real deal,' " Principal Chris Spohn said. "They were intrigued by that."

More than 2,000 have been arrested for violating the gun ban imposed by the Commission on Elections as the campaign period nears the homestretch. Radio dzXL on Monday cited figures from the Philippine National Police (PNP) showing that 2,053 people had been arrested since January 10.

Hmmm ... never seems to be any data on what statistical effect its had on election violence ...

A wide scale operation was launched to catch the assailants after the attack, said Güzeloğlu. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the attack with a message. Erdoğan said, "such malicious attacks targeting Turkey's peace, unity and solidarity can never reach their aims. The damned mentality behind these attacks which hope to benefit from terror, is bound to fail thanks to the common sense, nonchalance of our nation and determination of our state."

As is so often the case, it depends on what their aims are ...

I have just been in a shoot-out with a gang of Bangkok’s red shirts... and lived. Well, they were only shooting water-pistols, and it was in a long-running and hilarious water fight – a modern twist on a traditional element of Songkran, the Thai New Year festival, which typically sees Bangkok descend into a city-wide water war.

Sounds like fun ...

Raipur: The much-criticised public distribution system is the only fledgling Government scheme which seems to have escaped the 'red terror' in the dense forests of Bastar region where Naxal writ runs large.

A second Navy anti-submarine helicopter went down in the West Sea, Saturday, less than a week after another Lynx chopper crashed in the same sea, leaving one dead and three others missing. All three crew members of the second Lynx were rescued after it made an emergency landing at around 10:13 p.m. in waters off the west coast. The British-made helicopter was on its way back to its 4,500-ton destroyer ``mother-ship'' after a patrol mission that involved identifying a mysterious object, which Navy officials said was found to have been a flock of birds.

He demanded an end to what he called the United States' "blind support" for Israel, which he said has 200 atomic warheads but has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Ahmadinejad also called for veto power for all members of the United Nations, a right now accorded only to the five permanent members of the Security Council. Talks on nuclear disarmament should henceforth be controlled by states that do not have atomic weapons, Ahmadinejad said, adding, "The involvement of the government of America will prevent any new treaty from being fair."

... or from favoring a wannabe despot like you ...

Thai watch

Two bungled operations against “Red Shirt” protesters in less than a week may point to a split in Thailand’s military that has stymied Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government, analysts say. The failed actions — an attempted crackdown last weekend, which killed at least 18 civilians and five soldiers, and a botched arrest of Red leaders Friday — came after the administration vowed to instill order in the capital. “This puts the government in a very difficult position. They can never really be sure that their orders will truly be implemented,” said Michael Nelson, of Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

The recent coup in Kyrgyzstan came on the heels of the completion of the Asia Gas Pipeline in December 2009, a project that is unprecedented in scale and extent of collaboration among regional powers. The coup is still causing reverberations throughout Central Asia -- a region increasingly dependent upon uninterrupted energy transit routes to China, Russia, and the West. Though it has no oil or natural gas, the now deposed President Bakiyev would have done well to leverage Kyrgyzstan’s strategic location to frame itself as a critically important transit route between oil-rich Kazakhstan and gas-rich Uzbekistan and their fastest growing customer- China.

"He's one of the most determined focused men I've ever met," Bellavance said of Fournier. "He's had some very bad luck, but I have no doubt that if anyone can break the record, Michel can." Bellavance can't help but recall the last time Fournier tried the feat. An explosive bolt release connecting Fournier's capsule to the giant $100,000-plus balloon fired prematurely, leaving the crestfallen parachutist on the tarmac, his balloon floating away without him. The errant balloon was eventually found wrecked, about 25 kilometres away from the launch site.

Naxal watch

I am more convinced than ever after Dantewada that focusing on security issues to the exclusion of all other relevant factors is a one-eyed policy.Nothing will succeed against the Maoists unless we open up our second eye.I organised Rajiv Gandhi's many tours to the peripheries of India.It is ironic that his very first tour was to the Dantewada area,further south towards Konta,which has now become inaccessible.Through those years,I saw the way in which he interacted with tribals and learned what their grievances were and how to resolve them.

Just what the baddies need ... a Gandhi all up in their grill ...

Also ...

...There has been a grave tragedy and I did not lose my nerve, I did not lose my will. I have no fear. I do not fear the Naxalites. But if a horrible tragedy took place, I think, it is the moral responsibility of the minister to tender his resignation. And therefore, I tendered my resignation. ...The prime minister and the UPA Chairperson have rejected my resignation...

 Furthermore ...

District administrations of Jagdalpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur and Kanker, all part of undivided Bastar which was once one of the largest districts in the country, have informed senior officials in Raipur that it will be difficult for them to carry out the census exercise — counting of people, collection of biometric data for preparation of the National Population Register — in many areas in view of the Naxal threat.

It’s even easier for someone to see what you’re chatting about if you are using IM at cyber café, work area or on an open network. Tools like MSN-sniffer can easily display MSN chat text for other users connected to the same network, and there are many others for different chat programs. Even if you are chatting from home, there is a chance that someone could be snooping on your chat sessions. Thankfully, it is pretty easy to protect your chats from prying eyes, keep reading to learn how.

If you hold personal information on a Massachusetts resident, you were on the hook as of March 1. The question for security groups is, How do we comply with the myriad state-mandated data security laws without putting an undue burden on the business? And comply you must, because CMR 17.00 raises the stakes in terms of potential penalties. The law will be enforced, quite literally, in the breach, and companies can potentially be fined $5,000 per violation and per record lost. One stolen laptop loaded with a database containing the names and Social Security numbers of 200 Massachusetts residents puts you in the hole for a cool million. The Massachusetts law isn't remarkable in its overall requirements, but it is special in two areas. First, it requires businesses to attest that they have a working data security program in place to protect any personally identifiable information (PII) they've collected from state residents. Companies must maintain a comprehensive written information security program (WISP) that includes "technical, administrative, and physical safeguards" to protect PII. Covered businesses range from neighborhood dry cleaners to Fortune 100 companies, but the law stipulates that the program be appropriate to the size and resources of the business.

With governor Jan Brewer’s signature on the new “Constitutional Carry” firearm law today, Arizona becomes a beacon state for the nation on the gun-rights issue. Arizonans, who have been free to carry firearms openly since statehood in 1912, will now be free to carry discreetly as well, without permits or red tape. Low-crime Vermont has had this freedom intact since Colonial days. The permit system remains in place but will no longer be required for discreet carry. Alaska enacted a Constitutional Carry law in 2003, and Texas passed a limited version for traveling in 2007. Montana has enjoyed this freedom since 1991 on 99.4% of its land (outside city limits). These states experienced no increase in crime or accidents from the expanded freedom to discreetly bear arms in public. However, numerous dire warnings of “blood in the streets” preceded those new laws, but proved false. A list of circulating myths about the law, also known as “Freedom To Carry,” appears at the end of this article.

The cut on the Sea-ME-We-4 submarine cable between Alexandria and Marseilles, could have an impact on broadband connections in India. Though the cable cut happened on Wednesday, telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, sent out a warning to subscribers, on Friday, that they may experience a drop in their broadband speeds. Indian operators, including Bharti Airtel and Tata Telecommunications, are part of the Sea-Me-We-4 under-sea cable consortium. So far only operators in the Western Asian region have felt any real impact of the cable cut. There are reports of disruption in services in Bangladesh also. A Bharti Airtel spokesperson said that the warning to subscribers have been sent as a measure of caution although there is no impact in India yet.

Pakistani authorities beat confessions out of some of the five northern Virginia men accused of planning terrorist acts in that country, the mother of one of the men said Friday. Amal Khalifa, mother of Ramy Zamzam, said her son looked gaunt when she briefly visited him in a Pakistan jail, where he was being held with four friends. "They wanted him to say he was there for terrorist reasons," Khalifa said in an interview with The Associated Press. She said she did not believe her son gave a confession, but that others did. The trial, in the Pakistani city of Sargoda, begins Saturday. Court proceedings have been closed to the press.

"The question is, at what point do you start giving legitimacy to groups who fund Hamas?" Souder said. He was referring to Baca's association with the Council On American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which says it does not support terrorism. Raising his voice and pointing his finger at the congressman, Baca exploded: "For you to associate me (with terrorism) somehow through some circuitous attack on CAIR is not only inappropriate, it is un-American." In an interview with Reuters afterward, Baca said the congressman was playing politics. "Souder doesn't have a solution for dealing with extremism in the United States," he said. "I have a solution. I have a vision. I have relationships with the Muslim community and am working to make that vision a reality."

It would be nice to have a little more detail on the solution ...

In a ruling issued Thursday, the court sided with Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a gun-rights group that sued CU and argued that a 1994 university policy banning concealed weapons from its campuses violates state gun laws. Attorneys for the group pointed to the Concealed Carry Act of 2003, a state law that prohibits local governments from adopting an ordinance to limit state concealed-carry rights. In Thursday's opinion, the judges wrote that the Concealed Carry Act applies to universities. The ruling revives a lawsuit that had been dismissed last spring by El Paso County District Judge G. David Miller, who said he found nothing in the state constitution that would stop CU from ordering a campus gun ban.

Within hours of arriving, I was undergoing agent skill training at the Carlisle Street headquarters of Quintessentially Secure, a privately owned global-security and bodyguard firm with offices in London, New York, Dubai, and Hong Kong. Launched two years ago as a member company of the private concierge club, Quintessentially, its founders are former British and American Army operatives, U.S. Secret Service agents, and emergency-rescue officers, including my contact, David, who wants his last name withheld for security reasons. When he and his team aren't busy running point on kidnapping cases or training diplomatic bodyguards and special forces, they have fun thinking up experiential packages for James Bond junkies and Jason Bourne wannabes.

Sounds like more fun than you can shake a stick at ...

The much-anticipated launch of an Indian rocket using home-grown engine technology has failed, with mission controllers losing control of the pioneering spacecraft minutes after launch. Thurday's launch of the GSLV-D3 rocket had made waves in the aeronautical community because it was the first time India was putting to test its own liquid cryogenic engine.

Unfortunate ...

"I expect to be around to see it," he said of pioneering U.S. trips starting with a landing on an asteroid — a colossal feat in itself — before the long-dreamed-of expedition to Mars. He spoke near the historic Kennedy Space Center launch pads that sent the first men to the moon, a blunt rejoinder to critics, including several former astronauts, who contend his planned changes will instead deal a staggering blow to the nation's manned space program. "We want to leap into the future," not continue on the same path as before, Obama said as he sought to reassure NASA workers that America's space adventures would soar on despite the impending termination of space shuttle flights.

Let's hope so ...

It should go without saying that if the company can get access to the plain text of the e-mails stored on its servers then somebody else can as well. Needless to say even if an online service proclaims they securely store your data and it can not be accessed that is not usually true. The only secure option is to encrypt the data while it’s still on your machine and then send it out. For instance I backup much of my data to an online store service. Before the data leaves my system it’s put into a TrueCrypt partition. Only I have the key to decrypt the partition so even if a government entity forced my storage provider to hand over my data there is no way for that provider nor the government to decrypt it (obviously I mean before I die, they could brute force the key but it would take practically a century and I doubt I’ll still be alive when they find out my encrypted partition contained nothing important nor incriminating).

Her comments brought an official complaint from a local activist under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 who claims the article was intended to drum up support for the Maoists. She can be held for several years without bail and jailed for two years if found to have violated the act.

Yeah, going after authors ought to improve security ...

William J. Lynn III, deputy secretary of defense, told National Space Symposium attendees here that the Defense Department will work closely with foreign governments to ensure that all space-faring nations obey the same procedures when operating satellites in orbit. A proliferation of nations that are in space means that there must be better coordination between nations to ensure that spacecraft do not collide with each other or with the growing amount of space debris.

" ... all space-faring nations ... " - What a cool ring that has to it!

E-mail encryption has been around almost as long as e-mail itself, but due to quirky installation and support requirements, the security technology hasn't been very popular with many enterprises. Fortunately, the current crop of e-mail encryption products and services includes options that are easy to deploy and use and that don't require a great deal of IT support to operate. One such easy-to-deploy option is Hushmail Business, an entirely hosted solution from longtime e-mail encryption player Hush Communications Canada. As a hosted service, the Hush offering carries no client-side installation requirements. However, the company does offer an Outlook plug-in that works with Exchange and automatically handles the authentication and exchange encryption keys—something that used to be a major support headache. On the server end, administrators need only configure a company e-mail domain with Hush to handle the encrypted e-mail traffic.

A single-user, free Hushmail account is a solution of beauty, too ... there is a link to the right ...

Now, however, a team of experimentalists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) , in partnership with European quantum information scientists, has demonstrated a method of producing a certifiably random string of numbers based on fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. They report their results in the 15 April 2010 issue of Nature.

Interesting ...

In 1968, the United States and Russia signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which committed them to eliminating their nuclear weapons "at an early date" - but 40 years later their combined stockpiles contain over 10,000 warheads. President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev have just signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which together with the 2010 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), lays out steps to reduce nuclear arsenals. But at the speed disarmament is moving, it will be decades before the weapons become history.

The only way they will ever become history is if some other tech advance makes them impotent ...

"The launch of the new Severodvinsk submarine has been delayed for technical reasons," the source said, adding that the sub would be floated out and pass sea trials later this year. Graney class nuclear submarines are designed to launch a variety of long-range cruise missiles (up to 3,100 miles or 5,000 km) with nuclear warheads, and effectively engage submarines, surface warships and land-based targets. The submarine's armament includes 24 cruise missiles, including the 3M51 Alfa SLCM, the SS-NX-26 Oniks SLCM or the SS-N-21 Granat/Sampson SLCM. It is also equipped with eight torpedo launchers, as well as mines and anti-ship missiles such as SS-N-16 Stallion.

Two Chinese submarines and eight destroyers were spotted by the Maritime Self-Defense Force on Saturday heading southeast between the main island of Okinawa and Miyako Island, Okinawa Prefecture, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Tuesday.

Casualism, a brand of hooliganism that originated in Britain in the 1980s, takes its name from the attire of its participants. These firms forsake the replica shirts and garb of the traditional hooligan in favour of brands such as Stone Island and Lacoste, allowing for easier penetration of opposing fans and nonhooligans (or ‘scarfers’). For this reason, they are potentially the most threatening. The subculture has experienced a massive revival over the past decade, with films Green Street and The Football Factory inadvertently serving to glorify the phenomenon. The model has spread across the continent, including France where further loss of life can be attributed to fan violence.

Hmmm ...

Chilling video captured by a security camera shows more than a dozen armed men carrying out a shooting spree in broad daylight that left eight people dead last month in Mexico's Chihuahua state. In the video obtained by CNN on Saturday, the men -- believed to be hit men for a drug cartel -- are seen opening fire with assault rifles into nearby vehicles and a housing complex.

It's pretty hard to tell what's going on in the video ... they don't seem to be awfully worried about the authorities showing up ...

The so-called Fedora bank robber has apparently hit for the fifth time in four months, this time in Carson City, Nevada.  Carson City Sheriff's Captain, Ken Sandage, says a man walked into the Carson City Branch of Bank of the West around four-thirty yesterday afternoon, wearing a brown fedora and a green jacket.  Captain Sandage says the suspect appeared to be wearing a fake beard, "Produced a gun.  It was silver in color. It appeared from the witnesses to be a revolver-type. He told the teller to put the money in the bag. They produced all the money that was in the till.  Shortly afterwards, he walked out of the building." Sandage says surveillance video of the suspect indicates the man's hair is short and gray.

I'm surprised disguises don't get used more often. Makes it pretty hard to look for you once you've taken it off ...

The first annual National Robotics Week commenced this week with a series of regional events and activities aimed at increasing public awareness of the growing importance of “robo-technology” and the social and cultural impact that it will have on the future. National Robotics Week is scheduled for the second full week of April to recognize robotics technology as a pillar of 21st century American innovation. Its aim is to highlight the growing importance of robotics and to emphasize its ability to inspire students and build interest in technology and innovation.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - Eleven people, including three marines, were killed Tuesday in a series of bombings and attacks by suspected Islamic militants in the southern Philippines, military officials said. The marines were killed when the suspects behind the bombings ambushed them near the area where the first blast occurred in Basilan province's Isabela City, 900 kilometres south of Manila, marine commandant Major General Juancho Sabban said."The marines responded to the scene of the bombings, and they were ambushed by the armed men," he said. "I think this is to create havoc in the area."

Good thing Comelec has banned guns ...

At least it's easy to tell what team everyone's on ...

Also ...

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is now beginning to look ineffective as tens of thousands of red shirt protesters are still in downtown Bangkok, now for the sixth day. Every major shopping mall is closed, most of the stores in the Siam area are closed, and tourists are checking out of downtown Bangkok hotels in droves.

An international group of solar and space scientists has built the most complete picture yet of the full impact of a large solar eruption, using instruments on the ground and in space to trace its journey from the Sun to Earth.

Interesting ...

The disadvantage to this approach is that sensitive data can accidentally be stored outside the encrypted area. However, using a partially encrypted drive is better than no encryption at all. The other important thing to remember is that once you encrypt your data you CANNOT access it without the password. If you lose or forget that password, then you might as well consider that data lost. So be responsible with your password.

Also ...

At least once a month, it seems some vendor or techie claims to have broken a version of a hard drive full-disk encryption (FDE) program scheme, whether it's from Microsoft (my full-time employer), BitLocker, open source favorite TrueCrypt, or some other variant. All the stories and the hype are enough to make one wonder if FDE is dead. The brief -- and slightly qualified -- answer is no. There are a handful of clever attacks, as well as software to make them easier to pull off. Luckily there are easy ways to prevent most of them. We will start, however, with an attack that doesn't have an easy defense.

"Can the U.S. new nuclear strategy which authorizes the use of nuclear bomb against other countries, including Iran, be named other than 'state terrorism,' in its truest sense?" Mohammad Khazaee, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, asked a General Assembly committee on measures to eliminate international terrorism.

Keep that in mind while you're deciding what to do with all that U235 you're 'fugeing. We're peace-loving right up until you piss us off ...

Smith said that prior to the domestic dispute, Bell was cheating on him. That's right, Smith was being cuckolded by a quadruple amputee. That can't be good for the self-esteem. He turned on the TV and Bell got mad, he says. She punched him in the groin with her deadly nub and then proceeded to dowse him in urine from a bed pan.

Sounds like a fairly hard sell ...

Some 4,000 people took to the streets of the northern Mexican city of Monterrey and the Gulf city of Tampico over the weekend to protest violence and demand more security, organizers said.

When the shooting starts, police say a bullet grazed Evans's wig and it flies off. Evans tries to run out of the store, but trips over the rug and falls. He had the gun in his hand and got another round off. The owner continues to fire. Police says when he fell on the ground, "we believe that's when he ended up with the three rounds in him."

Blam, blam, blam, blam ... blam, blam, blam! Guy looks pissed that the dude he's killing has put him in that situation ...

These 5 items working together will stop more cyber attacks on your data, network and users than any other 5 items in the marketplace today.

What is different about this self-defense class called "Fight Like a Girl" versus other self-defense classes is there are no illusions. There are no flying sidekicks or jumping front kicks, it is all about women using their core strength to get away from a sexual attack.

It's got a cool name ...

These are the so-called Red Shirts, mostly country folk, who have been camping in the capital for a month. They are devoted to Mr. Thaksin but also increasingly asserting their newfound rights as individual voters and as the country’s strongest electoral bloc.

There seems to be a lot of revolution afoot, these days, what with Kyrg, the Philippines (at least in my estimate) and Thailand all more or less in the process ...

Also ...

Troops and protesters maintained a cease-fire in Bangkok today. Demonstrators are in makeshift camps near Government House, and in the city’s tourist and shopping heartland, where they are occupying a major intersection. Parts of the city’s elevated train system, known as the skytrain, remained closed for a third day today. Soldiers used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds, and protesters fought back with guns and bombs during the April 10 clash, government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said yesterday. Troops were ordered back to their bases to recuperate, he said.

It’s not every day that Major John Bini, a U.S. military surgeon, dons body armor before going into the operating room. But he did just that after an Afghan soldier was brought in on March 18 with an unusual head wound—a nearly three-inch unexploded shell lodged in the patient’s scalp.

That took some stones ...

"The U.S. president has implicitly threatened the Iranian nation with nuclear weapons. These remarks are very strange," Khamenei said on state television. "The world should not ignore it because in the 21st century, ... the head of a state is threatening a nuclear attack. The U.S. president's remarks are disgraceful," he added. "These remarks mean the U.S. government is a villain government that can't be trusted."

Natanz has a capacity of 60,000 centrifuges and Iran has been steadily enriching uranium there for years in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions and threat of a fourth. Western countries led by Washington suspect that Iran's nuclear programme masks a weapons drive but Iran denies these accusations, saying its sole aim is to produce electricity for a growing population.

The comet's death plunge was recorded by the sun-watching Solar and Heliospheric Observatory as the previously unknown icy wanderer barreled down on the sun from cosmic parts unknown, according to Spaceweather.com, a Web site dedicated to monitoring space weather.

Some cool pics ...

BULLHEAD CITY — Local law enforcement officers say there is no additional risk to the way they conduct their jobs after a bill passed the state legislature that says permits will no longer be required for people to carry concealed handguns in the state.

This looks promising ... 3 down, 47 to go ...

Roza Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister who has declared herself the country's interim leader, said the deposed government will be held responsible for the bloodshed. "They became the enemies of the people when they opened fire on the patriots, the best sons of the nation," she said at the ceremony. The interim government brought criminal charges against the two sons of Bakiev, as well as his brother, who used to be the chief of security.

Geez ... good to know the new regime is reasonable ...

The Swedish military is set to shell out billions of kronor for two new state-of the-art submarines while also upgrading two older vessels, defence minister Sten Tolgfors has revealed, defence minister Sten Tolgfors has revealed.

US officials said Roza Otunbayeva had vowed not to interrupt operations from a military base the US uses to supply troops and supplies to Afghanistan. The US stopped troop movements from the base, near the capital Bishkek, last week during an anti-government revolt. Protesters overthrew the president last week but dozens died in the uprising.

History in the making ... I wonder if 60 years from now there will be Roza t-shirts ... only time will tell ...

The IP address led police to the Weber County Library. Director Lynnda Wangsgard said police have asked to look at surveillance video from the library to try to track who may have sent the e-mail. Wangsgard said they have not denied footage to police, but they are waiting for a formal request to be filed to release any documents. She said this is because of government policy and because they are not sure what information police are looking for. "That IP address is not associated with a particular computer or building," she said. "In fact, a patron using Wi-Fi access in the parking lot could have generated that e-mail. So we're not sure which record, if any, we would have that would be relevant to the situation." Wangsgard said the library does have general surveillance video but does not monitor computers individually. "We don't spy on people using computers," she said. "We have general surveillance to protect against vandalism, but we may not have anything that is relevant to the situation. We won't know until we get the request."

“We call gun-free zones ‘disarmed victim zones,’” said Steve Khemthong of CCSU’s Riflery Club. As part of the Empty Holster Protest, gun club members put up posters inviting criminals to indulge in an on-campus shooting spree, saying potential victims have been “disarmed for your convenience.” This does not surprise Suzanne Anglewicz of the National Rifle Association. “Every state where right-to-carry laws were passed, crime rates went down,” she said Thursday night when the gun club hosted NRA University at CCSU, a two-hour seminar discussing the history of the NRA in particular and American gun laws in general.

RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”. Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

Can't really picture it happening, but I guess we can wait and see ...

Away from the glamour of the forthcoming Malabar naval wargames and battling terrorism-piracy on the high seas, India and US are now on course to enhance measures to rescue Indian sailors if they get trapped deep underwater in a disabled submarine. Even as the US chief of naval operations Admiral Gary Roughead is slated to hold talks with defence minister A K Antony, Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma and other top military brass next week, India is looking to extend the scope of US Navy's "global submarine rescue fly-away kit service" for its requirements. When India had first inked the contract for the rescue service in 1997, with an initial payment of $734,443, it was meant to be more of an interim measure till Navy acquired DSRVs (deep submergence rescue vessels) of its own.

Well, I'm glad he doesn't want to allow criminals to take over the city, but I find myself baffled over whether this is crime in the ordinary sense of the word. Sure, arson is a crime (a particularly awful crime, because fires can spread), but when arson is committed for a specific political purpose, it rises to another level entirely. I mean, if these fires had been started by animal rights activists who wanted to shut down a research lab, by anti-war activists who wanted to shut down a military recruiting center, or by a crackpot "Christian militia" group for some insane reason, there would be a huge uproar, but this story is being very selectively reported. Why is that? Surely, the goal of terrorizing a city into hiring back laid off firefighters no more justifies political arson than any other goal. Arson is a heinous crime, and if it is being committed to achieve a political purpose, that makes it more heinous. And even if we analyze it purely as crime, it resembles classic mob-style extortion; the old insurance racket. ("Pay up, or your building burns!")

It IS odd that something that so obviously does rise to the level of tango-action isn't being labeled as such ...

If the rebels are going to be operating in units of this size, India is going to have to substantially beef up its forces or continue to suffer lopsided losses. It is also going to need to do a better job of gathering intelligence on the rebel forces. It is unusual that a force of 700 enemy troops could go undetected until a trap was sprung.

Definitely sounds like some underestimating going on ...

A flight attendant smelled smoke and confronted Madadi, 27, who joked that he "was trying to light my shoes on fire" to mask the smell of the bathroom before proceeding to his seat, U.S. law enforcement officials said. The attendant challenged Madadi again, one of the officials said, and notified the air marshals on the plane when he declined a request to hand over his lighter. That is when Madadi's business trip to Denver started to become a minor international incident. The marshals talked to Madadi briefly, confined him to his seat, and activated a national alert system for all planes in flight through the pilot. Fighter jets were scrambled, and President Obama was warned about a possible terrorist threat.

I can't see the justification for having 'activated a national alert system for all planes in flight' ...

Also:

Hundreds of passengers for United, Continental, Delta and other airlines found themselves milling in the terminal or lined up on the sidewalk until they could be scanned. Trevino said she did not know what was inside the bag that prompted it to be flagged. She also said it was not immediately clear how the man was able to get through security before his bag was double-checked without being stopped. The incident took place just hours after LAX increased police patrols Wednesday night through early Thursday following an incident in which authorities say a diplomat from Qatar tried to smoke a cigarette in the bathroom of a plane headed from Washington, D.C., to Denver, then joked about lighting his shoe. LAX increased police patrols as a precaution.

The Nuclear Posture Review states that ballistic-missile submarines are the "most survivable leg of the U.S. nuclear triad" of nuclear-capable missiles, aircraft and submarines. There appears to be no "viable near or mid-term threats" to the survivability of these submarines, the review said.

Let's hope so ...

"But, as he now says himself, he forgot the process to remember that with fame and fortune comes responsibility, not invisibility. "It is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here. It is the fact that he disappointed all of us and, more importantly, our kids and our grandkids. "Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children.

Jealous, are we ...?

The suspect, the third secretary vice counsel at the Qatar Embassy in Washington, was apprehended by federal air marshals who were riding undercover on the flight that took off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, law enforcement sources told The Times. The man told authorities that he went to the lavatory and tried to light a cigarette. He made a joke about lighting a shoe bomb, according to the sources, who asked not to be named because of the ongoing investigation.

It will be interesting to hear how this shakes out. We seem to be all about the over-reacting these days ...

An Associated Press reporter saw opposition leader Keneshbek Duishebayev sitting in the office of the chief of the National Security Agency, Kyrgyzstan's successor to the Soviet KGB. Duishebayev issued orders on the phone to people Duishebayev said were security agents. He also gave orders to a uniformed special forces commando. Duishebayev told the AP that "we have created units to restore order" on the streets. What appeared to be a revolution in this mountainous former Soviet republic erupted when thousands of protesters furious over corruption and spiraling utility bills seized government buildings in Bishkek and clashed with police, who opened fire, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. The unrest did not appear likely to immediately spread across former Soviet Central Asia.

Interesting ...

The Pacid Group alleged that Asus, Samsung, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu, LG, Gigabyte, GBT, MSI, Motorola, Research in Motion, Nikon, Microsoft, Nintendo, HTC and Palm breached US patent number 5,963,646 and another patent 6,049,612. The first patent is called Secure Deterministic Encryption, Key Generator System and Method and was issued to inventors Guy Fielder and Paul Alito on the 5th of October 1999. The second patent also names the same inventor and is called File Encryption Method and System, issued on April the 11th, 2000.

Data security experts have given a mixed reaction to the news. Industry Jamie Cowper, European marketing director at data encryption firm PGP Corporation, said: "The addition of a £500,000 fine, on top of the overall cost of a data breach, should in theory provide enough of a financial deterrent for organisations reluctant to invest in their security strategies.

I wonder if these fines will be levied against Brit gubmint personnel when they have breeches or is it just for the peasants ...?

This eerie wreck image is not computer generated. It's the sonar image of Russian nuclear submarine B-159 (called K-159 before decommissioning), which has been lying 248m down in the Barents Sea, between Norway and Russia, since 2003. The Russian Federation hired Adus, a Scottish company that specialises in high-resolution sonar surveying, to evaluate if it would be possible to recover the wreck.

Cool pic, too ...

China-based hackers stole Indian national security information, 1,500 e-mails from the Dalai Lama's office and other sensitive documents, a new report said Tuesday. Researchers at the University of Toronto said they were able to observe the hacking and trace it to core servers located in China and to people based in the southwestern city of Chengdu. The researchers said they monitored the hacking for the past eight months.

Dallas Police are investigating how thieves drove off with thousands of gallons of free gasoline from My-T-Quick Food Store on Gannon Lane. Surveillance video shows one driver after another topping off their tanks without paying a penny. "We watched it for 3 hours," store owner Nafees Ahmed said. "One car comes when another leaves." Ahmed suspects someone has cracked the code to their computer system and shared it with a few of his closest gas guzzling friends. "They had some device that looks like a remote control and they use that to decode the system inside," said Kash Jamil, manager of the store.

Hmmm ... haven't heard this one before ...

Police have charged a man who they say climbed in a drive-thru at a New Jersey McDonald's because he was tired of waiting for his Filet-O-Fish sandwich. Rashon East was charged with simple assault and making terroristic threats after he turned himself in to South Brunswick police on Monday.

Yup. I can see how telling the burger-flipper he was going to wait for him after work will likely change all our political wills, hence the need to charge him with making terroristic threats ...

A town police commander was wounded today in an ambush staged by leftist rebels in Davao del Sur province. Inspector Rodrigo Tajos, chief of police in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur, was heading back to their station along with his men when they were attacked by an undetermined number of New People's Army (NPA) rebels around 10 a.m. in Sibulan village.

Seems to be a lot of this going around ...

A patrol from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was attacked at dawn in the state of Chhattisgarh and when reinforcements rushed to the scene they were surrounded by hundreds of heavily-armed rebels. In a hail of automatic gunfire and landmine explosions, 75 officers were killed, seven were injured and a heavily armoured anti-mine vehicle sent to retrieve the wounded was blown up, government officials and police told AFP. Home Minister P. Chidambaram expressed shock at the bloodbath and said the men had "walked into a trap."

The Russian government has this year set aside 500m roubles (£11m) toward the development of nuclear-powered spacecraft, which could be used "for long-distance missions to the moon and Mars", explained Anatoly Perminov, head of Russia’s Space Agency. The agency hopes to have the new engines ready for use "within nine years".

I should start by laying ground work on data encryption and how it works. Although, there are various ways to categorise encryption technologies, I would simply group them into two classes: one that you employ to safeguard your stationary data, and the other that you employ for securing information sent from one place to another.

According to a surveillance video from a South New Brunswick McDonald's, an angry drive-though customer decided a few minutes was too long to wait for a File-O-Fish before he climbed through the window to retrieve his food. Once inside the restaurant, the man shoved a worker against a counter and threatened him, saying, "I'll be waiting for you when you get off work." The suspect then slapped the McDonald's employee in the face, took a Filet-O-Fish sandwich and exited the restaurant.

The video doesn't show much but should be adequate for identifying the perp. It just seems odd that no one kneed his face on the way through the opening ... he'd have been real vulnerable ...

Is your special gift recognizing company logos (even when they're pixelated blobs)? The city of Portland wants your help tracking down a big truck caught on video last night. Apparently, the rig was somehow responsible for causing a water main break that flooded Southeast 25th Avenue and Holgate Street, and shut down the streets during this morning's commute.

Manitoba is moving on a promise to outlaw body and vehicle armour gangs use to protect themselves against attacks by rivals. The NDP government has tabled a bill that would require anyone buying such materials to apply for a permit, explain why they need it and be subject to a background check. Those whose jobs require them to wear body armour — police officers, sheriffs and corrections officers — would be exempt from the permit requirement. The proposed law would also forbid people from installing armour, bulletproof glass or other measures to fortify a vehicle. And people or companies who sell such materials would need a special provincial license.

At least those nasty ol' law-abiding tax payers won't be unlawfully protecting themselves without first receiving permission from their masters. Only the police should be allowed to be indescriminately safe ...

The sight of a relatively bright star suddenly vanishing as a faint asteroid crosses in front of it, and then just as suddenly reappearing several seconds later is an exceedingly rare and startling celestial occurrence. But it's happening in the predawn hours on Tuesday and lucky skywatchers across parts of Canada and the western United States may have a chance to see it. Astronomers refer to such an event as an "occultation" — a temporary hiding of one celestial object by another such as a planet moving in front of a star as seen from Earth. In this particular case, however, the occulting body will be a minor planet: a tiny asteroid known as 824 Anastasia.

Should be interesting ... for a short while ...

Claustrophobia is one of the basest of human fears; a 40-metre dive in a small five-seater submarine is an excellent diagnostic tool for the condition. My knowledge of submarines was limited to The Hunt for Red October and an old Beatles album cover, both positive cultural references. So when the opportunity came up to go submarining off the tropical paradise of Bora Bora in French Polynesia, I dived right in.

I want to give you an opportunity to learn some self defense techniques that I know work well in real life. Over the years I've spent time struggling to keep myself alive while in prison and working as a bouncer. During that time I learned some things that any martial arts student can use along with the training they have received in more formal martial arts and street fighting experience. If you find that you are confronted by a rapist or mugger these techniques might just make the difference between life and death for you. While you can't use these techniques in fight competitions or in a martial arts dojo, they are very effective where it counts most, in real life fighting on the street.

It's worth remembering that all of these techniques have potential prison sentences that attend there use, so make sure it really is necessary before you use them ...

Built by Boeing Co's Phantom Works, the 5-ton craft is 3 meters tall and 9 meters long, with a wingspan of less than 4.5 meters. It has two angled tail fins rather than a single vertical stabilizer. Unlike the shuttle, it will be launched like a satellite, housed in the nose of an expendable Atlas V rocket. The Air Force released only a general description of the mission objectives: testing of guidance, navigation, control, thermal protection and autonomous operation in orbit, re-entry and landing. The mission's length was not released but the Air Force said the X-37B can stay in orbit for 270 days.

Robert Byamukama, 20, a resident of Kitaasa village in Kaliiro sub-county, learnt that the Police were waiting outside his house to arrest him on allegations of defiling a 14-year-old girl, whom he had also taken on as wife. At about 5:00am, Byamukama wore the girl’s dress, making the Police officers think he was a girl. “Byamukama changed his voice to that of a woman to greet Cpl. Sabbiiti Damulira and Police constable Alfred Kintu as he passed them,” the district Police commander, Rashid Agero, said.

Hmmm ... a defiler ... things are a little different in Uganda ...

The protesters marched from the Peace Camp to the North Gate of HM Naval Base Clyde, near Helensburgh, home the UK's nuclear weapon system. Faslane is the base for the Vanguard-class submarines, which carry Trident nuclear missiles. The protesters blockaded the North Gate for two hours. There were no arrests.

District Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Verma said suspected Maoists triggered the explosion on a road near the village when a patrol-vehicle carrying Central Reserve Police Force personnel was passing by. “The explosion left a crater on the road. The blast seemed to have been triggered from at least a kilometre away. During search operations an almost 1-km long wire was discovered,” Mr. Verma told The Hindu.

It was last week's most haunting image. On one side is 17-year-old Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova; next to her is her young husband, Umalat Magomedov, a militant leader from Russia's Dagestan province whose revolutionary career was cut short last December when government forces shot him dead. They look very much in love. Umalat, also holding a gun, has his arm protectively around her shoulder. With her porcelain features and doll-like face, Dzhennet, pictured, seems almost too gamine to be a genuine terrorist. Last weekend, however, she took an inter-city bus from her home in Russia's north Caucasus to Moscow.

Kelso police said Schwingdorf, 32, saw Galen Louis Crayne prowling around a neighbor's property in North Kelso Dec. 13. The house was vacant due to a recent fire. Schwingdorf armed himself with a hunting bow, stalked Crayne for more than three blocks to Cliff's Hilltop Market, then shot Crayne in the left buttock with a broadhead arrow, according to a police report. Crayne, who is also 32 and lives in Longview, underwent surgery at St. John Medical Center and was later charged with residential burglary. Authorities said his injuries were not life-threatening. Juries have appeared to go easy on defendants in two other cases this year involving weapons and claims of self defense.

Sounds more like man-hunting to me ...

But this was not a tournament match. It was a scuffle at an Austin Whataburger, with a dozen laughing spectators. And in taking the superior position, the BJJ artist had essentially painted himself into a corner. If this were an MMA contest, he could have sat on his attacker’s chest and pounded the man’s face. But when you do that at a fast-food restaurant, the police tend to call it an assault. Good luck convincing a judge–even in Texas–that such an act was reasonable or necessary for self-defense.

Where to begin (after I stop laughing from the video). First, don't be an asshole. And first, assume the cameras are running and that whatever you do will be on youtube FOREVER. Then first, don't beef with people you don't know as they may nuke your stupid ass. Next first, don't use opening moves that result in your pants falling down because it's hard to be tough with a crowd of strangers laughing as your hairy, white ass flaps in the breeze. Finally first, the poster is correct that there aren't any good closing moves to use that won't result in prison time once your in a mount. And last, the little guy was fortunate that the jerk's buddy was so disgusted with his friend's behavior that he wasn't willing to kick the little guys ribs in while he was tied up on the floor, which is what would normally have happened.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia actually won the 2006 presidential race against the Chavez-backed candidate, Ollanta Humala, by aggressively denouncing Chavez's meddling in Peruvian politics and by properly portraying his opponent as a Chavez proxy. Prior to the election, Chavez had been infiltrating parts of Peru by opening "ALBA houses" - supposed medical centers for the poor that also serve as propaganda mills and recruiting centers for budding left wing revolutionaries.

“The average Russian thinks of the average Chechen as a kind of savage animal unfit to breathe the air of civilization. Fit only for extermination. How civilized would any of us be after suffering continuous Russian campaigns of genocide?” The world must certainly mourn and deplore the atrocities on the subway, and before that in the school at Beslan and elsewhere, but we should remember how the brutality began and why it continues. The Chechens undergo a new genocide with each change of regime in the Kremlin: the Czars, the Soviets and now Putin.”

The same as it ever was ... the same as it ever was ... [makes chopping motions with edge of hand along arm] ...

“While the military may have greater leeway in restricting offensive material in furtherance of securing order and discipline among its troops, it may not do so in a manner that allows ‘one message while prohibiting the messages of those who can reasonably be expected to respond,’” wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard. Nieto called the ruling a “victory for freedom of speech.” After his son was killed, Nieto put decals on his car including one that said “Remember the Cole” and another with the Gold Star banner, but he was also outraged by Arab reaction to the Cole attack and the Sept. 11 attacks.

The move was hailed as a significant first step by groups often critical of U.S. security practices, including American Muslim organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, airline and travel industries. Some of these groups had warned that the 14-country rule would lead to racial profiling and delays in the busy summer travel season. But the same groups noted that Obama aides have provided virtually no public information about who would carry out the new screening procedures, which are classified, or precisely how information about travelers would be used. "We'd hate to see a system that's overtly discriminates replaced by a system that covertly discriminates," said Michael German, national security policy counsel with the ACLU Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent. "That's why increased transparency into what's actually happening is necessary."

The feat began with a 5-dollar package of plain, white T-shirts purchased at Wal-Mart, which the scientists cut into thin strips. They dipped those white cotton strips into a black solution of boron. After an hour, the strips were removed from the solution and baked in at oven at more than 1,000 degrees Celsius (1832 degrees Fahrenheit) for an hour. The heat stripped away anything that wasn’t carbon or boron, and combined these two elements into boron carbide. The resulting fabric is very different than the original materials that at the start of the process—it’s lighter, stronger, tougher and stiffer than the original cotton, but it can still be bent, unlike normal boron carbide armour plates.

Interesting, if true ...

The IG found that 10 of 40 mobile computers it tested – overall, the division has about 800 laptops – weren’t encrypted. According to an audit by the IG, all of the unencrypted workstations came from the division’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), one of seven sections in the criminal division. The IG also found that some laptops didn’t have the baseline configurations required by the department, and one unencrypted laptop from ICITAP had an unauthorized peer-to-peer network, Limewire, installed and running. The computers without the baseline configurations came from ICITAP and the division's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property section.

As it happens, the problem isn't with either BitLocker or with your USB drives. It's with your laptop's BIOS. Specifically, in some cases the BIOS software — the software that controls your computer until the operating system loads — doesn't recognize USB drives over a specified capacity. Once the computer's operating system kicks in, you won't have any problem using that larger capacity USB drive. But if you're trying to boot from it, the BIOS simply won't see it. The quick solution? Try a USB drive with a capacity of 512 megabytes or less.

It's pretty easy to see there is a huge gap between the traditional military rifle cartridges and the anti-materiel rounds. One cartridge designed to fill this gap is the .338 Lapua Magnum. An impressive round with excellent exterior ballistics, it has been steadily growing in popularity. Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, well-known for its far-reaching .50 BMG-chambered rifles, recently added this Finnish magnum to its line. Barrett has built on its experience with the big guns to develop an entirely new model in .338 Lapua Magnum. Called the M98B or 98 Bravo, this is a very interesting bolt-action rifle intended for use at very long range.

According to reports, a weird-looking giant crustacean has been discovered after it fastened onto a submarine deep underwater and was pulled back to the surface.

Criminy ... better your sub than your forehead, I guess ... [shudders] ...

Russia’s President Dmitriy Medvedev made a surprise visit to the southern province of Dagestan Makhachkala Thursday, calling on police and security forces to use “tougher measures” in fighting terrorism. "The measures to fight terrorism should be expanded, they should be more effective, harsher, crueler," he said during a televised meeting with local officials, according to an AP report.

Just because it's never worked in the past doesn't mean that it won't work in the future ... Oh ... that's right ... it does mean that ...

Severe connectivity problems, will resume posting when resolved-Thanks