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Thank you, USSN Staff
DISCLAIMERTHE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT HAS BEEN ASSEMBLED FROM A VARIETY OF SOURCES AND IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS PROVIDED AS RECEIVED AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN ENDORSEMENT BY THE US SECURITY NETWORK, ANY MEMBER COMPANY, OR PARTICIPATING PUBLIC AGENCIES. INFORMATION MAY BE REPEATED, AS IT IS EXTRACTED EXACTLY AS PRESENTED BY THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
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The Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association says that counterfeiting of automotive parts costs the automotive industry $3 billion annually in the United States and $12 billion worldwide. The association says counterfeit automotive parts also result in the loss of roughly 750,000 jobs worldwide and can cause damage in a number of other ways: through lost sales, safety risks, poor quality of parts or performance, and devaluation of a brand. Tom Strohm, general director of marketing for General Motors Corp.'s ACDelco division, says that any manufacturer that has a recognizable brand is going to be a target for counterfeiters. Many counterfeiting operations are based overseas, particularly in China, which accounted for 70 percent of the $98 million in counterfeit goods that were confiscated in the United States during 2002. Strohm says that one sure-fire way to discover counterfeiters is to check for product listings that have been underpriced, though he adds that this method is no longer as effective because counterfeiters have caught on and are now raising their price points to blend in. Jon Shackleford, patent counsel for supplier Federal-Mogul Corp., says that companies need to be organized in their fight against counterfeiting. Companies should bestow power-of-attorney privileges on attorneys in troublesome regions of the world so that the attorneys can act quickly when busting counterfeiting rings, Shackleford says. Also, trademarks and brands should be registered and used consistently in troublesome countries, says Shackleford. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CompStat was implemented in the early 1990s by the New York City Police Department under the guidance of then-commissioner Bill Bratton, who now heads Los Angeles' police department. CompStat allows data to be collected and managed in digital form, allowing easier data management, data sharing, and access to updated information. CompStat is credited for reducing the number of serious crimes by 39 percent in New York City after its introduction. Moreover, the addition of MapInfo GIS capabilities allowed the system to be used for creating maps that showed locations of crimes across all vicinities. Garry McCarthy, deputy commissioner of operation for the New York City Police Department, says officers can now access such data as when a shooting occurred, whether it took place inside or outside, and the ethnicity of the victims. "The key component to crime reduction and CompStat are timely and accurate intelligence, rapid deployment, effective tactics, and relentless follow up and assessment," he says. Baltimore's mayor Martin O'Malley launched a similar system called CitiStat in 2000, resulting in a 30 percent drop in total crime in 2001 and savings of nearly $45 million in the system's first two years. Agency leaders usually convene every two weeks with the CitiStat team to discuss developments, with the goal of bringing in "decision-makers...who can help resolve issues quickly," according to CitiStat Director Matt Gallagher. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Markle Foundation's Task Force on National Security in the Information Age second annual report on homeland defense concludes that acrimonious debates about privacy and civil liberties are preventing the U.S. government from fully leveraging technology to combat terrorism. The private panel of IT and national security specialists who organized the report has urged President Bush to set up rules to delineate the security interests of private data mining programs, and to deploy oversight to ensure that such programs do not needlessly impinge on individual privacy. The panel is disappointed that data mining technology research and development has been prohibited by Congress as the result of pressure from civil liberty and privacy advocates. Markle Foundation President Zoe Baird comments that government rules for data sharing and privacy safeguards must be defined through open debate if a network that uses information about U.S. residents is to gain public trust. The report calls for the government to exploit privately-held information, provided that civil liberties are adequately protected. The panel cautions that routine access to personally identifying data--even that which is widely accessible to the public--should not be a government privilege. "If government is to sustain public support for its efforts, it must demonstrate that the information it seeks to acquire is genuinely important to the security mission and is obtained and used in a way that minimizes its impact on privacy and civil liberties," states the task force. The guidelines covering access and use of information held by the private sector should take two key considerations into account, according to the report: How valuable the data is to the government, and how sensitive the information is in terms of individual privacy and other civil liberties. The task force also calls for President Bush to better define the individual roles and responsibilities of the myriad government agencies charged with gathering and analyzing domestic terrorism information. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The holiday shopping season is in full swing in Columbus, Ga., and so are the shoplifters. Police in Columbus say there were 99 shoplifting reports during November, and store managers say there have been so many shoplifters that it is impossible to catch them all. Shoplifting incidents will probably increase 20 percent to 25 percent during December, according to store managers. In November 2002, there were 113 shoplifting reports in Columbus, followed by 102 more reports that December. The past month produced more than a dozen shoplifting reports from the Peachtree Mall, where thieves mostly targeted JC Penney's, Dillard's, and Rich's. One shoplifter attempted to hide stolen clothing inside a baby stroller, while some shoplifters have used bags from other stores to conceal stolen items or have brazenly walked out the door carrying unpaid-for merchandise. Big stores like Wal-Mart combat shoplifting at this time of year by placing security personnel in the shopping aisles and parking lots. Store managers say that the cost of shoplifting is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices; one store manager even said that his company could not afford to hand out Christmas bonuses to employees because shoplifting losses were so heavy. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Indianapolis-based nonprofit Institute for Forensic Imaging (IFI) has a new training facility as well as revamped course offerings in the fields of video and computer forensics, funded with a National Institute of Justice grant. The video systems curriculum teaches those who use video surveillance systems about the various types of components, how they operate, and how to connect them to meet specific goals. The IFI laboratory is equipped with five unique systems and 14 cameras; students can watch the effects of using different cameras on different systems, while cameras and lens combinations are selected to show how these items should be chosen. The new offerings in forensics teach first responders how to handle situations that involve a computer that may hold evidence and how to use the various tools available for probing computers and computer data storage devices. IFI now hosts courses in video capture and enhancement as well as systems architecture. The video capture course instructs how to capture video data from numerous sources and then augment the captured frames. The IFI courses employ in-house software that gives students a general overview of how the various tools and system available for video capture and enhancement function, and hands-on learning is another key element. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The National Guard will play a greater role in protecting critical infrastructure in the United States from terrorist attacks, the Defense Department's assistant secretary for homeland defense said Tuesday. Military studies of potential domestic terrorist attacks have determined that the National Guard should not only protect the defense industrial base but also critical infrastructure that has previously been defended by civilian law enforcement agencies, said Paul McHale, who became Defense's head of homeland defense almost a year ago. "I would anticipate that with recurring frequency National Guard forces, under the command of a state governor, will be deployed to defend critical infrastructure in the country," McHale said during the Defense Manufacturing Conference in Washington. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cardea is a one-armed robot created by MIT researchers that can navigate hallways and open doors; it incorporates the base of a Segway scooter platform, whose dynamic balancing is essential to keeping the machine's arm practical, according to MIT scientist Una-May O'Reilly. The five-foot, 200-pound Cardea prototype deploys a kickstand to prevent falling, while two cameras serve as a vision system and sonar sensors aid in navigation. Researchers plan to outfit the robot with two additional arms, heat sensors, and a head so that it can safely interact with people at human-height level; each arm will have six degrees of freedom and will be equipped with end effectors or hands, while Cardea's vision system will be enhanced with improved panning ability and arm-vision system coordination. As with precursor robots such as Cog and Kizmet, Cardea will be programmed to learn in an unstructured environment through exploration, trained to recognize and manipulate objects, and use vocal tones and facial expressions to interact with people. O'Reilly adds that researchers are investigating how to make the robot capable of recharging its power supply. Cardea is one of a dozen federal and university projects involving robots built on Segway bases that were launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Segway's dynamic balancing abilities come into play when Cardea's arm moves, which causes its center of mass to shift. "Regardless of where the weight is on top of it...the platform is able to move with balance," O'Reilly notes. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Privacy concerns could hamper the growth of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in the retail market, warn experts at MIT's RFID Privacy Workshop. Consumer advocacy groups such as Customers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (Caspian) say RFID could be the basis of a new surveillance society, and that consumer buying histories would inevitably end up in the hands of criminals, marketers, or law enforcement agencies. The debate has heightened since a Chicago Sun-Times report earlier in November said that RFID technology was being tested in a Oklahoma Wal-Mart, where sales of Max Factor Lipfinity lipstick were tracked and shoppers observed via Web cam; Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble were criticized severely for conducting the test without consumer notice, but they claim the test was only to see if RFID could be used to make sure products were placed correctly. Conceivably, RFID tags would allow retail stores to identify individual items, not just their type, as they move through the store and even in people's homes. Retailers insist they have no such plans, and RFID proponents offer several technical solutions, including a kill command that would disable the tag after it is scanned, and hanging the tags visibly so that consumers can remove them after purchase. Removing or disabling the tags would, however, make RFID useless against fraud at the time of product return or exchange, a major concern for retailers. Other proposed technical solutions involve cryptography, sophisticated RF protocols, and the incorporation of physical distance in a tiered authentication structure. Bar code technology developer and ePC Group co-founder Pete Abell says many of the concerns of privacy advocates are unfounded and that benefits of RFID include better protection against infected meat products and counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Allied Business Intelligence research director Edward Rerisi says RFID will be used mostly in distribution and not actually affect the consumer for the first few years. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
During the past three years, authorities across the world have uncovered dozens of incidents involving the illegal trafficking of radiological materials that could be used by terrorists to manufacture dirty bombs. The trafficking of these materials traditionally has been carried out by individuals looking for an opportunity to make money, but organized criminal groups and smugglers are beginning to dominate the action. Experts say the involvement of these criminal groups makes it more likely that terrorists will be able to acquire the materials necessary to create a dirty bomb. Indeed, the Los Alamos National Laboratory released a study in September concluding that a dirty bomb attack somewhere across the globe "is overdue" because of the large quantities of abandoned and unprotected radiological material throughout the world. The traditional view on dirty bombs is that the damage would mostly be limited to the economic effects of contamination, with few human deaths and injuries. However, a new study to be released in December by the National Defense University claims that the toll in human lives could be considerable, depending on what type of material is used and if the material is in respirable form. The southeast part of Europe--former Soviet republic Georgia in particular--is a hotbed of activity for smugglers of radioactive material, with separatists and rebel groups some of the main participants in criminal smuggling enterprises. Meanwhile, United States and United Nations officials are concerned that radioactive devices could increasingly become targets for ransom--a fear exemplified by the night of Dec. 9, 2002, when well-organized thieves in Ecuador broke into a storage shed owned by the company Interinspec, stole five radioactive devices, asked for and received ransom payments for the return of the devices, and returned only three of the devices to the company. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Daily The Homeland Security Department's science and technology directorate will play an important supporting role in efforts to secure the nation's computer infrastructure from attack, top officials with the directorate or broader department said on Monday. In interviews with reporters from National Journal's Technology Daily, the senior officials emphasized that while their focus primarily will be developing technologies to counter threats posed by weapons of mass destruction, cyber security is a necessary component of their mission to support the technology needs of the operational directorates. They said computer-security experts will join the organization soon to guide research and development. The departmental officials included: Penrose Albright, assistant secretary for science and technology; David Bolka, director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA); John Kubricky, director of systems engineering; Maureen McCarthy, director of research and development; and Charles McQueary, undersecretary for science and technology.
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