Reuters – Up to 8,000 companies doing business with the Pentagon may be qualified to join a newly expanded U.S. effort to guard sensitive information on private networks, a senior Defense Department official said Monday. The Pentagon on Friday invited all of its eligible contractors to join the voluntary pact aimed at fighting what U.S. officials have described as growing cyber threats that allegedly originate, above all, in Russia and China. Read Article
Space – China launched an optical military reconnaissance satellite Thursday (May 10) aboard a Long March 4B rocket, successfully orbiting another member in a fleet of spacecraft spying for Chinese intelligence agencies. Read article
Reuters – Two apparent U.S. drone attacks killed at least 10 suspected al Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen on Saturday, while Yemeni government forces killed 15 others in a new offensive against insurgents, local and military officials said. U.S. officials said this week they had thwarted a plot by the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to arm a suicide bomber with a non-metallic device, an upgraded version of the “underwear bomb” carried onto an airliner on Christmas Day 2009. Read Article
Press TV – Somalia’s al-Shabab fighters say a US assassination drone attack has left at least 38 people dead and dozens of others wounded in the Horn of Africa state, Press TV reports. The airstrike is said to have taken place in Somalia’s southwestern district of Badade, a Press TV correspondent reported. The US military uses remote-controlled drones in Somalia for reconnaissance operations and targeted killings. Read Article
Reuters – A new missile interceptor designed to protect allies from a possible attack by Iran or North Korea, passes its latest test with flying colors, the U.S. military says. Deborah Gembara reports.
BBC – The Ministry of Defence has confirmed a sonic device will be deployed in London during the Olympics. The American-made Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) can be used to send verbal warnings over a long distance or emit a beam of pain-inducing tones. The equipment was spotted fixed to a landing craft on the Thames at Westminster this week. Read Article
The Verge – Just in case you didn’t feel bad enough about crushing or burning murderously friendly turrets in Portal, an enterprising engineer has built a real-life version of our favorite stationary weapons. Created for the excellently-named “Advanced Mechatronics” class at Pennsylvania State University, the turret is equipped with an IP webcam and two servo mounts with Nerf guns attached. The camera reads RGB colors and connects to a computer running MATLAB, which lets it identify simple triggers like the bright shirt shown in the video. When it sees the shirt, it locks on and tracks it, so it can shoot if the wearer stops moving or issue a familiar “Will you come over… here?” if they go out of range. Read Article
Business Insider – What happens to your Facebook account when you die? Or your Twitter? Who gets the rights to the thousands of songs in your iTunes library? Or access to your email? These are questions the U.S. government is hoping Americans will begin to consider, and Uncle Sam is now suggesting that every web-savvy citizen create a “social media will” to lay out what exactly your loved ones ought to do with your online accounts in the event of your death. Read Article
Deutsche Welle – Researches in the UK and Japan have turned to nature (read, magnetic bacteria) to help produce electronics on a nano scale. They say the bacteria could help us make better hard drives and faster internet connections. Researchers at Britain’s University of Leeds and Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used a type of bacterium that “eats” iron to create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those found in traditional hard drives. Read article
Mail Online – A class of children sit revising for make-or-break exams to get them into the college of their choice. It’s the sort of scene that could be seen in high schools across the world but for one important difference: The pupils have intravenous drips hanging over their desks. The image is taken from footage that claims to reveal the controversial use of the drips to boost pupils’ ability to study at a school in Xiaogan, Hubei province, China. Read Article
AAP – Twitter is challenging a court order to turn over to law enforcement data on one of its users involved in Occupy Wall Street in a case described by a civil liberties group as a major test of online freedom of speech. The motion filed on Monday in a New York state court said the order would require Twitter to violate federal law and denies the user the ownership rights to his Twitter messages. Read Article
Guardian – Twitter has moved to quash a court order issued by the Manhattan district attorney that would require it to hand over the tweets of a writer and Occupy Wall Street protester arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge last October. In a motion filed in the criminal court in New York on Monday Twitter argued that it should not be forced to give the prosecutor three months worth of tweets by Malcolm Harris, who was arrested on the bridge along with 700 other activists. Read Article
Business Insider – U.S. corporations are selling drones to undisclosed foreign governments for anti-narcotics and anti-terrorism operations, according to Teddy Wilson at The American Independent. The global market for unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e. drones) is growing rapidly as the use of drones expands from military to domestic law enforcement. The U.S. government sells drones to other countries through Foreign Military Sales, and U.S. corporations can sell drones and other defense technologies directly to foreign governments after going through a screening process run by the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Read Article
NY Times – Legal and technology researchers estimate that it would take about a month for Internet users to read the privacy policies of all the Web sites they visit in a year. So in the interest of time, here is the deal: You know that dream where you suddenly realize you’re stark naked? You’re living it whenever you open your browser. There are no secrets online. That emotional e-mail you sent to your ex, the illness you searched for in a fit of hypochondria, those hours spent watching kitten videos (you can take that as a euphemism if the kitten fits) — can all be gathered to create a defining profile of you. Read article
Reuters – A U.S. drone aircraft killed nine suspected militants on Saturday in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region near the Afghan border, Pakistani security officials said. The controversial drone program, a key element in U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, is highly unpopular in Pakistan where it is considered a violation of sovereignty which causes unacceptable civilian casualties. In Saturday’s strike, a drone fired missiles at a compound in the Shawal area of North Waziristan, killing the nine, said the officials who declined to be identified. Read Article
CNN – A U.S. drone hit an al Qaeda training site in southern Yemen, killing 13 suspected militants, three security officials said. The airstrike Wednesday is one of a series of attacks on al Qaeda hideouts expected in Abyan province in the next two weeks, the officials said. They will target Jaar, Lowder and Zinjibar districts. At least two U.S. drone strikes are conducted daily since mid-April in southern regions controlled by al Qaeda fighters, said a Yemeni presidential aide who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. Read Article
Nature – Advocates of international trade and collaboration in space technology thought that they were making headway against rules that restrict both in the name of US security. But on the same day that the US government released a long-awaited report that recommends easing those regulations, allegations surfaced that a NASA director may have broken the rules when he gave foreign nationals access to an agency research facility. It is not yet clear whether the allegations will strengthen the case for preserving current restrictions. Read article
Mail Online – Millions of credit and debit card users could be ‘robbed by radiowave’ because of new contactless technology being brought in by banks. Almost 20million shoppers are now able to buy goods by simply waving their card in front of a reader at the tills, even if it is still in a wallet or a purse. Read article
NY Times – An American drone strike killed three suspected militants in Pakistan’s tribal belt on Sunday, an official said, in the first such attack since the country’s Parliament demanded an end to those missions just over two weeks ago. The remotely piloted aircraft struck an abandoned school building in the densely populated central bazaar of Miram Shah, the capital of the North Waziristan tribal agency, killing three people and wounding two, a government official and a local resident said. Read Article
Press TV – A US assassination drone has pounded Somalia’s southwestern region of Gedo, killing at least 22 people in the attack, Press TV reports. The attack was carried out on Friday when the unmanned aerial vehicle fired missiles at an area near Gedo’s Dhobley town. Authorities say dozens of people have been wounded in the airstrike. The US military uses remote-controlled drones in Somalia for reconnaissance operations and targeted killings. Read Article
Washington Post – The United States has begun launching drone strikes against suspected al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen under new authority approved by President Obama that allows the CIA and the military to fire even when the identity of those who could be killed is not known, U.S. officials said. The policy shift marks a significant expansion of the clandestine drone war against an al-Qaeda affiliate that has seized large pieces of territory in Yemen and is linked to a series of terrorist plots against the United States. Read Article
H.R. 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (On Passage of the Bill)
Number: House Vote #192 [primary source: house.gov]
Date: Apr 26, 2012 (112th Congress)
Result: Passed
Related Bill: H.R. 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act
Introduced by Rep. Michael “Mike” Rogers [R-MI8] on November 30, 2011
Current Status: Passed House
To read the list of members who voted for CISPA CLICK HERE
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