Lott, John R., Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2018 (August 14, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3233904 “Despite the expectations of many after the 2016 elections, the number of concealed handgun permits has increased for the second year in a row. In 2018, the number of concealed handgun permits soared to now over… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Defense
CRS – Gun Control: 3D-Printed AR-15 Lower Receivers
Gun Control: 3D-Printed AR-15 Lower Receivers August 22, 2018. IN10957 “The possibility that criminals could use three dimensional-printing (3D-printing) technology to produce “untraceable” firearms, including AR-15s, is an issue of growing concern for some lawmakers. It overlaps in part with the issue of 3D-printed “undetectable” firearms discussed in a previous Insight (CRS Insight IN10953, Gun… Continue Reading
The Cautious Path to Strategic Advantage: How Militaries Should Plan for AI
EFF White Paper: “In June, Google executives announced that the company would be backing away from its provision of AI services to the U.S. military drone program, and would not continue that work after the Project Maven contract is completed. This was in response to a campaign from Google’s own employees, with thousands calling on… Continue Reading
Actions Needed to Improve National Nuclear Security Administration Contract Document Management
Management Report: Actions Needed to Improve National Nuclear Security Administration Contract Document Management. GAO-18-246R: Published: Aug 1, 2018. Publicly Released: Aug 1, 2018. “The National Nuclear Security Administration spent over $11 billion in 2016 on management and operating contracts at the federal sites that maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, among other things. We found… Continue Reading
Foreign Economic Espionage in Cyberspace 2018
Foreign Economic Espionage in Cyberspace 2018 – Economic cyber espionage will only get worse, ODNI report says “In the 2011 report to Congress on Foreign Spies Stealing U.S. Economic Secrets in Cyberspace, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive provided a baseline assessment of the many dangers facing the U.S. research, development, and manufacturing sectors… Continue Reading
DHS announces US critical infrastructure at risk from Russia
WSJ – DHS Forms New Cyber Hub to Protect Critical U.S. Infrastructure Secretary Nielsen Says ‘Our Intelligence Community Had it Right’ About Russian Interference – What What What ⸮⸮⸮ [see my previous posting about this punctuation mark] As this article is behind a paywall – you may want to avail yourself via US-CERT of the… Continue Reading
American Airlines, TSA Testing New State-of-the-Art Screening Technology in New York
American Airlines Newsroom: “Research and development efforts have shown that CT is the most consequential technology available today for airport checkpoints worldwide. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), working collaboratively with American Airlines, is demonstrating a new computed tomography (CT) scanner at the Terminal 8 security checkpoint at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).… Continue Reading
DOJ Report of the Attorney General’s Cyber Digital Task Force
United States Department of Justice, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Cyber-Digital Task Force Report. July 2, 2018. “In February 2018, the Attorney General established a Cyber-Digital Task Force within the Department and directed the Task Force to answer two basic, foundational questions: How is the Department responding to cyber threats? And how can federal… Continue Reading
How the Russians did it – unwrapping Mueller’s latest indictment
What Mueller’s Latest Indictment Reveals About Russian and U.S. Spycraft “Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as part of his investigation into interference with the 2016 presidential election, charged 12 Russian military intelligence officers with conducting “large-scale cyber operations to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” The indictment contains a surprising amount of technical information about alleged Russian… Continue Reading
Putin: The one-man show the West doesn’t understand
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – Putin: The one-man show the West doesn’t understand – Fiona Hill, Published online: 13 Apr 2016. “The West is at an inflection point in its relations with Russia; the stakes for having an accurate understanding of its president, Vladimir Putin, have never been higher. A misreading of this man… Continue Reading
Gov Doc Blog provides background and historical context to Russian interference in 2016 US election
Via GOVDOC-L: “On Friday, the Department of Justice announced indictments against 12 officers of the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravlenie (GRU), the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff. While unfamiliar to most Americans, the GRU has a long history of operating within and against the United States, dating back to the 1920s. In… Continue Reading
Penetrating a Social Network: The Follow-back Problem
Penetrating a Social Network: The Follow-back Problem Fanyu Que, Krishnan Rajagopalan, Tauhid Zaman (Submitted on 8 Apr 2018) arXiv:1804.02608 [cs.SI] (or arXiv:1804.02608v1 [cs.SI] for this version) “Modern threats have emerged from the prevalence of social networks. Hostile actors, such as extremist groups or foreign governments, utilize these networks to run propaganda campaigns with different aims.… Continue Reading
