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A cutting-edge counterterrorism project featuring surveillance cameras in the subways has hit a "significant setback" because of technical problems, a new report says.
The report released Wednesday by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli concludes that MTA riders are safer because of security improvements made since 9/11.
But it notes that the authority's heralded electronic surveillance project "has been scaled back because the contractor had difficulty tailoring software conditions to the MTA environment."
The report does not provide details, citing security reasons. When the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced the counterterrorism plan in 2005, officials said the new system would detect potential threats - including abandoned luggage on a platform - and trigger alerts.
The new report says troubling trends noted in three prior studies have continued: Security projects are taking longer and costing more to complete than the MTA first envisioned.
HS-BOOST - Actionable Intelligence, the Real Thing
Homeland Security Bulletin of Open Source Threats in December BOOST predicted the use of Jihadi Encryption software, Thermite, attacks on Malls and more. Read the only real Intelligence Report available in the USA.
Subscriptions for LE, Homeland Security and Qualified Security Professionals only. Call for a free evaluation copy: 305-401-6906 or complete the web registration here.
Anaheim, CA - February 14th and 15th, 2008 Washington, DC - March 13th and 14th, 2008
Dark Web Terrorism - Digital Terror as an Alternative Doomsday Weapon
By Sam Elrom
Cyber-terrorism poses a threat to almost every facet of our daily life. Here Part III of this three-part series on Dark Web terrorism describes how sophisticated hackers could destroy infrastructures, bring down large systems and cause economic devastation.
December 24, 2008. The financial markets are closed, the banking systems is inactive and the entire commerce and business system is in a low-key, standby mode worldwide. In the US people are in a mood to celebrate following a good year without terror attacks in the homeland. But then, without warning, at 2:15 am, "the worm" comes to life.
An extremely sophisticated and complex virus, the Storm Worm 2, launched by Osama Bin Laden's IT group three months earlier, was cleverly engineered to keep multiplying exponentially, constantly infecting and taking full control of more and more computers, servers and networks worldwide.
The Homeland Security Bulletin Of Open Source Threats HS BOOST
SSI is taking orders from Intelligence agencies around the country for its brand-new workshop, Jihad 2.0 from Virtual to Physical. The workshop, created by Gadi Aviran, the founder of Terrorgence, the content providers for SSI's new monthly Intelligence Subscription service HS Boost has already been ordered in Florida, Boston, Denver, Anaheim and many more cities. The workshop increases awareness of the entire Terror threat life cycle without undue focus on any one aspect or modus operandi. This give Homeland Security an advantage in understanding phenomena like Suicide Terror which far too often are treated as independant threats.
The last Intelligence bulletin drew attention to ther threat to US railways, and indeed there was an incident this month in Virginia. Anyone that is a bona fide member of an intelligence service that would like to receive a copy of the pilot should contact Henry Morgenstern 305.401.6906 (cell).
Yakima, WA - February 22nd and 23rd, 2008
U.S. Scraps Plan For Anti-Radiation Pills
By Mimi Hall
WASHINGTON - The federal government will not give anti-radiation pills to millions of people who live 10 to 20 miles from a nuclear plant because there are more effective ways to protect people in case of an accident or terrorist attack, the White House said Monday.
The pills "offer negligible additional protection" against radiation exposure for those who live outside a 10-mile radius of a reactor, said John Marburger, President Bush's top science adviser.
Some members of Congress and thyroid cancer activists expressed outrage. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called it "reckless endangerment of the American people."
NNSA Provides Aerial Radiation Detection Training to Chicago PD
WASHINGTON, DC - The federal government's experts in detecting radiation are partnering with Chicago's police department in a pilot effort to train local law enforcement officers to use advanced detection methods. The aerial radiation detection training will be provided by the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) this week.
"NNSA has years of experience in radiation detection using airborne detectors in our own Aerial Measurements System helicopters and airplanes," said NNSA Associate Administrator for Emergency Operations Joseph J. Krol. "We are looking forward to partnering with the Chicago police to help them to better understand and use these systems in the most effective ways possible."
In conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), NNSA will train the police aviation unit on radiation detection. The course is designed to prepare law enforcement officers to conduct a radiological surveillance mission using a radiation detection system mounted on a helicopter. This system detects gamma radiation and will help locate a potential dirty bomb or other radiological source.
An online forum linked to Al-Qaeda claims to be offering strengthened encryption software to its members. The twist? It's coming from U.S.-based Web sites.
The encryption software, "Mujahideen Secrets 2," was announced in the last few days at an Arabic-language site and may well be better than last year's software, "Mujahideen Secrets 1," which some experts claim is poorly designed and breakable. Most surprising, though, is that the Al-Ekhlaas forum that announced the 2.0 version is hosted at a Web site based in Tampa, Fla.
"The original Mujahideen Secrets used a weak methodology, it was not properly designed and it was breakable," asserts Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing. Henry notes that the first version of Mujahideen Secrets makes use of the RSA-based public-key cryptography.
By Andy Patrizio In the film "Arlington Road," a college professor in a quiet Virginia town is disturbed to learn his neighbors may be terrorists. That film was released in 1999. In 2008, something similar happened, in a manner more fitting to the 21st century.
A few days ago, Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing began tracking a software package called Mujahideen Secrets 2, an update to an encryption tool used by al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to communicate on the Internet.
Henry tracked it down to a password-protected Web site that belongs to an Islamic forum known as al-Ekhlaas. al-Ekhlaas's domain, Ek-ls.org, traces back to a hosting company, Noc4Hosts, which in turn is run by Hi Velocity, a hosting provider based in Tampa, Florida.
Today the Senate takes up a bipartisan surveillance authorization measure that's already passed the Intelligence Committee. The clock is ticking. This Friday a temporary law called the Protect America Act will expire. If Congress does not act before then, the president's statutory power to prevent terrorist attacks will be seriously compromised.
This dangerous situation should never have arisen. From the beginning, presidents have exercised their Article II executive power to gather foreign intelligence -- in war and peace alike, without congressional or judicial intrusion. As our principal agent in foreign affairs, the president is constitutionally bound to protect the nation. For that, intelligence is essential.
Intelligence is essential on the domestic side as well, where law enforcement is the president's main function. Yet not until 1967 did the Supreme Court require warrants for electronic surveillance. Congress codified that a year later. But both the court and Congress expressly exempted foreign-intelligence gathering from the warrant requirement.
Collateral Damage: Surveillance Aimed at Terrorists Can Easily Go Awry
By Jeff Stein
U.S. intelligence tapped the telephone calls of Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, starting in 2002.
This may well be news to many people, even though Wright revealed the taps himself in a sprawling, 15,000-word article on electronic surveillance in the Jan. 21 edition of The New Yorker magazine.
Perhaps because the article was not available online it lacked the link-juice to propel it into a frenzy over the "domestic spying" on the Web, the cable news shows and leading American newspapers.
As far as I can tell, only Pam Hess of the Associated Press picked up on Wright's confrontation with spy chief Michael McConnell over the phone taps, and no major paper ran it. The version of her story that The Washington Post printed recounted McConnell's telling Wright that water boarding would be "torture" if it were done to him, but dropped the five paragraphs Hess wrote on the eavesdropping. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal skipped Wright's wiretap account altogether.
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Cell Phone Sensors Detect Radiation To Thwart Nuclear Terrorism
Researchers at Purdue University are working with the state of Indiana to develop a system that would use a network of cell phones to detect and track radiation to help prevent terrorist attacks with radiological "dirty bombs" and nuclear weapons.
Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach. Fischbach is working with Jere Jenkins, director of Purdue's radiation laboratories within the School of Nuclear Engineering.
"It's the ubiquitous nature of cell phones and other portable electronic devices that give this system its power," Fischbach said. "It's meant to be small, cheap and eventually built into laptops, personal digital assistants and cell phones."
Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom is launching that nation's first iris recognition access-control system for airport employees.
The iris system is replacing identification checks made by guards at checkpoints to limit access to secure areas, according to media reports in the U.K. Instead, the nearly 25,000 airport employees will use iris scanners to gain entry through gates into restricted zones.
The system is being installed by the U.K.'s Department for Transport, Manchester Airport and biometric identity-management consultancy Human Recognition Systems.
The immigration control section at Manchester Airport has used iris scanning since 2006. Prescreened passengers receive expedited passage through immigration controls if they register their iris biometrics in advance, and then screen their irises at the airports.
Islamic Terrorist Software Released to Cloak Jihadist Internet Communications
By Kelly O'Connell
Software designed specifically to aid Muslim terrorists hide their identities and location while online has been released in an updated version, according to security analyst Paul Henry of Secure Computing. He says the program is named Mujahideen Secrets 2, and claims it is "the first Islamic program for secure communications through networks with the highest technical level of encoding." Henry, VP of technology evangelism at Secure states that until recently al-Qaida didn't pose a credible threat on the Internet because of its reliance upon outdated technology. But having now developed modern encryption tools, the entire equation is changed. Equally disturbing is the fact the new jihadist program is being distributed via servers based in the U.S. -- in Tampa, Florida.
The software is available free at the password-protected Ekhlaas.org site, a destination frequently carrying al-Qaida messages, and is an updated version of the Mujahideen Secrets program that was released in early 2007 by the Global Islamic Media Front, an al-Qaida-linked Internet organization. The website says about the program, "This special edition of the software was developed and issued by Ekhlaas in order to support the mujahideen (holy war fighters) in general and the (al-Qaida-linked group) Islamic State in Iraq in particular." Henry said that he contacted the FBI about the al-Ekhlaas site and its contents in mid-January but that the website continued to be up and running afterwards. The al-Ekhlaas site had previously been at a Minnesota server until it was chased off, according to Henry.
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