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Posts Tagged ‘defense’

The MORIS device attaches to the back of an iPhone, adding roughly 1.75 inches to the thickness of the smartphone. Police officers armed with the tool can take a photo of a person’s face from about five feet away, or scan his or her iris from about six inches, and wirelessly beam that data to law enforcement databases elsewhere to look for a match. It can also perform remote fingerprint matching.

Similar biometric technology has been deployed by the U.S. military in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to confirm the identities of civilians entering military safe zones and to search for known insurgents at checkpoints. But rolling it out in the streets of the U.S. has plenty of people concerned with privacy and Constitutional issues.

The technology lives in a somewhat gray area of the law. It’s generally permissible to take a photo of anyone in a public space, but when a law enforcement agent does so--and especially when he or she then cross references it against a criminal database--that could constitute a search, and therefore should require a warrant.

It’s another one of those situations where technology has simply outpaced the law ( you would think Ben Franklin of all people would’ve seen mobile facial recognition software coming). So while it would be nice to turn to legal precedent here, there simply is none.

Nonetheless, BI2 has deals with about 40 agencies nationwide to deliver about 1,000 of the devices starting in September. From a law enforcement standpoint, police officers seem to like it. It’s a technology that lets them get to the bottom of a situation quickly. Moreover, in the technology’s defense, it’s tough to use MORIS to abuse a person’s rights if an officer is not already in the process of abusing them.

In an interview with BI2’s chief executive Sean Mullin last year, he told PopSci that the responses of privacy groups and civil liberties advocates are entirely appropriate, but that he thinks the technology passes legal muster. The facial recognition technology requires a frontal facial image taken from close proximity, he says--in other words, it requires consent. Iris scans are practically impossible without the subject’s cooperation, as are fingerprint scans. Besides, the alternative when a police officer can’t confirm a suspect’s identity is generally a trip downtown to sort it out. MORIS simplifies that process.

Whether or not that’s enough to satisfy the privacy rights crowd--and the law--remains to be seen. How this kind of technology is treated by the law now will set the precedent for when the technology becomes more robust--and perhaps more long-range, more surreptitious, and potentially more “Big Brother.”

[WSJ]

The MORIS device attaches to the back of an iPhone, adding roughly 1.75 inches to the thickness of the smartphone. Police officers armed with the tool can take a photo of a person’s face from about five feet away, or scan his or her iris from about six inches, and wirelessly beam that data to law enforcement databases elsewhere to look for a match. It can also perform remote fingerprint matching.

Similar biometric technology has been deployed by the U.S. military in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to confirm the identities of civilians entering military safe zones and to search for known insurgents at checkpoints. But rolling it out in the streets of the U.S. has plenty of people concerned with privacy and Constitutional issues.

The technology lives in a somewhat gray area of the law. It’s generally permissible to take a photo of anyone in a public space, but when a law enforcement agent does so--and especially when he or she then cross references it against a criminal database--that could constitute a search, and therefore should require a warrant.

It’s another one of those situations where technology has simply outpaced the law ( you would think Ben Franklin of all people would’ve seen mobile facial recognition software coming). So while it would be nice to turn to legal precedent here, there simply is none.

Nonetheless, BI2 has deals with about 40 agencies nationwide to deliver about 1,000 of the devices starting in September. From a law enforcement standpoint, police officers seem to like it. It’s a technology that lets them get to the bottom of a situation quickly. Moreover, in the technology’s defense, it’s tough to use MORIS to abuse a person’s rights if an officer is not already in the process of abusing them.

In an interview with BI2’s chief executive Sean Mullin last year, he told PopSci that the responses of privacy groups and civil liberties advocates are entirely appropriate, but that he thinks the technology passes legal muster. The facial recognition technology requires a frontal facial image taken from close proximity, he says--in other words, it requires consent. Iris scans are practically impossible without the subject’s cooperation, as are fingerprint scans. Besides, the alternative when a police officer can’t confirm a suspect’s identity is generally a trip downtown to sort it out. MORIS simplifies that process.

Whether or not that’s enough to satisfy the privacy rights crowd--and the law--remains to be seen. How this kind of technology is treated by the law now will set the precedent for when the technology becomes more robust--and perhaps more long-range, more surreptitious, and potentially more “Big Brother.”

[WSJ]

TeraDiode’s system is based on semiconductor laser technology (fueled by electricity rather than chemicals, which is already a plus from a safe-handling standpoint) augmented by an optical system that wrangles several beams of light into a single powerful beam. Powerful enough, the company says, for industrial cutting and welding. Or for blowing stuff up.

Weapons-grade lasers are a tough sell (as regular PopSci readers know from our ongoing boomand bust coverage of the Missile Defense Agency’s Airborne Laser Test Bed), but if TeraDiode’s system can pack as much punch into a small package as the company claims, it could be onto something.

The company sees its lasers someday deployed on ships or tanks, small enough to be mobile but strong enough to down a UAV or perhaps even knock incoming artillery or RPGs out of the air. More near term, it wants to get its direct-diodes on the back of fighter jets to confuse--or perhaps even destroy--incoming anti-aircraft missiles. And TeraDiode isn’t just talking a big game it seems--the company told Xconomy that testing on the aircraft defense system could begin in a year, with deployment in three to five years.

[Xconomy]

It’s even getting a cool name: the “Cyber Red Team.” But the urgency that name implies might not carry over to the force’s actual functions. For the most part, it sounds like the Red Team would simulate threats to manage readiness and response, probe networks for potential security vulnerabilities, assess the damage of cyber attacks against member states, and carry out the occasional denial of service attack.

In other words, it sounds like Cyber Team Red will be a fast reactive force rather than a proactive force meting out cyber punishment to nations that step out of cyber-line. Still, given the difficulty in identifying and prosecuting cyber crimes across international borders, such an international cyber force could go a long way toward enforcing international law/agreements and protecting states that don’t have the resources to mount their own cyber defenses.

[PhysOrg]

The cyber security firm's portable password generators were duplicated

That’s something of a massive recall. RSA’s SecureID tokens add a second layer of protection to employees’ static passwords via a keyfob-like device that displays a second numeric password necessary to log on. That password changes every 30 seconds, ensuring that even if someone steals an employee’s regular password, the perpetrator still won’t be able to access a secure server without possession of the SecureID token.

At least that was the idea. Back in March, RSA experienced its own cyber attack, and in a letter issued to customers yesterday it admitted that it has been working behind the scenes ever since to shore up cyber defenses at its defense-oriented clients, as an analysis of the hack at RSA indicated that the perps were seeking information that could be used to breach defense-related companies.

The letter also admitted that data stolen from RSA was used to breach Lockheed Martin’s networks (specifically, the hackers used duplicates of the SecureID tokens issued to Lockheed employees).

That doesn’t bode particularly well for RSA or for American corporations’ cyber defense abilities on the whole, seeing as cyber security is RSA’s bread and butter and its core competency. Considering its SecureID tags are employed by millions of corporate workers--including those at various other defense-related companies--this latest revelation isn’t exactly welcome news for anyone (except the hackers who got away with it). RSA is now scrambling to replace tokens and offer additional security monitoring for its non-defense-related clients.

[WSJ]

DARPA began pursuing the project in 2005 and commissioned Aerovironment to begin work on prototype technologies in 2006. Since then, as you’ll see in the video, it hasn’t always been smooth hovering. Early versions were difficult to handle and crashes were not infrequent. But the final product is nothing short of impressive: a tiny, robotic bird capable of two-wing hovering, fast forward flight, and maneuvers like rolls and flips all while carrying all of its own power sources, a small computer, and a tiny camera that beams a feed back to the operator.

Not bad for six years of intense work and more than 300 wing designs. See it come together in fast forward in the video below.

[DARPA]

Finally, AeroVironment has a working prototype: the 6.5-inch-wingspan Nano Hummingbird. “It was never our intention to copy what nature has done; it’s just too daunting,” says Matt Keennon, the UAV’s head researcher. The camera-equipped bird beats its wings 20 times a second, whereas hummingbirds clock up to 80. Still, it can hover like the real thing, plus perform rolls and even backflips. Here’s how the bird flies.

WingsA skeleton of hollow carbon-fiber rods is wrapped in fiber mesh and coated in a polyvinyl fluoride film.

CameraThe camera angle is defined by the pitch of the Nano’s body. Forward motion gives the operator a view of the ground, aiding navigation. Hovering is good for surveying rooms.

Body It weighs 18.7 grams (less than an AA battery). The craft is remote-controlled, but an onboard computer corrects speed and pitch.