encryption

Just an interesting note today: In a move that could boost the adoption of facial recognition technology, the Department of Homeland Security settled on a standard format for facial data.

The standard, developed by the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), tells facial-recognition software and hardware companies how to design their products to allow them to communicate with one another.

This should help the United States, and countries with which it shares visa waivers, roll out passports that contain facial recognition data that much faster.

The current chaos of an Internet plagued by viruses, worms, spam and phishing could be a vision into the future of the human race and genetic warfare, especially given that a stem-cell research measure passed in California on Tuesday.

As researchers dig farther into the human genome and perfect the technology of targeting specific human genes, doctors have begun to argue that programmable biology could give rise to viruses that target ethnic groups or needed resources, such as food stocks. A report by the British Medical Association paints a future world where biological threats could be created by the irresponsible … Read more

Many pundits have posited that the United States needs better identity cards and, in some cases, have argued for national identity cards.

Much of the time the argument for new identification measures rests on the fact that our current amalgam of identification is horribly insecure. Wide-open drivers' licenses and a proof of identity that general consists of an easily discoverable set of facts, such as date of birth and social security numbers, make adopting another person less than difficult. Without a doubt, it needs to be improved.

However, the recent arrests of the suspected members of an identity crime syndicate … Read more

The numbers are in, and they're big.

This week, President Bush signed the 2005 budget for funding the Department of Homeland Security, allocating some $40.7 billion to that agency, an increase of 6.6 percent over 2004.

The DHS's Science and Technology Directorate will get a 20 percent boost in pocket money, to some $1.1 billion. Almost half of the money will be spend on research and development of technologies that counter chemical, biological and radiological weapons. The United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) Program will received $340 million to deploy technology aimed … Read more

Richard Clarke responded to yesterday's post, indicating that the data he mentioned was for al-Qaida attacks. According to Clarke: "The number of al-Qaida attacks in the 36 months since 9/11 is twice the number of al-Qaida attacks in the 36 months prior to 9/11. The data you show is not al-Qaida attacks, but all attacks including by such groups as the Colombian FARC."

While that clears up the confusion, it remains debatable whether al-Qaida, currently the most urgent terrorist threat to the United States, should be the sole measure of U.S. national security.

Richard Clarke isn't letting up on the Bush Administration for what he continues to argue is its wrongheaded tactics on terrorism.

Clarke, a 30-year counterterrorism veteran of the U.S. government and, now, an analyst for network TV, criticized the Bush Administration's response to September 11 in a speech kicking off the smart-card industry's conference in San Francisco today.

"By every measure, the indicators are that the threat (of terrorism) is at least as great as it was three years ago," Clarke told the attendees of the Smart Card Alliance. Clarke is also the controversial … Read more

The Department of Homeland Security has had a rough couple of weeks trying to weather its adolescent troubles with cybersecurity. The agency's current director of its National Cybersecurity Division, Amit Yoran, upped and left after a little over a year at the post. Industry insiders were quick to claim that he had left because he didn't have enough clout to do his job. However, Yoran did not stress the charge himself, sidestepping the issue by saying he "never advocated" a higher position for cybersecurity.

The calls for elevating cybersecurity to a political dukedom rather than a … Read more

A key component of this special report is the potential for waste and abuse in the maze of regulations and bureaucracy that is the Department of Homeland Security. For the record, our decision to examine this particular department was not an arbitrary "fishing expedition" based on uninformed guesses or idle assumptions. We knew that the department had already made some questionable use of taxpayer money in other areas, so it made sense to scrutinize its record on technology contracts and policies as well.

For instance, other news organizations and whistleblower groups had exposed various shenanigans, such as the … Read more

Welcome to News.com's blog on homeland security technology and policy. This forum addresses the last of three important issues we analyzed this election year in a series called "Digital Agenda," so named because we have proposed steps toward possible solutions as well as provided comprehensive news coverage--a marked departure for News.com.

As with the other two subjects in this series--offshoring and broadband--homeland security is a massive topic with seemingly infinite angles. What we have tried to do with our three-day report, which goes live on the Web today, is begin a complex discussion that would … Read more