Perhaps nothing has hurt America's standing in the world so much recently as the media stories related to Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, secret detention centers abroad, and extraordinary renditions. All are related to interrogation as a means of intelligence collection. Any research team that looks seriously into the topic of interrogation should pay closer attention to this broader picture. Interrogation methods are not just about what works best to gather information; they are also about what can stand the light of day from a moral point of view in the eyes of American citizens and people around the world. For the next iteration, the Intelligence Science Board may wish to have an ethicist on board, and perhaps an expert or two who can look at the wider foreign policy implications that flow from the choices America makes about how to question detainees.

Have you seen Taxi to the Dark Side?

Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art — Central Intelligence Agency

I want to talk a little bit about what we’re doing from a cyber-security perspective and what we hope to get out of the exercises going on today from the Cyber Storm perspective. I think it’s important to note that when most people think about DHS they think either about TSA or Border Patrol agents or other physical presence in security situations and it’s important to realize that DHS has an important role in cyber security. And even though cyber security is not tangible or as tangible as some of the other security aspects that we deal with at DHS it’s a very, very important issue and it’s important threats and arrows that we’re dealing with as a department.

Cyber Storm II

How do we know what another person is thinking? New research suggests we use the same brain region that we do when thinking about ourselves — but only as long as we judge the person to be similar to us.

When second-guessing the opinions and feelings of those unlike ourselves, this brain region does not get involved, the new research shows. This may mean we are more likely to fall back on stereotyping — potentially helping to explain the causes of social tensions such as racism or religious disputes.

How we judge the thoughts of others

The New America Foundation and the American Security Project are proud to co-sponsor a special lunchtime panel featuring leading experts sounding their urgent call for the United States to end the practice of torture.

For those in the DC area, the New America Foundation is hosting a luncheon today with Peter Bergen.

No Torture, No Exceptions | The New America Foundation

The software developed at Mason, CAULDRON, allows for the transformation of raw security data into roadmaps that allow users to proactively prepare for attacks, manage vulnerability risks and have real-time situational awareness. CAULDRON provides informed risk analysis, analyzes vulnerability dependencies and shows all possible attack paths into a network. In this way, it accounts for sophisticated attack strategies that may penetrate an organization’s layered defenses.

CAULDRON’s intelligent analysis engine reasons through attack dependencies, producing a map of all vulnerability paths that are then organized as an attack graph that conveys the impact of combined vulnerabilities on overall security. To manage attack graph complexity, CAULDRON includes hierarchical graph visualizations with high-level overviews and detail drilldown, allowing users to navigate into a selected part of the big picture to get more information.

Next-Generation Software to Identify Complex Cyber Network Attacks

Five years have now passed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Iraq with Sen. John McCain — the presumptive Republican nominee for president — summarized the five years by saying, “If you reflect back on those five years, it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor. We’ve come a long way in five years, and it’s been well worth the effort.” Democratic presidential aspirant Sen. Hillary Clinton called the war a failure.

It is the role of political leaders to make such declarations, not ours. Nevertheless, after five years, it is a moment to reflect less on where we are and more on where we are going.

Stratfor’s War: Five Years Later

Boston Dynamics has just released a brand new video of their DARPA-funded Big Dog robot. Big Dog, the older brother of the Little Dog robot we covered a while back, is meant to be a "pack mule" for soldiers some day. Behind Big Dog is some pretty cool force-controlled technology. With its quadruped gait it can regain balance if it's kicked, handle rough terrain like rocks, and climb inclines up to 35 deg.

In this new video, in addition to some footage from previous videos, you can see it handling slippery ice, slopes in deep snow, and demoing its new walking gait. About halfway through is the ice part -- this thing is better than I am at regaining balance. There's also a demo of it carrying a 340 lb load, much heavier than it has managed in the past. And I LOVE the hopping/jumping at the end.

One warning, you might want to turn off your sound, since as awesome as this guy is, the gas engine is very loud and very annoying.

(Text from IEEE)

Big Dog

Know your goo.

How should scientists and engineers respond to the concern over technology-driven threats? Although there are persuasive arguments for the proposition that they not engage in public policy debates or speculate about the possibility of social harm emanating from research and development, the author believes that they should possess the analytical techniques to evaluate (not judge) the societal impacts of technology. Technology impact studies should be incorporated into the research plans of major new initiatives, along with formal requirements to mitigate known negative societal impacts. Finally, scientists and engineers should undertake, on their own initiative, efforts to reduce the negative impacts of their work.

Whose Responsibility?

Julian Sanchez:

As the battle over reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rages in Congress, civil libertarians warn that legislation sought by the White House could enable spying on "ordinary Americans." Others, like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), counter that only those with an "irrational fear of government" believe that "our country's intelligence analysts are more concerned with random innocent Americans than foreign terrorists overseas."

But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can -- and repeatedly have -- abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters.

Wiretapping's true danger

In conclusion, we believe the FBI and the Department have made significant progress in implementing the recommendations from our first NSL report and in adopting other corrective actions to address problems we and the FBI identified in the use of national security letters. We also found that the FBI has devoted significant energy, time, and resources toward ensuring that its field managers and agents understand the seriousness of the FBI’s shortcomings in its use of NSLs and their responsibility for correcting these deficiencies.
…
However, because only a year has passed since the OIG’s first NSL report was released and some measures are not fully implemented, we also believe it is too early to definitively state whether the new systems and controls developed by the FBI and the Department will eliminate fully the problems with the uses of NSLs that we and the FBI have identified. We believe the FBI must implement all of our recommendations in the first NSL report, demonstrate sustained commitment to the steps it has taken and committed to take to improve compliance, implement additional recommendations in this second report, consider additional measures to enhance privacy protections for NSL-derived information, and remain vigilant in holding FBI personnel accountable for properly preparing and approving NSLs and for handling responsive records appropriately.

See also, Response to DOJ Inspector General’s Review of FBI’s Use of National Security Letters & Corrective Actions.

A Review of the FBI’s Use of National Security Letters: Assessment of Corrective Actions and Examination of NSL Usage