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Archive for the ‘terrorism’ category: Page 8

Mar 16, 2019

What do the people of the world die from?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, terrorism

In some countries, progress has not always been smooth. Disease, epidemics and unexpected events are a reminder that ever-longer lives are not a given.

Meanwhile, the deaths that may preoccupy us — from terrorism, war and natural disasters — make up less than 0.5% of all deaths combined.


It will happen to all of us, but how and when we die speaks volumes about who we are and where we live.

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Feb 15, 2019

How quantum terrorists could bring down the future internet

Posted by in categories: internet, quantum physics, terrorism

Malicious actors could exploit the laws of quantum mechanics to destroy quantum information on a global scale, say physicists.

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Feb 5, 2019

Why nonviolent resistance is more successful in effecting change than violent campaigns

Posted by in categories: government, terrorism

WCIA: A general strike seems like a personally costly way to protest, especially if you just stop working or stop buying things. Why are they effective?


Recent research suggests that nonviolent civil resistance is far more successful in creating broad-based change than violent campaigns are, a somewhat surprising finding with a story behind it.

When Erica Chenoweth started her predoctoral fellowship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 2006, she believed in the strategic logic of armed resistance. She had studied terrorism, civil war, and major revolutions—Russian, French, Algerian, and American—and suspected that only violent force had achieved major social and political change. But then a workshop led her to consider proving that violent resistance was more successful than the nonviolent kind. Since the question had never been addressed systematically, she and colleague Maria J. Stephan began a research project.

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Dec 26, 2018

Facial Recognition Tech Aims to Identify Good and Evil

Posted by in categories: education, information science, law, privacy, robotics/AI, terrorism

Facial recognition is going mainstream. The technology is increasingly used by law-enforcement agencies and in schools, casinos and retail stores, spurring privacy concerns. In this episode of Moving Upstream, WSJ’s Jason Bellini tests out the technology at an elementary school in Seattle and visits a company that claims its algorithm can identify potential terrorists by their facial features alone.


Sep 6, 2018

What Are the Biggest Problems Facing Us in the 21st Century?

Posted by in categories: futurism, terrorism

In his fascinating new book, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” the historian Yuval Noah Harari creates a useful framework for confronting these fears. While his previous best sellers, “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus,” covered the past and future respectively, his new book is all about the present. The trick for putting an end to our anxieties, he suggests, is not to stop worrying. It’s to know which things to worry about, and how much to worry about them. As he writes in his introduction: “What are today’s greatest challenges and most important changes? What should we pay attention to? What should we teach our kids?”


In “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book, the historian takes on everything from terrorism to inequality.

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Aug 10, 2018

Drone Assassination Attempt Foreshadows Future Events

Posted by in categories: drones, law enforcement, terrorism, weapons

Until this past year, consumer drones carried tiny ultralight cameras, but they just didn’t have the energy or the reserve to carry much else. They certainly could not deliver much of a product or payload. They flew for 15 minutes, lacked the capacity to carry excess weight, and had short range.

But market demand sparks innovation. Amazon and Domino’s Pizza are experimenting with drone delivery. The improvements needed to serve these needs are quickly bubbling down to unlicensed weekend pilots. Hexacopters with 4K cameras, gimbals and retracting landing gear are available for under $400. Tiny foldable drones with 720p cameras are available for $35. Some models don’t even need a pilot on a joystick. You can preprogram the flight path to reach any target using GPS, or you can guide them by making gestures with your hand. The drone actually looks back over its shoulder and responds to your hand-waving commands.

Lance Ulanoff is a cartoonist and robotics fantech expert. But he shares a lot in common with Wild Ducks. He is an eclectic journalist and social media commentator.

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Jun 26, 2018

How Tech Companies Are Trying to Disrupt Terrorist Social Media Activity

Posted by in categories: internet, terrorism

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft formed the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism last year to prevent terrorists from exploiting their services.

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May 20, 2018

Terrorists Are Going to Use Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in categories: encryption, robotics/AI, terrorism

Machine-learning technology is growing ever more accessible. Let’s not have a 9/11-style ‘failure of imagination’ about it.

There is a general tendency among counterterrorism analysts to understate rather than hyperbolize terrorists’ technological adaptations. In 2011 and 2012, most believed that the “Arab Spring” revolutions would marginalize jihadist movements. But within four years, jihadists had attracted a record number of foreign fighters to the Syrian battlefield, in part by using the same social media mobilization techniques that protesters had employed to challenge dictators like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, and Muammar Qaddafi.

Militant groups later combined easy accessibility to operatives via social media with new advances in encryption to create the “virtual planner” model of terrorism. This model allows online operatives to provide the same offerings that were once the domain of physical networks, including recruitment, coordinating the target and timing of attacks, and even providing technical assistance on topics like bomb-making.

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May 15, 2018

These Army Graphic Novels Predict the Future of Cyber Warfare

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, military, robotics/AI, terrorism

In “Engineering a Traiter,” the year is 2027, and a former military officer named Jay Roberts has just engineered a missile attack in downtown Houston — except he doesn’t know that it’s his fault.

This sombre graphic novel tells the story of Roberts, an army engineer working in Texas who’s been targeted by a militia eager to gain access to building codes in order to orchestrate a terrorist attack. With sophisticated A.I., the militia manipulate everything in Roberts’s life. The news he sees is curated to instil hopelessness and despair, and family members’ social media accounts are hijacked to distance Roberts from loved ones. Frustrated and alone, he eventually confesses security information to a “friend” he’s made online, allowing the militias the access they’ve been hoping for. Once they have what they want, Roberts’ social media is manipulated to make him look like a radicalized terrorist. When the attack occurs, he takes the fall.

The narrative may be science fiction, but it paints a realistic — if not paranoid — vision of the future. That bleakness is exactly what Brian David Johnson wanted when he began penning a series of graphic novels for the Army Cyber Institute at West Point.

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May 10, 2018

The first smallpox treatment is one step closer to FDA approval

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, terrorism

Upcoming anti-viral medication for smallpox…


As bioterrorism fears grow, the first treatment for smallpox is nearing approval.

Called tecovirimat, the drug stops the variola virus, which causes smallpox, from sending out copies of itself and infecting other cells. “If the virus gets ahead of your immune system, you get sick,” says Dennis Hruby, the chief scientific officer of pharmaceutical company SIGA Technologies, which took part in developing the drug. “If you can slow the virus down, your immune system will get ahead.”

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