by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 29, 2016 | Initiative
Hackers, presumably directed by the Chinese government, have attacked the Web site of Vietnam’s two biggest airports and its national airline, Vietnam Airlines, with pro-Chinese messages about China’s attempts to take control of most of the South China Sea. The attacks come after a ruling by an international tribunal earlier in July in the Hague that China’s claims are almost entirely spurious.
Vietnamese state media said the hackers criticized the Philippines and Vietnam and their comparatively modest claims in the South China Sea.
Vietnamese officials said the hackers directed browsers to what Vietnam Airlines called “bad Web sites overseas”.
To read an Agence France-Presse article on this,
please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 29, 2016 | News
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey warned that if the Islamic State is defeated in the Middle East: a “diaspora” of the group’s fighters could infiltrate Western Europe and the U.S. and stage many terror attacks there.
“This is an order of magnitude greater than any diaspora we’ve seen before,” Mr. Comey said. “A lot of terrorists fled out of Afghanistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is 10 times that or more.”
To read The Wall Street Journal’s article on Mr. Comey’s warning, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 29, 2016 | News
The Chernobyl nuclear plant after the explosion and meltdown there in 1986.
The Ukrainian government says that the nuclear wasteland around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power-plant disaster could be turned into one of the world’s largest solar farms. The Guardian says officials say that the plant could generate nearly a third of the electricity that the nuclear facility generated before the explosion and meltdown there in 1986.
The news service reported: “In a presentation sent to major banks and seen by the Guardian, 6,000 hectares of ‘idle’ land in Chernobyl’s 1,000 square km exclusion zone, which is considered too dangerous for people to live in or farm, could be turned to solar, biogas and heat and power generation.”
To read The Guardian’s story, please hit this link:
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 29, 2016 | Initiative
Google will point Web searches toward anti-radicalization Web sites after a study shows more clearly than before the role of the search engine, rather than social media, in drawing people to extremist material on the Web.
The study is one of the first to expose the role of the search engine rather than social media in drawing people to jihadi material. The study’s authors argue that the role of the search engine has been a blind spot that those seeking to counter extremist messages on the Internet have been missing.
Some may challenge the study, undertaken jointly by Digitalis and the Center on Religion and Geopolitics, asserting that it advocates censorship, and blurs the lines between legitimate political Islam and violent extremism.
To read The Guardian’s article on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 28, 2016 | Initiative
Bloomberg reported July 27 that experts had warned the Democratic National Committee last fall that its computer network was open to attacks by state-sponsored and other hackers but it didn’t follow the cyberexperts’ security advice.
The revelation is another blow to party officials humiliated by the theft and public disclosure of e-mails that have led to a political firestorm. The hacking was done by Russians working for the regime of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Bloomberg reported: “Computer security consultants hired by the DNC made dozens of recommendations after a two-month review, the people said. Following the advice, which would typically include having specialists hunt for intruders on the network, might have alerted party officials that hackers had been lurking in their network for weeks — hackers who would stay for nearly a year.
“Instead, officials didn’t discover the breach until April. The theft ultimately led to the release of almost 20,000 internal e-mails through WikiLeaks last week on the eve of the convention.” Wikileaks is run by Julian Assange, who is an ally of Mr. Putin.
To read the Bloomberg article, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 27, 2016 | Initiative
Bloomberg reports that cybersecurity “is the biggest concern for companies evaluating risk in the nascent self-driving vehicle industry, according to a survey conducted by Munich Re.”
The reinsurer found that “55 percent of corporate risk managers surveyed named cybersecurity as their top concern about self-driving cars,” reported Bloomberg. “Cybersecurity included the potential hacking of an automated car’s data systems as well as the failure of smart road infrastructure, Munich Re said in an e-mail.”
“Cybersecurity is a new exposure when it comes to automobiles,” Mike Scrudato, head of Munich Re’s mobility operations, told Bloomberg. “One of the factors that could increase premiums is the cyber exposure because there is no real cyber product being purchased in relation to auto today.”
To read the Bloomberg article, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 26, 2016 | News
The World Climate Research Program, a United Nations agency, says that record temperatures in the first half of 2016 surprised scientists despite recognition that extreme weather is becoming more frequent and intense. Earth seems on track to have its hottest year since fairly reliable record-keeping began in the late 19th Century.
Temperatures recorded mainly in the Northern Hemisphere in 2016’s first six months, along with an early and fast Arctic sea ice melt and “new highs” in heat-trapping carbon-dioxide levels suggest faster climate change, the agency said.
Meanwhile, the agency will study whether a temperature of 54 degrees Celsius (129 degrees Fahrenheit) reported in Kuwait on July 21 was a new high for the Eastern Hemisphere.
To read an Agence France-Presse story on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 26, 2016 | News
As Germans reel from recent terror attacks, here’s a question and answer piece on German asylum policy. Many Germans are angry that the policy has brought in some murderous people from the Mideast.
To read a CNN article on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jul 26, 2016 | News
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida wants Japan to host a trilateral summit with South Korea and China soon. One of the topics is bound to be what to do about North Korea’s saber-rattling.
“The cooperation of Japan, China and South Korea has completely been normalized,” Mr. Kishida said recently.
To read The Japan Time’s story on this, please hit this link.
