Course development specialist Dr Alan Bruce on new training challenges
Dr Nikolai Radulov, former Permanent Secretary of the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior, on recent reforms of security structures
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July 30 2010
Endgame in Afghanistan: the futility of war
Sean Smith, a film-maker and photographer with The Guardian newspaper, spent five weeks in Afghanistan with US marines and a helicopter ambulance crew. His extraordinary film from the Helmand front line shows the horrific chaos of the war's stalemate, as US troops try to drive Taleban insurgents back towards the border with Pakistan.
The Guardian
July 29 2010
Technology and society: virtually insecure
"The digital dossiers that companies are building from the browsing, searching and other habits of ordinary web users are becoming increasingly refined," says Joseph Menn in the Financial Times. "At the same time, a deluge of personal information has been unleashed publicly on the web, with Facebook's 500m users at the forefront. With rapid inroads on both fronts being made into many traditional expectations of personal privacy, the results could prove explosive."
The Financial Times
July 28 2010
US security chiefs tricked in social networking experiment
Robin Sage, an avatar created by a security researcher to see how easily social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, could be used covertly to gather intelligence, made connections with hundreds of people from the US military, intelligence agenies, information security companies and government contractors. Thomas Ryan, co-founder of Provide Security, said that, despite claiming falsely to have worked professionally for ten years, Sage managed to attract connections inlcuding a senior intelligence official in the US Marine Corps, senior executives at defence contractors, the chief of staff for a US congressman and an official from the National Reconnaisance Office, which builds, launches and runs US spy satellites.
The Guardian
'Botnet hacker' arrested in Slovenia
A 23-year-old man, believed to be the computer hacker responsible for one of the world's largest 'botnets' has been arrested by police in Slovenia. The botnet was dismantled this year after infecting 12.7 million computers. Officials from around the world have been working together to capture the criminals responsible for the massive malware operation and three arrests were made in Spain in December 2009. Jeffrey Troy of the FBI's cyber division told Associated Press that "...as opposed to arresting the guy who broke into your home, we've arrested the guy that gave him the crowbar, the map and the best houses in the neighbourhood."
BBC
July 26 2010
Report reveals top secret America
A two-year investigation by The Washington Post has revealed the "huge national security build-up" in the United States since the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001. A network of 45 government organisations, broken down into 1,271 sub-units, supported by 1,931 private sector companies, has been created. The Washington Post describes the result as "an enterprise so massive that nobody in government has a full understanding of it. It is...ubiquitous, often inefficient and mostly invisible to the people it is meant to protect and who fund it."
The Washington Post
July 15 2010
IT expert at MI6 tries to sell secrets to Dutch
A computer expert formerly employed by Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6 yesterday admitted that he had attempted to sell top secret information to the Dutch security service. Daniel Houghton, 25, claimed that he had been "directed by voices" to accumulate a vast bank of highly sensitive information, including details of advanced intelligence-gathering techniques and a list of 39 field agents, while he worked for the Secret Intelligence Service between September 2007 and May 2009. Dutch agents tipped off MI5, Britain's security service, and Houghton was wrestled to the ground holding a briefcase containing 900,000 pounds.
The Independent
INTERPOL TRAINING CHIEF AND POLAND'S DEFENCE LEARNING GURU AT TOP SECURITY CONFERENCE
Dr Piotr Gawliczek
Dale Sheehan, the Director of Training at INTERPOL, will join leading figures from the world of security training at this year’s Security and Defence Learning conference, which will take place in Berlin on December 1st. Other keynote speakers will include Poland’s top specialist on innovation in defence and security training, Dr Piotr Gawliczek, a Navy captain based at the National Defence University in Warsaw.
AFRICAN CYBER CHAOS: A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN
Blaise Campaore, President
of Burkina Faso, and Faure
Gnassingbe, President of Togo
“Cyber security in Africa is a major problem, which urgently needs the world’s attention,“ New Security Foundation Chairman, Dr Harold Elletson, told participants at the African ICT Best Practices Forum in Ouagadougou.
THE LATEST EDITION OF NEW SECURITY LEARNING IS OUT NOW
HOW ICTs CAN HELP BUILD PEACE, SECURITY AND STABILITY
Lusaka, Thursday 27 May “Information and communication Technologies (ICTs) can play a major role in building peace, security and stability in some of the most troubled places on the planet,“ says New Security Foundation Chairman, Dr Harold Elletson.
Dr Elletson was speaking at the eLearning Africa conference in Lusaka, Zambia during a session hosted by the New Security Foundation and involving participants from all over Africa.
“Terror, corruption, exploitation, hatred and hostility all thrive in ignorance and darkness. That is one of the reasons why education, learning and training, even at the most basic level, are so important. And it is why, when they are combined with the global reach that new methods of communication can now offer, they have the potential to bring about real and lasting change. They can bring light into the darkness, transforming despair into hope, ignorance into knowledge and misfortune into opportunity.“
S&DL 2010: SEND US A PROPOSAL
The New Security Foundation has issued a call for papers for its annual conference on security training. Security and Defence Learning 2010 will take place in Berlin on December 1st and the organisers are keen to receive proposals for presentations on subjects within the general area of technology-assisted learning for security, defence and emergency services. Topics for discussion at this year’s conference are likely to include cyber security, medical training, autonomous learning tools, robotics and future conflict learning.
TRAINING NOT EQUIPMENT KEY TO
CYBER SECURITY, SAYS EXPERT
Jay Bavisi
One of the world’s leading specialists on cyber security and hacking told participants at Security and Defence Learning 2009 that “equipment-based security solutions” were “easy” to circumvent. Jay Bavisi, President of EC-Council, whose company employs “ethical hackers” to test the security systems of major organisations including, the Pentagon, said that better training was the key to eliminating the problem. He said it was vital to abandon the “equipment-based security mentality” and to focus instead on training and best practice.
TOP SECURITY TRAINERS AT BERLIN CONFERENCE
Peter-Martin
Meier
Senior figures from the Swiss Police; INTERPOL; the Scottish Police; NATO, the Ministry of Justice of Brazil and the UK Emergency Planning College joined other leading experts on security training in Berlin on December 2nd for this year’s ‘Security and Defence Learning 2009’, the fifth International Conference on Technology Assisted Learning for Security , Defence and Emergency Services.
EDUCATION ‘FORGOTTEN’ IN POST-CONFLICT AID
“Education is the forgotten aspect of post-conflict humanitarian aid and aid for refugees”, New Security Foundation Chairman Dr Harold Elletson told delegates at a ground-breaking workshop on ‘post-conflict distance learning’ during ‘eLearning Africa’ in Dakar, Senegal. Dr Elletson reminded delegates that nine years earlier in Dakar, the World Education Forum had set the target of universal primary education for every child by 2015, which was adopted as one of the UN’s millennium goals. “However, over 100 million children still don’t attend primary school. And, of these, 50 per cent are in countries which are either suffering from conflict or recovering from it.”
E-LEARNING AND POST-CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION
How can education and training survive conflict and catastrophe?
In war zones and regions devastated by a natural disaster, the education needs of the population can easily be overlooked. Yet, experience in Afghanistan suggests that education should be a fundamental part of any reconstruction package and e-learning offers an effective, affordable solution to many problems.
SECURITY TRAINING UNDER SCRUTINY
The latest trends in security training will be under scrutiny at ‘Security And Defence Learning 2009’ in Berlin on December 2nd. A call for papers has been issued by the New Security Foundation, which hosts the conference, and key themes are likely to include the future of gaming and simulation, training for the growing cyber threat to critical infrastructure and the potential impact of new developments, such as Web 3.0 and ‘brain science,’ on security and security training.