StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

So much has been written about the use of biometrics and its benefits.  I’ve recently had a personal experience that illustrates for me one of the downsides of this "unpanacea" approach to security.

The office building in which I work has a fingerprint biometric access control keypad for entry in "off hours."  After nearly nine months of occupying my office and after four separate attempts to enroll my fingerprints into the system, it still doesn’t work.  I need to use my good old numeric password (anyone who knows anything about the use of static passwords knows how vulnerable they are) to enter the building.

Why don’t my fingerprints work?  It seems that I am part of the select group of 2% of the population who has "worn pads."  What’s a "worn pad?"  Well it seems that my fingerprints have no defined ridges.  Why are my pads worn?  Probably because in the old days of business, before copy machines that did collation automatically, I often spent hours collating pages and pages of 20# bond paper for reports that had to get out in the mail (yes, long before email and attachments).  That doesn’t mean that a junior CSI couldn’t pick up a great print off a window (or whatever), but it does mean that at least in this situation, the reader isn’t sensitive enough to validate my fingerprint for entry.

If you want to read a somewhat tongue-in-cheek blog article from one of the BIG BOYS in the "Homeland Security game," take a look at this from Accenture.

A Disturbing Little Meditation on Biometrics
…here are, however, significant practical problems with its deployment. For example, people with worn finger pads (which often characterize certain kinds of manual workers) can’t be enrolled in fingerprint recognition systems (nor—obviously—can people with lost limbs) and the total for worn pads is estimated at about 2 percent of the population. Further, we leave fingerprints wherever we go, so getting copies of other people’s biometric identifiers would be straightforward. (DNA scanners [still in the lab] suffer from a similar vulnerability.)…

Current Affairs, National Security, Opinions, Technology

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I am pretty tired of hearing things like this!  Frankly, I was tired of this (an American wanting to be part of the Taliban) when Johnny "Taliban" Walker Lindh was arrested in Afghanistan…and I still think he got off way too easy (in fact, might have gotten away with murder or his involvement in the death of Mike Spann).  But this BS continues!

U.S. Citizen Wanted to Join the Taliban, Officials Say
A United States citizen and a Pakistani national who overstayed his visa have been charged with planning to provide aid and financial support to the Taliban.

The two Houston-area men, Kobie Diallo Williams and Adnan Babar Mirza, have been indicted by a federal grand jury and have been charged with attempting to obtain firearms and training so they could join the Taliban and fight against U.S. and coalition forces…[more]

Houston pair accused of aiding Taliban
One who made a ‘donation’ pleads guilty; officials say both men trained to fight U.S. forces
Kobie Williams left Ramadan baskets packed with chocolate-laced trail mix on his neighbors’ doorsteps and wistfully spoke of going to Egypt to study the Quran. Adnan Mirza was active in Muslim groups and spent his Sundays at a Houston soup kitchen feeding the homeless.

To their friends and families, Williams, 33, and Mirza, 29, were enthusiastic college students dedicated to God and family.

But Justice Department officials presented a shockingly different view of the men Tuesday, branding both as Taliban supporters — one contributing $350 to terrorists — who conspired to train with weapons with the goal of fighting U.S.-led forces in the Mideast.

Williams, a University of Houston-Downtown student also known as Abdul Kabeer or Abdul Kabir, pleaded guilty to the accusations Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. Scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 23, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Mirza, a Pakistani national who was in the country on an expired student visa, faces the same potential penalty if convicted. Additionally, he has been indicted on three firearms charges, each of which could bring a 10-year sentence and a $250,000 fine upon conviction…[more]

People like this live and exist in our midsts.  I don’t know how to get rid of them…and you really don’t find them until they are exposed by their actions.  The question is what do you do with someone like this who clearly intends to conspire with our enemies? 

Choices???

1) loss of citizenship
2) deportation
3) "hanging"

Current Affairs, Domestic Terrorism, International Issues, National Security, Opinions

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Don’t ya just hate it?  Speaking from this little piece of the Internet for weeks or months, I’ve written about the re-emergence of the Taliban and about the potential loss of Afghanistan.  Well, let’s see what I read today…

First from the Washington Post blogs:  Taliban Taking Back Afghanistan
The majority of Afghans think the Taliban is winning its war against the government of President Hamid Karzai.  Afghans also think that U.S. and NATO forces who are battling the Taliban across the country are incapable of stemming the Taliban tide…

…President Hamid Karzai has so far failed to decisively stem the tide of corruption, drugs trafficking and warlordism that continues to beset those areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban are not active…

I’m still looking for that "NATO guy" who a while back chastised me and commented that Afghanistan was a success, the Afghani people were in great shape and that the Taliban had been defeated.  Excuse me?  If this guy who represented himself as a NATO officer, then it is no wonder that NATO is about to prove itself ineffectual in Afghanistan.

But from the normally conservative Front Page Magazine we also have, "The Return of the Taliban."

Five years since their overthrow at the hands of U.S. forces in the fall of 2001, the Taliban are reappearing with potent strength. Terror attacks in Afghanistan doubled this year, as the former tyrants of the beleagured country are striking with increasing frequency, engaging in suicide bombings, kidnappings, rocket launchings, mine plantings, ambushes, murder of moderate clerics, torching of schools and various other terrorist activities.

NATO’s attempt to safeguard the Afghan government and to bolster its efforts at democratization faces a perilous test. The situation is further endangered by the possibility of the Afghan government opening up talks with the Taliban – a development that could result in allowing terrorists into the government.

The notion of “peace talks” with the Taliban follows in the steps of a current nightmare phenomenon in which fragile states are making, or seeking, deals with the devil…

…remember who exactly the Taliban are:

A Pashtun-dominated Islamic fanatic movement comprised of students who developed their hate in Pakistani refugee camps during the Soviet occupation of

Afghanistan, the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996. The new rulers followed the traditions of Mao and Pol Pot by making almost every facet of human life illegal. They banned television, film, books, photography, music (even at weddings) and sports. Public executions of homosexuals and of women accused of adultery and premarital sex became common place.[1For an account of the monstrosities perpetrated by the Taliban, see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).]  The Taliban destroyed ancient cultural artefacts and forced Hindus to wear yellow patches on their clothing. All men were forced to grow beards or face brutal punishment…

…NATO has no choice but to militarily defeat the Taliban, no matter how difficult or long the battle will prove to be. For Afghanistan to fall back under Taliban rule would be an unmitigated disaster. Not only would a fascist tyranny re-enslave the Afghan people, but, as NATO’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has noted, the country would become a "black hole for terrorism training."

Just like with a Western military defeat, any sort of “deal” with the Taliban will by necessity mean a re-entry of al Qaeda into  Afghanistan.

Thus, not only would a “deal” facilitate the re-Talibanization of Afghanistan, it would pose the threat of a Taliban takeover of the country — a nightmare scenario that would mean the return of Osama’s terrorist training camps…[more]

A review of recent positions taken here:

"Terrorism’s Black Hole" - Afghanistan (11/24/06)
Taliban could regain power in Afghanistan, says Nato chief
…"I am absolutely convinced that if we allowed Afghanistan to fall back into Taliban rule it would become a failed state again and a black hole for terrorism training," Scheffer said…

Afghanistan under Taliban again would be ‘black hole for terrorism’
…"What is our first priority? It is Afghanistan."

Scheffer said, however, that NATO could do better in Afghanistan if it had more forces, and said he was doing everything he could to get commitments for more troops…

U.S. faces snowballing Afghan war - Musharraf aide
…The United States and NATO face a snowballing war in Afghanistan and will suffer a military disaster unless they back peaceful means to end the conflict, one of Pakistan’s most influential officials said on Friday.

"Like in Iraq. It was the lack of courage to admit their faults. They have admitted them now but at very great cost…"

NO! The answer in Afghniastan is not appeasement or compromise. For a Pakistani Minister to suggest seeking peaceful means to end the conflict in Afghanistan is to justify the ludicrous decisions and policies of the Pakistani government in Waziristan and Baluchistan. The problem in Afghanistan is strategic and deployment of resources…and the problem is simply a lack of confidence (by me, at least) in the ability of NATO to do anything constructive in defeating the now resurgent Taliban. Ignore the fact that the Taliban are revitalized and the end result cannot be good.

MORE?

Taliban Support on the Rise in Afghanistan (11/07/06)
Taliban support on rise in Afghanistan
He has no particular wish to join the Taliban. He could support NATO and President Hamid Karzai’s government, but feels betrayed by the violence in the Panjwayi district he lives in. His other options include becoming a refugee in Pakistan or Iran.

"Should we join the Taliban? Should we join the government? We don’t know," Mohammad said. "The Taliban, they are causing problems for us, but the government is causing problems for us too…"[more]

● Pakistan has ceded Waziristan to the Taliban
● Baluchistan is wrought with rebellion and unrest ("insurgency")
● NATO hasn’t got a clue, IMO, how to deal with the Taliban resurgence
● In the mountains along the non-existent border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, roams who???

MORE?

Ticking Timebomb in Afghanistan (10/18/06)
Certain (some) people have maintained that:

1) Afghanistan is in great shape
2) the Taliban are gone (The "Mythical" Death of the Taliban)
3) so many Taliban are being killed

From Michael Scheuer…served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004…served as the Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999…author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.

The West is Running Out of Time in Afghanistan
From all observables, the Taliban insurgency is spreading from its deeply rooted base in southern and southeastern Afghanistan to provinces in the west and east. In addition, several Islamist insurgent organizations active during the 1979-89 jihad against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan—the "old mujahideen"—have allied themselves with the Taliban…

- Law and oder
- Pakistan and Waziristan
- Time [more]

MORE?

"Afghans are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the performance of Hamed Karzai’s government and as the country slides into ever more instability, Pakistan’s ultimate game plan in Afghanistan has begun to unfold."

MORE?

After the fighting and dying, the Taleban return as British depart
…“Shrapnel from a Taleban mortar blew off one of my testicles soon after the fighting started,” he said while waiting to petition the governor of Helmand in Lashkar Gah for more men and munitions to attack a Taleban headquarters elsewhere. “But I stayed in Musa Qala with the British and fought on for another two and a half months until we were ordered to leave. The pain was terrible, but there were Talebs to kill.”

“Those British soldiers were cursing with us when we were all told to leave,” he said. “They said that they had fought and lost friends to keep the town. And now these tribal elders who are in charge of Musa Qala are the same who gave the Taleban support when they fought against us. The deal was just a clever trick to get the foreign soldiers to go…” [more]

Afghanistan was not a "done deal" when the U.S. left and gave the responsibility to the British or then to NATO.  Anyone trusting the Pashtun are nuts!  I still believe that Karzai remains in power (and living) simply because it is right now expedient…when the warlords or the drug lords, or the returned Taliban wish it to be…Karzai will be "out of office."  IMO, we left Afghanistan prematurely, and now we will see the results of this strategic miscalculation.

Current Affairs, International Issues, National Security, Opinions

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The situation with Russian figures continues to almost make me feel like a soap opera, tabloid reporter here…and I’m not so sure that I like the feeling.  But the happenings in Russia and regarding former Soviet spies could actually have an impact on World affairs, never forgetting the continuing problems in Chechnya.  Remembering that this could be absolutely nothing, and unrelated to Litvinenko’s poisoning…

Mystery illness hits former Russian PM, Yegor Gaidar, at conference in Ireland
…Mr Gaidar is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s softer critics and his daughter is a leader of an opposition movement. Mr Gaidar, who heads an economic think-tank in Moscow, has close connections with the government and occasionally advises them on economic matters….

November 24…sudden, unexplained and violent illness … Gaidar felt ill after eating a simple breakfast where he was staying near Dublin…could barely move any of his limbs and had to lie down for most of the afternoon…later found lying on the floor, unconscious…vomiting blood and also bleeding from the nose for about 35 minutes…Gaidar declined to comment about whether he believed he had suffered a poisoning attack…Anatoly Chubais, his former associate and the head of Russia’s electricity monopoly, said he suspected Mr Gaidar may have been poisoned…

Russia’s Gaidar ill in hospital with mystery ailment
…Anatoly Chubais, a very close former colleague who went on to become Yeltsin’s chief-of-staff, told reporters that doctors thought Gaidar’s illness may not be natural…

…Chubais, target of an assassination attempt in 2005, made a link between Gaidar’s illness and the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and Litvinenko’s death…

Other
TOX-SICK HONCHO
Gaidar’s entourage denies radioactive poisoning
Gaidar’s Daughter Hangs Anti-State Banner

I guess there will be more unraveling.

In 2001, Litvinenko published "Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within." In the book, Litvinenko claims that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was involved in a series of apartment block bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people. It was suggested that the attacks were blamed on Chechen rebels in order to justify the Russian invasion of Chechnya.

Current Affairs, International Issues

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OKAY.  This has just been explained to me by a former Russian physicist (at least I think I understand what he told me).  And it has finally hit home as to what all of this could mean.  I’ve already written that I am not a physicist (or a rocket scientist for that matter).  But here’s the scoop (very rudimentary, maybe too much so).

How Can You Detect Radiation?
Radiation Basics

The radiological detection equipment being purchased by the Department of Homeland Security are gamma detectors (Because of their high energy, gamma photons travel at the speed of light and can cover hundreds to thousands of meters in air before spending their energy. They can pass through many kinds of materials, including human tissue. Very dense materials, such as lead, are commonly used as shielding to slow or stop gamma photons.). 

Beta radiation may also harmful (Beta particles travel several feet in open air and are easily stopped by solid materials. When a beta particle has lost its energy, it is like any other loose electron.  Whether in the outdoor environment or in the body, these electrons are then picked up by a positive ion.).

Alpha emitters like Polonium 210 may not be detectable by currently available or deployed equipment (which are gamma detectors, I believe). Alpha emitters are quite dangerous, as Letvinenko’s horrible death proved (if alpha emitters have been inhaled, ingested (swallowed), or absorbed into the blood stream, sensitive  living tissue can be exposed to alpha radiation. The resulting biological damage increases the risk of cancer; in particular,  alpha radiation is known to cause lung cancer in humans when alpha emitters are inhaled.).

The question then is raised…despite the danger of alpha-emitting materials, could a terrorist secure an amount of alpha material and either enter the country undetected, or get some domestically, and create havoc?

BTW, it was the opinion that the source of the Polonium was from Letvinenko’s "friends."

Anyone out there reading this have corrections or additions?

Current Affairs, Domestic Terrorism, International Issues, National Security, Opinions, Technology

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This thing is moving like a runaway freight train IMO, with denials (by Putin and the Russians among others) and refusals (by this guy Berezovsky who I’ve seen described an as oligarch - not necessarily a flattering term by the way.  But radiation has been found in his building, and he is refusing comment.) and the intrigue and fear associated with nuclear materials.  Attempting to track newpaper articles is like me trying to hit a moving target with a high-powered rifle (I’ve never shot a gun).  I am also not a scientist or physicist, and therefore some of what follows is beyond the scope of my technical understanding.  Finally, since keeping track of all of the players without a scorecard is difficult (all of those Russian names etc.), here is a scorecard of the key figures in the death of Alexander Litvinenko.

So why the post?  The question was raised in a comment by Tourpro to the earlier post, Spy-Games: Litvinenko Investigation Expands.  Basically, the question was "what happens if this stuff falls into the wrong hands?" Equally, one could raise the question of the lethality of a weaponized form of Polonium 210 if used in a terrorist attack…is this the stuff from which a "dirty bomb" could be made?  Now, I am not a weapons expert, in fact I am not an expert at all (except in my own field which is a subset of security technology).  But here are some interesting items found on that wonderful digital library called the Internet.

"Benchmark": Here is the British Health Protection Agency Statement -
…Professor Pat Troop , Chief Executive of the Health Protection Agency, said: "Normal hygiene and cleanliness practices in hospitals should have reduced the likelihood of any significant intake by NHS staff and others and therefore any radiation hazard.

"Other people would not be exposed to radiation simply through being near to Mr Litvinenko. There would be a potential radiological hazard to people who could have ingested or breathed in the contaminated body fluids, but this hazard is likely to be restricted to those who have had very close contact with Mr Litvinenko."

A report published by Los Alamos National Laboratory in August 1983, Background-Subtract Adjustment for Plutonium Continuous Alpha Air Monitors Using 252Cf indicates, "Polonium-210 is unimportant due to the long half-life (21 years) of its grandparent, 210Pb, which precludes its significant accumulation on the filter. Similarly, 216P0 is excluded because its half-life (O.15 220Rn (55 seconds), are so second), and that of its parent, short that they decay before appreciable filter accumulation occurs…[anyone?]

Dirty Bombs:  Polonium 210 according to Argonne National Laboratory.
"Polonium-210 is a health hazard only if it is taken into the body.

Substantial radiation doses from polonium can be expected in many tissues of the body; it supplies a more nearly whole-body dose than almost all other alpha emitters. Effects are more common in the kidney than the spleen, despite a higher dose in the spleen. The lymph nodes and liver can also be affected. Polonium that is inhaled, either from radon in the air or cigarette smoke, can be deposited on the mucous lining of the respiratory tract. When alpha particles are then emitted within the lung, the cells lining the airways can be damaged, potentially leading to lung cancer over time.

Here is another piece from Argonne National Laboratory on Radiological Dispersal Devices.  It should be noted that Polonium is among those radiological materials of "concern."

Although dozens of radionuclides are used across various sealed sources (selected devices and associated sources are shown at right), only a small
number are in concentrated amounts or are widely available. Nine isotopes of interest for RDDs are:
• Americium-241 (Am-241)
• Californium-252 (Cf-252)
• Cesium-137 (Cs-137)
• Cobalt-60 (Co-60)
• Iridium-192 (Ir-192)
• Plutonium-238 (Pu-238)
• Polonium-210 (Po-210)
• Radium-226 (Ra-226)
• Strontium-90 (Sr-90)

While not mentioning Polonium, this FAS report writes about the possible use of Americium, a similar alpha-emitter as the material for a dirty bomb.

…If a typical americium source used in oil well surveying were blown up with one pound of TNT, people in a region roughly ten times the area of the initial bomb blast would require medical supervision and monitoring…An area thirty times the size of the first area (a swath one kilometer long and covering twenty city blocks) would have to be evacuated within half an hour. After the initial passage of the cloud, most of the radioactive materials would settle to the ground. Of these materials, some would be forced back up into the air and inhaled, thus posing a long-term health hazard…A ten-block area contaminated in this way would have a cancer death probability of one-in-a-thousand. A region two kilometers long and covering sixty city blocks would be contaminated in excess of EPA safety guidelines. If the buildings in this area had to be demolished and rebuilt, the cost would exceed fifty billion dollars…[this report written in 2002]

Polonium 210 - A Future Weapon of Murder and Terrorism?
"The Nuclear Assassins" by David M. Dastych
…"On Saturday morning, a day after Alexander Litvinienko died of poisoning by a radio-active isotope, Polonium-210, I got a phone call from England. Mr. Gordon Thomas, a famous British investigative journalist and intelligence author, told me he had obtained information from MI5 and MI6 sources that the rare isotope came from China. Was the notorious Chinese intelligence service interested in assassinating former KGB-FSB spy, Alexander Litvinenko? If so, perhaps only for money."…

…"Being very rare, Polonium-210 is very expensive and hard to get. Dr. Andrea Sella, a lecturer of chemistry at University College London, told Peter Graff of Reuters: “This is not a random killing. This is not a tool chosen by a group of amateurs. These people had some serious resources behind them.” What people? We still don’t know. Po-210 is produced in nuclear reactors and particle accelerators in very few countries of the world: primarily in the United States, but also in Russia and China. The “Polish” trail leads only to the origins of this deadly isotope, a Chinese (or Russian) trail might lead to the producer of a dose, which killed Alexander Litvinenko…"[etcetera]

One final archival document (declassified) from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1953), A New Anionic Solvent Extraction Technique, in which Polonium as a by-product of the process is mentioned.

So questions remain.  Who killed Litvinenko and why?  And where did the Polonium 210 come from? Ex-spy’s poison on the Internet $69 can get a trace of the commonly used lethal industrial chemical.

Current Affairs, International Issues, National Security, Opinions

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No wall, no matter how high, no technology, no matter how hi-tech, can prevent human foibles from endangering our lives and National Security.

More corruption seen among border agents
Agents fighting crime on the border are dealing with increasing corruption in their ranks. Among those facing charges are immigration, customs and border patrol agents.

All were caught working for smugglers in El Paso who are supposed to protect our border are increasingly taking bribes instead…

The bribes from traffickers can easily top an average agent’s salary about $50,000 a year…

…The border patrol academy is under a presidential mandate to graduate 6,000 new agents in the next couple of years…

There is a lot more to this story but I don’t have the time right now to grab the info.  Drug dealers, human smugglers, Arabs posing as Hispanics, people crossing the border with counterfeit passports made in Venezuela.  Feel safe?  Ask your local ICE agent…that’s not cold…its Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"Some of these drug organizations which are very sophisticated are actually placing people into the border patrol or into ICE in order to assist their efforts," Abbott said…[more]

Current Affairs, National Security, Opinions

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Are there parallels with the Markov elimination 28 years ago emerging?  Don’t know now.  Seems like alot of government(s) interested in this matter.

The search for ‘pinhead  killer’ Dying spy accused Kremlin agent
EX-SPY Alexander Litvinenko was killed by a radioactive grain half the size of a PINHEAD, it was revealed yesterday — as cops prepared to fly out to Moscow.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES?
Was he sacrificed to embarrass Putin?
Conspiracy theories have abounded since the death of Alexander Litvinenko as detectives struggle to make headway in this unprecedented case. Some point to President Putin and the Kremlin, others to Litvinenko’s dissident allies, some even suggest suicide or, perhaps, an accident…

1. It was Putin
Litvinenko, in his death-bed statement, pointed his finger at President Vladimir Putin, former member of the FSB, the Russian security service. Kremlin officials deny any involvement. Russia’s media pour scorn on the theory that Putin ordered Litvinenko’s elimination. He was simply too unimportant, a small-time fantasist it was easier to put up with than to bump off, they say.

The idea Putin would order his death – particularly this drawn-out, agonising death guaranteed to attract world-wide attention – and risk an international furore is seen as preposterous. Such a slow and public assassination could only play into the hands of those who wished to compromise Russia in the world arena.

2. Putin’s enemies

3. Putin’s enemies outside

4. Putin’s enemies inside

5. Putin’s friends

6. Enemies beyond

7. Suicide

8. An accident (most problematic by implication)
There has long been a black-market trade in radioactive materials being stolen from poorly – protected Russian nuclear sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates about 40kg of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium were stolen from facilities in the former Soviet Union between 1991 and 2002.

Did Litvinenko somehow come into contact with smuggled radioactive material? According to one expert, pure polonium 210 cannot be contained in ordinary glassware and could not be administered in liquid form as the drink would bubble and the heat would be too intense.

From the Strategy Page: NBC Weapons: Polonium 210 and Q: Current 1999 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
…Polonium 210 can only be produced by a nuclear reactor, using special laboratory procedures. Russia has the nuclear facilities and labs to do it. Russia also has a history of using exotic poisons to assassinate individuals, outside the country, who are acting contrary to Russian interests…

…The CIA, MI-6 and KGB all have their "Q" characters, who develop special tools and weapons. Many of those devices are never declassified. A gadget that could carry and deliver a fatal dose of polonium 210 would certainly be one item you would never let the public get a look at…

Finally: Polonium 210 according to Argonne National Laboratory.
"Polonium-210 is a health hazard only if it is taken into the body.

Substantial radiation doses from polonium can be expected in many tissues of the body; it supplies a more nearly whole-body dose than almost all other alpha emitters. Effects are more common in the kidney than the spleen, despite a higher dose in the spleen. The lymph nodes and liver can also be affected. Polonium that is inhaled, either from radon in the air or cigarette smoke, can be deposited on the mucous lining of the respiratory tract. When alpha particles are then emitted within the lung, the cells lining the airways can be damaged, potentially leading to lung cancer over time.

What Is the Risk?
Lifetime cancer mortality risk coefficients have been calculated for nearly all radionuclides, including polonium-210. Risk coefficients for inhalation are about 6 times higher than for dietary ingestion. Similar to other radionuclides, the risk coefficients for ingestion of tap water containing polonium-210 are about 75% of those shown for dietary ingestion. Polonium-210 poses no external risk when outside the body.

Quite the mystery.  Quite!

The polonium-210 left a radiation trail across London’s West End after it was slipped into the dissident’s food at a sushi bar.

Scientists from the Porton Down Military Defence Research establishment have concluded the compound was contained in a tiny granule.

One source said: “You are talking about something half the size of a pinhead.

“It would have been relatively easy to have slipped a grain into Litvinenko’s food…”

…polonium-210 left a radiation trail across London’s West End…
…radiation at Litvinenko’s North London home…
…radiation traces in loos at the Millennium Hotel….
…two bedrooms at the hotel — occupied by two of the Russians — also tested positive…
…a nearby office block in Grosvenor Street was found to have substantial contamination….
…Litvinenko went there to photocopy a hitlist…
…hitlist from Professor Mario Scaramella, Italian academic & nuclear expert & ran organisation tracking nuclear waste…
…Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly — boarded up for examination — was a favourite haunt of exiled Litvinenko….
…Litvinenko had 40-minute lunch from a buffet and had soup served by a waiter…

A connection to Yukos?

HOWEVER…

Yesterday an aide to President Vladimir Putin reacted strongly to suggestions of Russian involvement. “We don’t know who killed Litvinenko, but one thing is for sure, it was not the Russian state,” he said. “We’ve got nothing to hide.”

The billionaire Berezovsky fled Russia in 2000 and lives in Britain. He knew Litvinenko well and supported him financially. Berezovsky declined to comment yesterday, but friends said it was absurd to accuse him of any involvement in Litvinenko’s death.

Current Affairs, International Issues, Technology

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Thanks to the Homeland Security Daily Newswire, I’m finally going to post information about the coming of the National Network of Data Fusion Centers intended to permit information sharing across federal, state and local agencies and across the multiple jurisdictions within a state or region.

Federal government moves forward with national fusion centers
The federal government took a major step forward last week in clearing up some of the main obstacles standing in the way of the much-needed fusion centers — centers intended to improve intelligence sharing among federal, state, and municipal authorities. In addition to to creating a Washington, D.C.-based Interagency Threat Assessment Coordination Group to be housed at DHS, the plan, which was signed by President Bush and delivered to Congress, attempts to reduce the more than one hundred levels of "sensitive" information to less than six. This was critical because the inability properly to clear local officials was a major sticking point in preventing the fusion centers’ success. The new fusion centers will rely on an information sharing environment, and the large number of classifications frustrated both local officials and the software companies bidding to take part. Officials face a 120 day deadline to develop the new "sensitive but classified" security classifications.

Group Will Sort Terrorism Alerts for Local Governments
A new plan to improve information-sharing about terrorism, signed by President Bush this week and delivered to Congress yesterday, establishes a Washington-based "threat assessment group" that includes federal, state and local officials. It also aims to reduce more than 100 restrictive and confusing categories of "sensitive" federal information to a half-dozen or fewer so local-level officials can better understand what they are told…

…The newly released plan "restructures the way we handle intelligence and other information so that state and local customers get products that they can use," said Thomas E. McNamara, whose office, under Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, wrote it with input from across the government…

Here is the plan itself:  Information Sharing Environment Implementation Plan
Preface: Strengthening our nation’s ability to share terrorism information constitutes a cornerstone of our national strategy to protect the America  people and our institutions and to defeat terrorists and their support networks at home and abroad. Recognizing the need to go beyond individual solutions to create an environment—the aggregation of legal, policy, cultural, organizational, and technological conditions—for improving information sharing, Congress passed and the President signed the landmark Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA). The Act requires the President to establish an Information Sharing Environment (ISE), “for the sharing of terrorism information in a manner consistent with national security and with applicable legal standards relating to privacy and civil liberties.” It also requires designation of a Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE). The PM-ISE, in consultation with the interagency Information Sharing Council (ISC), is charged with planning and overseeing the ISE’s implementation and management. Among other duties, the PM-ISE is responsible for assisting the President in submitting to Congress an ISE Implementation Plan (ISE IP) that addresses eleven requirements set forth in Section 1016(e) of IRTPA.

Justice issues fusion center guidelines
08/30/05
The Justice Department has released its first Fusion Center Guidelines making recommendations about the centers’ law enforcement role, governance, connectivity standards, databases and security.

Related to IT needs, the report specifically recommends use of the Global Justice Extensible Markup Language (XML) data model, the Common Alerting Protocol messaging standards, and service-oriented architectures for improved information-sharing.

The 125-page document, released Aug. 23, was developed by the Office of Justice Program’s Intelligence Fusion Center Focus Group, with representation from Justice, Homeland Security and FBI, and from state and local agencies. Additional fusion center guidance is expected in the coming weeks for public safety agencies and the private sector.

Fusion centers, which are collaborative efforts to combine and analyze anti-terrorism information from multiple sources, have becoming increasingly popular as part of homeland security.

A number of states, including Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York, currently operate so-called fusion centers, and many more states, such as Missouri, are considering doing so.

Maryland opened its Coordination and Analysis Center in 2003, bringing together representatives from more than a dozen state and federal agencies.

Want to go into great detail on what, why and how these centers will be created?  Read (I did): Fusion Center Guidelines
Developing and Sharing Information and Intelligence in a New Era

The purpose of these fusion centers is to enable communication.  I know lots more about this because of "- - - - - -."  However, imagine situations in which a criminal (e.g., a wife beater) is in court on another charge (say, DWI) in another jurisdiction, and the arresting officer had the ability to know that the guy was wanted on other charges.  Further, imagine another Hurricane Katrina and local officials were able to better understand avenues of escape from the flooded areas, how to better deploy resources, or determine that among the refugees as they went to their new homes, there were common street criminals wanted in New Orleans.

Anyone (readers) want to add more detail?  Please comment.

Current Affairs, Domestic Terrorism, Federal Policy, National Security, Opinions, Technology

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Its time to give this one another post of its own as the events and "facts" are evolving quickly now that he has died.  This is a follow-up to a post,  other the other day, Spy Games…Poisoning a Spy.  There are also interesting parallels with the death of Georgi Markov some 28 years ago by a lethal injection of a ricin-laced pellet shot from an umbrella.   Of course, the death bed accusation of Vladimir Putin of complicity makes it even more interesting.  Here is the full death bed statement.

One thing emerging is a timeline that suggests that there were three men who may have met with Litvinenko…

Highlights of the timeline (Full timeline):

Current Affairs, International Issues

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Again, from an earlier (an previously overlooked) entry from the Homeland Security Daily Newswire.

Intelligence agencies announce Intellipedia
The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies are planning on a Wikipedia of their own, the Intellipedia, and we hope that, should some enterprising young analyst attempt to impress his supervisor with material gleaned there, he will dutifully acknowledge his sources. "We’re trying to transform the way we do business," said Michele Weslander, a senior official overseeing the initiative for National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

As with many innovative approaches to homeland security and intelligence, the Intellipedia was born from failure, the failure of American agencies to accurately assess Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program. The system permits analysts to collectively build and critique intelligence estimates in a common space. During the Cory Lidle plane crash…intelligence officers were able to post frequent updates, updates that quickly led to the conclusion that the event was not terrorist related. The CIA hopes the system will, over the long term, lead to equally perspicacious analysis of strategic threats as well, especially North Korea and Iran.

Naturally, the system will not be accessible to the public, nor will it replace traditional methods of sorting intelligence, but it does seem to us like a smart idea. Wikipedia is often criticized as being unreliable, in large part due to the amateur historians who work on it, but its critique function is quite effective at identifying and eliminating critical mistakes. With experts at the helm, this should force analysts to properly support their arguments against equally competent professionals. Dissenting views, which were so often ignored in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, will now get a full venting. Three cheers for Intellipedia!

Sounds like an interesting idea.

Spy agencies now share the Wikipedia way
It is hoped that the new software will make collaboration easier.
The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have created a computer system that uses software from a popular Internet encyclopedia site to gather content on sensitive topics from analysts across the spy community, part of an effort to fix problems that plagued prewar estimates on Iraq…

…"We’re trying to transform the way we do business," said Michele Weslander, a senior official overseeing the initiative for National Intelligence Director John D. Negroponte…

…The system, which the public cannot access, is divided into classification categories starting with "sensitive but unclassified" and ending at "top secret…"

…"I think in the future you’ll press a button and this will be the NIE," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis…

Push-button NIE’s?  Clearly though, one of the attributed causes of the attacks of September 11th was the inability of our law enforcement and Intelligence communities to share information.  Part of that is/was a cultural issue and part of it was mechanical.  On the otherhand, there is a significant force/push afoot in creating multiple statewide and interconnected data fusion center and virtual data warehouses to permit information sharing across agencies and jurisdictions.

Current Affairs, Federal Policy, National Security, Opinions, Technology

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Somehow I missed this one a few weeks ago.  I guess today is mine to use as a catch-up.  Recently (according to the Homeland Security Daily Newswire), an Indiana University grad student demonstrated how an on-line boarding pass could be faked (he was arrested for making his findings public).

From HSD:
Graduate student arrested for exposing boarding pass vulnerability
…Federal investigators have arrested an Indiana graduate student who developed a Web site allowing users to print out their own airline boarding passes. Many airlines now provide such a service, but Christopher Soghoian was in no way associated with any commercial service. Rather, he was trying to point out a glaring vulnerability in the country’s airport sercurity complex: a terrorist armed with two boarding passes, one real and one fake, could easily evade DHS’s No Fly List. Earlier this year, Slate magazine explained how this would work.

Imagine a terrorist who steals a credit card belonging to John Smith and purchases a ticket under Smith’s name online, being sure to print out his boarding pass under that name. The terrorist then uses simple graphic design software to print out a second boarding pass, this time using either his real name or a name for which he has a reliable false identification. When he approaches the security gates, he hands his real identification and fake boarding pass to the guard, who merely examines whether the names match up. They do. Having breached this layer of security, the terrorist then hands the agent at the gate the real (that is, the stolen) boarding pass for the name to be checked against the flight manifest. It will. The terrorist is on board and the No Fly List has been evaded entirely.

When an airline security expert was asked about this, he immediately refused to be named for the article. "[The double boarding pass scam] would completely negate, for all intents and purposes, an identity check," he said gravely. It is, he told Slate, "a potential loophole in the process." The solution, however, is obvious, which is why it is so stunning that nothing has been done. He continued:

All the TSA needs to do is to have at least one document check station that simultaneously compares all three elements: the boarding pass, a government-issued ID, and the No-Fly List in the airline’s computer. This could be at security or at the gate (where, after all, IDs used to be checked).

Yet the Transportation Security Administration says it has no plans to do this. We wonder why not. Yes, a simultaneous check would take up a little more time, but what is the point of having a No Fly List if it can be so easily evaded? As Slate writes, "We’ve already endured two wars and countless other disruptions in the name of safety. A few extra minutes at the airport isn’t going to kill anyone." Now all we need is an enterprising company to show TSA how it is to be done.

Check out this article from Security Focus dot.com on this incident (topic):

FBI raids home of boarding-pass creator

And then read some of the comments on the article.

Web Site Lets Anyone Create Fake Boarding Passes
… The passes look virtually identical to the ones printed from the airline’s site, and are intended to get you past security — but not onto an airplane…

A lot of money spent; alot of publicity written…false sense of security purchased?  One of the truisms being stated these days is that it will be second (third and "next") generation technologies that could show the greatest promise.  I certainly hope that is true.  One other truism I believe is that the terrorists are well educated and well equipped in many cases.  If Soghooian can do it, why can’t "Mohammed?"

Current Affairs, National Security, Opinions, Technology

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I thought I’d recap previous information about Radio Frequency ID chips (or as commonly known, RFIDs) since I attended a public forum on the technology last week.

"Basic" RFID Encryption Cracked (from January 2005)
Car RFID Tags Cracked
The safety of the RFID tags embedded in car keys has been called into question by a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University…

Texas Instruments executive Tony Sabetti denies that cracking the vehicles is possible, saying that they “have been fraud-free and are likely to remain fraud-free."

However the researchers disagree. In a demonstration, the researchers were able to stand next to someone holding a valid key for just 1-2 seconds, about an hour of number crunching and then the car was completely theirs for the taking.

The implications of the Hopkins finding go beyond stealing cars…

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PAPER
Analysis of the Texas Instruments DST RFID
The Texas Instruments DST tag is a cryptographically enabled RFID transponder used in several wide-scale systems including vehicle imobilizers and the ExxonMobil SpeedPass system. This page serves as an overview of our successful attacks on DST enabled systems. A preliminary version of the full academic paper describing our attacks in detail is also available below…

RFID Chips in Car Keys and Gas Pump Pay Tags Carry Security Risks
Thieves Could Exploit Encryption Vulnerabilities, Computer Scientists Warn
A popular radio-frequency ID system that is used to deter car thefts and as a convenience device for the purchase of gasoline can be defeated with low-cost technology, computer scientists from The Johns Hopkins University and RSA Laboratories have determined…

Other links here and here.

RFIDs and Computer Viruses (from March 2006)
Researchers craft first RFID virus
RFID systems open to viruses
…In an airport scenario, one maliciously crafted tag on a suitcase could infect the scanning system, which could then be instructed to spread the exploit code to all suitcases in the system. This could cause a global RFID infection within 24 hours, researcher Melanie Rieback cautioned…[much more]

A group of European computer researchers have issued a study warning RFID middleware and applications are vulnerable to viruses encoded into a tag’s memory.
…While such virus attacks may be possible in theory, says Ashton, good software development practices would ensure that these vulnerabilities would be extremely unlikely to be found in any RFID network. "There are any number of hurdles that a piece of malicious code would have to overcome [to do any damage]," says Ashton, adding that RFID interrogators alone would detect rogue tags or rogue software on tags as part of the verification process of reading tags.

Nonetheless, Tanenbaum believes that a system using read-write tags are at the greatest