Infrastructure Security - page 230

For more than a century, information technology has played a vital role in public safety operations. Think back to the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, when members of the Army Signal Corps scrambled past the flames to string up a stopgap replacement for the city's ruined telephone and telegraph lines. If not for the Corps' work, officials could not have organized emergency relief for the city's 250,000 displaced residents.

The US Air Force Cyber Command has plans to “fight fire with fire” or better yet, to stop cybercrime from leading to information loss and/or possible physical attacks through denial of service, an Air Force official told ZDNet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008.

Most media have it wrong. Municipal wireless networks across the United States didn't stumble in 2007—high-profile cities where deals fell apart, such as Chicago, San Francisco and Houston, were not going to finance, own or operate their respective networks. These weren't municipal networks at all. The business model that faltered in 2007 was the "private corporate franchise" model based on the deal that Philadelphia and EarthLink agreed to in 2006. It was, in fact, the free market that failed last year—not governments in their traditional role as the builders and maintainers of critical infrastructure.

In a sweeping use of its authority, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that it would bypass environmental reviews to speed construction of fencing along the Mexican border.

The Port of Seattle’s Harbor Island, mostly underwater at high tide in 2100. Fish—rather than crows and gulls—pecking at the port’s largest terminal.

The absurdity of Americans’ casual dependence on all things electronic revealed itself to me recently in a restaurant men’s room. First a poorly set motion detector required me to wave continuously, like a stranded castaway trying to signal a passing plane, just to keep the lights on. Then the electric paper towel dispenser jammed.

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Congress has focused on fortifying the nation’s borders to crack down on illegal immigration. But officials from border communities say more money and attention also needs to go to beefing up legal entry points for those who cross daily for business and pleasure.

Congressman Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, introduced legislation to create a long-term solution to improve security and the timely movement of travelers and goods through international ports of entry.

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The federal government has repeatedly pledged to encrypt sensitive information, not to mention stop the practice of storing it on employee laptops, in the wake of several serious security breaches. But apparently it has yet to make good on its promises. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirmed Monday that a laptop containing unsecured information about 2,500 participants enrolled in a cardiac study by its National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) was stolen from the trunk of a researcher's car.

The American Society of Civil Engineers—the professional organization for the men and women who build the nation's roads, dams and bridges—has been accused by fellow engineers of covering up catastrophic design flaws in probes of national disasters.

When Hurricane Charley was bearing down on Florida’s west coast in 2004, Charlotte County officials moved their servers to a hardened, protected building — the county jail.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, thousands found themselves without electricity and landline phone and communication services because of severed cables, flooded equipment and loss of primary and backup power.

The infrastructure issue — the long shadow thrown across America's future by deteriorating roadways, bridges, railroads, water systems and schools — finally seems to be getting hot.

The Department of Homeland Security's second massive cybersecurity exercise has revealed improved preparedness across IT infrastructures and government agencies, compared to the first “Cyber Storm” in 2006, according to the acting director of DHS's National Cybersecurity Division

Frequent travelers will soon be able to move faster through security at Spokane International Airport as the Transportation Security Administration on Tuesday announced an expansion of its "black diamond" program.

One day after news broke about a large-scale theft of personal credit and debit card numbers during transactions at Hannaford Supermarkets, customers jammed phone lines looking for information and company officials tried to determine how far beyond 1,800 the list of affected people may grow.

Legislative leaders Tuesday said Kansas taxpayers will have to pay up to $164 million to help the state lure a federal biosecurity lab.“I can’t emphasize enough how important this is,” said Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton.

The concept and strategy of transportation infrastructure continues to gain momentum, as evidenced by a recent hearing held by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs which focused on legislation that would establish an infrastructure bank that would be charged with “evaluating and financing capacity-building infrastructure projects of substantial regional and national significance.”