Category Archives: Security

Security

eManifests in use in AZ

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The US Customs and Border Protection site has announced the “First Electronic Truck Manifest Filed on Southern Border”. I guess to be accurate they should clarify that the manifest is electric, not the truck.

Anyway, I haven’t seen this picked up in any news (perhaps since it has been working for some time on the northern border of the US and isn’t newsworthy) but I figured the announcement must be meaningful to those who monitor the progress of tracking systems, plus it had some interesting language:

The automated manifest provides CBP officers with cargo information prior to a shipment arriving at the gate. Comprehensive data such as information on the driver and passengers; a description of the conveyance and any applicable equipment like a trailer; and details regarding the shipment are included.

[…]

There are currently 31 ACE ports in the states of Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Washington. The schedule for deployments of ACE to additional ports continues in January, beginning with selected ports in Texas in early 2006.

That is many more than I had been aware of and so I am curious when intra-state borders or even road-side checkpoints will have ACE setup.

History, Security

Historians rate the US presidents

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I’ve been writing too many comments again on Schneier’s blog lately, so I thought I’d post a few interesting things here instead. This article from the History News Network caught my attention with some interesting insights into the risks from various Presidents and how they stack up from a historian’s point-of-view:

The George W. Bush presidency is the worst since:
In terms of economic damage, Reagan.
In terms of imperialism, T Roosevelt.
In terms of dishonesty in government, Nixon.
In terms of affable incompetence, Harding.
In terms of corruption, Grant.
In terms of general lassitude and cluelessness, Coolidge.
In terms of personal dishonesty, Clinton.
In terms of religious arrogance, Wilson.

And then there are the oft-cited Bush quotes that give another perspective on how some might use his own words to conclude he may be worse than so many of his predecessors:

“You don’t get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.”
— From Paul Begala’s “Is Our Children Learning?”, Governing Magazine July, 1998

“If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”
— CNN.com, December 18, 2000

“A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.”
— Business Week, July 30, 2001

Security

Going Sober

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The f-secure bloggers have posted an odd story today about the Sober Y worm. Apparently someone in Germany read the worm’s message and decided to take it so seriously that he turned himself and his computer in to the authorities, and they found child porn. The Police have a writeup about it here (German) and a (very rough) tranlation is here:

Paderborn harmful computer worm helpfully – Sexualtaeter placed itself to the police (MT) still in November even the Federal Criminal Investigation Office (Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigations) before the danger of the computer worm “Sober Y” had warned. Now the criminal worm of the Paderborner helped police with the clearing-up of several sexual crimes.

Energy, Security

The Petroleum Gap

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The latest EPRI* Journal (PDF) has an interesting article about the future of hybrid vehicles and the benefits of new plug-in technology, which has led to the ungainly name of PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles). New York, Kansas City and LA are apparently testing a Dodge Sprinter PHEV and seeing some pretty amazing results.

At current U.S. energy prices — that is with the cost of gasoline at $3 per gallon and the national average cost of electricity at 8.5c per kilowatthour — a PHEV runs on an equivalent of 75c per gallon. And given that half the cars on U.S. roads are driven 25 miles a day or less, a plug-in with even a 20-mile-range battery could reduce petroleum fuel consumption by about 60%.

A PHEV passenger car is said to be able to recharge in three to four hours on a regular 120V (well, regular for the US) outlet, and ideally would be charged at the end of the day when “40% of the generating capacity in the United States sits idle or operates at reduced load overnight.”

I hate to ask but will the diesel version of the Sprinter (based on the Mercedes engine) have a PHEV option? The electric-city/biodiesel-highway vehicle seems like the perfect high-performance low-cost solution to help drive the US economy and military away from the impending petroleum disaster.

* Electric Power Research Institute

Here is one of the graphs from the report, which actually mentions increasing security risks due to petroleum-based energy:


EPRI chart of the US Petroleum Gap