The Time article called “The Secret World of Extreme Militias” highlights an interesting point.

The threat model for their exercises is camouflaged as anti-insurgent and anti-Islamic but they more likely training to fight the US military.

“I don’t know who the redcoats are,” says Brian Vandersall, 37, who designed the exercise and tried to tamp down talk of politics among the men. “It could be U.N. troops. It could be federal troops. It could be Blackwater, which was used in Katrina. It could be Mexican troops who are crossing the border.”

Or it could be, as it was for this year’s exercise, an Islamic army marauding unchecked because a hypothetical pro-Muslim President has ordered U.S. forces to leave them alone. But as the drill played out, the designated opponents bore little resemblance to terrorists. The scenario described them as a platoon-size unit, in uniform, with “military-grade hardware, communications, encryption capability and vehicle support.” The militia was training for combat against the spitting image of a tactical force from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), FBI or National Guard. “Whoever they are,” Vandersall says, “we have to be ready.”

I see Time’s point but I do not see the list as indicative of US military or law enforcement.

Aside from “in uniform”, which the Extremists themselves have adopted, the other characteristics fit just about any terrorist group such as the Mumbai attackers or those expected to hit tourist sites in Western Europe.

Maybe “encryption capability” is like a secret phrase that identifies establishment rather than anti-establishment enemies.

Apparently this guy comes with extensive encryption capabilities:

A measure of democratic rights in Africa by a foundation, sponsored by Mo Ibrahim, tries to make the case that insecurity will undermine future economic growth.

The report was mentioned by the BBC

The index groups indicators in four groups. In two of them, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development, the picture was mostly positive – and in fact no country declined significantly in these categories, the index authors said.

But in the other two categories – Safety and Rule of Law, and Participation and Human Rights – the picture was grimmer.

[…]

Africa is currently growing at four times the pace of Europe, helped by booming portable telephony and raw materials industries.

But 35 states have become less secure, while two-thirds of African countries show a declining performance in terms of human rights, the index suggests.

The foundation site has an excellent interface that makes it easy to compare the data for each country.

Communication between BT and ACS:Law were uncovered during the ACS:Law breach, possibly related to Operation PIAB. The BBC reports that the insecure transmission of customer data by BT violates the Data Protection Act

BT has admitted it sent the personal details of more than 500 customers as an unsecured document to legal firm ACS:Law, following a court order.

[…]

A BT official admitted “unencrypted” personal data was sent, adding it “would not happen again”.

A research paper for USENIX, “TaintDroid: An Information-Flow Tracking System for Realtime Privacy Monitoring on Smartphones”, accuses android applications of leaking information without user approval.

Using TaintDroid to monitor the behavior of 30 popular third-party Android applications, we found 68 instances of potential misuse of users’ private information across 20 applications

Fifteen of the apps sent user data to advertising companies without user approval or notice, while other apps sent unique IDs and tracking/location data (even when the application did not run).