This is good: Simon Greenish, chief executive officer of the Bletchley Park Trust, said the plan was for the centre's entire archive to be digitised. [...] He said since the archive is so big nobody knows exactly what each individual document stored there contains. However, the information they expect to dig out will definitely include communication transcripts, communiques, memoranda, photographs,...

How to spot a CIA officer, at least in the mid-1970s. The reason the CIA office was located in the embassy -- as it is in most of the other countries in the world -- is that by presidential order the State Department is responsible for hiding and housing the CIA. Like the intelligence services of most other countries, the...

A book. Also, read this....

Interesting: In the throes of intense fear, we suddenly find ourselves operating in a different and unexpected way. The psychological tools that we normally use to navigate the world­reasoning and planning before we act­get progressively shut down. In the grip of the brain’s subconscious fear centers, we behave in ways that to our rational mind seem nonsensical or worse. We...

The OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual from 1944....

Go read this article -- "Setting impossible standards on intelligence" -- on laying blame for the intelligence "failure" that allowed the Underwear Bomber to board an airplane on Christmas Day. Although the CIA, FBI, and Defense, State, Treasury and Homeland Security departments have counterterrorism analytic units -- some even with information-gathering operations -- the assumption is that all of the...

What could possibly be the point of this? Cars heading to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will see random, voluntary inspections Monday. The searches are part of an increase in security at the airport. It's a joint operation between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Austin Police, and airport security. The enhancements are not a response to specific threats, and the security...

Who needs actual terrorists? How’s this for an ill-conceived emergency preparedness drill? An off-duty cop pretending to be a terrorist stormed into a hospital intensive care unit brandishing a handgun, which he pointed at nurses while herding them down a corridor and into a room. There, after harrowing moments, he explained that the whole caper was a training exercise. [...]...

Amazing: The Canadian government disclosed Tuesday that the total price tag to police the elite Group of Eight meeting in Muskoka, as well as the bigger-tent Group of 20 summit starting a day later in downtown Toronto, has already climbed to more than $833-million. It said it’s preparing to spend up to $930-million for the three days of meetings that...

Early squid: New Canadian research into 500 million-year-old carnivore fossils has revealed an early ancestor of modern-day squids and octopuses, solving the mystery surrounding a previously unclassifiable creature. "This is significant because it means that primitive cephalopods were around much earlier than we thought, and offers a reinterpretation of the long-held origins of this important group of marine animals," Martin...

Not that interesting, really. Preliminarily, I can tell you that within my sample, cannibalism seems to be on the rise, myctophid consumption is falling, and a lot more squid may be dying hungry....

I've gotten to the front of the security line at a different airport, and handed a different TSA officer my ID and ticket. TSA Officer: (Looks everything over. Reads the name on my passport.) The Bruce Schneier? Me: (Nods, managing not to say: "No no, just a Bruce Schneier; didn't you hear I come in six-packs?") TSA Officer: The security...

This is the kind of law that annoys me: A Senate bill to toughen penalties for crimes committed with the aid of Internet-generated "virtual maps," including acts of terrorism, won quick approval Monday in the House. [...] Adley's bill defines a "virtual street-level map" as one that is available on the Internet and can generate the location or picture of...

Android app. (Slashdot thread.)...

"If you see something, say something." Or, maybe not: The Travis County Criminal Justice Center was closed for most of the day on Friday, May 14, after a man reported that a "suspicious package" had been left in the building. The court complex was evacuated, and the APD Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit was called in for a look-see. The package...

LIGATT Security certainly hopes to scare people....

I've gotten to the front of the security line and handed the TSA officer my ID and ticket. TSA Officer: (Looks at my ticket. Looks at my ID. Looks at me. Smiles.) Me: (Smiles back.) TSA Officer: (Looks at my ID. Looks at me. Smiles.) Me: (Tips hat. Smiles back.) TSA Officer: A beloved name from the blogosphere. Me: And...

Interesting research: "What You See is What They Get: Protecting users from unwanted use of microphones, cameras, and other sensors," by Jon Howell and Stuart Schechter. Abstract: Sensors such as cameras and microphones collect privacy-sensitive data streams without the user's explicit action. Conventional sensor access policies either hassle users to grant applications access to sensors or grant with no approval...

Pretty....

This is an interesting piece of research evaluating different user interface designs by which applications disclose to users what sort of authority they need to install themselves. Given all the recent concerns about third-party access to user data on social networking sites (particularly Facebook), this is particularly timely research. We have provided evidence of a growing trend among application platforms...