Lifeboat Foundation

One afternoon in the fall of 2019, in a grand old office building near the Arc de Triomphe, I was buzzed through an unmarked door into a showroom for the future of surveillance. The space on the other side was dark and sleek, with a look somewhere between an Apple Store and a doomsday bunker. Along one wall, a grid of electronic devices glinted in the moody downlighting—automated license plate readers, Wi-Fi-enabled locks, boxy data processing units. I was here to meet Giovanni Gaccione, who runs the public safety division of a security technology company called Genetec. Headquartered in Montreal, the firm operates four of these “Experience Centers” around the world, where it peddles intelligence products to government officials. Genetec’s main sell here was software, and Gaccione had agreed to show me how it worked.

He led me first to a large monitor running a demo version of Citigraf, his division’s flagship product. The screen displayed a map of the East Side of Chicago. Around the edges were thumbnail-size video streams from neighborhood CCTV cameras. In one feed, a woman appeared to be unloading luggage from a car to the sidewalk. An alert popped up above her head: “ILLEGAL PARKING.” The map itself was scattered with color-coded icons—a house on fire, a gun, a pair of wrestling stick figures—each of which, Gaccione explained, corresponded to an unfolding emergency. He selected the stick figures, which denoted an assault, and a readout appeared onscreen with a few scant details drawn from the 911 dispatch center. At the bottom was a button marked “INVESTIGATE,” just begging to be clicked.

We’re about to revolutionize how drugs are developed in the United States.

When a German security researcher, Matthias Marx, found a United States military device for sale on eBay—an instrument previously used to identify wanted individuals and known terrorists during the War in Afghanistan—Marx gambled a little and placed a low bid of $68.

He probably didn’t expect to win, since he offered less than half the seller’s asking price, $149.95. But win he did, and after that, he had an even bigger surprise coming, The New York Times reported. When the device arrived with a memory card still inside, Marx was shocked to realize he had unwittingly purchased the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints, and iris scans of 2,632 people whose biometric data had allegedly been scanned by US military.

The device allegedly stored not just personal identifiable information (PII) of seemingly suspicious persons, but also of US military members, people in Afghanistan who worked with the government, and ordinary people temporarily detained at military checkpoints. Most of the data came from residents of Afghanistan and Iraq.

A new survey conducted by the Canadian government has found that polar bears in the country’s Western Hudson Bay, are dying at alarming rates. The researchers aerially surveyed the Bay and its nearby town of Churchill also referred to as the ‘Bear capital of the World’ in 2021 and found there were 618 bears only, compared to 842, five years ago when last counted.

The survey added that a significant decline has been noted in the population of adult female bears and cubs between 2011 and 2021.

“The observed declines are consistent with long-standing predictions regarding the demographic effects of climate change on polar bears,” said the researchers.

Check out all the on-demand sessions from the Intelligent Security Summit here.

The adoption of a password-free future is hyped by some of the biggest tech companies, with Apple, Google, and Microsoft committing to support the FIDO standard this past May. Along with the Digital ID Bill reintroduced to Congress this past July, we’re poised to take a giant leap away from the password to a seemingly more secure digital future. But as we approach a post-password world, we still have a long way to go in ensuring the security of our digital lives.

As companies continue developing solutions to bridge us to a passwordless world, many have prioritized convenience over security. Methods of two-factor authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) such as SMS or email verification — or even the use of biometrics — have emerged as leading alternatives to the traditional username/password. But here’s the catch: Most of these companies are validating devices alone and aren’t properly leveraging this technology, leaving the door open for bad actors.

Famed anti-aging research pioneer David Sinclair took to twitter earlier this week to formally respond to allegations of unethical business practices and government overreach concerning the recent ban of the popular anti-aging supplement, NMN.

We sure do love those government subsidies, says industry cheerleader.

Riding on the shoulders of the Apollo generation, the Artemis missions will pave the way for humans to return to the moon, begin human exploration of Mars, and someday for humanity to reach the edges of our solar system and beyond.

While the exploration of deep space is critical to advancing our understanding of so many unanswered questions about the universe and our place in it, it is equally as critical that the United States government and private industry work together to lead the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and capture the resulting massive new space economy.

As I wrote in The Washington Post recently, the most profound chapter in human history is the industrial revolution happening in LEO, just 250 miles above our heads. We are at a turning point for our civilization, pivoting from 60 years of space exploration to a new era of unprecedented economic activity, manufacturing and growth in space. This burgeoning epoch is called the Orbital Age, and it will drive a new trillion-dollar industry.

The United Kingdom government has announced that Virgin Atlantic will fly a historic net zero London-New York flight in 2023.

“For decades, flying from London to New York has symbolized aviation’s ability to connect people and drive international progress. It’s now going to be at the forefront of cutting carbon emissions from flying,” said British transport secretary Mark Harper.

“Not only will this flight pave the way for future generations, but it will demonstrate just how much we can achieve when we work together on a shared goal — bringing together some of the best businesses and academics in the world and led by a British airline.”

Continue reading “World’s first net-zero transatlantic flight: Fly London to New York on used cooking oil” »