The Americas Post - Now Big Brother can see right through your clothes. Photo Credit: NYPD

It’s not just in the airport anymore.  The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is working in collaboration with the United States Department of Defense to control illegal firearms by deploying technology to detect concealed weapons carried by people walking down the street.

Using infrared rays, the system scans a “form of radiation emitted from the body” on a person carrying a gun on the city’s streets, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced Tuesday at a State of the NYPD event.

Known as terahertz imaging detection, the technology functions on the basis that the rays cannot pass through metal, thereby creating a digital outline of any metal weapon gun people may be hiding.   It is reported to be capable of measuring energy radiating off a body from up to 16 feet away.

Kelly told attendees that the scanner would be used only when reasonable suspicious circumstances called for it and could decrease the frequency of stop-and-search incidents on the street.  The news, however, has raised concerns about privacy.

“It’s worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you’re doing nothing wrong,” the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Donna Lieberman told CBS New York.

According to NY Post reports, the scanners would be mounted on NYPD vans, with the rays aiming at people on the street.

The Americas Post - Things are quieting down for the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Murders, rapes and other violent crimes declined significantly in the United States during the first six months of 2011, extending a downward trend that has lasted 4 1/2 years, the FBI announced on Monday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said preliminary January-to-June statistics showed violent crime declining 6.4 percent from the previous year, led by a 5.7 percent decrease in murders and a 5.1 percent drop in rapes.

In other categories of violent crime, robberies declined 7.7 percent while aggravated assaults fell 5.9 percent.

The FBI’s regular statistical report did not provide reasons for the lower crime rate nationwide, but the numbers show no evidence of any growth in crime resulting from high unemployment and a weak economy.

The report is compiled from information provided by over 12,500 police and other law enforcement agencies across the country.

Violent crimes dropped about the same amount in all four regions of the country, including big cities, smaller cities and rural areas.

Property crimes like burglary, larceny, theft and motor vehicle theft also declined in the first half of the year, with burglaries down 2.2 percent, larceny and theft down 4.0 percent and stolen vehicles down 5.0 percent.

The separate category of arson plunged 8.6 percent in the first six months of the year, the FBI said.

The Americas Post - Peruvian family members are demanding answers. Photo Credit: EPA

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peruvian “disappearance” victims in the conflict that raged there from 1980 to 2000 are double the number previously calculated by that nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2003.

Rafael Barrantes, Red Cross director for that agency’s Disappeared Persons Program, said that records from the Peruvian Institute of Legal Medicine and Anthropological Forensic Team indicate that between 15,000 and 16,000 went missing during the violence that wracked the country over two decades.

Barrantes complained that government deficiencies have prevented the consolidation of records into a single registry.  According to the final report issued by the TRC in 2003, of the 69,280 people killed in Peru during that period, 8,558 were declared as missing.

According to the Peruvian Reparations Council, the total number of victims could be as high as 100,000.

Barrantes cited Institute of Legal Medicine statistics showing that between 2002 and 2010 the remains of 1,497 missing persons had been located, of which 771 were identified and 671 returned to their families.  He called for the establishment of government offices to take charge of the search and investigation “case by case”.

Investigators have reports of 4,644 burial sites in Peru, but until now have only located 2,200 of them.

Dr.Nasrullah Memon, Program Chair of EISIC 2011 in exclusive interview with TheAmericasPost.com

On the occasion of the EISIC (September 12-14,2011) held in Athens, we interviewed the Program Chair of the event Dr. Nasrullah Memon, professor at the University of Southern Denmark and member of the Steering Committee of the European Intelligence & Security Informatics Conference EISIC on Counterterrorism and Criminology. The event was organized jointly with The International Symposium on Open Source Intelligence and Web Mining (OSINT-WM 2011), and having as Academic Sponsors The University of Arizona, University of Southern Denmark,  and The Hellenic American University, as technical co-sponsor the IEEE Computer Society, as local organizer the Hellenic American University and SPRINGER as the Industry Sponsor.

During the interview, Dr. Memon gave details about EISIC (past, present and future plans) , how the Intelligence Community can take advantage of the Intelligence & Security Informatics discipline, the relationship between counterterrorism and computational criminology, the role of Higher Education, as well as differents kinds of Crime involving information and communication technologies. The privacy problem was also analized during the conversation.

Here is an excerpt of a very interesting interview with one of the world´s most brilliant minds in Defense, Counterterrorism and Security Informatics, Dr. Nasrullah Memon.

Dear Dr. Memon, could you please tell us what is EISIC 2011? Please elaborate on its creation, mission, objectives and members.

EISIC is the European chapter of Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI) series of conferences. The conference is dynamic and allows academicians, researchers and practitioners to keep abreast of new tools and methodologies in the area of Intelligence Security and Informatics. It is also a venue that fosters networking opportunities for people working in this scientific area.

After my graduation (PhD Defense), Professor Hsinchun Chen, Director, Artificial Lab, University of Arizona, the founder of ISI series of conferences encouraged us to organize the European chapter of ISI. In this context, the first event was organized under the name of EUROISI 2008 at Esbjerg, Denmark.  That event was organized more as a workshop than a conference and it was not very well attended.

In September 2010, while Professor Hsinchun Chen visited University of Southern Denmark, we discussed how to re-organize the European chapter of ISI as an annual event in order to create a consortium involving academic researchers in information technologies, computer science, public policy, criminology, and social and behavior studies as well as local, national, and European law enforcement and intelligence experts, and information technology industry consultants and practitioners to support counterterrorism and national/international security missions of anticipation, interdiction, prevention, preparedness and response to terrorist acts. In other words the mission and objectives for the organization of EISIC series of conferences that came out from the discussions with Prof. Chen are to provide opportunities to establish a European network in the area of Intelligence and Security Informatics.

The organization of the conference was a very difficult task and we started working for the success of the event from September 2010 with the collaboration of Hellenic American University, University of Southern Denmark and University of Arizona. We formed a team from the above mentioned academic institutes and Hellenic American University accepted to host EISIC 2011 in Athens, Greece while University of Southern Denmark accepted to host EISIC 2012 in Odense, Denmark.  As per program chairs, Daniel Zeng and me invited around 100 researchers from academia and industry to work as program committee members. We received 111 submissions for EISIC 2011 and we accepted 27% of high quality papers as LONG papers based on the peer-review process.  The research articles were received from 41 countries from all sub-continents.

The founding members of EISIC 2011 are: Prof. Hsinchun Chen, Prof. George J. Hagerty, Professor Uffe Kock Wiil, Professor Triant Flouris, Dr. Panagiotis Karampelas and myself.

What is your assessment of the conference in Athens?

As per feedback from the audience we found it was a very successful event. The keynote speeches as well as the paper presentations were very well attended by the participants and there were a lot of positive comments on the quality of the presentations. There were also a lot of opportunities for networking between the participants and we witnessed several discussions about future collaborations between the participants. I would like to mention at this point that the host organization played a vital role in the success of the conference sponsoring the expenses of keynote speakers and finding alternatives of certain problems we faced because of unforeseen incidents such as strikes, etc.

What activities does EISIC plan to carry out in the near future?

We have a number of long and short term plans in the area of Intelligence and Security Informatics.  We have established the Counterterrorism Research Lab at University of Southern Denmark in October 2009.  Behind the lab there is a small group of researchers (around 10, one Professor, one Associate Professor and several PhD students) working in the area of ISI. We are publishing our research articles in the area in various conferences and journals and we try to establish connections with various law enforcement bodies and intelligence services providing them with our cutting edge technology and experience. Concerning EISIC, we plan to organize EISIC 2012 at our University at Odense on August 22-24, 2012. We also received a number of informal proposals for the organization of collocated events. As soon as we receive formal proposals, we’ll decide accordingly. We have also received informal proposals for the organization of EISIC 2013 and EISIC 2014 in Italy and Sweden respectively. The steering committee will decide as soon as we receive formal proposals for the organization of EISIC and related events in future.

In regard to the Intel discipline, where do you classify the Intelligence Security Informatics ISI? Is it a separate intelligence discipline in and of itself, or part of other intel disciplines like HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, etc.?

ISI is a discipline where INTEL disciplines could be benefited. Let us take an example; we are working on a research project (sponsored by the Faculty of Engineering, University of Southern Denmark): Developing an Early Warning System to predict Terrorist Threats. Mostly we use OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), but there is room for counterterrorism experts/INTEL to work. We do not have yet a formal collaboration with INTEL agencies, but I’m sure INTEL people could be benefited as well from ISI research.

What role does higher education play in ISI?

As this is a new inter-disciplinary area, higher education can play a vital role in encouraging students from Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Criminology, Computer Science, and Applied Mathematics to adopt research in the area of ISI in order to educate experts to help us in building a SAFE AND SECURE WORLD. It is also a need of the hour to train INTEL people with this emerging area of research.

What is the relationship between counter-terrorism and computational criminology?

Computational criminology like Countering terrorism is an emerging blend of criminology, anthropology, social computing, computer science and applied mathematics. Modern concerns about public safety and security include a focus on a range of events from less serious everyday crimes like shoplifting to personal violent crimes like homicide and ultimately terrorism. Underlying all of these events is a decision process or a chain of steps in target identification, steps that focus first on rough and vague decisions and move towards the precise plot. The fields of counterterrorism and computational criminology involves the use of computational power to identify: (1) crime patterns and emerging patterns; (2) crime generators and attractors; (3) terrorism, organized crime and gang social and spatial networks as well as co-offending networks; and, (4) cybercrime/cyber terrorism. Algorithms are developed using computational topology, hyper-graphs, Social Network Analysis (SNA), Knowledge Discovery and Data-mining (KDD), agent based simulations, dynamic information systems analysis and more for detecting organized crime and predicting terrorist threats.

The methods and models used for counter terrorism and computational criminology can provide information about pattern theory and identification. In short, we treat terrorism as an organized crime, and therefore, it would be possible to use some of the traditional methods to detect terrorism evidences, but also new models can be developed looking into the new type of terrorism of 21^st century.

What is cybercrime and what current challenges does it pose?

Crime involving information and communication technologies (ICT), for example:

·        ICT as an instrument, where ICT can be used as primary tool to commit the offence (Identity theft, Internet scams and Fraud-misappropriation of funds are some of the examples)

·        ICT as target, where ICT is the target of the offence (Hacking, Misuse of  ICT resources, Denial of service, Stealing information)

·        ICT as Ancillary Resource, where conventional crime can be assisted by ICT; in other words technology can be used to commit conventional crime or technology can be used to store information about crime (Fraud, Money laundering, etc., are known examples)

As the cybercrime has border-less and transnational reach, therefore, there is urgent need to establish competency in predictive cyber analysis and to develop trusted relationships to encourage information sharing among the INTEL agencies.  There are number of challenges in cybercrime, for example

·        Enforcing extraterritorial/ trans-border law enforcement activity

·        Many offences are never detected

·        Many detected offences are never reported

·        Difficult to quantify the offence

·        Difficult to “Police” the cyber space

·        Evidence can be intangible

·        Issuing warrant without knowledge of the precise location of data (evidence) can be problematic

·        Evidence can be destroyed during search

·        Encryption and other concealment technologies are available to offenders

·        Human rights and privacy issue, etc.

How can the right to individual privacy be balanced against the need for protection from cybercrime?

It is a very difficult question; I think security is more important than privacy of individual person in some cases.  But according to the laws of each country, the privacy problem should be dealt in treating with cyber criminals.

Illegal Drug Trafficking: Synthetic drugs surpassed world consumption of cocaine and heroine.

New York- Tuesday 13,2011.- The United Nations reported today that synthetic drugs like ecstasy and methamphetamine have moved up in the rankings to a  second place within the illicit drugs consumption.   In the world, synthetic drugs are now more used than cocaine and heroin. Only marihuana is the most common hallucinogen in the globe, more than synth drugs.

In a study made by the Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, the UN said the information indicated that the meth tablets and seizures of clandestine laboratories shows a worrying trend on the rise.

Holland and Burma continue to be the major producers, but its manufacture has spread to new countries and regions including West Africa.

In the Americas the main producer of synthetic drugs is the cartel of Sinaloa, leade by the criminal Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman.

Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham and our Publisher Victor Bjørgan during EISIC 2011, European Intelligence & Security Informatics Conference on Counterterrorism and Criminology.

On September 12th, and during the first day of the conference EISIC 2011 “European Intelligence & Security Informatics Conference, on Counterterrorism and Criminology,” the first keynote speech was given by the expert Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham Cyber ​​Security (BT) (*). The title of his presentation was “Data Mining for Malicious Code Detection and Security Applications”. Among the highlights of his academic dissertation BT defined the meaning of saying that data mining “is the process of posing queries and extracting patterns different from data using techniques”. About its use, she said the technology can be used in national security as well aganist cybercrime and security, like f.e. like to Prevent buildings, destroying critical infrastructure (power, telecom). Dr Thuraisingham said that also can Data Mining find out who the bad guys are, capable of carrying out those Terrorist Activities.
Defining Cyber ​​Security BT said it is a technology to Protect the computer and network systems due to Against Corruption last generation of malware like Trojan horses, worms and viruses, including the ultradangerous malware called RAMAL (Radioactive Adaptive Malware), as well as intrusion detection and auditing.

During the first part of the presentation, BT described her research (together with Prof Latifur Khan and students of the University of Texas) and said that some techniques like the Link Analysis technology can be used to trace the viruses to the perpetrators. Another technology called Classification can prevent future attacks depending on the data mining learned about the terrorists through emails and phone conversations. The technology can also separate between real threats and non threats at all, by reducing false positives and false negatives.

More into details of her speech, BT said that the researched techniques like the CFB Program can extract the code blocker malware from data, and make a control flow analysis. She also compared her System with another already in the market , the code blocker SigFree, and assured her system is better, performs better.   Her System can detect Malware that is evolving continuosly, even every milisecond, like the RAMAL (Radioactive Adaptive Malware). Currently, all last generation malware evolve continuosly and it is difficult to prevent for regular firewalls. Dr. Bhavani Thuraisimgham defined her anti RAMAL malware tech as the NCD Novel Class Detection, and the tool is the system based on NCD, the so called SNOD or SNODMAL).

Currently, the most advanced Malware goes undetected because a continuos change in behaviours , every milisecond, and the regular anti malware software can not keep up that speed.

BT assured that her SNOD hast the ability to detect new classes of malware and its changes. She used the SNODMAL, malware detector using SNOD.

She classified the Malware in two categories: Benign and Novel.

The usefullness of SNODMAL will extend to detect multiple novel malware classes and quarantine them.

Summarizing, BT also revealed that they are working to find the best way to detect where this malware attack comes from, and to be able to attribute the attack, where it come from with 100% certainty (to avoid false accusations). Several countries have been attacjed by these novel malware.

In regard to the privacy matter, BT affirmed that the extract of results of the data mining should be private, this is a legal matter, not only an ethical one.

Once her speech finalized and the round of questions ended, Dr. Bhavani Thuraisimgham met Victor Bjoergan , CEO of the U.S. based Global Security Services LLC,  also Publisher of TheAmericasPost.com and EuropeSecurityNews (this under construction). Both discussed the importance of developing these technologies, and its role anti Cybercrime and the strengthening of global security against terrorism.

(*) READ MORE ABOUT DR. BHAVANI THURAISINGHAM

(**) MORE ON DR.THURAISINGHAM

Good Initiative in Security: Government in El Salvador will reeducate juveniles into military discipline

The Minister of National Defense of El Salvador, David Munguia Payés , said that the plan is aimed at those young people “at risk” living in areas of influence of the “maras” (a dangerous international gang linked to Zetas and other criminal groups) . The project will be presented by the government to the United Nations UN to seek international funding.

General Payés Munguia said the plan is to recruit some 5,000 young people living in areas influenced by gangs (Maras) and intern them to receive unarmed military discipline.

“It seeks to instill some discipline and training in the field of civil protection and job skills,” said the military chief.

“We will meet with UN staff to present some ideas that we have in regard to this program and see if they can help us fund it,” said the officer.

Minister National Defense of El Salvador David Munguia Payes (center) and wife meeting Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, under the gaze of General Chiang Kai Shek.

The Salvadoran government has said in recent days that they lack funds to finance the project, which has caused controversy in Salvadoran society.

In El Salvador, about 12 people are killed daily. Police officials say that ten percent of homicides are committed by juveniles linked to gangs.

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter can be misused for crime, violence and terrorism

In the beginning, social networks were just a new way of socializing among friends and business people. In the last few years, some people have begun using these networks for other purposes than family and friends.  Using facebook some people started a political movement that ended in the Egyptian revolution against Mubarak.

Others organize urban riots like some British youngsters recently did in London and Birmingham.

Others organize groups in Facebook to sell  illegal narcotics, as recently happened in Brazilian slums.

Facebook and social networking now often play a role in teen violence, school harassment, gang activity and organized crime.

That is why police are concerned about violence generated through online social networks, which then moves to the streets and result in dead and wounded people.

Some say there is a need to have a strategy for the treatment of such antisocial behavior.  That there is a need to form cyber patrols, composed of undercover policemen with support of sociologists and psychologists.

For example it is now quite usual that young people socializing in the web have been provoked and challenged to street confrontations, violence and crime.

A few days ago, in Uruguay a Facebook challenge also ended with a 19 year old killed in the vicinity of the Montevideo Shopping Mall.  These challenges to violence are also common in association with sports and football games.

On Wednesday, in Montevideo, the 11th World Meeting of Cyber ​​Cops opened with the participation of police specialists from 20 countries.

During the Police Conference , the cyber cops will exchange their experiences and views on the subject. Some proposals include the following: to research more about the “dark web”,  to cyber patrolling the net when there is evidence of criminal activity, to research the misuse of social networking like Facebook, to form a virtual patrol (with cyber cops, sociologists and psychologists) who do prevention work on these violent groups as done in sports.

But violence cannot be resolved by limiting the Internet or social networking technology. In that sense, during the inauguration of the conference, the Interior  Minister of Uruguay Mr. Eduardo Bonomi said that “the problem has clear social roots and cannot be only solved by police action. Police must intervene when something serious happens,  but this does not help to eliminate crime. We must fight the causes that lead to such violent or criminal activity. The solution must also come from a better education,  the role of the family, the role of the school and not by always looking after the police, “said  Bonomi.

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón is now working as adviser for the Mission to Support the Peace Process established by the OAS. Photograph Credit to Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images

During a lecture under the XXIX Interdisciplinary Course on Human Rights which concluded on August 19th at the American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica, the Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón said that governments foster instability among citizens when politicians elaborate security policies without consulting the people. Garzón  called upon the american states to include the opinions and needs of more people, common citizens, in the elaboration of security policies.
For the lawyer and advisor to the International Court in Hague, the authorities act in secret and assume that  regular people do “not understand” their policy decisions.
Garzón thinks that “Citizens must participate in the design of those aspects or rules that affect them.”
For the jurist, one of his major concerns is that some governments postulate the safety of citizens, but continue to violate basic human rights.

Garzon gained worldwide fame for promoting an arrest warrant against former dictator Augusto Pinochet for the death and torture of Spanish citizens during his dictatorship. He also accused Pinochet of commiting crimes against humanity. Garzón has niow been suspended in Spain, due to his initiative to investigate the human rights situation during the Franco regime.
“What is the role of victims in the fight against organized crime,” he asked yesterday at the Institute headquarters in Los Yoses, San Pedro, Montes de Oca.  “Normally, no government takes into account what the victims claims during the design of security policies ,” ​​the judge responded to an audience that included senior officials and security minister, Mario Zamora, and the president of the Supreme Court Justice Luis Paulino Mora.
Garzón said that “we need citizen involvement to define the security agenda so that everything does not become a critique of the government in power because in the end is a matter of coresponsibility.”
During his speech of nearly an hour, Garzon said he was alarmed by the levels of “very serious” violence  that plague countries like Mexico and Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking. He said that violence has led criminal groups to bring their operations in the Isthmus, especially in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
In this regard, he considered that they are wrong who believe that the attacks by organized crime reach only members of rival groups in fight among themselves for power quotas or zones of influence.  “Anyone who thinks this makes a big mistake,” said Garzón.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers (Photo credit to PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Boston’s Logan International Airport will be the testing ground of a  new technology of airport security, aimed at screening passenger behavior. The test will start next Tuesdat.

During the new development, officers of the TSA Transportation Security Administration working at the Logan Airport will train screeners on having more conversations with passengers at the security checkpoint.  The system is based after Israel’s enhanced airport screening methods.

Under the new program officers will be trained in human behaviour. They will will ask passengers non-intrusive questions and they will be trained to see how passengers respond. Those travelers who exhibit suspicious behavior will be pulled aside for more screening. Examples of suspicious behaviour could be struggling with answers and avoiding eye contact.

The offciers of the Logan Airport will receive advanced training, in theory and practice, in both classrooms and on-the-job experience , designed to improve their communication skilss and engage in conversations with passengers having as objective to identify suspicious behavior and anomalies.

The traveler will not feel the conversation like it was a sort of interrogation, but more of a  ‘casual greeting’ conversation with a behavior detection officer after they provide their ID and boarding pass.  If his/her act is suspicious, the passenger may get selected for an extended, but still limited conversation.

In the first phase, around 60 TSA officers are scheduled to take part in the training.

Logan will be the first airport in the U.S. to roll out the pilot program, which is targeted to officially begin in mid-August. After a certain period, TSA will evaluate how this pilot program impacts security, screening operations and passenger flow.

The results will determine how the TSA will proceed with the program.