Sunday, July 8, 2007

The U.S. Army installation at Fort Lee in Virginia will begin using a program called RAPIDGate that will replace passes issued to non-military persons who regularly require access to the facility. The program will take effect July 10, when the practice of issuing 90-day passes to people who present a valid driver’s license, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance for the vehicle used for access ends. Those passes will be grandfathered out as they expire.

The RAPIDGate program for fast entry into Fort Lee replaces what was once access privileges performed by the installation itself, which came free of cost. The new outsourced program administered by Portland, Oregon-based Eid Passport, Inc. enhances security to the installation by performing background checks. Their service comes at a price. The screening process makes a ten-year felony background check, performs a check against terrorist and sexual offender watch lists, and does a social security cross reference to validate a person’s identity.

Qualified applicants are issued a pass that enables them to bypass inspection pits and use any of the facility’s seven gates for access. Businesses whose employees would benefit by this are required to contact the program provider and have “point of contact” persons who can validate an applicant’s employment. Enrollment in the program costs the business US$199. A pass for each employee of the business costs $159 annually. The pass for employees expires after a year, when a new background check is required by the program.

The program is a voluntary alternative for civilians to conform with new access policies mandated by the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army, according to an information pamphlet distributed by the base. A kiosk will be set up at Fort Lee to accept applications that process a photograph, social security number, and fingerprint.

Those without a RAPIDGate pass will need to enter the fort at locations where their vehicle can be inspected. A rigorous inspection involves armed guards asking the driver to place keys on the dash board, pop the hood and the trunk, open the glove box, and have all occupants exit the vehicle and open all doors, including the hood and trunk. While the vehicle is inspected inside, another guard uses a mirror attached to a wand to inspect under the chassis of the vehicle’s undercarriage.

Eid Passport, Inc. specializes in identity authentication and background screening. Fort Lee will be the 12th military installation out of an estimated 250 military installations on U.S soil to implement identity screening as part of new policies mandated by the Department of Defense (DoD).

“The pass contains no personal information,” said David Smith, the director of marketing for Eid Passport. It does contain a barcode which is scanned at entry. The RAPIDGate program database includes a biometric fingerprint that might be checked by the scanning device against the presenter of the pass in times of elevated security. The pass is also embedded with an active RFID transmitter. The pass is scanned on entry to the fort at the gate check point, but not upon exit. If the RFID transmitter works properly, movement into and out of the base will be recorded.

The Fort Lee pamphlet mentions a “a new mandate” by the DoD. That mention appears to be in reference to portion of the language found in an Instruction issued in October last year by the DoD that states, “Implement a verification process, whether through background checks or other similar processes, that enables the U.S. Government to attest to the trustworthiness of DoD contractors and sub-contractors.”

The Instruction stems from a Directive signed by President Bush in August of 2004. That Directive, from the Department of Homeland Security, says in part, “Wide variations in the quality and security of forms of identification used to gain access to secure Federal and other facilities where there is potential for terrorist attacks need to be eliminated.”

Fort Lewis in Washington state was the first U.S. military installation to adopt the RAPIDGate program as a test in 2004. Since then, Fort Sam Houston, Fort Carson, and Fort Bragg, among other installations have adopted the program.

“What happened at Fort Dix, [New Jersey], as we look at it, is a Fort Dix issue,” Laura Arenschield reported spokesman for the 18th Airborne, Tom McCollum, as saying in June. “That should not be taken as an invitation for someone to try it here at Fort Bragg, but (security) is a living, breathing entity. You have to constantly change it just to keep those who are trying to penetrate it on their toes.” The new security measures will go into effect at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which is among the largest of domestic military bases, starting July 8.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

A Florida man is being charged with 3rd degree felony for logging into a private Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) Internet access point without permission. Benjamin Smith III, 41, is set for a pre-trial hearing this month in the first case of its kind in the United States.

This kind of activity occurs frequently, but often goes undetected by the owners of these wireless access points (WAPs). Unauthorized users range from casual Web browsers, to users sending e-mails, to users involved in pornography or even illegal endeavours.

According to Richard Dinon, owner of the WAP Smith allegedly broke into, Smith was using a laptop in an automobile while parked outside Dinon’s residence.

There are many steps an owner of one of these access points can take to secure them from outside users. Dinon reportedly knew how to take these steps, but had not bothered because his “neighbors are older.”

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has admitted sixteen instances of sensitive information being leaked on social networking websites in the past eighteen months. Ten employees have been disciplined for misuse of the sites. The revelations follow a Freedom of Information request by Lewis PR and computer security company F-Secure.

The MoD would not comment on what disciplinary action was taken, or whether the leaks involved operational information. The ministry’s guidelines state that staff must obtain clearance to release any information that is related to sensitive, controversial or political matters, or military operations.

“It’s worrying that employees in sensitive positions have been sharing confidential information via Twitter and other means,” said Mikko Hypponen, of F-Secure. “Loose Tweets can cost lives.”

According to Lewis PR, computers on the main MoD networks are blocked from visiting social networking sites. However there are a small number within the department which have unrestricted Internet access. Some personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq also have access through internet cafés on military bases.

The ministry’s “online engagement guidelines”, released in August last year, recognise the importance of social media such as Facebook for personnel keeping in touch with friends and family. According to the document: “Service and MOD civilian personnel are encouraged to talk about what they do, but within certain limits to protect security, reputation and privacy.”

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

A team of eight transplant surgeons in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, led by reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, age 58, have successfully performed the first almost total face transplant in the US, and the fourth globally, on a woman so horribly disfigured due to trauma, that cost her an eye. Two weeks ago Dr. Siemionow, in a 23-hour marathon surgery, replaced 80 percent of her face, by transplanting or grafting bone, nerve, blood vessels, muscles and skin harvested from a female donor’s cadaver.

The Clinic surgeons, in Wednesday’s news conference, described the details of the transplant but upon request, the team did not publish her name, age and cause of injury nor the donor’s identity. The patient’s family desired the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The Los Angeles Times reported that the patient “had no upper jaw, nose, cheeks or lower eyelids and was unable to eat, talk, smile, smell or breathe on her own.” The clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery chair, Francis Papay, described the nine hours phase of the procedure: “We transferred the skin, all the facial muscles in the upper face and mid-face, the upper lip, all of the nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw including the teeth, the facial nerve.” Thereafter, another team spent three hours sewing the woman’s blood vessels to that of the donor’s face to restore blood circulation, making the graft a success.

The New York Times reported that “three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China, all using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.” “Only the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip, lower teeth and jaw are hers, the rest of her face comes from a cadaver; she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe. About 77 square inches of tissue were transplanted from the donor,” it further described the details of the medical marvel. The patient, however, must take lifetime immunosuppressive drugs, also called antirejection drugs, which do not guarantee success. The transplant team said that in case of failure, it would replace the part with a skin graft taken from her own body.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon praised the recent medical development. “There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Leading bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania withheld judgment on the Cleveland transplant amid grave concerns on the post-operation results. “The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell. If your face is falling off and you can’t eat and you can’t breathe and you’re suffering in a terrible manner that can’t be reversed, you need to put on the table assistance in dying. There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Dr Alex Clarke, of the Royal Free Hospital had praised the Clinic for its contribution to medicine. “It is a real step forward for people who have severe disfigurement and this operation has been done by a team who have really prepared and worked towards this for a number of years. These transplants have proven that the technical difficulties can be overcome and psychologically the patients are doing well. They have all have reacted positively and have begun to do things they were not able to before. All the things people thought were barriers to this kind of operations have been overcome,” she said.

The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Isabelle Dinoire on November 27 2005, when she was 38, by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard in Amiens, France. Her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005. A triangle of face tissue including the nose and mouth was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient. Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.

In 2004, the same Cleveland Clinic, became the first institution to approve this surgery and test it on cadavers. In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London‘s Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out a full face transplant. His team will select four adult patients (children cannot be selected due to concerns over consent), with operations being carried out at six month intervals. In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old neurofibromatosis victim Pascal Coler of France ended after having received what his doctors call the worlds first successful full face transplant.

Ethical concerns, psychological impact, problems relating to immunosuppression and consequences of technical failure have prevented teams from performing face transplant operations in the past, even though it has been technically possible to carry out such procedures for years.

Mr Iain Hutchison, of Barts and the London Hospital, warned of several problems with face transplants, such as blood vessels in the donated tissue clotting and immunosuppressants failing or increasing the patient’s risk of cancer. He also pointed out ethical issues with the fact that the procedure requires a “beating heart donor”. The transplant is carried out while the donor is brain dead, but still alive by use of a ventilator.

According to Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society’s ethics committee, it is unknown to what extent facial expressions will function in the long term. He said that it is not certain whether a patient could be left worse off in the case of a face transplant failing.

Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon‘s facial transplantation working party, commented that if successful, the transplant would be “a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction” and “a major step forward for the facially disfigured.”

In Wednesday’s conference, Siemionow said “we know that there are so many patients there in their homes where they are hiding from society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores, they are afraid to go the the street.” “Our patient was called names and was humiliated. We very much hope that for this very special group of patients there is a hope that someday they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things we take for granted,” she added.

In response to the medical breakthrough, a British medical group led by Royal Free Hospital’s lead surgeon Dr Peter Butler, said they will finish the world’s first full face transplant within a year. “We hope to make an announcement about a full-face operation in the next 12 months. This latest operation shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people. These are people who would otherwise live a terrible twilight life, shut away from public gaze,” he said.

Friday, June 22, 2007

The United States amusement park operator Six Flags has shut down nine thrill rides at four parks after a 13-year-old girl’s feet were cut off on a tower-drop ride yesterday at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville.

Kentucky state officials said a loose cable on a ride called the Superman Tower of Power severed the girl’s feet above the ankles, but they had not determined how the cable broke free, or at what point in the ride the accident happened. The ride lifts passengers 177 feet (54 metres) straight up, then drops them nearly the same distance at speeds reaching 54 mph (86 km/h).

The girl, whose identity has not been released, was taken to a hospital. Details of her condition were not immediately available.

Six Flags spokeswoman Carolyn McLean told The Courier-Journal that there has never been a major incident on the Tower of Power. Formerly known as the Hellavator, the ride was built in 1995.

In addition to Kentucky Kingdom, rides have been shut down at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois; Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka, Missouri; and Six Flags America, Prince George’s County, Maryland.

A Superman Tower of Power Ride at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington has not been shut down because it is not the same as the ones in Kentucky and the other locations that have been shut, Six Flags spokeswoman Wendy Goldberg told the Associated Press.

The rides that have been shut down are made by a Swiss-owned company called Intamin.

Cedar Fair Entertainment Company said it was shutting down similar thrill rides at its theme parks at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio; Canada’s Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario; Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia; Carowinds in Charlotte, North Carolina; and Great America in Santa Clara, California.

Friday, February 4, 2005

Europe –The government of Cuba has re-established official contacts with all of the European Union countries. The diplomatic relationship with the EU had been limited for more than 18 months.

The EU relationship with Cuba was injured on March-June 2003 after the arrest and conviction of 75 “dissidents” by the Cuban government. In a separate case, three Cubans were executed on foot of a sentence handed down by a civil court, and confirmed on appeal by the Cuban Supreme Court, which found them guilty of hijacking a ferry and endangering the lives of its occupants. Cuba accused the dissidents of collaboration with the US and sabotage against the Cuban communist system. All 75 “dissadents” appear to have pleaded guilty of receiving illegal payments from US agents in court when confronted with the evidence. 14 of the 75 convicted mercenaries, who the US continues to insist were “dissadents”, have since been released on licience.

Cuba and the EU began to come close again after the efforts of the President of the government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. At that time, the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder didn’t agree with Zapatero about unfreezing the relationships between Cuba and the EU. Schröder believed Cuba should first show real commitment to improving the human rights conditions on the island. However, on November 25, 2004, the Cuban Chancellor Felipe Pérez Roque announced the re-establishment of official contacts with the government of Spain.

On November 30, 2004, Cuba released four political dissidents: Marcelo López, Margarito Broche, Óscar Espinosa Chepe and Raúl Rivero. The Dutch Presidency of the European Union praised the Cuban decision. Cuba said that the decision was not influenced by the Spanish government.

On December 15, 2004 the Council of the European Union for Latin America committee recommended the suspension of the diplomatic sanctions against Cuba, according to alleged Spanish diplomatic sources.

Finally, on January 10, 2005, the Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told journalists:”We can say that from this moment onward Cuba has re-established government-level official contacts with all European Union countries.” On January 31, 2005, the EU council of foreign ministers agreed to a suspension of EU sanctions against Cuba. The international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders protested and sent a open letter to the president of the European Commission on February 1, 2005.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

A Proton rocket which was intended to launch the JCSAT-11 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit lifted off and successfully completed its first stage burn, but the second stage failed leading to loss of the rocket and satellite.

The launch vehicle was a Proton M booster with a Breeze M upper stage. More than 300 Proton rockets have been launched, all from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Following the launch failure, Kazakhstan suspended the launch of Proton rockets from Baikonur, Interfax news agency reported.

JSAT Corporation immediately placed an order with Lockheed Martin, the satellite manufacturer, for an identical replacement satellite based on the A2100AX design.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

A small, “nicely trained” Jack Russell Terrier gave his life to help save a group of five children from two aggressive pitbulls last Sunday in Manaia, Taranaki, New Zealand.

The dog named George is being described as a hero, gathering a huge amount of international media interest in the process.

The dog suffered massive injuries that the vet had never seen to that extent before, which resulted in 69-year-old Alan Gay, the dog’s owner, allowing George to be put down. He now regrets this decision.

The two pitbulls rushed at the group of children that George was following to the dairy, including a four-year-old. George then started barking loudly at the pair of dogs, and put himself between the dogs and the children. Mr Gay told Fox News, “If it wasn’t for George, those kids would have copped it.”

Despite having received offers of new dogs, Mr Gay has said that he will wait a while before getting another Jack Russell Terrier, as he is afraid it could happen again.

It is also believed that the two attacking dogs, which have been destroyed, were bred to be aggressive, including being fed the drug methamphetamine, commonly referred to as “P” in New Zealand.

Mr Gay has said that Manaia has had a problem with stray dogs before, but he never expected that George would become a victim.

One story ran in USA Today, which prompted over 120 comments, and one reader to personally call Alan Gay expressing their condolences.

Responding to the huge amount of media interest, Mr Gay said, “This really surprises me, and it’s marvellous. I never expected this … I’m surprised it got around the world as it did.” He says he has been getting a huge amount of phone calls from the media and the public. “The phone has been going since about half past seven this morning. Every time I hang up it rings again. It’s worn out; I might have to get a new one.”