Laser Explosives Detection System Unveiled

A laser capable of accurate roadside bomb detection has been developed by a US-based research team.

The technology can precisely locate IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) of the kind historically deployed by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and part of the investment require to progress it was supplied by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Working at Michigan State University, the researchers describe, in a study published by Applied Physics Letters, how IEDs claim close to two thirds of the deaths that occur among warfighters serving on the frontline in Afghanistan.

Traditional IED detection approaches are complicated by the difficulty factor involved in locating bombs by their chemical signature when, in Afghanistan, there are already large numbers of chemicals floating around: how do you isolate potentially hazardous material from what's already in the environment?

The laser in this system fires two different types of beams and uses the results from these to determine the type of material being analysed. The shorter pulses cause explosive molecules to vibrate, giving away their presence, while the longer pulses are used to indicate what the molecules actually are, determining their identity from the frequency of their vibrations.

According to head researcher Professor Marcos Dantus, the new laser-based IED detection system is so accurate that it can pick up one billionth of a gram of explosive material.

"The laser and the method we've developed were originally intended for microscopes, but we were able to adapt and broaden its use to demonstrate its effectiveness for standoff detection of explosives", Professor Dantus explained.

In addition to being able to perform high precision-level explosives scans, the laser can also cover a wide target area.

From here on in, the researchers are hoping to see further investment into their technology. If that occurs, it's conceivable that the laser IED detection system could see operational use in the not-too-distant future. More on this to come in future Security Technology News Items.

See also -

News:

Water Blade for IED Disposal

Products and Services:

Companies supplying Explosives Detection

View the original article here

Practical Encrypted Data Search System Research

EU-supported data security research taking place in the UK is exploring ways of making encrypted data searchable without forcing it to give up its secrets.

It's hoped that the work being carried out by Bristol University-based cryptographers could enhance the security level of electronic voting processes and medical record systems, to name but two.

‘When you encrypt an electronic vote, you want the voting authority to add up the votes and give the result of the election but you don't want them to work out who voted for who', Nigel Smart - the head researcher involved - explained in comments published by The Engineer.

The European Research Council has supplied the UK team with two million Euros in funding to look into practical encrypted data search methods, alongside other security areas, too. These include new internet user protection measures, online security testing systems and initiatives that encourage firms to keep up to date with the latest technological advances.

The practical aspect of the encrypted data search programme is a key part of this work, after the experiences of earlier advances in this field.

Two years ago, IBM showcased its fully homomorphic encryption system, which permits data to be secured so that calculations can be carried out, but information relating to identity etc is kept intact.

The IBM data search system draws on significant amounts of computer power and, so, isn't viable for mass application across the corporate world.

Smart and his team's vision is to progress towards a more market-friendly system. It's also to generate something of a security overhaul, steering firms to keep up with the times.

‘As an example, a bank card must work in any ATM in the world so they cannot change the technology in your bank card until every ATM machine is capable of dealing with the next generation of technology', he said, in further comments made to The Engineer.

‘There are a bunch of protocols around that are still in use and we want people to stop using them. The easiest way to do that is to break them.'

See also:

Companies supplying Data Encryption

View the original article here

Automated Biometric Identification System Development

Aerospace and defence firm Northrop Grumman has been chosen to progress an advanced biometric security programme for the US military.

The DOD-ABIS (Department of Defense Automated Biometric Identification System) allows members of the US armed forces to rapidly identify individuals deemed threatening to the preservation of US security.

Having developed DoD-ABIS five years ago, Northrop Grumman will now essentially maintain and re-develop it through a new $141m contract that also involves a raft of other firms including Booz Allen Hamilton Inc,, SAIC Inc., Six3 Systems Inc., SRA International Inc. and E&M Technologies Inc.

This will potentially give US warfighters an even more effective tool in the international fight against terrorism and other 21st century threats.

The Automated Biometric Identification System lies at the heart of the US Defense Department's biometric identification programme. It's a multi-model system, in the sense it carries out face scans, fingerprint scans, iris scans and palm scans on threatening or potentially-threatening subjects.

DoD-ABIS is compatible with other elements of US national security, such as IAFIS - the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System used by the FBI - and it can be accessed from any part of the globe.

According to a new Northrop Grumman press release, the progressional order that's now been placed will see the firm assume ‘primary development responsibility of DoD-ABIS including program management, systems engineering, software development, integration, training, disaster recovery, case management, system sustainment, scalability and interoperability'.

"DoD-ABIS is a proven multimodal biometric enterprise system that is helping to protect the lives of the warfighter and personnel assigned to U.S. bases worldwide", Northrop Grumman representative Alan Leckenby stated in the firm's DoD-ABIS development order press release.

"Northrop Grumman's broad expertise developing and fielding advanced biometrics applications across defense, civilian and law enforcement environments will be a critical asset to the Defense Department as it maintains its position as a leader and early adopter of multi-modal biometric technologies."

The data acquired by DoD-ABIS is used not only by US military personnel, but also by members of other US organisations. Look out for further coverage of this system in future Security Technology News Items.

Image copyright Northrop Grumman

See also:

Companies supplying Biometrics

View the original article here

New Terror Warning System for US

The United States government has formally launched a new US terror warning system to take over from the current colour-coded mechanism.

In it, the terror warning process has been simplified to just two distinct levels, highlighting the prospect of either an "imminent" or an "elevated" security threat.

The basic status of each of these levels will be enhanced with additional information, summarising exactly what the threat is and specifying how long it will remain in force.

When a new US security threat emerges, it will now also be broadcast with data on both where it might take place and what it might affect. In some instances, the warning will go out solely to those immediately at threat - not the US public at large. Various outlets will be used as a means of broadcasting the terror alerts - Twitter and Facebook among them.

Details of the new terror warning system were delivered on 20 April by Janet Napolitano - the US Homeland Security Secretary.

Two months after an earlier speech, in which she stressed that the terror risk level was at its most severe since 9/11, Napolitano explained, yesterday, how "the terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly over the past ten years."

The 9/11 terrorist attacks prompted United States officials to introduce the colour-coded US terror warning system concept in 2002. It attracted wide criticism since, in much of the population's eyes, it didn't supply full explanations of the threat involved. It also remained static (‘Orange') between August 2006 and the present day, so wasn't adjusted in spite of a number of attempted acts of terrorism experienced in between.

"We are changing to a system that gives people specificity, tells them what to do, what to prepare, what to look for and how to get more information", Napolitano said, in comments broadcast by NBC television.

"It will be specific to geography, to event or incident", she added. "If the information has changed, if the alert no longer needs to exist, it will automatically go away."

View the original article here

US Security System Prevents Terror Flights

Over 350 potential terrorists have been stopped from flying by US officials over the past 15 months.

That's according to one element of the US media, The Associated Press, which links the successful flight preventions to the advent of a security boost in light of the attempted 2009 Christmas Day mid-air explosion.

Prior to that, the legacy of 9/11 survived for some seven years. According to unnamed officials working within US Security, hundreds of individuals, with various degrees of involvement in terrorism, slipped through the net, arriving in the US after boarding commercial flights from elsewhere. When questioned on arrival, they often linked their presence to business trips or holidays.

Their success dramatically reduced after 25 December 2009 when one man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was arrested, after it was claimed he tried to explode an airliner in mid-Transatlantic flight.

At the very start of 2010, new US airport screening measures began to be put in place to enable terror flight prevention, requiring passengers from specific terror-related nations to be patted-down and have their luggage come under close scrutiny, while there's also a watch list and a no-fly list against which international passengers are checked.

Consequently, airliner passengers with links to Hamas, al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taibi and many other organisations have had their travel plans stopped. In line with legal requirements, no specific identifies have been provided.

The Christmas Day explosion attempt gave US airport security a thorough overhaul and the improvements keep on coming. The Terror Watch List is updated on a daily basis and, at present, it features in the region of 450,000 names, while the no-fly list has approximately 30,000.

In related news, the current US government terror security system - which issues risk-based alerts - is to be trimmed down from five elements to two.

Again, as reported by the Associated Press, these alerts will, from the end of April, will be issued when there's an ‘elevated' level of terror and when there's an ‘imminent' terror level. US citizens will get notice of these warnings in certain circumstances, but not if the risk level is too high, the AP says.

Currently, five colours are used to signify increasing US security risk levels and that's been the case since 9/11.

See also:

Companies supplying Airport Security

View the original article here

Satellite System For Earthquake Detection

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions could one day be predicted - from space.

Scientists are developing a new satellite system that will monitor the Earth's seismic activity from space, which could potentially allow advanced notice of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The TwinSat project is to put two nano-satellites into low Earth orbit 400km apart, both working to collect and interpret electromagnetic signatures emitted from the Earth's surface. The two linked satellites will monitor zones with high seismic and volcanic activity, such as Iceland and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia

The joint UK-Russian team working on the project plans to launch TwinSat in early 2015, with scientists saying the technology could help security agencies in anticipating natural disasters more effectively.

The project is a partnership between the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London and two Russian institutions, the Institute of Physics of the Earth and the International Science and Technology Center.

The technology is based on the knowledge that before an earthquake or volcano, electromagnetic signals are released in the areas that will be affected. For example sensors picked up electromagnetic signals of seismic activivy before the devastating Haiti earthquake in 2010 (pictured), but they were only identified and analysed properly afterwards.

According to Dr Dhiren Kataria from University College London, one of the institutions involved in the programme, these signals are hard to detect on Earth. ‘The signatures are much too weak and the signal-to-noise level is much worse," he told The Engineer. "Also, to be able to observe it, you need the sensors to be very close to the earthquake site and that is not always possible because most of our ground sensors are at fixed locations." In space, however, such noise is reduced because it is a vacuum, which according to Dr Kataria means "the spread of the signal is over a much wider region, so you can capture it far easier".

Professor Vitaly Chmyrev from the Institute of Physics of the Earth said the technology could theoretically make "the Earth a safer place" by providing a far faster advance notice of impending seismic shifts, thereby creating a volcano eruption and earthquake early warning system. He said: "Just imagine if we could have accurately predicted the Haiti earthquake a few weeks before," said Professor Chmyrev. "Or if we had predicted the Icelandic volcano eruption that paralysed transport routes for weeks. The potential human and economic benefits are enormous."

Peter Sammonds, a Professor of Geophysics at UCL, said the technology was relatively cheap. "These satellites are absolutely incredible, you can almost hold them in the palm of your hand," he said. "If the project progresses as we want it to, we'll be able to send up several more of them to increase coverage."

Image Credit to: Marco Dormino/United Nations Earthquake Programme.

View the original article here

Satellite System For Earthquake Detection

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions could one day be predicted - from space.

Scientists are developing a new satellite system that will monitor the Earth's seismic activity from space, which could potentially allow advanced notice of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The TwinSat project is to put two nano-satellites into low Earth orbit 400km apart, both working to collect and interpret electromagnetic signatures emitted from the Earth's surface. The two linked satellites will monitor zones with high seismic and volcanic activity, such as Iceland and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia

The joint UK-Russian team working on the project plans to launch TwinSat in early 2015, with scientists saying the technology could help security agencies in anticipating natural disasters more effectively.

The project is a partnership between the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London and two Russian institutions, the Institute of Physics of the Earth and the International Science and Technology Center.

The technology is based on the knowledge that before an earthquake or volcano, electromagnetic signals are released in the areas that will be affected. For example sensors picked up electromagnetic signals of seismic activivy before the devastating Haiti earthquake in 2010 (pictured), but they were only identified and analysed properly afterwards.

According to Dr Dhiren Kataria from University College London, one of the institutions involved in the programme, these signals are hard to detect on Earth. ‘The signatures are much too weak and the signal-to-noise level is much worse," he told The Engineer. "Also, to be able to observe it, you need the sensors to be very close to the earthquake site and that is not always possible because most of our ground sensors are at fixed locations." In space, however, such noise is reduced because it is a vacuum, which according to Dr Kataria means "the spread of the signal is over a much wider region, so you can capture it far easier".

Professor Vitaly Chmyrev from the Institute of Physics of the Earth said the technology could theoretically make "the Earth a safer place" by providing a far faster advance notice of impending seismic shifts, thereby creating a volcano eruption and earthquake early warning system. He said: "Just imagine if we could have accurately predicted the Haiti earthquake a few weeks before," said Professor Chmyrev. "Or if we had predicted the Icelandic volcano eruption that paralysed transport routes for weeks. The potential human and economic benefits are enormous."

Peter Sammonds, a Professor of Geophysics at UCL, said the technology was relatively cheap. "These satellites are absolutely incredible, you can almost hold them in the palm of your hand," he said. "If the project progresses as we want it to, we'll be able to send up several more of them to increase coverage."

Image Credit to: Marco Dormino/United Nations Earthquake Programme.

View the original article here

Satellite System For Earthquake Detection

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions could one day be predicted - from space.

Scientists are developing a new satellite system that will monitor the Earth's seismic activity from space, which could potentially allow advanced notice of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The TwinSat project is to put two nano-satellites into low Earth orbit 400km apart, both working to collect and interpret electromagnetic signatures emitted from the Earth's surface. The two linked satellites will monitor zones with high seismic and volcanic activity, such as Iceland and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia

The joint UK-Russian team working on the project plans to launch TwinSat in early 2015, with scientists saying the technology could help security agencies in anticipating natural disasters more effectively.

The project is a partnership between the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London and two Russian institutions, the Institute of Physics of the Earth and the International Science and Technology Center.

The technology is based on the knowledge that before an earthquake or volcano, electromagnetic signals are released in the areas that will be affected. For example sensors picked up electromagnetic signals of seismic activivy before the devastating Haiti earthquake in 2010 (pictured), but they were only identified and analysed properly afterwards.

According to Dr Dhiren Kataria from University College London, one of the institutions involved in the programme, these signals are hard to detect on Earth. ‘The signatures are much too weak and the signal-to-noise level is much worse," he told The Engineer. "Also, to be able to observe it, you need the sensors to be very close to the earthquake site and that is not always possible because most of our ground sensors are at fixed locations." In space, however, such noise is reduced because it is a vacuum, which according to Dr Kataria means "the spread of the signal is over a much wider region, so you can capture it far easier".

Professor Vitaly Chmyrev from the Institute of Physics of the Earth said the technology could theoretically make "the Earth a safer place" by providing a far faster advance notice of impending seismic shifts, thereby creating a volcano eruption and earthquake early warning system. He said: "Just imagine if we could have accurately predicted the Haiti earthquake a few weeks before," said Professor Chmyrev. "Or if we had predicted the Icelandic volcano eruption that paralysed transport routes for weeks. The potential human and economic benefits are enormous."

Peter Sammonds, a Professor of Geophysics at UCL, said the technology was relatively cheap. "These satellites are absolutely incredible, you can almost hold them in the palm of your hand," he said. "If the project progresses as we want it to, we'll be able to send up several more of them to increase coverage."

Image Credit to: Marco Dormino/United Nations Earthquake Programme.

View the original article here