Candice Lanier

International Seminary of Saint Pius X
School board elections are normally pretty uneventful, with the focus being on local issues. This year, however, has been a sharp departure from the norm. Many school board races in 2021 have involved fighting (sometimes literally) over issues such as mask mandates and critical race theory.
Of all the US states, Idaho comes in last place when it comes to funding for K-12 schools. Idaho is also home to one of the nation’s more tumultuous school board race...

Recently, Scott County Schools, in Kentucky, fell victim to a $3.7 million fraud phishing scam. According to Superintendent Dr. Kevin Hub, a vendor informed the district that an invoice sent to the district had not been paid. In looking into the matter, the district found that someone else had been paid instead, via a fraudulent email disguised as the vendor. "This is a process that we use currently in Scott County Schools. It's a way that we pay our vendors. And it was in this specific case,...

The US government will apparently need to get a handle on the same cybersecurity issues it grappled with in 2018 as for some agencies, subpar performance is expected for years to come.

State sponsored espionage, insider threats, securing infrastructure and supply chains and increases in cybercrime and the cost of cybercrime are among the top issues the government has to come to terms with. Other challenges for the government include picking better passwords, staying on top of patch management...

Direct-to-consumer DNA testing services have experienced a surge in popularity over the past few years. Digitizing DNA carries the benefits of uncovering ancestry information and can have significant positive impact on science and medical research. It can, for instance, assist in finding a cure for a fatal disease.

Cyberbiosecurity

According to Peccoud Lab, which specializes in synthetic biology informatics at Colorado State University, Cyberbiosecurity is a specialty that deals with understa...

This week, the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) reminds us that, “our day-to-day life depends on the country’s 16 sectors of critical infrastructure, which supply food, water, financial services, public health, communications and power along with other networks and systems. A disruption to this system, which is operated via the internet, can have significant and even catastrophic consequences for our nation.”

October is National Cyber Security Month and week 4 (this week), the emphasis ...

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a proposed amendment to the Chicago municipal code would allow businesses to use facial recognition technology that could “invade biometric and location privacy, and violate a pioneering state privacy law adopted by Illinois a decade ago.”

EFF goes on to say:

"At its core, facial recognition technology is an extraordinary menace to our digital liberties. Unchecked, the expanding proliferation of surveillance cameras, coupled with constant...

Hurricane Florence is expected to bring a life-threatening storm surge and catastrophic inland flooding. The storm’s speed has been reduced to a slower, but potentially more dangerous pace, “and with enormous and lumbering intensity it will come to rest against the shore."

The deceleration to a slow-moving hurricane can produce particularly perilous conditions because once it makes landfall, it will, “dump its moisture in just a handful of states. Parts of the Carolinas and the mid-Atlantic c...

Social engineering is the use of deception to manipulate individuals into disclosing sensitive information that may be used to compromise a network, infiltrate an organization, gain access to trade secrets, as part of a cyberstalking campaign, or in furtherance of an espionage operation.

Bleeping Computer regularly reports on social engineering attacks such as one that was discovered last month and involved a fake adult website. Earlier this month a social engineering attack involving Microso...

In October 2017, “Q” materialized from the internet message board 4chan. Beginning with a thread titled “Calm Before the Storm”, Q presented himself as a government insider with top security clearance who was aware of a secret struggle for power involving Donald Trump, the “deep state”, Robert Mueller, the Clintons, pedophile rings, and more.

Since then, Q has "continued to drop 'breadcrumbs' on 4chan and 8chan, fostering a 'QAnon' community devoted to decoding Q’s messages and understanding ...

FBI Director Chris Wray is following in predecessor James Comey's footsteps in joining the anti-encryption crusade. Though the FBI has admitted to distorting the number of encrypted devices it can't get into, in an interview at the Aspen Security Forum, Wray "hinted he was moving towards an anti-encryption legislative mandate," if a compromise couldn't be reached with tech companies:

"I think there should be [room for compromise]. I don't want to characterize private conversations we're havin...

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) can be defined as artificial intelligence (AI) that matches or surpasses human intelligence. It is, in brief, the type of intelligence through which a machine is able to perform any intellectual task that a human being can. And, it is currently one of the main objectives of AI research.

The concepts of AGI and consciousness, however, lack definitions that satisfy everyone.

The type of artificial AI currently available is focused on specific tasks and is therefore referred to as “applied” or “narrow" AI because of the machines' limited intelligence.

Originally, a hacker was defined as one who is enthusiastic about computers, whether that be programming or getting into the guts of a computer to see how it works. In current times, the term may describe a person who attempts to gain unauthorized access to computers, with less than honorable intentions, or the person who counters the bad intentioned one. But, there is a pretty broad spectrum of hackers and a variety of motivations for hacking.

While some hackers develop various types of tools and applications with which people can secure themselves, others spend time painstakingly looking f

The number of satellites transmitting GPS locations, cellphone signals and other sensitive information has been rapidly increasing, which has resulted in the creation of favorable circumstances for hackers. Even with all the advances in satellite technology, much of the US military’s satellite technology remains vulnerable.

Earlier in the month, Bleeping Computer reported on a cyber-espionage group believed to be operating out of China who hacked companies who develop satellite communications...

On Saturday, US State Department-designated terrorist group Hezbollah announced that Facebook and Twitter had terminated its main accounts. In a post on encrypted messenger, Telegram, Hezbollah opined that the shutdowns were "part of the propaganda campaign against the resistance due to the important role of the organization’s information apparatus in various arenas." Hezbollah then began redirecting people to other Hezbollah accounts on social media.
While it is not known what particular act...

Pre-crime, is a vast potpourri of information, on everyday activities, used to try to predict and prevent future behavior. In “predictive” policing, computer algorithms identify signs of pre-crime in a realm in which we are all potential suspects. Similar to the state of affairs depicted in the 2002 movie, “Minority Report,” psychic “precogs” discern which “criminals” to pursue before they commit a crime.

Hartford, CT is now using what some say looks an awful lot like pre-crime technology. "L...