Cell-All: Super Smartphones Sniff Out Suspicious Substances

Years ago, if you wanted to take a picture, you needed a dedicated camera. You needed to buy batteries for it, keep it charged, learn its controls, and lug it around. Today, chances are your cell phone is called a “smartphone” and came with a three-to-five megapixel lens built-in—not to mention an MP3 player, GPS, or even a bar code scanner.

This Swiss Army knife trend represents the natural progression of technology—as chips become smaller and more advanced, cell phones continue to absorb new functions. Yet, in the future, these new functions may not only make our lives easier, they could also protect us—and maybe even save our lives.

The Cell-All initiative may be one such savior. Spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate ( S&T ), Cell-All aims to equip your cell phone with a sensor capable of detecting deadly chemicals at minimal cost—to the manufacturer ( a buck a sensor ) and to your phone’s battery life. “Our goal is to create a lightweight, cost-effective, power-efficient solution,” says Stephen Dennis, Cell-All’s program manager.

How would this wizardry work? Just as antivirus software bides its time in the background and springs to life when it spies suspicious activity, so Cell-All regularly sniffs the surrounding air for certain volatile chemical compounds.

When a threat is sensed, a virtual ah-choo! ensues in one of two ways. For personal safety issues such as a chlorine gas leak, a warning is sounded; the user can choose a vibration, noise, text message, or phone call. For catastrophes such as a sarin gas attack, details—including time, location, and the compound—are phoned home to an emergency operations center.

While the first warning is beamed to individuals—a grandmother taking a siesta or a teenager hiking through the woods—the second warning works best with crowds. And that’s where the genius of Cell-All lies—in crowdsourcing human safety.

Currently, if a person suspects that something is amiss, he might dial 9-1-1, though behavioral science tells us that it’s easier to do nothing. If he does do something, it may be at a risk to his own life. And as is often the case when someone phones in an emergency, the caller may be frantic and difficult to understand, diminishing the quality of information that’s relayed to first responders. An even worse scenario: the person may not even be aware of the danger, like the South Carolina woman who last year drove into a colorless, odorless, and poisonous ammonia cloud.

In contrast, anywhere a chemical threat breaks out—a mall, a bus, subway, or office—Cell-All will alert the authorities automatically. Detection, identification, and notification all take place in less than 60 seconds. Because the data are delivered digitally, Cell-All reduces the chance of human error. And by activating alerts from many people at once, Cell-All cleverly avoids the longstanding problem of false positives. The end result: emergency responders can get to the scene sooner and cover a larger area—essentially anywhere people are—casting a wider net than stationary sensors can.

But what about your privacy? Does this always-on surveillance mean that the government can track your precise whereabouts whenever it wants? To the contrary, Cell-All will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously. “Privacy is as important as technology,” avers Dennis. “After all, for Cell-All to succeed, people must be comfortable enough to turn it on in the first place.”

For years, the idea of a handheld weapons of mass destruction detector has engaged engineers. In 2007, S&T called upon the private sector to develop concepts of operations. Today, thanks to increasingly successful prototype demonstrations, the Directorate is actively funding the next step in R&D—a proof of principle—to see if the concept is workable.

To this end, three teams from Qualcomm, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA ), and Rhevision Technology are perfecting their specific area of expertise. Qualcomm engineers specialize in miniaturization and know how to shepherd a product to market. Scientists from the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA’s Ames Research Center have experience with chemical sensing on low-powered platforms, such as the International Space Station. And technologists from Rhevision have developed an artificial nose—a piece of porous silicon that changes colors in the presence of certain molecules, which can be read spectrographically.

Similarly, S&T is pursuing what’s known as cooperative research and development agreements with four cell phone manufacturers: Qualcomm, LG, Apple, and Samsung. These written agreements, which bring together a private company and a government agency for a specific project, often accelerate the commercialization of technology developed for government purposes. As a result, Dennis hopes to have 40 prototypes in about a year, the first of which will sniff out carbon monoxide and fire.

To be sure, Cell-All’s commercialization may take several years. Yet the goal seems imminently achievable: Just as Bill Gates once envisioned a computer on every desk in every home, so Stephen Dennis envisions a chemical sensor in every cell phone in every pocket, purse, or belt holster. If it’s not already the case, our smartphones may soon be smarter than we are.

DHS National Cyber Security Awareness Campaign Challenge

Are you up to The Challenge?  We at the National Terror Alert Response Center are.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has unveiled DHS’ National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign Challenge—a new initiative that calls on cybersecurity experts and individuals across the country to develop innovative new ways to enhance public awareness about the importance of safeguarding America’s computer systems and cyber networks from attacks by terrorists and criminals.

All Americans have an important role to play in securing our computer systems and cyber networks,” said Secretary Napolitano. “We are challenging our nation’s best and brightest to utilize their expertise and creativity to devise new ways to engage the public in the shared responsibility of safeguarding our cyber resources and information.”

The Challenge invites cybersecurity experts and members of the public alike to submit creative ideas for improving the public’s cybersecurity awareness and cyber literacy. Proposals must be submitted by April 30.

The Challenge

The National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign Challenge Competition is designed to solicit ideas from industry and individuals alike on how best we can clearly and comprehensively discuss cybersecurity with the American public.

Key areas that should be factored into the competition are the following:

• Teamwork
• Ability to quantify the distribution method
• Ability to quantify the receipt of message
• Solution may under no circumstance create spam
• Use of Web 2.0 Technology
• Feedback mechanism
• List building
• Privacy protection
• Repeatability
• Transparency
• Message

It should engage the Private Sector and Industry leaders to develop their own campaign strategy and metrics to track how to get a unified cyber security message out to the American public.

Proposals should be submitted in Word format by April 30, 2010 and should include the following:

1) Company name, Point of Contact and contact information
2) Outline of Campaign Strategy

• Strategic overview of plan and definition of success
• Organizations involved
• Target audience
• Timeline
• Metrics used to define success.

Distribution of Message – Communication methods to reach targeted audience

• Traditional media/PSAs
• New Media
• Literature/Pamphlets

Winners of the Challenge will be invited to an event in Washington D.C. in late May or early June. Winners will partner with the Department to lead in the planning of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign and to ready the campaign for its launch during Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October.

To learn more visit the DHS Website

Submitted proposals to be emailed to cyberchallenge@dhs.gov
Questions on the challenge can be sent to challengequestions@dhs.gov

English-speaking Bombers Subject of Global Manhunt

The Washington Times reports that U.S. and allied counter-terrorism authorities have launched a global manhunt for English-speaking terrorists trained in Yemen who are planning terror attacks on the United States. The manhunt is based on intelligence provided by the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

U.S. officials told The Washington Times that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, facing charges as a would-be suicide bomber,revealed during recent cooperation with the FBI that he met with other English speakers at a terrorist training camp in Yemen. Three U.S. intelligence officials, including one senior official, disclosed on the condition of anonymity some details of the additional bomb plots.

Said one official: “It's safe to say that Abdulmutallab is not the only bullet in the chamber for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” the Islamist terrorist group based in Yemen.

“Farouk took a month to get operational. Once he left [training in Yemen], it did not take very long,” the official said.

via U.S. hunts for English-speaking bombers – Washington Times.

DHS Monitoring Social Media and Web Sites for Terror Info

As the winter Olympics begin, the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that it will be monitoring the comments and posts on several websites and social media outlets like Twitter, National Terror Alert, The Drudge Report, The Blotter and others for information on possible terror threats.

The National Operations Center of DHS will watch the web for information, according to the statement, to “provide situational awareness” in the event of natural disaster, an “act of terrorism, or other manmade disaster.”

“The Olympics are a potential target for such events,” said the statement. The statement did not list all web sites and social media that the NOC will monitor, but provided 31 examples, many of them, like the Blotter, sites that cover breaking news, security, or terror.

DHS officials say they will not be monitoring the web sites extensively, but would use the sites as a reference and open source tool in the event of an incident or emergency. DHS officials also used the monitoring of social media sites in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake to aid rescue efforts.

[...]

One official told ABC News that monitoring the web sites during an emergency is like watching “a canary in a coal mine,” since social media sites can have real-time information. The official said the raw information that is available on the sites can help first responders and law enforcement officials make quick assessments to help in their response to events.

Read Full Article.

Editors Note – Some will no doubt speak out against this however, from what we’ve read, this is a good thing. I’ll explain. There are a number of websites that monitor and aggregate news related to homeland security, such as ours. Often times we’ll pick up a small story from a local paper or social media site that may be interesting to our readers, but probably seems insignificant to most people, including ourselves.

What may seem insignificant to us and others, may be of importance to an agency such as DHS that has a vast amount of intelligence and situational awareness to draw from. They have the ability and resources to put stories and posts together that we would never dream are connected.If it makes the country safer, we’re all for it.

The goal of this site has always been to maintain awareness, encourage individual and community preparedness and keep America safe. Any role we can play in acheiving those goals is welcomed.

Interagency Teams Can Now Question Terror Suspects

Interagency interrogation teams have started to question key terrorism suspects under a classified charter approved last week, but authorities have been slower to resolve pressing issues that emerged since Christmas — including how to draw the line between gathering intelligence and building a legal case, according to federal officials and experts following the process.

The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, announced to fanfare by White House officials last summer, was not formally authorized until Jan. 28, under a previously unreported 14-page memo signed by the president's national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones. The delay became a matter of political debate last month after members of Congress asked why the group had been not deployed to interrogate Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to detonate an explosive Dec. 25 on an airliner about to land in Detroit.

via Interagency teams can now question terror suspects – washingtonpost.com.

Bloggers Subpoenaed After Security Memo Posted Online

As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is trying to find out who leaked a security directive to bloggers.

TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.

Source – Read Full Article

Senators Ask For Investigation Of Pilot Licenses

ABC News and The Blotter report that a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Inspector General to investigate why suspect individuals including terrorists and drug kingpins have been able to retain their Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pilot’s licenses.

In a letter to DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner, the senators cited media reports, including an ABC News investigation, that questioned the ability of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to purge the FAA’s aviation list of individuals.

In one high-profile case reported by the Blotter, a well-known drug boss named Fernando Zevallos Gonzalez was able to keep his U.S. aviation license despite being on a “black list” of foreign drug kingpins since 2004.

Read Full Article

Napolitano Warns of Threat From al-Qaeda Sympathizers in U.S.

In one of her strongest statements to date on the threat of terrorism in the US, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday night that al-Qaeda followers are indeed inside the U.S. and would like to attack targets here and in other countries. Something we’ve been saying for quite some time.

The secretary’s comments were striking not only for their content they represented her bluntest assessment of terror threats within the country but also their political context. They came one day after President Obama, in announcing his decision to send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, warned that extremists have been “sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit more acts of terror.”

Addressing the American Israel Friendship League in New York, Napolitano said a string of recent domestic arrests should “remove any remaining comfort from the notion that if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won’t have to fight them here,” rebutting an argument advanced on several occasions by former president George W. Bush.

“Home-based terrorism is here. And like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront,” Napolitano said.

via Source.

DHS Seeks Partnerships to Increase Information Sharing

In  an increased effort to identify and help reduce possible acts of terrorism, The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to identify communities of interest that don’t fit the normal models found in local government and the private sector (hey, this sounds like us).  The goal is to improve lines of communication between ethnic and faith-based communities and respond to terror threats by adopting procedures used by the Secure Community Network (SCN). The department’s goal is to mimic the SCN platform for national security and preparedness and use it as a means to decrease the number of acts of terrorism by increasing both communications and information sharing.

The DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP) focuses on protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR). The IP works to reduce terror threats and to strengthen national preparedness and response and recovery times, largely through public-private partnerships because most of the national CIKR is privately owned.

William F. Flynn, the IP’s acting assistant secretary, shares that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to identify “communities of interest that don’t fit that normal model where we have outreach, like through local government and the private sector. She’s taken a personal interest in expanding this initiative.”

SCN is one such group. Because the Jewish community is often a target for terrorists, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations created SCN four years ago to address heightened security concerns. The organization has two purposes: to share information in crisis situations quickly and to improve security awareness of Jewish organizations to protect against terrorism and other threats.

SCN’s national director, Paul Goldenberg, notes, “Our community has seen an unprecedented number of attacks during recent years. DHS recognized that our community was vulnerable and that they should establish formal ties with the Jewish community. They felt training civilians to understand terror threats would help create eyes on the ground for DHS and local law enforcement.”

DHS and SCN have collaborated for four years, with DHS providing “tons of services” to the Jewish community, Goldenberg says.

Flynn adds, “SCN has a great platform to reach a broad audience. They have a pipeline, a technical means of broadly reaching their partners and constituents. That’s very valuable to help push out information. [DHS] has leveraged that relationship. We’ve sponsored security clearances for some of their staff; we’ve provided Web-based training and done webinars for them.”

Read Full Article

DHS Urged To Explore FM Alert System For Cell Phones

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski are being urged by House members  to explore the potential benefits of including FM radio tuners in mobile telephone handsets as part of a national alert system.

The letter notes that the Warning Alert and Response Network Act of 2006 authorized the mobile industry to create an emergency alert system and continues, “It is our understanding that incorporating FM radio tuners in mobile phones could help achieve this goal. Radio’s emergency alert system is a proven, reliable service.”

Hundreds of millions of cellphones worldwide have FM tuners, the lawmakers note, but only a handful of devices available in the U.S. market offer radios. They write, “There is no excuse for American consumers’ access to advanced technology to lag behind that available worldwide.”

The lawmakers say that, with EAS information available via mobile handsets through FM Radio, “Everyone involved, including the American public and public safety officials, as well as the mobile phone and broadcasting industries, stands to benefit.”

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1,600 Are Suggested Daily For Watch List

The Washington Post reported that during a 12-month period ending in March of this year, 1,600 people were recommended daily by the U.S. intelligence community to be put on the list due to ‘reasonable suspicion.’  It’s important to know,  each nomination does not necessarily represent a new individual, but may instead involve an alias or name variant for a previously named to the watchlist.

Newly released FBI data offer evidence of the broad scope and complexity of the nation’s terrorist watch list, documenting a daily flood of names nominated for inclusion to the controversial list.

During a 12-month period ended in March this year, for example, the U.S. intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a “reasonable suspicion,” according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week.

FBI officials cautioned that each nomination “does not necessarily represent a new individual, but may instead involve an alias or name variant for a previously watchlisted person.”

The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government’s “no fly” list.

via Read Full Article.

HUD and DHS Launch Disaster Recovery Website

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced the launch DisasterRecoveryWorkingGroup.gov—a new inter-agency website that will allow federal disaster recovery officials to solicit public comments from state, local and tribal partners and the public.

The new website will be used by the federal government’s newly-formed Long Term Disaster Recovery Working Group—co-chaired by Secretary Donovan and Secretary Napolitano—to allow stakeholders to submit ideas for disaster recovery; articulate objectives for recovery assistance going forward; identify examples of best practices; raise challenges and obstacles to success; and share thoughts, experiences and lessons learned.

“It is vital to our success that disaster recovery professionals and stakeholders provide their input as we move forward to improve disaster recovery efforts across the country,” said Secretary Donovan. “This new website will give everyone involved in disaster recovery a voice in shaping how we respond, and then rebuild and revitalize communities in the wake of disaster.”

“Successful recovery relies on effective collaboration with partners from state, local and tribal governments and the private sector,” said Secretary Napolitano. “This new website will support the federal government’s efforts to enhance our nation’s resiliency in the face of emergencies by engaging directly with our stakeholders.”

Last month, President Obama asked Secretaries Napolitano and Donovan to co-chair the Long Term Disaster Recovery Working Group, comprised of more than 20 federal departments, agencies and offices, to ensure that individuals, communities and the nation’s economy can withstand and rapidly recover from disasters. In order to develop a better national strategy for an effective approach to long-term disaster recovery, the Working Group will:

* Provide operational guidance for Federal, State, Tribal and local authorities to provide for effective and unified disaster recovery. This includes defining roles and responsibilities, detailing recovery management and operational coordination, articulating communications strategies and establishing measurements for success;

* Review disaster recovery programs and the framework of disaster recovery, and identify gaps as well as overlapping and/or conflicting sources of authority for disaster recovery efforts;

* Examine areas for improved interagency planning and collaboration among federal agencies;

* Examine methods to build capacity within State, local and tribal governments as well as within the nonprofit, faith-based, and private sectors; both in recovery operations and in pre-disaster recovery planning; and

* Examine successful practices and lessons learned during previous disaster recovery efforts, with particular attention to catastrophic disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

In addition, Secretaries Donovan and Napolitano will provide the President with recommendations to improve long-term catastrophic disaster recovery and help develop a National Disaster Recovery Framework that will provide detailed operational guidance to recovery organizations under existing authorities.

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Shopping Mall Terror Plot Alleged In Boston Area Arrest

An alleged shopping mall terror plot on U.S. shopping malls has resulted in the arrest of A 27-year-old Massachusetts man according to early reports this morning. The man has been charged with conspiring with others to support and plan terror attacks in and outside the United States according to the reports.

From the Boston Herald

A 27-year-old man from Sudbury has been arrested on charges he planned terrorism attacks inside and outside the United States, including a plot to use automatic weapons to open fire at shoppers and emergency responders in shopping mall attacks, federal prosecutors said today.

Tarek Mehanna, is accused of conspiring with Ahmad Abousamra and others to obtain the automatic weapons needed to carry out a mall ambush in which they planned to open fire at random, said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael K. Loucks.

The plot included plans to fire at emergency responders, but was abandoned because the men could not obtain the weapons, authorities said.

Source – Read Full Article

If this story and the names involved sound familiar …. This may be why.

From The Boston Globe 2008

Statements that Tarek Mehanna allegedly made to the FBI two years ago in the midst of a terrorism investigation came back to haunt him last weekend, when the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy graduate was arrested as he was about to board a Boston flight to start a new job overseas.

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Additional details are available at My Pet Jawa, who also covered the story here.

Possible Explosives Discovered Near OKC Railroad Tracks

UPDATE: NewsOK reports that a man has been arrested in connection with this case and the devices have been confirmed to be hoax devices. Read More

Original Post

NewsOK reports that the Oklahoma City bomb squad, representatives of the BNSF Railway, the FBI and the local unit of the Joint Terrorism Task Force are investigating possible explosive devices discovered near railroad tracks in Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma City bomb squad Sunday night disposed of at least three possible bombs along railroad tracks at SE 34 Street and Shields Boulevard.
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Authorities were at the scene from about 5 p.m. until after midnight. A resident said he saw a man speeding along the 200 block of SE 34 and throwing out several devices, police Lt. Jeff Cooper said.

The resident investigated and called police after finding what looked like bombs near the railroad tracks, Cooper said.

The bomb squad had neutralized three of the devices by 10:30 p.m

Read Full Article

In what is most likely an unrelated incident, there was another report of explosives being discovered in Tecumseh, Oklahoma last week. (approx. 45 miles away)

Explosives were found Wednesday afternoon by Oklahoma road crews working in Tecumseh, police said.

Oklahoma Department of Transportation workers were trimming trees near Highway 177 and Gordon Cooper Drive when a suspicious package was found.

Police examined the package and called the Oklahoma Highway Patrol bomb squad.

Bomb experts detonated it and determined that it did contain explosives.

Source

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