media.chrisricard.net > Blog

Federal and State Quarantine and Isolation Authority

by

Introduction

In the event of a biological attack or the introduction of a highly contagious disease affecting the public, the U.S. health system may take measures to prevent those people infected with or exposed to a disease or a disease-causing biological agent from infecting others. The terms used to describe these measures, quarantine and isolation, generally apply to distinct groups of persons but are often used interchangeably. Quarantine typically refers to the “(s)eparation of individuals who have been exposed to an infection but are not yet ill from others who have not been exposed to the transmissible infection.” In contrast, isolation refers to the “(s)eparation of infected individuals from those who are not infected.”

Varying degrees of quarantine exist, and the authority to order quarantine or isolation is generally very broad. Primary quarantine authority typically resides with state health departments and health officials; however, the federal government has jurisdiction over interstate and foreign quarantine. In addition, the federal government may assist with or take over...

Read More!

Comparing Insider IT Sabotage and Espionage: A Model-Based Analysis

by

Executive Summary

The purpose of this study is to examine psychological, technical, organizational, and contextual factors we believe contribute to at least two forms of insider trust betrayal: insider sabotage against critical information technology (IT) systems, and espionage. Security professionals and policy leaders currently view espionage and insider threat as serious problems but often as separate issues that should be addressed by a different configuration of security countermeasures. In this study, our team of researchers investigated similarities and differences between insider IT sabotage and espionage cases to assess whether a single analytical framework based on system dynamics modeling could be developed to isolate the major factors or conditions leading to both categories of trust betrayal. Based on the results, it is our position that insider IT sabotage and espionage share many contributing and facilitating system dynamics features. It follows that they might be detected and deterred by the same or similar administrative and technical safeguards. Research into countermeasures that address multiple threats should be of high priority so that organizations can

Read More!

Street Gangs And Violent Extremist Organizations Learning Across Fields

by

INTRODUCTION

Street gangs and violent extremist organizations (VEOs) exhibit many similarities: both groups use violence to achieve their objectives, engage in the illicit economy, draw membership from a similar population of marginalized youth, and rely on personal connections for recruitment. Parallels suggest significant potential for cross-disciplinary learning. Yet the groups differ in notable ways, including their goals, targets of violence, relationship to political actors and geographic focus. In terms of membership, key differences include the relevance of family instability, early aggressive behavior and insecure neighborhoods, which are important influences on gang involvement but less important for VEO involvement. At the same time, political drivers and an increase in religiosity are important for VEO involvement but not gang involvement, and there is a broader range of risk factors for and profiles of people involved in VEOs. This paper aims to identify applicable lessons and programming recommendations that can be translated across the two domains. Understanding where street gang and VEO characteristics converge and diverge is important in order to apply learning cogently from one field to the other.

Read More!

The “Big Picture” of Insider IT Sabotage Across U.S. Critical Infrastructures

by

Abstract

A study conducted by the U.S. Secret Service and the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute CERT Program analyzed 150 insider cyber crimes across U.S. critical infrastructure sectors. Follow-up work by CERT involved detailed group modeling and analysis of 30 cases of insider IT sabotage out of the 150 total cases. Insider IT sabotage includes incidents in which the insider’s primary goal is to sabotagesome aspect of the organization or direct specific harm toward an individual. This paper describes seven general observations about insider IT sabotage based on our empirical data and study findings. We describe a system dynamics model of the insider IT sabotage problem that elaborates complex interactions in the domain and unintended consequences of organizational policies, practices, technology, and culture on insider behavior. We describe the structure of an education and awareness workshop on insider IT sabotage that incorporates the previously mentioned artifacts as well as an interactive instructional case.

Read More!

Records Relating to North American Railroads

by

Part I

Introduction

I.1 This reference information paper describes significant records in the National Archives that relate to railroads in the United States (including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico), Canada, Mexico, and the Panama Canal. This paper describes documentation concerning the railroads and their interaction with the U.S. Government from the beginning of railroading to 1996. The records described include more than 1,000 series of textual, cartographic, still picture, motion picture, sound recording, and electronic records in 57 record groups housed in the Washington, DC, area and the regional archives branches of the National Archives and Records Administration as of December 31, 1996, as well as a few records in Presidential libraries.

I.2 The paper contains a preface, introduction, frequently asked questions, record descriptions, appendices, and index. The record description sections are arranged by general subject category, such as "Federal Regulation and Oversight of Railroads" and "Railroads and the Military," thereunder by record group and type of records (textual and nontextual), and thereunder by creating organization and record series title or item description.

Read More!

Are Suicide Terrorists Suicidal? A Critical Assessment of the Evidence

by

ABSTRACT

Objective: Most of the research on suicide terrorism is conducted in the political science and international relations fields. The prevailing wisdom within this literature is that suicide terrorists are not suicidal. But how good is the evidence for this assumption? Knowing whether suicide terrorists are suicidal has implications for prevention, rehabilitation, and the “softer” side of counterterrorism designed to win minds and hearts. In addition it may deepen our understanding of suicide itself.

Design: This article uses a review of existing literature to examine the arguments and evidence for and against the possibility that suicide terrorists could be suicidal in the context of a broad range of explanations for suicide terrorism.

Results: Much of the evidence against the possibility that suicide terrorists are suicidal is based on anecdote or faulty assumptions about suicide. Relatively few formal systematic studies of suicidality in suicide terrorists have been conducted. Nonetheless, there is emerging evidence that suicidality may play a role in a significant number of cases.

Read More!

A Genealogy of Vertical Restraints Doctrine

by

Since the Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co. case in 1911,1 the Supreme Court has viewed the Sherman Act as a congressional mandate to regulate the ways manufacturers may distribute their products. These vertical restraint cases have a simple, recurring plot. A terminated dealer or wholesaler, often a price cutter, complains that its manufacturer is in league with rival dealers or wholesalers who want to restrain competition in the product. In typical cases, the underlying restraint alleged is a resale price maintenance agreement or a clause confining dealer activities to a limited geographic area. The question in such cases is whether the Court should permit the manufacturer to terminate the complaining dealer or wholesaler. The Court has sought to answer the question of wrongful termination by turning to section 2 of the Sherman Act and its requirement of an agreement in restraint of trade. The orthodox view of this doctrine is that the Court was, or should have been, concerned with the anticompetitive effects of the manufacturer's conduct

Read More!

Developments In The Law Of Vertical Restraints: 2012

by

I. Standards

A. Are Vertical Resale Price Restraints Still Illegal?

As a result of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions handed down only during the last 15 years, the legality of vertical restraints on maximum and minimum levels of resale prices known otherwise as resale price maintenance (RPM) —under Section 1 of the Sherman Act is now analyzed under the rule of reason. Specifically, in State Oil Co. v. Khan and Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. , the Court held that both vertical maximum RPM and vertical minimum RPM, respectively, are to be given rule-of-reason treatment. Thus, instead of being summarily condemned as per se illegal, business methods and practices involving the use of vertical maximum or minimum RPM are subjected to an individualized factual inquiry into the nature, purpose and history of those restraints, and their actual or likely effect on competition, in accordance with Justice Brandeis’s classic and enduring formulation in Chicago Board of Trade v. United States. Khan and Leegin have thus brought the antitrust analysis of...

Read More!

Railroad Dispatcher Communications Training Materials

by

Background

By law, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has the responsibility of ensuring railroad safety throughout the country. The U.S. rail system includes almost 300,000 miles of track, 20,000 locomotives, 1.2 million freight cars, 6,500 passenger cars, and over 250,000 employees. In an effort to improve safety standards industry-wide, the FRA has adopted a zero-tolerance policy for accidents, injuries, or deaths on the nation’s rails.

Although highway-rail grade crossings and poor track roadbed are implicated in the vast majority of accidents that result in fatalities, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined that dispatcher error has been the probable cause of a number of accidents. Dispatchers are responsible for the safe and timely movement of track occupants through a specified territory. Because 85 percent of the U.S. rail system is “dark territory” (unsignalized track), clear and precise communication between dispatcher and track occupant is essential. Dispatchers are also responsible for the safety of railroad employees working on the track, the management of train crews, and equipment utilization.

Read More!

Understanding How Train Dispatchers Manage and Control Trains

by

Executive Summary

Good dispatching is critical to both the safety and efficiency of railroad operations. Railroad dispatchers are responsible for allocating and assigning track use, ensuring that trains are routed safely and efficiently, and ensuring the safety of personnel working on and around railroad track.These are cognitively complex tasks that require integrating multiple sources of information (e.g., information from train schedules, computer displays ofcurrent track state,radio communication with various personnel such as locomotive engineers, and in some cases (computer-aided dispatching systems); projecting into the future (e.g., estimating when the train will arrive); and balancing multiple demands placed on track use(e.g., balancing the need for maintenance-of-way (MOW) workers to have time to work on the track with the need to make sure that the track will be clear when a train is anticipated to arrive). As part of its efforts to investigatethe safety implications of applying emerging technologies to Development railroad operations, sponsored the Federal a preliminary Railroad Cognitive Administration's (FRA's) Office Task Analysis (CTA) to examine of Research and how experienced railroad dispatchers manage and schedule trains. The objective was to your conduct a small-scale study that (1) would demonstrate the methods and value of CTA,and (2) would produce preliminary results that...

Read More!

An Introduction to Computer-Assisted Train Dispatch

by

Introduction

Train dispatchers on a centralized traffic controlled (CTC) line control the movement of trains over a line, including the planning of where meets and overtakes are to occur and the aligning of the switches to control each train movement. Increasingly, computers are being used to assist the dispatchers in performing this critical function. This paper is an introduction to the topic of computer-assisted dispatch, and will provide both a framework for judging the progress that has been made and an outline of the research that remains to be done in this area. Centralized traffic control has been in use for over fifty years, the first system being installed in 1927 on the New York Central Railroad. This system permitted a single dispatcher to control the operation of trains in a territory without the use of train orders (detailing to the train engineer before the start of his run exactly where each meet is to take place). Immediate benefits from CTC were the increased...

Read More!

Time-Space Analysis of Terrorist Planning Cycles

by

Abstract

Terrorism is among the largest threats to national and international security in today’s global community. Acts of terrorism have resulted economic and societal impacts throughout the world. Improvements in technology have increased the capacity of terrorists to maximize the impact of their actions. The increasing influence and prevalence of terrorist activity has demanded research focused on the prevention of terrorist acts. A known method of terrorism prevention is uncovering a plot during its planning and preparation phase. Terrorist planning can be evaluated based on how actors move through space and time prior to the execution of their attack. General patterns and insights into terrorist planning activities can offer the intelligence, defense, and law enforcement communities with information on how where terrorists can be located in relationship to their target throughout their planning cycle. This movement within a planning cycle can be easily visualized and analyzed through the use of a Time-Space Signature. This research assesses the movements of actors involved in past terrorist activities in...

Read More!

Protecting Surface Transportation Systems And Patrons From Terrorist Activities

by

Contemporary terrorists have made public transportation a new theater of operations. Algerian extremists set off bombs on the subways of Paris in 1995 and 1996; the Irish Republican Army has waged a long running terrorist campaign against Britain’s passenger trains and London’s subways; Palestinian terrorists have carried out suicide bombings on Israel’s buses; and an individual or a group calling itself “Sons of the Gestapo” derailed a passenger train in Arizona in 1995. Islamic extremists planned to set off car bombs in New York’s tunnels and bridges in 1993 and in 1997 they plotted suicide bombings in New York subways. The nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways by members of the Aum Shinrikyo sect in 1995 raised the specter that terrorists in the future might resort to weapons of mass destruction to which public transportation is uniquely vulnerable. For those determined to kill in quantity and willing to kill indiscriminately, public transportation offers an ideal target. Precisely because it is public, and used by millions...

Read More!

Global Information Assurance Certification Paper: Steganography: A New Age of Terrorism

by

“Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which hides the existence of the communication’ (Johnson). According to nameless “U.S. officials and experts” and “U.S. and foreign officials,” terrorist groups are “hiding maps and photographs of terrorist targets and posting instructions for terrorist activities on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other Web sites” (Schneier). Three years ago, FBI Director Louis Freeh tried to convince government authorities that terrorists were using encryption and steganography to support their organizations. Freeh urged legislators to enact stricter Internet usage laws, emphasizing that ignoring the issue would not only cause harm to the United States, but that it would make the fight against terrorism extremely difficult (McCullagh).Today, terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and others, are employing advanced steganography techniques to pass sensitive communications across the Internet, undetected. In the wake of several highly coordinated and deadly terrorist attacks, the United States government, and indeed, the world, is hastening to discover viable methods for the detection and prevention of this electronic subterfuge...

Read More!

Antisemitism As An Underlying Precursor To Violent Extremism In American Far-right And Islamist Contexts

by

Introduction

Antisemitism is highly intertwined with extremist ideology in the United States. For several decades, a wide array of extremist groups in the United States from violent Islamist extremists to neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and skinheads to far-left extremists—have each incorporated antisemitic ideology as components of their worldviews. Using Jews and the Jewish community in the United States as foils, perpetrators of these extremist ideologies construct identity formations for their followers that paint them in stark opposition to the “Jews” and their alleged interests. Inspired by these ideologies, supporters of these groups believe the only acceptable action is to target and attack Jews or the Jewish community in the United States. In the United States, no single extremist group can claim a monopoly on the perpetuation of antisemitic tropes and narratives or attacking the Jewish community. While antisemitic hate speech is generally protected under the 1 st Amendment, there is a growing international effort to define clearly what constitutes antisemitism. The Anti- Defamation League defines antisemitism as “belief or behavior hostile towards...

Read More!

A Schema of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States

by

Introduction

Since the public emergence of the so-called “alt-right” in the United States seen most dramatically at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 there has been increasing attention paid to right-wing extremism (RWE) in the United States, particularly racist right-wing extremism. Violent incidents like Robert Bowers’ attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October 2018; the mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019; and the mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in August 2019 have brought still more attention to right-wing extremism. This awareness is long overdue: according to the New America Foundation, between 12 September 2001 and 11 June 2016 (the date before the attack on the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida), right-wing extremists were responsible for more fatalities in violent attacks within the United States than were any other type of extremists; and the Anti-Defamation League reported that murders committed by extremists in 2018 “were...

Read More!

A Game of Hide and Seek in Networks

by

1 Introduction

This paper studies the design of a network in order to hide an object or a person.This question has a very long standing. According to Greek mythology, Daedalus invented the Labyrinth in order to hide the monstrous Minotaur. Tunnels and underground chambers in Medieval castles and fortresses were built to hide treasures or prisoners. Underground fortifications were constructed in the XXth century to hide weapons and combatants. In modern days, criminals and terrorists build covert networks in order to hide leaders, money or secret instructions. When an object or a person is being hidden, it must also be accessible for those who need it. The Minotaur cannot be sealed off in the Labyrinth, because every nine years, he receives a tribute of seven young boys and seven young girls from Athens. The medieval treasures and prisoners, the weapons and combatants of military forts also need to be recovered and freely moved. Leaders of criminal and terrorist organizations, secret plans and...

Read More!

Global Covid-19 And Sports; Threats And Responses Exposure Claims And Liability Mitigation Considerations

by

I. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated organized sports across the globe. Major sporting events have been cancelled or postponed, beginning with the Tokyo Olympics, now rescheduled for 2021. In Britain, sponsors of the Open Championship, the world’s oldest professional golf tournament, cancelled the event for only the fourth time in its 150-year history. Even the Tour de France was postponed and will now take place at end of August with draconic safety measures. The Canadian Football League canceled its upcoming season for the first time since 1919. In the United States, both professional and collegiate sports came to a sudden halt in March, after a member of a National Basketball Association (NBA) team tested positive just before a scheduled game. The remainder of the NBA season was put on hold, as was the schedule for the National Hockey League (NHL). At the collegiate level, the pandemic caused the cancellation of all winter/spring competitions, including both the men’s and women’s NCAA basket...

Read More!

Why Do Passenger Trains Run through Switches in the Rail Yard?

by

1. Introduction

This report is the first study sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to identify the factors that contribute to run-through switches (RTS) in yard operations. Run-through switch events occur when rolling stock (e.g., passenger car, locomotive) makes a “trailing-point” move a movement from one of two converging tracks through a switch not aligned for their current track. When this occurs, the equipment can damage the switch, leaving the switch points “gapped." When rolling stock then makes a “facing-point” move a movement onto one of two diverging tracks through a gapped switch, it could derail because when a switch is gapped, the wheels are no longer able to make contact with the both of the rails over which the rolling stock needs to operate. FRA initiated this research when a passenger railroad requested assistance in understanding why it was experiencing a series of RTS events in yards over several years. FRA agreed to help the railroad identify...

Read More!

Understanding How Train Dispatchers Manage and Control Trains

by

Study Results: What Makes Railroad Dispatching Difficult?

The results reveal that dispatching is a complex, cognitively demanding task. Successful performance depends on the abilityof dispatchers to monitor train movement beyond their territory, anticipate delays, balance multiple demands placed on track use, and make rapid decisions. This requires keeping track of where trains are, whether they will reach destination points (meets, stations) ontime or will be delayed, and how long the delays will be.

Another source of complexity is heavy attention and communication demands. At any given time,the dispatcher may need to monitor multiple activities in different parts of his territory at a time.The fact that the total set of things to keep track of is not always displayed can exacerbate the problem and increase the likelihood that something is forgotten.

Traffic over voice radio places particularly high attention demands. Communications include the need to:

• Answer requests for, and issue train movement and track use authorization to locomotive engineers, MOW staff, etc.

• Inform locomotive engineers whether there are any updates to speed bulletins or other messages.

...

Read More!

Pressure Measurements In Railroad Trackbeds At The Rail Tie Interface Using Tekscan Sensors

by

ABSTRACT:

It has been desirable for years to develop non-intrusive/non-invasive procedures to directly measure pressures and stresses at various levels and interfaces in the railroad track structure in order to optimize track designs and improve subsequent track performance. Recent research has developed satisfactory procedures for measuring pressures in the track structure at the ballast/subballast/subgrade levels using earth pressure cells. However, these type cells are not applicable for measuring pressures within the rail base/tie plate/tie interfaces due to the inherent thickness and configuration of the cells. This paper documents the recent development of a technique for measuring the pressures in the track at the rail/tie plate/tie interface using a very thin pressure sensitive Tekscan sensor. The Tekscan Measurement System uses a sensor composed of a matrix-based array of force sensitive cells, similar to mini strain gauges, to obtain accurate pressure distributions between two surfaces in the track. Included herein are discussions and descriptions of 1) the proper procedure to calibrate the sensors in a laboratory...

Read More!