An old adage in security comes to mind when I read news like this:

Ordinary Chinese people who feel unfairly treated by China’s one party state have virtually no way of gaining recourse. In their frustration some turn to violence and the preferred method is often some sort of bomb. Explosives are relatively easy to come by in China, unlike firearms which are very tightly controlled.

The adage says if you build a dam, the water will still want to flow around it so long as you remain lower than where the water comes from. If you raise yourself above the water, it will stay in place.

From another perspective, modern combat has come a long way from a romantic concept of the past where poor villagers were helpless and needed some kind of hero to save them. Clearly even the disenfranchised benefit from advances in battle technology, especially if they know how to use organic means/compounds to make weaponized materials. Swordsmanship, marksmanship and the like become less relevant when you only need to be able to press a button or light a fuse to achieve an objective.

And so the response to this transition in risk (greater threat) can not simply be overwhelming force (shock and awe) since history has proven that the force of distributed and reroutable threats are not deterred by dams, this just shifts them to other points of the same low-lying vulnerability. A more compelling strategy would be to change the levels by actually working to alter the political topography…should the farmers lose the feeling or incentive that they must have things a different way, the threats will subside to a more natural position.

Someone was bound to do it…instead of leaving RFID to the dogs, Yahoo! reports that someone in Vancouver has had a doctor in LA implant a tag. (What’s wrong with Vancouver’s doctors?)

Now he can login just by walking up to the computer. But can anyone else? The article doesn’t mention whether he has done anything to revent replay attacks. It does say his girlfriend thinks its a good idea. She would, of course, just like the collar she makes him wear.

Forget those cheesy Dick Tracy gadgets, the Defense Department announced that they have developed Superman-like X-Ray powers for the troops in a $1,000 2.5lb AA-battery powered device.

Next perhaps they’ll develop a scope-like version to mount on wall-piercing super-ordinance. Why bother trying to clear a room when you can sit outside in an armored box and pick off targets like fish in a barrel?

Proposals are expected this week for the new “Visi Building” technology that’s more than a motion detector. It will actually “see” through multiple walls, penetrating entire buildings to show floor plans, locations of occupants and placement of materials such as weapons caches, Baranoski said [from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Special Projects Office].

“It will give (troops) a lot of opportunity to stake out buildings and really see inside,” he said. “It will go a long way in extending their surveillance capabilities.”

What happens when the troops lose one, or even a shipment, to their enemy? Is there authentication built-in?

From a home-front perspective I can’t imagine this not being of interest to local law enforcement or federal agents, especially on stake-outs but perhaps even on routine neighborhood calls. And back to the question of authentication controls, what happens when they fall into the hands of criminals?

What length will you go to to ensure your walls aren’t transparent to the law, or law-breakers, who get their hands on these devices? Who do you trust and what controls should be in place? Lead underwear is probably just a start…

There was a big debate some months ago on the security blogs about bullet-proof designer clothes, which started a thread on whether helmets could stop bullets effectively.

I guess the answer is a definite yes, if you include the ability to deflect force and protect the user against harm.

This harrowing story from Iraq suggests that the troops find the latest technology in helmets heavy and cumbersome, but that it undeniably lowers their vulnerability. Although I understand that the story is meant in part to reassure soldiers to keep their lid on, I couldnt’ help but notice there is no mention whether the prior helmet model would have failed or done a similar job:

The round, most likely a 7.62 mm from a sniper rifle, ricocheted off the upper left side of the helmet, shredding the outside and slightly cracking the inside.

I’ll take two.