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"The present national identity card system is outdated, and does not create interconnectivity and has many security issues. Therefore, the Government is planning to introduce an electronic smart card system to replace it from this year, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said. "This new smart card system will create connectivity," the Defence Secretary said at the Tech Colloquium Conference on the theme 'The Role of IT in Nation Building' in Colombo on Monday. He said with the introduction of the new smart card system it could be used as an identity card as well as a multi-purpose card for other purposes. This will enable to prevent any security problems like duplication. This will be an advantage for security concerns to do their investigation and surveillance activities without any hazard, he said. Rajapaksa said developed countries use more advanced surveillance systems than Sri Lanka by using new technology and without using physical presence such as Police and Army personnel. Therefore, this can create some inconvenience to the public to a larger extent, he said. The Defence Secretary said developed countries used advanced security and surveillance systems than Sri Lanka without heavy police and military presence. Therefore electronic surveillance systems are linked to control rooms and these control rooms could dispatch security and military personnel to the relevant position. He said they are now in the process of introducing ICT and new technology for surveillance systems like in developed countries. ICT could also bring an economic revival after defeating three decades of ethnic crisis and achieving true victory, he said. "However, Sri Lanka is still not being developed to that level as we are heavily depending on physical systems, which inconvenience the public. The use of high and advanced technology and IT have brought a lot of achievements during the recent past and it almost did a revolutionary change in the war theater to suppress t

"Israel inched a step closer on Wednesday to deploying the Iron Dome missile defense system along the border with the Gaza Strip after it successfully intercepted a number of missile barrages in tests held in southern Israel this week. Iron Dome successfully... The tests were overseen by the Defense Ministry, the Israel Air Force and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., which developed the Iron Dome, slated to become operational and be deployed along the Gaza border in mid-2010. The missile volleys which the system succeeded in intercepting included a number of rockets that mimicked Kassam and longer range Grad-model Katyusha rockets that are known to be in Hamas's arsenal. The Iron Dome is supposed to be capable of intercepting all short-range rockets fired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and by Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon. The system uses an advanced radar made by Elta that locates and tracks the rocket, which is then intercepted by a kinetic missile interceptor. During the test, the radar succeeded in detecting which rockets were headed towards designated open fields and therefore did not launch an interceptor to destroy them. The IDF has formed a new battalion that will be part of the IAF's Air Defense Division and will operate the Iron Dome. Prototypes have been supplied to the new unit, which has already begun training with the systems."

" Published: 7:00AM GMT 03 Jan 2010 The year is 2050, and a diplomatic dispute between China and Britain risks escalating into all-out war. But rather than launching a barrage of ballistic missiles and jet fighters to destroy key British targets, Beijing has a far simpler plan for defeating its enemy. It simply turns off the lights. At the flick of a switch elite teams of Chinese hackers attached to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) launch a hi-tech assault on Britain's computer systems, with devastating consequences. Within minutes the country's power stations, water companies, air traffic control, government and financial systems are totally shut down. Related Articles * 'Dad believed he was a July 7 bomber' * Lord Adonis: no need to cut travel to save the planet, says Transport Secretary * The Korean crisis is China's chance to show the world it has changed * Is Britain no longer special to America? * We must treat China as a friend and ally in this financial crisis * New Zealand hockey coach banished to stands for match officials' 'pants' decision Britain's attempt to respond by launching nuclear-armed Trident missiles at China has to be abandoned, as the computer systems that control the weapons system are no longer functioning. At a time when relations between China and Britain are supposed to be improving, the prospect of Beijing launching a cyber attack against Britain and its allies might seem to be the stuff of fantasy. After all, it is only two years since Gordon Brown made a highly successful visit to Beijing where the two countries agreed to increase trade by 50 per cent by this year, and to cooperate on a range of issues, such as global warming. As one of the world's leading economic powers, China's role on the world stage has transformed dramatically over the past decade, with the huge wealth that Beijing has accumulated from its impressive economic growth playing a key role in sup

"President Obama came to a Fairfax County elementary school Tuesday morning to announce that he will seek a $1.35 billion expansion of his signature Race to the Top initiative for improving public education, including provisions that will allow individual school systems to compete for the coveted federal grants. "We're going to raise the bar for all our students and take bigger steps toward closing the achievement gap," Obama said, speaking to a group of sixth graders at Graham Road Elementary, a Falls Church school where a heavy concentration of students from immigrant and low-income families achieves high standardized test scores. Race to the Top was launched last year to raise student performance by offering $4.35 billion to states and the District in exchange for adopting elements of the president's reform program. Those include more challenging academic standards; better testing to measure what students know; rigorous evaluation systems for teachers and principals; plans for turning around failing schools; and cutting edge data systems to track progress. "

Reform Program?

"In what is being touted as the first time humans have remotely controlled insects, University of California at Berkeley engineers successfully implanted radio-equipped, "miniature neural stimulation" systems into flying beetles-most notably, the "elephant" beetle Megasoma elephas (pictured above), which can grow up to 20 cm (about 7 + inches) in length. * » See also: 2009: Bad Year for Endangered Manatees * » Get EcoWorldly by RSS or sign up by email. There's just one problem: while the engineers are able to control the bug's muscle movements, so far, the beetles can't fly-due to the heft of the micro electronics "on board". Further refinements will need to be made to these systems. Currently, tests are being conducted with miniature solar cells, piezoelectrics (pressure-generated electric power), and other micro-electro-mechanics (MEMs) to power these devices and minimize their weight. The final step would be to equip the insects with miniature cameras and/or microphones. The "cybug" project (note: entomologists do not consider beetles to be true "bugs"; this is a colloquial term) is being funded by DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in the hope that one day the insects might be employed on the battlefield (e.g., to spy on troop movements) or perhaps even sent to spy directly on military commanders' strategy meetings. The chief engineers at UC Berkeley for this cybernetic insect project are Michel Maharbiz and Hirotaka Sato. "

"A rather serious problem, which seems largely to have been ignored by those urging a race to build windmills and solar panels, is the fact that the wind does not always blow, nor does the sun always shine. And as yet there is no large-scale economical method of storing electricity for later use. This would seem to imply a need to retain the present system of power production alongside the new system that is to be based on wind and sun, or else to grow accustomed to protracted periods without power. Or is it the case perhaps that this problem is to be taken as an opportunity for even greater gains in employment in connection with wind and solar power? These might be achieved if, in all those times when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine, human beings were employed in rotating copper-clad generator shafts, in a manner similar to that of rotating a grindstone in a gristmill, only in the presence of surrounding magnets, so that electricity could be produced by the rotation. (I don't know how much, if any, electricity might actually be produced in this way. But it would provide at least the appearance of employment in the attempt, which is all that many other "stimulus" programs accomplish.) (emphasis added)"

"BEIJING: The smart card system has been introduced in a Chinese city for the first time on Monday. The event coincided with a court verdict meting out the first-ever conviction in the country for theft and misuse of personal information. Wuxi, one of the most modern small cities of China, has unveiled the first batch of smart cards that contain barcodes containing crucial information about card holders . The smart cards, which are being rolled out for the first time in China, will enable their users to perform a wide range of tasks. The barcodes on the cards contain finger prints and personal information like date of birth, blood group, social security number and bank card numbers. It will carry the name and photograph of the card holder. The local administration of Wuxi is making arrangements for the use of smart cards in bank ATMs, buildings equipped with electronic guard system and even for allowing parents to pick up their children from high-guarded kindergarten schools. It will later add more information to the smart cards and widen the scope of its use. In another development, a court in China's Guangzhou city sentenced a man to one and a half year in prison for violating the security of personal information that include unlisted phone number and call histories of important people. Prosecutors told the court that Lin Guiyu bought personal information of senior officials and used it to swindle several people. He used the information to impersonate as the vice mayor of Zhuhai in Guangdong province while asking for money in return for official favors. Lin led a gang that committed five such crimes and cheated people of $121,554 after impersonating different officials including the Communist Party secretaries of Foshan and En'ping , official sources said. "

"Look at what FoxNews says. The code that was used to hack Gmail accounts in China is now publicly available on the Internet, and security experts are urging computer users throughout the world to be highly vigilant until a patch can be developed. The hack involves Internet Explorer 6, the browser that came with the Windows XP operating system that, while outdated, still powers millions of businesses and home computers and is now dangerously compromised. Hacks based on this security flaw led Google to threaten to drop its www.google.cn Web site and leave China last week. The Internet behemoth believes these security intrusions are a quest not just for political knowledge but also for intellectual property. Experts warn that as many as 30 other companies have been hacked, ranging from software firms like Adobe and Juniper Networks to Northrop Grumman - a major U.S. defense contractor and manufacturer of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and the Global Hawk unmanned drone. Microsoft has yet to patch the hole in IE 6, a flaw so serious it's prompted the German government to suggest citizens avoid IE. Microsoft has posted a security advisory detailing the problem, and urging users to upgrade to newer browsers. The main strategy or process that these hackers are following is said to be known as Spearphishing. They target the user with an e-mail that would appeal to them, one that leads to a site that launches malicious code onto your system. And the IE 6 exploit makes it particularly easy to slip that code on your computer. India's security chief, M.K. Narayanan, is claiming that Chinese hackers have attempted to hack into India's most sensitive government office. Tensions between China and India have been resizing lately ever nice India's relationship with the U.S. has improved to the point that the U.S. is poised to be selling them billions of dollars worth of weapons. Although there is no way for the Indian office to now for sure, they are pretty sure

"By Kang Juan China made stern representations to the US Thursday after the Obama administration approved a sale of upgraded Patriot air-defense missile equipment to Taiwan. The decision was denounced by Chinese military scholars as a representation of US-style pragmatism and its long-term containment policy toward China. The US defense department announced the contract late on Wednesday, allowing Lockheed Martin Corp to sell an unspecified number of Patriots, said the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington's de facto embassy in the absence of formal ties, Reuters reported Thursday. Wendell Minnick, Asia bureau chief of Defense News, told Reuters that the sale rounds out a $6.5 billion arms package approved in late 2008, which included 330 Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missiles worth up to $3.1 billion. "This is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on," Minnick said. Late last month, Raytheon, the world's largest missile maker, won contracts totaling $1.1 billion to produce the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System for Taiwan, including ground-system hardware and spare parts. According to a Wednesday press release by the US Department of Defense on its website, the contract with Lockheed, awarded December 30, included "basic missile tooling upgrades, command and launch control tooling, spares and ground support equipment." The completion date of the work is estimated to be October 31, 2012. In a regular press conference in Beijing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said China has urged the US to cancel any planned arms sales to Taiwan to avoid damaging its ties with Beijing. The PAC-3 missile is the world's "most advanced, capable and powerful theater air defense missile," which defeats tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and fixed and rotary winged aircraft, and significantly increases the Patriot system's firepower, Lockheed said on its website."

"WASHINGTON - The U.S. health care system is in serious need of changes, but the Democratic plan to overhaul it is badly flawed and should be repealed and replaced, the Senate Republican leader says. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Saturday in the GOP radio and video address that "nobody is satisfied with the health care system as it is." Costs are out of control and "people are being squeezed out of the market," he said. But he said the health care bill signed by President Barack Obama this week doesn't solve those problems and undermines what is best about health care in this country - a wide variety of medical options and innovations. The main health care law and a companion "fix-it" measure aim to crack down on insurance industry abuses and to reduce federal deficits by an estimated $143 billion over a decade. Most Americans would be required to buy insurance for the first time or face penalties. McConnell was emphasizing a new GOP political approach opposing Democrats' health care measures that proposes "repealing and replacing" the bill rather than just repealing the new health care law. Republicans say they can push for parts of the health care overhaul without adopting elements they don't like, such as tax increases. "We can do better," he said. "We can expand access to people with pre-existing conditions. We can keep people from being kicked off their plans. We can lower costs and premiums. We can do all of these things without undermining the things we do best and without raising taxes that kill jobs in a bad economy." Republicans want to appeal to tea party supporters and other conservatives upset at the size and scope of the legislation, while acknowledging that many people, including moderate Republicans and independents, want to see changes in American health care. Obama said this week that he welcomes a political fight with Republicans over efforts to repeal the bill. Repeal is highly unlikely because Repu

"CHICAGO (AP) - A would-be terrorist tries to board a plane, bent on mass murder. As he walks through a security checkpoint, fidgeting and glancing around, a network of high-tech machines analyzes his body language and reads his mind. Screeners pull him aside. Tragedy is averted. As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year. On Thursday, in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit, President Barack Obama called on Homeland Security and the Energy Department to develop better screening technology, warning: "In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary." The ideas that have been offered by security experts for staying one step ahead include highly sophisticated sensors, more intensive interrogations of travelers by screeners trained in human behavior, and a lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling. Some of the more unusual ideas are already being tested. Some aren't being given any serious consideration. Many raise troubling questions about civil liberties. All are costly. "Regulators need to accept that the current approach is outdated," said Philip Baum, editor of the London-based magazine Aviation Security International. "It may have responded to the threats of the 1960s, but it doesn't respond to the threats of the 21st century." Here's a look at some of the ideas that could shape the future of airline security:"

"The secret transfer of the mobile surface-to-surface Syrian-made Fateh-110 (range 250km) missile to Hizballah sparked the prediction Friday, Feb. 5 from an unnamed US official that cross-border arms smuggling from Syria into Lebanon outside state control was "very dangerous" and "paved the way to war similar to Israel-Hizballah conflict of 2006. debkafile's military sources report that Israel warned Syria through at least two diplomatic channels against Hizballah using this lethal weapon, which is capable of reaching almost every Israel city. Our sources disclose: Syria pulled the wool of Israel's eyes for the transfer by openly training Hizballah in the use of SA-2 and SA-6 surface-to-surface missiles. Israel had warned it would deem their passage into Lebanon Syrian casus belli by Syria. The Fateh-110 is still more lethal, accurate and dangerous than the SA-2 and SA-3. it confronts Israel now with a Hizballah armed with a solid-fuel propellant, road-mobile, single-stage, short-range ballistic system weighing three tons with a half-ton warhead and a range of 250 kilometers. It is not deployed in surface batteries but fired from mobile launchers, which the solid propellant renders capable of firing at speed with little advance preparation, before returning to the fortified underground silos Hizballah has sunk in mountain areas across Lebanon. These features make the Fateh-110 a very tough target for Israeli bombers to strike. According to our intelligence sources, Israel posted warnings against Hizballah using the weapon through US Middle East envoy George Mitchell who called on president Bashar Assad in Damascus on January 20 and ,even more emphatically, through Spanish foreign minister Miguel Moratinos who arrived in Syria on Feb. 3 after talks in Jerusalem. The message he carried was that if Hizballah ventured to fire the Fateh-110, Israel was determined to hit back at strategic and military targets inside Syria."

"BERLIN - Millions of German bank cards have been affected by a "millennium bug"-like problem because they contain software that can't process the number 2010, industry groups said Tuesday. The DSGV group, which represents public-sector banks, said some 20 million debit cards issued by those banks were affected, along with around 3.5 million credit cards - nearly half of the total number of cards issued by those banks. The group said cash machines were adjusted hours after the problem emerged to ensure that customers could withdraw money, but there may still be problems using some debit-card terminals. Those should be fixed by Monday, it said. Problems remain with credit cards and customers should use debit cards instead for now, added the group. The BVR group of cooperative banks said about 4 million debit cards issued by its members - about 15 percent of the total - also were afflicted by the faulty software, although there were no problems withdrawing cash. Its credit cards were unaffected. Another 2.5 million cards issued by German private banks were affected. The problem stemmed from a chip on the cards which, due to a programming fault, wouldn't correctly process the number 2010. Computer experts widely believed that hardware and software systems would fail as the clocks rolled over to the year 2000. The problem, they said, would be caused when computers and other devices, which used only two digits to represent the year, mistook the year 2000 for the year 1900. In the end, however, the so-called "millennium bug" caused few problems."

"Steve Perry, executive vice president of Visa Europe, has a different take on the folding stuff packed in our wallets that most of us take for granted. "Cash is expensive," he says. "We need to be using it less." Expensive? Vintage wines, maybe. Designer clothes, yes. Modern art, almost certainly. But cash? "Why do you think supermarkets introduced cashback?" Perry asks rhetorically. He has me stumped there. I tell him I always thought of it as a service for overdrawn students to drive a few more sales through the tills. "No," he responds politely. "It's because they want cash out of the system so there is less to manage. Processing a transaction on a card can be cheaper than handling cash." Perry is a leading cheerleader for the cashless society. It's hardly a surprising role, but its an argument he is finding increasingly easy to make. Last month, for example, the Payments Council announced to anguished outrage that in 2018 the cheque would be dead. "There are many more efficient ways of making payments than by paper in the 21st century, and the time is ripe for the economy as a whole to reap the benefits of its replacement," Paul Smee, chief executive of the Payments Council, said. Perry extends the same argument to cash. Notes and coins are never going to be fully replaced, he accepts. Currency has, after all, been around in some form or another since 3,000BC. But now that we're in the electronic age, payments could do with a little catching up, he reckons. Visa has recently published an extensive report on the cost of cash to society. Citing numerous independent papers by consultants and national governments, the payments company constructs a compelling case. "

Last week's foiled airline bombing plot by a Nigerian man who hid explosives in his clothing has renewed debate in the United States as to how extensive and invasive passenger screening should be at U.S. airports. A few major airports already possess machines that can take detailed, full-body images, but Congress has not mandated widespread use of the technology. Air travelers worldwide are accustomed to passing through metal detectors. But in an era of plastic explosives and advanced chemical compounds, that system has proved lacking. Kip Hawley is a former head of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, which is charged with screening airline passengers and luggage. "The number one area we need to focus on, the biggest potential vulnerability, is a bomb on the body," said Hawley. Dutch officials have ordered detailed, full body scans of all U.S.-bound air travelers. Terrorism expert M.J. Gohel of the London-based Asia Pacific Foundation applauds the move. "These scanners are, in fact, very effective," he said. "They actually show a person's body - any foreign object attached anywhere in the body, even if it is internally. That kind of x-ray scanner would have located the package that this individual [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] had on the flight to Detroit. They are on a trial basis at the moment."

"TEHRAN, Iran - A senior physics professor who publicly backed Iran's opposition leader was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded as he left for work Tuesday. The government blamed the U.S. and Israel for the attack. The blast apparently was set off by a remote trigger, but it was unclear why the professor was targeted. The victim was a 50-year-old researcher with no prominent political voice, no published work with military relevance and no declared links to Iran's nuclear program. Hard-line backers of the Islamic system have urged stronger measures to try to crush and intimidate anti-government forces. But the Tehran University professor, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, was far from a front-row political player. He joined a list of 240 faculty members in a declaration supporting opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi before June's disputed presidential election, but did not take any known high-profile role in the protests after the vote. The attack was an oddity in Tehran, where such targeted bombings are rare. "There's a lot of conflicting and confusing aspects to this," said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an Iranian affairs expert at Syracuse University. "About the only thing we can probably say is that this may bring lots more pressure on the opposition.""

"Samson Motorworks presents the SwitchBlade, which is anticipated to be made available in the third or fourth quarter of 2009. Ground versions would likely be available in early 2010. A three-wheeled multimode vehicle {MMV} with a scissors-like wing for flying and a torsion bar lean system for its role as a road rocket.Video courtesy, and copyright Samson Motorworks - More at AamarnA Lifestyle | www.AamarnA.com"

"On Christmas Day, a Nigerian-born terrorist named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger airplane. Only the bravery of a fellow passenger prevented the catastrophe. President Obama called the terror attempt a "systemic failure" on the part of American national security agencies. In particular, he blamed the CIA for the foul-up. There is no doubt that the CIA should have done something more to prevent this attack. But, then again, President Obama has been keeping them busy-with global warming. Seriously. According to the New York Times on Jan. 5, just a few days after Obama excoriated the CIA publicly, "The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets-including spy satellites and other classified sensors-to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change." This project, the Times reported, "has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends …" While missing a potentially catastrophic terror attack is problematic, it's good to know that we've got the inside dossier on the mating habits of polar bears. This isn't a shock coming from the "watermelon" Obama White House-green on the outside, red on the inside. The simple truth is that the Obama administration believes that the solution to global warming is the same as the solution to terrorism: Marxist-style global redistributionism."

"LONDON - New regulations that took effect Wednesday require skilled foreign workers who extend their stay in Britain to obtain identity cards containing biometric data, including finger prints and photographs. The UK Border Agency rules are part of the extended rollout of a 2008 program that will require all foreign workers who plan to stay in Britain six months or longer to obtain an ID card by April 2011. The rules apply only to workers from outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland. British officials say the ID cards for foreign workers will help combat illegal workers and illegal immigration and allow cardholders to establish their identity and immigration status, making it easier for them to access various benefits they are entitled to. The cards, in conjunction with workers' passports, can also be used to facilitate entry into Britain after trips abroad, officials said. Skilled workers are defined as those with a job sponsor who can establish their skills and earnings potential on a point-based system that also takes into account their English language ability."

"(1/4/10) FORT LAUDERDALE, FL - A new state law attempting to meet the requirements of the Federal Real ID Act instituted by Congress in 2005, now requires Floridians either getting a new license or renewing an expiring license to provide additional documentation to prove their identity before their new license can be issued. Even if a person uses the on-line renewal system or does so by mail, every renewing driver will have to bring at least four items to a local DHSMV/Driver's License office, proving their identity, address and Social Security Number. The DHSMV has set up a convenient website to help customers gather the necessary documents by creating a personalized list of items to bring with them to a driver's license office. Effective January 1, 2010, drivers are required to provide one of the following to establish their identity: a certified, state-issued birth certificate, a valid passport, a counselor report of birth abroad, a certificate of naturalization, or a certificate of citizenship. Expired or expiring driver's licenses/ID cards will not be accepted to prove one's identity. To prove their Social Security Number, they must provide one of the following items: a Social Security Card, a W-2 Form from their employer, a recent pay check, or a Form 1099. Additionally, drivers will have to show two documents to establish their home address, including (but not limited to): a recent mortgage bill or statement, a Florida voter registration card, Florida vehicle registration, a utility hook-up bill no more than 60 days old, a W-2 or 1099 form, recent bank statements,or even a current homeowner's insurance statement or bill. For those minors or dependents who do not have any of these items in their own name, a parent or guardian residing at the same address must accompany the driver and provide proof of their residence. For homeless persons, a letter from a homeless shelter or half-way house is only one of the documents allowed. Mail received from s