Overhauling the criminal-justice system, including shorter sentences, is a hot topic in Washington, with some Democrats and Republicans increasingly coalescing behind a view that incarceration times have gotten too long. Even before any major bills have passed, however, federal officials have begun chipping away at sentences. Since 2010, 14,100 people have been freed early because […]

The attempts of snooping traffic from Tor nodes are not a novelty, in the past, we have reported the activity of threat actors that set up malicious exit nodes to de-anonymize users.   Now researchers have spotted more than 100 malicious hidden service directories (HSDirs) which are the relays of the network that allow people to visit hidden […]

Within 13 minutes of urging hackers to take their best shot at the Pentagon’s public websites, the US government’s first-ever bug bounty program had its first submission. Just six hours later, hackers had already uncovered nearly 200 vulnerabilities in the Department of Defense’s networks. Already a staple for companies such as Google and Facebook, the […]

Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse for Jeremy Corbyn, in a week in which he lost a no-confidence vote and saw most of his shadow cabinet resign, the beleaguered leader of Britain’s Labour Party provoked instant outrage and stirred the simmering debate about anti-Semitism in his party by seeming to equate Israel […]

California’s upcoming ballot is smoking. This November voters will decide on whether to legalize recreational marijuana and, as state officials announced yesterday, on whether a $2 tax should be added to every pack of cigarettes and electronic cigarette products.   “States are responsible for people’s health care and picking up that tab, and so originally […]

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute are developing small, self-guided flying robots that use 3-D imaging technology to help engineers pinpoint and assess structural damage and other weaknesses in large structures, such as bridges and dams. A prototype version of the Aerial Robotic Infra­struc­ture Ana­lyst, or ARIA, has already successfully mapped a small bridge, […]

Terrorists descended upon a restaurant in the diplomatic zone in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka yesterday, taking dozens of hostages and killing two police, in the latest attack that security experts say is likely ISIS — or an equally deadly offshoot.   If indeed ISIS is responsible for the attack, it would further shroud the […]

When Aaron Swartz, a prominent programmer and digital activist, was arrested in 2011, he was halfway through a fellowship at Harvard’s Center for Ethics. Police took him in after he entered a computer closet at MIT and downloaded enormous amounts of data from JSTOR’s extensive database of academic research. Swartz was charged with 13 felonies, […]

Ride-hailing service Uber will begin tracking personal driver behavior after a series of app updates, the company announced last week. Starting last Friday in 26 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and the District, the app will score drivers on how well they brake, if they accelerate smoothly, use their phone while driving, drive within […]

Steel or cement, plastics or carbon fiber, silicon or graphene: Whether in construction, aerospace or electronics, picking the right material for the job involves choosing the best fit among a limited number of options, which often leads to tricky compromises. Now, a development at the Masdar Institute in the United Arab Emirates could mark a […]

The leader of Al Qaeda is warning of the “gravest consequences” if Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is executed. A terrorism expert with Northeastern University, Max Abrahms, says this threat is an attempt to shore-up supports around then world at a time when Al Qaeda is seen as losing.

A court decision last month that permitted federal prosecutors to use evidence obtained through government hacking in a child pornography case has stirred fears about privacy. “This is the opinion of one court judge,” said Andrea Matwyshyn, a law professor at Northeastern University. “Other courts will, at best, find this to be data. It is […]