Unlike other known systems, the Radiance’s WeaponWatch is powered by infrared sensors that can literally detect missiles or gunfire at the speed of light. It even works while under heavy attack and at longer sniper distances.

WeaponWatch is one of the major reasons Radiance has grown from only three employees six years ago to 275 now, making it one of the 500 fastest-growing small businesses in the United States. It had revenue in 2004 of $35 million, a 701% growth over the last three years, and moved up 66 places to #148 on the 2005 Inc. 500 list.

The initial test takes between 30 to 75 seconds and can be performed as part of the standard security screening. Passengers simply put on a pair of headphones and look at a console to answer “yes” or “no” questions into a microphone. For those that fail the initial test, they are taken aside for a more extensive test.

At $10k to $30 per installation, the added speed and accuracy of the tests may be a good step towards improving airline safety and helping you get through the “line” that much faster.

We raised the possibility of sites and businesses being negatively affected by errors in the new anti-phishing toolbar from Microsoft. The biggest question is whether the providers of these new “tools” will be liable for the effects of their errors.

Schabaz acknowledged that Associated Bank-Corp, with 300 locations in the Midwest, was hurt by the mis-reporting. However, Earthlink was immunized from the suite under a section of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that says that an internet service provider cannot be “treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”. Earthlink licensed the database for their ScamBlocker toolbar from a company named Cyota.

It appears that Cyota could and likely is liable for any negative impact itself as it created the database which originally identified Associated Bank-Corp’s website as fraudulent.

As we suggested earlier, owners of small and mid-sized sites should be very concerned by this case. This law was put in place to protect ISPs from the content viewed over their networks. However, it has been interpreted much more broadly. Under this ruling, large companies that increasingly provide (after their own internal review) filters, blocking and warning software to their users for free have no responsibility to make sure that these applications are correct.

False positives, like the one seen in this lawsuit, hurt both the businesses and consumers. Phishing is a huge problem, and it is good to see companies working towards combating the issues, but they must do so within reason.

White and dark hackers have routinely focused their attention on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer because it is by far the largest browser in use on the internet. While non-IE browsers have always been on the market, it has only been recently that any browser has begun to take significant market share from IE. As Firefox has become more popular, hackers and virus writers have begun to shift their attention.

According to the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report Volume VIII, 25 vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities were disclosed for Mozilla browsers during the first half of 2005, with 18 being classified as high severity. During this same time period, only 13 vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities were disclosed for IE, with 8 classified as high severity.

The report continues to point out that both IE and Mozilla browsers are insecure and have had vulnerabilities that compromise the entire system. It is important for internet users to make sure their browsers, OS, anti-virus applications and firewalls are up to date.

Under this contract, Gray Research will support the operation and management of the Missile Defense Data Center (MDDC) in Huntsville for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to develop and field an integrated Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Some of the high-level results include:

• 91% of companies assessed exposed employee and/or customer personal data
• 80% of companies assessed had unknown peer-to-peer file sharing protocols running, such as Kazaa, Bit Torrent, WinMX

The report claims, “The origin of the vast majority of these disclosures stemmed from human resources departments who often accidentally exposed employees’ personal information when they communicate with partners in health insurance, payroll, workers compensation and other third-party processors.” Many of the exposures occur from employees mailing Excel and even text files with employee names, data of births, social security numbers and even bank account information through insecure methods such as email.

The P2P usage not only opens a door into corporate firewalls but also potentially exposes corporations to liability from distributing copyrighted materials.

It is important to note that Reconnex is a risk management vendor and that the company may benefit from an increased fear of personal data exposure. However, even if the real exposure is only half of the shown results, companies do need to be on notice.

The July index report can be downloaded as a PDF from Reconnec’s web site.