New focus on nuclear plants. Safety, and the perception of safety, are the top two issues pressing the nuclear industry today--an industry that supplies 20 percent of the nation's electricity, and half of the power consumed in Illinois. Sitting within the Dresden nuclear plant compound are 17 cylinders that resemble farm silos--except for the labels that read "radioactive." The 8-foot and 11-foot silos--called dry cask containers--contain the used-up, radioactive fuel that makes electricity. Externally, they're safe: mini-fortresses that endure snow, wind and rain. The casks hold spent nuclear fuel that was used at least 20 years ago. The casks have been sitting outdoors at Dresden, the nation's oldest commercial nuclear power plant, for several years. The casks are necessary because Dresden is running out of room for its spent fuel, which will be dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. (Chcago Sun-Times, 8 Jul) Panel votes to keep Coast Guard at Transportation Department. The US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a manager's amendment proposed by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska). The amendment would leave the Coast Guard in the Department of Transportation (DOT) and retain the Federal Emergency Management Agency as an independent agency, while transferring the Transportation Security Administration, now part of DOT, to the new Homeland Security Department. It would also transfer the Federal Protective Service to the new department. (GovExec.com, 11 Jul) WWU Comment: Historically, the US Coast Guard (USCG) has always struggled with budgetary cuts while competing with the Federal Aviation Administration and other DOT agencies for resources. The move to Homeland Security holds the promise for necessary upgrades to it's aging fleet of medium and short endurance cutters as well as its Aviation Section. The desire to keep the USCG in place stems from concerns that it's other collateral duties will fall to the wayside while engaged in homeland defense such as Living Marine Resource (LMR) protection. This, in fact, would not be the case as the Coast Guard is already demonstrated its ability to fulfill collateral missions without compromise to public safety. Additionally, the USCG already shares the LMR job with the National Marine Fisheries Service, which promotes sustainable fisheries, recovery of protected species, and the health of coastal marine habitats. Major Coast Guard contracts on horizon. The US Coast Guard is cruising along with some major procurements. Following last month's award of the Integrated "Deepwater" System contract, the Coast Guard next expects to select a company in September to modernize its 'Marine 911' system. The system will provide 98 percent coverage, a 12 percent increase, up to 20 nautical miles offshore, bridging existing communications gaps. Other upgrades include a GPS location capability that automatically pinpoints a vessel in distress. (Federal Computer Week, 12 Jul) K-State joins counter-terror fight. The university will establish a center to collect information to fight agricultural terrorism. Kansas State University is getting $3 million to establish a center to help fight agricultural terrorism against the nation's food supply. The $3 million startup money for the center comes from this year's bio-terrorism bill. (The Wichita Eagle, 12 Jul) HHS provides new aid to cities for disaster preparedness. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced $10 million in funding to help 25 more U.S. cities prepare for a rapid, coordinated medical response to large-scale public emergencies. The contracts are for development of additional Metropolitan Medical Response Systems. The contracts will enable cities to coordinate emergency first responders, public health systems and hospitals to better respond to the needs of their citizens in times of crisis. (HHS.gov, 10 Jul) Cyber-terrorists don't care about your PC. Hackers have broken into financial institutions' computer systems, and put popular Web sites temporarily out of business with distributed denial-of-service attacks. But this is not the sort of thing that keeps most security experts up late at night. What keeps them awake is worrying about the underlying systems that control the local power grids, the local drinking water treatment facilities, and the gas that's used to heat our homes. These resources are vulnerable and a malicious user anywhere in the world could someday expose them, causing a severe degradation in service. (InfoSec News, 12 Jul) Worm disguised as update. Windows users are being warned to be on the lookout for Datom.A, a virus claiming to be a Windows update. The worm may arrive as e-mail purporting to be a Microsoft update, but it can also spread through open network shares. Strings of characters are stored in an encrypted format in the virus files in order to avoid disassembly and analysis. It also makes itself invisible in the registry and can kill the firewall before attempting to connect to the Microsoft web site. This worm may mark an evolution in virus coding because of these and other unusual tricks it uses to hide itself. (Government News Release, 11 Jul) How often hackers attack, and what they're after. Attack activity against corporate networks went up significantly in the first half of 2002 when compared with the second half of 2001, but the good news is that the incidence of highly sophisticated attacks was low between January and June this year. Despite the increased activity, the number of attacks that are considered highly aggressive or sophisticated was less than 1 percent. When highly aggressive attacks occur, they are more than 26 times more likely to have severe effects than attacks that are classified as moderately aggressive, so even the small percentage of such attacks remains cause for concern. ( Internet Week, 11 Jul) ~RM
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