Tag Archive for: visits

Former US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison visits Angelo State for building renaming ceremony

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SAN ANGELO, Texas — Texas native Kay Bailey Hutchison served as a United States senator for 20 years and North Atlantic Treaty Organization representative for four years. 

During her time in government, Hutchison was actively involved in cybersecurity and with recent developments in artificial intelligence, she has continued her work in this area of study. 

On April 27 at Angelo State University, Hutchison attended a ceremony for the renaming of the Center for Security Studies in her honor. 

ASU president Dr. Ronnie Hawkins Jr., San Angelo mayor Brenda Gunter and ASU faculty and staff members were all in attendance for the reveal of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Cyber Intelligence, Innovation and Security Studies. 

“Having this wonderful security center here I think is going to build so much prestige for Angelo State because they are in front of the line in providing, really, the cyber security studies, the innovation,” Hutchison said. “They’re looking at new ways to prevent cyber security attacks which is new. We’ve always kind of been on defense, now we’re gonna learn more on offense.” 

Credit: Morgan McGrath



Public and private organizations, as well as personal devices such as cell phones, laptops and computers can all be equally affected by ransomware. Simply defined, ransomware happens when internet files are blocked and can only be accessed by being forced to pay a certain amount of money. 

This is one of the main issues ASU students will be trying to better understand and prevent. 

Credit: Morgan McGrath



“When you’re talking about public institutions like hospitals and school districts, banks, when a cyber attack occurs in one of those, then it can put a whole data release out and sometimes a criminal can get paid for that,” Hutchison said. 

In fact, ASU was specifically chosen to start its cybersecurity program and its findings will eventually be shared with institutions across the state. The program might also be beneficial for Goodfellow Air Force Base students who are interested in technology in the modern world. 

“I think Goodfellow and Angelo State are gonna be partners that will…

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Data Brokers Track Abortion Clinic Visits for Anyone to Buy

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If the war in Ukraine and Russia’s still-unfolding atrocities there didn’t offer enough fodder for doomscrolling, this week supplied a new dose of domestic crisis: A leaked Supreme Court draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade, demolishing a ruling that has served as a cornerstone of reproductive rights for nearly five decades. And this crisis, too, will play out in the digital realm as much as the physical and legal ones.

WIRED’s Lily Hay Newman responded to the news with a guide to protecting your privacy if you’re seeking an abortion in a near-future world in which Roe has in fact been overturned. As right-wing pundits demand the Supreme Court leaker’s prosecution, meanwhile, we analyzed the laws concerning leaks of unclassified government information like a draft court ruling and found that there’s no clear statute criminalizing that sort of information sharing. And law professor Amy Gajda walked us through the history of Supreme Court information leaks, which stretches back hundreds of years.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds on, we looked at how small, consumer-grade drones are offering a defensive tool to Ukrainians that they’re exploiting as in no other war in history. And further abroad in India, a battle is taking shape between VPN firms and the Indian government, which is demanding they hand over users’ data. Meanwhile, the country’s new “super app,” Tata Neu, has sparked user privacy concerns.

And there’s more. As we do every week, we’ve rounded up all the news that we didn’t break or cover in-depth. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

If Roe‘s precedent ceases to protect people seeking abortions across the United States, the question of who can digitally surveil those seeking abortions and abortion providers—and how to evade that surveillance—will become a civil liberties battle of the highest urgency. This week, Motherboard’s Joseph Cox fired the opening salvos of that battle with a series of stories about data brokers who offer to sell location data that include individuals’ visits to abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices, an egregious form of surveillance capitalism with immediate human consequences….

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US President Joe Biden visits US troops in Poland

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Recently photos surfaced on social media of a roughly four-foot-wide tan, airplane-shaped drone that had fallen out of the sky in the Kyiv region, crashing into the sandy ground.

While that one failed to explode on impact, the images verified by The Washington Post provide some of the first evidence Russia is using a new and terrifying weapon in its war against Ukraine: a killer drone that can dive bomb into targets, destroying them with little notice.

The Russian kamikaze drones, also known as loitering munitions, will soon be joined on the battlefield by ones sent to Ukrainian forces by the United States, making the war the largest direct conflict between two countries in which they’ve been deployed on both sides. Researchers who specialise in the field say it shows that these drones are becoming the norm in modern warfare, and are likely to make the conflict more deadly and unpredictable.

“It’s going to be more of a psychological effect,” said Ingvild Bode, an autonomous weapons researcher at the University of Southern Denmark. “There’s no place to hide.”

A Russian drone launches a missile during the Zapad-2021 war games by Russian and Belarusian forces at the Mulino training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Russia in 2021. AP

Russia’s February 24 invasion and the ensuing war has already been a proving ground for high-tech weaponry. Ukrainian troops have used portable antitank missiles to destroy countless Russian vehicles, while social media has been used by Russia’s government to try to muddy the facts on the ground with disinformation.

On Twitter, regular people around the world have been verifying photos of Russian troop movements and reporting them to Ukrainian authorities to aid in the war effort.

Drones have also played a key role in the war. Ukraine’s Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2, the size of a small airplane and equipped with laser-guided missiles, is wreaking havoc on Russian tanks and trucks and helping to stymie the invasion.

There’s some evidence Ukraine might also be using the Polish-produced Warmate drone – which can be reused as a surveillance drone or equipped with explosives to become a loitering munition – said Wim Zwijnenburg, a drone…

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CNO Visits Philadelphia Navy Commands; Emphasizes Importance of Columbia-class Submarines  

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Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday speaks with Sailors assigned to the future USS Lenah H.S. Higbee (DDG 123) at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division, Feb. 3. U.S. NAVY / Lt. Rachel Maul

PHILADELPHIA — Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Mike Gilday and Rear Adm. Douglas Perry, director, undersea warfare division, visited Philadelphia-based Navy commands, Feb. 3, the CNO’s public affairs office said in a release. 

Together, they visited the Naval Foundry and Propeller Center and Naval Surface Warfare Command Center, Philadelphia Division, where Gilday toured the facilities, spoke with Sailors and Navy civilians, and received updates about Columbia-class submarine construction. 

“The impressive cadre of engineers here who are delivering world-class results are a national treasure,” said Gilday. “The work you are doing here is vital to national security, as well of that of our Allies and partners.” 

Columbia-class submarines are the Navy’s number one acquisition priority, Gilday added. 

“These submarines need to be delivered on time, on budget and ready for the fight — and that’s what we intend to do,” Gilday said. “Working together, we will get them off of the production line and into the fleet where they belong.” 

The Columbia-class submarine is the nation’s future sea-based strategic deterrent and will provide the most survivable leg of the Nation’s strategic triad. It replaces the currently serving Ohio-class submarines and must be constructed and delivered beginning in fiscal year 2028 to meet U.S. Strategic Command requirements. These ballistic missile submarines serve as an undetectable launch platform for submarine-launched ballistic missiles and are designed specifically for stealth and the precise delivery of nuclear warheads. 

Gilday toured the Naval Sea Systems Command Compatibility Test Facility where he saw the shipboard-representative Columbia Integrated Propulsion System prototypes in operation and the Arleigh Burke-class Land-Based Engineering Site. He also received updates about the developing electrical and propulsion test facility risk-reduction capabilities for newer classes of…

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