Illustration: Simon Lutrin/Wired The U.S. government’s treatment of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning was cruel, inhuman and degrading, according to a report from the United Nations special rapporteur on torture. The finding, from Juan Mendez, comes following a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning during his pre-trial incarceration. “The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence,” Mendez writes in an addendum to the special rapporteur’s report (.pdf) to the UN general assembly on the protection of human rights. Mendez did not speak with Manning directly, according to the Guardian. Mendez told the ... Continue reading →
Darpa Director Regina Dugan at the 'All Things D' conference. Photo: Nosillacast/Flickr Darpa director Regina Dugan will soon be stepping down from her position atop the Pentagon’s premiere research shop to take a job with Google. Dugan, whose controversial tenure at the agency lasted just under three years, was “offered and accepted at senior executive position” with the internet giant, according to Darpa spokesman Eric Mazzacone. She felt she couldn’t say no to such an “innovative company,” he adds. Dugan’s emphasis on cybersecurity and next-generation manufacturing earned her strong support from the White House, winning her praise from the President and maintaining the agency’s budget even during a period of relative austerity at the Pentagon. Her push into crowdsourcing and outreach to the hacker community ... Continue reading →
Baltimore-based data protection vendor SafeNet, today said that is has acquired Cryptocard, a privately held provider of authentication solutions. Established in 1989 with dual headquarters in Canada and the UK, Cryptocard offers a wide range of phone, software, SMS and physical tokens for authentication, as well as its “grIDsure” method that allows an end-user to generate a one-time password without the need for hardware tokens or software applications. Cryptocard claims its customers are not vulnerable to an attack such as the breach that was reported by RSA in March 2011, forcing millions of tokens to be replaced and putting the concept of hardware token seed data into the spotlight. Because Cryptocard customers can enter the seed data into the tokens themselves, Cryptocard does not have ... Continue reading →
