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The National Sheep Association (NSA) is calling for the public to observe the lockdown rules more closely.

NSA Chief Executive Phil Stocker explains: There is no doubt this lockdown is difficult. We are all feeling the effect, and NSA completely understands the frustration and the want to get outside. However, we mustnt forget that the fields were walking across are where our food is produced, and by being there we put the people producing our food at risk.

NSA has heard some extreme and concerning stories from its members of people still arriving in cars for walks, picnics and more.

Mr Stocker continues: By travelling to farms you are risking passing on this dangerous virus to a food producing farmer, and that is simply not acceptable. We all know the rules and simply put, travelling to walk somewhere a car drive away from your home is not necessary. We implore the British public to obey these rules and respect other peoples homes and lives particularly as we approach the Easter weekend.

With little still known about the virus, NSA is concerned about viral transmissions on gates, fences and other surfaces. Mr Stocker adds: These risks are very real and if people continue to flout the rules, we have no doubt the Government will be prepared to step things up to protect lives.

Read the rest here:
Walkers asked to heed rules - Craven Herald

In January, the NSA issued guidance titled: Mitigating Cloud Vulnerabilities. With security organizations already overburdened with too many threat intelligences feeds, alerts, mandates and fire drills, its understandable that this information might go unnoticed, or be tossed onto the well get to it sooner or later pile.

However when an organization like the NSA speaks, it is generally a good idea to listen. Which raises the question: how does one operationalize guidance from the NSA and other elite security organizations? The short answer is the same as it is for all cybersecurity undertakings: prioritization and outcomes. Lets examine this approach, using the recent NSA guidance as our use case.

Vulnerability Components

The NSA broke down its guidance into four key vulnerabilities: misconfigurations, poor access control, shared tenancy vulnerabilities and supply chain vulnerabilities. It also provided this handy chart to articulate the prevalence and sophistication of exploit for each.

This chart provides clear prioritization for security professionals. In a time where resources (particularly skills on staff) are strained, it is critical to attack problems that represent the highest risk. Here is a look at each.MisconfigurationsIf weve learned nothing else about threat actors over the years, its that they want a good return on investment. This means theyll take the easiest route to stealing data, every time. It is for this reason that misconfigurations represent such a risk to enterprises there is nothing easier than stealing data left exposed by bad configuration management.

Cloud configuration management poses a particularly vexing problem because with the advent of DevOps, the cloud environment is constantly changing. This makes cloud monitoring a major challenge and, within that discipline, configuration and policy management need to transition to a continuous state. Here are the key elements of a modern cloud monitoring program:

Creating a continuous cloud monitoring program is the most important thing enterprises can do to operationalize the NSA guidance. Now lets look at the next most important thing.

Cloud Access ControlExploiting poor access control in cloud systems takes a higher degree of sophistication than simply looking for exposed data, so it is not yet a major contributor to cloud data breaches. However, the problem is widespread and stands to become such a contributor, if organizations do not improve their identity and access control processes.

The good news is the first step to ensuring strong access control in the cloud is also the first step to achieving continuous cloud monitoring visibility. Because cloud services and systems can be spun up by virtually anyone in an organization, it is critical to have the visibility required to understand when this is happening, so security pros can ensure proper access control.

The recurring theme in the NSA guidance is multifactor authentication. Enterprises can dramatically improve the integrity of cloud access control if they implement multifactor authentication across all cloud resources. Ideally, this will be part of a broader enterprise identity and access management (IAM) program that brings all enterprise resources on premises, in the cloud, and hybrid under appropriate identity governance.

Shared Tenancy and Supply ChainIm lumping these together because, for the most part, they are primarily the responsibility of cloud service providers, not the enterprise, and exploitation requires a high degree of sophistication. Therefore, as we sit here today, they are not a likely source of risk. The compromised hypervisor has been a nightmare scenario since the dawn of server virtualization, but according to the NSA, there have been no reported isolation compromises on major cloud platforms (although researchers have demonstrated the possibility of container of hypervisor compromises).

As for supply chain issues, that is the domain of cloud service providers (see chart below). They must do proper due diligence and continuous monitoring to ensure that none of their software or hardware components are vulnerable.

If nothing else, remember the two words that should define cybersecurity strategy and operationalization: prioritization and outcomes. If all security organizations prioritized activities based on the reduction of business risk (the desired outcome), the cyberworld would be a much safer, simpler place.

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Operationalizing NSA Guidance (or any Guidance, For That Matter!) - Infosecurity Magazine

As governments turn to technology to help contain the spread of COVID-19, privacy advocates are expressing concern over how new bio-surveillance practices might stick around long after the pandemic ends.

Edward Snowden, the former CIA contractor who exposed NSA surveillance programs, recently spoke to Danish Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Henrik Moltke about surveillance in the time of the coronavirus pandemic.

"When we see emergency measures passed, particularly today, they tend to be sticky," Snowden said. "The emergency tends to be expanded. Then the authorities become comfortable with some new power. They start to like it."

Snowden is especially concerned about the long-term implications of strengthening the national surveillance infrastructure. Granted, the surveillance measures we may deploy today say, using biometric facial recognition technology might help to slow the transmission of COVID-19. What's more, these measures might not noticeably curtail our civil liberties, even if they stick around after the pandemic ends.

But the problem is that the surveillance measures we install today will probably still be here decades from now. Over time, they may creep their way into becoming the new normal (unless sunset clauses are enforced). Another possibility is that these new surveillance measures go unused at least until an administration comes along that's not afraid to use them in an unprecedented way. By that point, the public may be helpless.

"You have no civil power remaining to resist it," Snowden said. "Because you cannot coordinate. You cannot gather in public, because the government instantly knows all of these people are around."

Giving the government access to biometrics could open up alarming new ways for governments to spy on citizens, Snowden said.

"They already know what you're looking at on the internet," he said. "They already know where your phone is moving. Now they know what your heart rate is, what your pulse is. What happens when they start to mix these and apply artificial intelligence to it?

Snowden offered an example: A man in the U.S. watches a YouTube video of a federal official giving a speech. The speech angers him. His pulse and heart-rate shoot up, and this biometric data gets recorded by his smartphone. The government, using algorithms that compare biometrics with online activity and other data, puts this man on a watch-list for people deemed to be potential terrorists or other undesirables.

Since the pandemic began, Asia has seen the most noticeable uptick in surveillance measures.

In China, citizens are required to install a smartphone app that assigns them a color code green, yellow or red that represents health status. The exact methodology of the app remains unclear. But less ambiguous are the CCTV cameras that the government has installed above the apartment doors of infected citizens, to ensure they stay inside for a 14-day quarantine.

South Korea has done an exceptional job at containing the spread of COVID-19. One reason is the nation's aggressive use of smartphone tracking: The South Korean government has ordered everyone who tests positive for COVID-19 to install an app that alerts officials if they exit quarantine. Citizens also receive text messages about the movements of infected people, like: "A woman in her 60s has just tested positive [...] Click on the link for the places she visited before she was hospitalized," according to The Guardian.

According to a survey conducted in February by Seoul National University's Graduate School of Public Health, 78.5 percent of citizens said they would sacrifice privacy rights to help prevent a national epidemic.

The U.S. hasn't rolled out similar surveillance tools to help contain the virus, as of March 27. But companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon have been speaking with White House officials about how they might be able to model and help track the spread of the pandemic, according to the Wall Street Journal.

China News Service / Getty

Concerned about the potential ways Silicon Valley and the government might use technology to track the spread of COVID-19, the Electronic Frontier Foundation recently issued ethical guidelines for data collection during the pandemic:

Still, it may be the case that stopping coronavirus requires us to temporarily sacrifice personal privacy, as Jeremy Cliff wrote for the New Statesman:

"So countries are faced with what one might call the "coronavirus trilemma". They can pick two of three things but cannot have them all: limit deaths, gradually lift lockdowns, or uphold cherished civil liberties. Not all countries are facing up to this reality the US remains a notable laggard but most will have to eventually. Those countries that have recognised the choices before them are picking the first two options at the cost of the third, bio-surveillance. It is a choice that has most clearly been made in east Asia. But it is coming to much of the rest of the world too and will transform the role and reach of the state."

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Edward Snowden warns 'bio-surveillance' may outlast coronavirus - Big Think

The Ministry of Youth & Sports and the National Sports Authority (NSA) have been tasked to build athletics tracks in the capital of Ghana, Accra.

Experienced sports journalist, Sammy Heywood Okine has passionately appealed the sports minister, Hon Isaac Kwame Asiamah and boss of the NSA, professor Peter Twumasi to put up facilities for athletics in Accra, which is the capital of the nation to encourage more people to run, jump and throw as we as appreciate athletics (track & field).

He expressed that the nation boasts of great athletics performers, but the talents are dying as the authorities have killed them with the removal of the athletics tracks at the Accra Sports Stadium in 2008.

He said apart from the El Wak sports stadium tracks which is in very bad shape, and the University of Ghana tracks at Legon, there is no place to train or run in the city.

According to Mr Okine who is also communications director of the GOC and GBA, sports must be taken as a serious business in Ghana as it can create employment and take the youth out of the streets and out of poverty.

He recalled that Ghana placed first in the 100m x 4 relay at the Commonwealth Games in the 1960s, beating nations like Jamaica, Australia and Great Britain, but now the national sprinters are nowhere to be found, had it not been the GNPC Ghana Fastest programme by Reks Brobbey.

The former SWAG deputy general secretary also blamed the media for not promoting athletics and other sports, excerpt football.

He said the sports authorities must be put on their toes to perform, while only those who have knowledge about sports must be appointed at the Ministry and NSA.

He stressed that as Ghana prepares for the next Olympic Games, efforts must be made to construct tartan tracks in schools and communities, attached to the Astro turfs springing up in the country.

Some people removed the Accra sports stadium tracks because they wanted more money or more fans, now people are not even patronizing football matches, and athletics is in a poor state, he said.

Now there are many athletes who are unemployed, doing nothing, I think they must be helped he added.

He commended athletics organisers like the Millennium Marathon, Kwahu Marathon, the Kiddie Mile Races and GNPC Ghana Fastest Human.

See more here:
Sports Authorities Urged To Fix Athletics In Accra - Modern Ghana

Reality Winner, theNational Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower jailed for leaking classified information on Russias interference in the 2016 election, petitioned President TrumpDonald John TrumpCensus Bureau spends millions on ad campaign to mitigate fears on excluded citizenship question Bloomberg campaign: Primary is two-way race with Sanders Democratic senator meets with Iranian foreign minister MORE for clemency Monday.

Winner's attorney Alison Grinter said in a press conference in Dallas that she will submit the petition to the federal office of the pardon attorney, who advises the president on pardons.

She also plans to send 4,500 letters of support, including ones from privacy and free press advocates,according to The Intercept.

Winner was sentenced to five years and three months starting in August 2018 after admitting to giving classified information about Russias attempts to hack local elections before the 2016 election to an investigative news website, The Guardian reported.

Our national healing process cannot begin until we forgive our truth-tellers and begin the job of rebuilding what was taken from us: election security, accountability for those who endeavor to undermine our democracy; and safeguarding the American right to government by and for the people, Grinter said at the conference. None of this can begin in earnest while we are still punishing those who tell us the truth.

The petition alleges that Winner's imprisonment is costly, unnecessary to protect the public, burdensome to her health and wellbeing, and not commensurate with the severity of her offense.

The president previously commented on Winners sentencing in an August 2018 tweet, in which he specifically criticized then-Attorney General Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsThe Hill's Morning Report - Sanders on the rise as Nevada debate looms NSA whistleblower petitions Trump for clemency Alabama Senate contender hits Sessions in new ad: 'Hillary still ain't in jail' MORE and called Winners crimes small potatoes compared to what Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonOmar endorses progressive Georgia Democrat running for House seat Bernie Sanders's Super Tuesday problem Democrats worried about Trump's growing strength MORE did," in an apparent reference to the private email server Clinton kept as secretary of State.

Ex-NSA contractor to spend 63 months in jail over classified information. Gee, this is small potatoes compared to what Hillary Clinton did! So unfair Jeff, Double Standard.

Winner has said in a 2018 interview with CBS News that she cant thank him enough for the tweet.

"I don't like to assume anything as to what's going on in his head, but the 'small potatoes' was a breath of fresh air. It really made me laugh. It reminded me of me and my own family. We try to make a joke out of everything. We laugh every single day no matter how bad things get, and he really gave a whole sense of humor to the thing 'cause it is quite bizarre," she said.

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NSA whistleblower petitions Trump for clemency | TheHill - The Hill