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A former city commissioner in Lakeland, Fla., was sentenced Monday to three years in prison after he admitted to fatally shooting a man he suspected of stealing a hatchet from his shop in 2018.

The former commissioner, Michael Dunn, 51, pleaded guilty in March to a charge of manslaughter with a firearm, according to Polk County court records. In addition to the prison term, Polk County Judge Donald G. Jacobsen sentenced Mr. Dunn to 10 years of probation and 200 hours of community service.

In October 2018, Mr. Dunn was working at the Army-Navy surplus store he co-owned in Lakeland, which is about 35 miles east of Tampa, when he saw the man, Christobal Lopez, 50, conceal a hatchet, the Lakeland Police Department said at the time.

Mr. Dunn stopped Mr. Lopez, a transient who had entered the store with his father, and asked him if he was going to pay for the item, the police said. As Mr. Lopez tried to leave the store, Mr. Dunn pulled Mr. Lopezs sleeve and shot him.

Mr. Lopez died at the scene.

Mr. Dunns initial charge of second-degree murder was downgraded to manslaughter after he took the plea deal, according to court records. He resigned from his post as an elected city commissioner a few days after he was indicted in 2018.

At a sentencing hearing on Monday, Mr. Dunn told Judge Jacobsen that his reaction to seeing Mr. Lopez take the hatchet was based on fear, and that he was almost in autopilot. He also apologized to Mr. Lopezs family.

If I had a time machine, thats what I would want: To have never seen Mr. Lopez, Mr. Dunn said.

Mark OMara, a lawyer representing Mr. Dunn, said during the hearing that his clients decision to shoot Mr. Lopez was not well thought-out, but also is not indicative of anger or animosity.

In March 2021, Brian Haas, the state attorney for the 10th Judicial Circuit, rejected Mr. Dunns claim of self-defense. If Mr. Dunns claim had been accepted, he would have been protected by Floridas Stand Your Ground law, which makes it challenging to prosecute people who maintain that they felt threatened and acted to protect themselves.

Paul Wallace, an assistant state attorney, said at the hearing that the prosecutors believed Mr. Lopez was not trying to get into a violent confrontation.

The vast majority of shopkeepers do not attempt to use this type of intervention, Mr. Wallace said.

At the hearing, the prosecutors said that Mr. Dunn had confronted multiple shoplifters in his store, including someone he wrestled with who had a gun.

The prosecutors had asked Judge Jacobsen for a 17-and-a-half-year sentence, while Mr. Dunns lawyers had requested a 3-and-a-half-year sentence of community control, under which he could serve his sentence at home instead of in prison.

Mr. Dunns aunt, who was identified as M. Rodriguez, testified at the hearing that, after the shooting, Mr. Lopezs father was never the same.

He talked because he had to talk, he walked because he had to walk, but we would see him and it wasnt him, she said.

When Mr. Dunn was 19, he accidentally shot a man while he was practicing his aim with a pistol at his home, according to The Lakeland Ledger, a local newspaper. The man survived, and the Lakeland police called the shooting accidental and cleared Mr. Dunn of any wrongdoing.

In July 2018, Mr. Dunn hosted a rally at his store to counter a nearby March for Our Lives rally, which called for action against gun violence after 17 people were shot and killed at a South Florida high school, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

Link:
Ex-City Official in Florida Is Sentenced to 3 Years for Killing a Shoplifter - The New York Times

Delegates at the GOP state convention this weekend will consider resolutions that call for protecting those who refuse to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and requiring all Wisconsin elections to be conducted by hand-counted paper ballots.

One resolution proposes supporting U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson on COVID-19, praising the Oshkosh Republican for a panel discussion he hosted last year in which speakers largely expressed skepticism about the vaccine.

Johnson has regularly been accused of spreading misinformation about COVID-19. A Marquette University Law School Poll in February found 31 percent of Wisconsin voters trust a great deal or a fair amount of what the U.S. senator says about the coronavirus and treatments. Sixty-one percent said they dont trust what he says on the topic much or at all.

The package of resolutions, obtained by WisPolitics.com, run the gamut of conservative causes from universal school choice to calling for Wisconsin to pass a stand your ground law. Those laws allow the use of deadly force in public and state that someone who is attacked has no duty to retreat.

The resolutions originated at the local party level before being screened by a state party committee. Theyre scheduled to be voted on Saturday during convention proceedings in Middleton. Party activists can submit additional resolutions ahead of the floor debate.

The resolutions related to election administration include one that calls for firing Wisconsin Elections Commission staff and reorganizing the agency to be truly fair and honest. Another calls for dissolving the agency and putting the Legislature in charge of election administration.

The agency has been targeted by Republicans for criticism over the guidance it provided local clerks ahead of the 2020 election.

The resolution calling for the use of paper ballots claims recent elections have cast doubt on accuracy in the use of electronic vote tabulation. The Legislative Audit Bureaus review of the 2020 election found electronic voting equipment accurately counted the results in the presidential race.

The resolutions that touch on COVID-19 include one calling for banning mandatory vaccinations. It also calls for an investigation into deaths in Wisconsin hospitals where instead of allowing proven and safe alternative treatments such as Ivermectin to be administered dangerous experimental drugs are being used. Randomized controlled trials have yet to find a beneficial use of ivermectin in treating COVID-19.

The resolution calling for a ban on mandatory vaccinations doesnt differentiate between those for COVID-19 and other diseases. Wisconsin law currently requires students to show they have received required vaccinations against diseases such as polio or have a waiver to attend school.

Other COVID-related resolutions argue national, state and local authorities have no authority to mandate disease mitigations such as masks or vaccinations. Another states, no person or agency can fully understand the complexity of the human body or all of the relationships and interrelationships that comprise public health. It calls public health or environmental emergency orders acts of insurrection against the letter and spirit of our free republic and shall be ignored or deemed advisory only.

Other resolutions would:

*condemn critical race theory and call on the Legislature and local school boards to prohibit its teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels as well as banning public universities and tech colleges from compelling students to adhere to its tenets.

*call for legislation to ban physical treatments for minors who want to transition their gender. It also calls for legislation to preserve womens and girls sports for biological females. Legislation banning transgender athletes from participating in high school and college sports passed the Assembly this session but wasnt taken up by the Senate.

See the proposed resolutions.

See the rest here:
GOP resolutions call for hand counting paper ballots, praising Johnson on COVID-19 - WisPolitics.com

The previous two years have proven the importance of proactively working to secure our data, especially as organizations underwent digital transformations and suffered increased cyberattacks as a result. For those organizations that have been breached, but their data hasnt yet been exploited and released to the wild, it may already be too late.

Organizations that have already experienced a data breach may become victims of harvest today, decrypt tomorrow or capture-now-decrypt-later attacks. These attacks, also referred to as harvesting for short, capitalize on known vulnerabilities to steal data that may not even be truly accessible using todays decryption technologies.

These attacks require long-term planning and projections on the advancement of quantum-computing technologies. While these technologies may still be years away from being commercially available and widely used, organizations should look to protect against these threats now to prevent themselves from becoming a future casualty.

Before getting into more detail on the future threat posed by quantum computing, we should look to a historic example to inform our present decision-making.

Lessons from the Enigma

In 1919 a Dutchman invented an encoding machine that was universally adopted by the German army, called the Enigma. Unbeknownst to Germany, the Allied powers managed to break the coding scheme, and were able to decode some messages as early as 1939, when the first German boots set foot in Poland. For years, however, the German army believed the Enigma codes were unbreakable and was communicating in confidence, never realizing their messages were out in the open.

History may already be repeating itself. I cant help but think that most organizations today also believe that their encrypted data is safe, but someone else may be close to, or already, reading their secure mail without them even knowing.

Todays modern cryptography is often deemed unbreakable, but a big, shiny black building in Maryland suggests that governments may be better at this than is widely believed. Although a lot of credit goes to the magical and elusive quantum computer, the reality is different: poor implementations of crypto suites are the primary vector for breaking encryption of captured traffic. So are certificates captured through other means, brute-forced passwords and even brute-forced crypto, because insufficient entropy is used to generate random numbers.

All these techniques are part of the arsenal of any nation who wants to strategically collect information on the happenings of other international playerswhether government or private companies. These techniques also require higher levels of coordination and financial backing to be a successful part of an intelligence strategy. As I continue to see, when the value of the captured information is high enough, the investment is worth it. Consider then the vast data centers being built by many governments: they are full of spinning disks of memory storage just in case current approaches don't yield access. Data storage has become an investment in the future of intelligence gathering.

Looking towards the future

Harvesting attacks does not just work as a strategy for quantum computers. We will likely have more powerful processors for brute-forcing in the future. Additionally, other types of stochastic computation machines, such as spintronics, are showing promise and even the de-quantification of popular algorithms may one day see a binary computer version of Peter Shors algorithm. The latter helps us explain how quantum computing may help to make quick work of current encryption techniques. This will allow breaking of Diffie-Hellman key exchanges or RSA on a conventional computer in smaller time frames.

So how do we shield ourselves? It is hard to imagine armoring oneself against any possible threat to encryption. Just like it is difficult to predict exactly which stocks will do well, and which ones won't. There are too many factors and too much chaos. One is left with only the option of diversification: using an out-of-band key distributing strategy that allows multiple paths for key and data to flow, and a range of algorithms and keys to be used. By diversifying our cryptographic approaches we are also able to minimize the damage in case a particular strategy fails us. Monocultures are at risk of pandemics, let's not fall victim to encryption monoculture as we move into the future.

It is past time to take steps now that will protect organizations from future threats. This includes developing actionable standards. Both federal agencies and the private sector need to embrace quantum-safe encryption. Additionally, they should look to develop next-generation, standards-based systems that will address current encryption method shortcomings and poor key management practices. This will help to ensure not only quantum-safe protection from future threats, but also stronger security from contemporary threats.

Organizations face a dizzying array of threats and need to constantly remain vigilant to thwart attacks. While looking to protect against current threats is certainly important, organizations should begin projecting future threats, including the threat posed by quantum computing. As technology continues to advance each day, one should remember that past encryption, like the Enigma machine, didnt remain an enigma for long and was broken in time. The advent of quantum computing may soon make our unbreakable codes go the way of the dinosaur. Prepare accordingly.

Follow this link:
Back to the Future: Protecting Against Quantum Computing - Nextgov

Three notable earnings releases were made in the past few days and it is interesting to review them and see the progress each has made in the past year.

IonQ announced Q1 revenue of $2.0 million, bookings of $4.2 million, and EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) loss of $10.3 million. This compares to their forecast made at the end of March of Q1 revenue between $1.8 to $2.0 million and bookings of $3 to $4 million. They are continuing to estimate full year 2022 revenue at $10.2 to $10.7 million, but have raised their estimate of 2022 bookings from$20.0 to $24.0 million to a new range of $23.0 to $27.0 million. The company ended the period with a cash and short term investments balance of about $415 million.

In other announcements during the release, they discussed their technology roadmap and a new system called Forte, which we covered in more detail here. They also mentioned they are building a second 32 qubit Aria system to meet customer demand. One interesting comment for us was their mention of rising customer interest in purchasing systems for on-premise use which may result in a potential increase in their forecast of contract bookings from their original plan. Reasons for this include customers desire to avoid waiting in a queue with other customers for access to a cloud based system as well as data security concerns.

Additional details from IonQs Q1 earnings release can be seen in a press release posted on their website here as well as webcast recording of their Q1 earnings call here.

Rigetti report Q1 revenue of $2.1 million and an EBITDA loss of $13.9 million. The Q1 2022 revenue was lower than Q1 2021 which had revenue of $2.4 million. Rigetti attributed this to the completion of the first phase of a large government agency project in the first quarter of 2021. The company forecasted total 2022 revenue to be between $12 and $13 million with and EBITDA loss for the year in the range between $52 and $53 million. The company ended the period with a cash balance of about $206 million.

Rigetti also discussed their future roadmap plans which we covered here. They also discussed some of the challenges they are facing in their technical developments including higher than anticipated costs for labor, equipment, and system components, market and supply chain conditions, and available working capital. You can read Rigettis press release with their earnings announcement here and listen to the webcast discussing the results here.

Arqit reported their results for their first fiscal half year which covers the six month period ending on March 31, 2022. They achieved revenue for the period of $12.3 million with an adjusted loss before tax of $14.4 million. The revenue came from $5.3 million in QuantumCloud revenue and $7.0 million from a project contract from the European Space Agency.

The company also announced announced that shareholders holding 105.9 million of the 108.6 million shares currently subject to lock-up agreements that were due to expire have volunteered to extend their lock-up agreements until September. The company ended the period with a cash balance of $82 million. Arqits press release with their financial results can be accessed here.

May 18, 2022

More here:
Earning Releases: IonQ, Rigetti, and Arqit - Quantum Computing Report

Iraq closed public buildings and temporarily shut airports Monday as another sandstorm -- the ninth since mid-April -- hit the country, authorities said.

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The capital Baghdad was enveloped in a giant dust cloud that left usually traffic-choked streets largely deserted, an AFP correspondent said.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi ordered all work to cease in public institutions, with the exception of health facilities and security agencies.

He cited poor climatic conditions and the arrival of violent sandstorms in a statement issued by his office.

Iraq is ranked as one of the five most vulnerable nations to climate change and desertification.

The environment ministry has warned that over the next two decades, Iraq could endure an average of 272 days of sandstorms per year, rising to above 300 by 2050.

Air traffic was suspended Monday at international airports in Baghdad, Erbil and Najaf, according to statements issued by each airport, before authorities announced later in the morning that flights were resuming at Baghdad and Erbil.

The previous two sandstorms killed one person and sent nearly 10,000 people to hospital with respiratory problems.

The Middle East has always been battered by sandstorms, but they have become more frequent and intense in recent years.

The trend has been associated with rising heat and water scarcity, overuse of river water, more dams, overgrazing and deforestation.

Oil-rich Iraq is known in Arabic as the land of the two rivers, in reference to the Tigris and Euphrates.

Iraqs environment ministry has said the weather phenomenon could be addressed by increasing vegetation cover and planting trees that act as windbreaks.

Read more:

Experts warn of health effects from dusty conditions as sandstorm blankets UAE

Sandstorm blankets Saudi Arabias capital Riyadh

Iraq sandstorm forces closure of airports, schools, public administrations

See the original post here:
Sandstorm forces closure of Iraqi airports and public buildings - Al Arabiya English