At Home Alone: A Parent’s Guide

Your ten-year-old comes home from school at 3:00, but you don’t get home from work until 5:00. He’s at home alone for those two hours every weekday. What does he do until you arrive?

Most likely, he gets a snack or talks on the phone. Maybe he watched TV. But since you’re not there, you worry.

Just like the majority of American parents who work and have to leave their children on their own after school every day, you are anxiousabout your child’s safety.

But by following the safeguards listed below, you can help ease some of this worry and take measures that will protect your kids even when you’re not around.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

·         Make sure your children are old enough and mature enough to care for themselves.

·         Teach them the basic safety rules.

·         Know the three “W’s”: Where your kids are, what they’re doing, and who they’re with.

ARE THEY READY? CAN YOUR CHILDREN-

·         Be trusted to go straight home after school?

·         Easily use the telephone, locks, and kitchen appliances?

·         Following rules and instructions well?

·         Handle unexpected situations without panicking?

·         Stay alone without being afraid?

A WORD ABOUT CURIOSITY…

·         Are there things you don’t want your children to get into? Take the time to talk to them about the deadly consequences of guns, medicines, power tools, drugs, alcohol, cleaning products, and inhalants. Make sure you keep these items in a secure place out of sight and locked up, if possible.

TEACH YOUR “HOME ALONE” CHILDREN

·         To check in with you or a neighbor immediately after arriving home.

·         How to call 9-1-1, or your area’s emergency number, or call the operator.

·         How to give directions to your home, in case of emergency.

·         To never accept gifts or rides from people they don’t know well.

·         How to use the door and window locks, and the alarm system if you have one.

·         To never let anyone into your home without asking your permission.

·         To never let a called at the door or on the phone know that they’re alone. Teach them to say “Mom can’t come to the phone (or door) right now.”

·         To carry a house key with them in a safe place (inside a shirt pocket or sock). Don’t leave it under the mat or on a ledge outside the house.

·         How to escape in case of fire.

·         To not go into an empty house or apartment if things don’t look right – a broken window, ripped screen, or opened door.

·         To let you know about anything that frightens them or makes them feel uncomfortable.

TAKE A STAND

·         Work with schools, religious institutions, libraries, recreational and community center, and local youth organizations to create program that give children ages 10 and older a place to go and something to do after school – a “homework haven,”; with sports, crafts, classes and tutoring. Don’t forget that kids of this age can also get involved in their communities. Help them design and carry out an improvement project!

·         Ask your workplace to sponsor a Survival Skills class for employees’ children. You can kick it off with a parent breakfast or lunch.

·         Ask your community to develop a homework hotline latchkey kids can call for help or just to talk.

·         Join or start a McGruff House or other black parent program in your community to offer children help in emergencies or frightening situations

Source :  http://armorbear.com

Disasters Hurricanes which pass over fresh water can be stronger

About 60 percent of the world’s population resides in areas that are proneto hurricanes or cyclones; researchers find that if a hurricane’s path carries it over large areas of fresh water, it will potentially intensify 50 percent faster than those that do not pass over such regions, meaning it has greater potential to become a stronger storm and be more devastating
If a hurricane’s path carries it over large areas of fresh water, it will potentially intensify 50 percent faster than those that do not pass over such regions, meaning it has greater potential to become a stronger storm and be more devastating, according to a study co-written by a group of researchers at Texas A&M University.
A Texas A&M release reports that Ping Chang, professor of oceanography and atmospheric sciences and director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies, along with his former student, Karthik Balaguru, now at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, are the lead authors of a paper in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Their findings could benefit weather experts as they try to predict the path and strength of a hurricane, noting that about 60 percent of the world’s population resides in areas that are prone to hurricanes or cyclones.
Chang and Balaguru and their colleagues examined Tropical Cyclones for the decade 1998-2007, which includes about 587 storms, paying particular attention to Hurricane Omar. Omar was a Category 4 hurricane that formed in 2008 and eventually caused about $80 million in damages in the south Caribbean area.
They analyzed data from the oceanic region under the storm, including the salt and temperature structure of the water and other factors that played a part in the storm’s intensity.
“We tested how the intensity of the storm and others increased over a 36-hour period,” Chang explains.
“We were looking for indications that the storm increased in intensity or weakened and compared it to other storms. This is near where the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers flow into the Atlantic Ocean, and there are immense amounts of fresh water in the region. We found that as a storm enters an area of freshwater, it can intensify 50 percent faster on average over a period of thirty-six hours when compared to storms that do not pass over such regions.”
The researchers believe their results could help in predicting a hurricane’s strength as it nears large river systems that flow into oceans, such as the Amazon in the Atlantic, the Ganges in the Indian Ocean or even the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico.

Improved disaster resilience is imperative for U.S: report

A new report from the National Academies says that it is essential for the United States to bolster resilience to natural and human-caused disasters, and that this will require complementary federal policies and locally driven actions that center on a national vision – a culture of resilience; improving resilience should be seen as a long-term process, but it can be coordinated around measurable short-term goals that will allow communities better to prepare and plan for, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse events
Increasing the U.S. resilience to natural and human-caused disasters will require complementary federal policies and locally driven actions that center on a national vision, says a new report from the National Academies. The report, Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative, says that improving resilience should be seen as a long-term process, but it can be coordinated around measurable short-term goals that will allow communities to better prepare and plan for, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse events.
“Without innovations to improve resilience, the cost of disasters will continue to rise both in absolute dollar amounts and in losses to social, cultural, and environmental systems in each community,” said Susan L. Cutter, director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Enhancing our resilience to disasters is imperative for the stability, progress, and well-being of the nation.”
The National Academies says that improving resilience is not the responsibility of any one federal agency, nor can it be encapsulated in a single policy. Rather, functions of government at all levels should be guided by a set of principles and best practices that advance resilience. The committee found gaps in resilience policies and programs among federal agencies and noted that resilience is diminished by ineffective coordination of roles and responsibilities. The report calls for federal agencies to perform self-assessments of their programs and activities and share their analyses of key resilience programs with the public. The executive branch should develop a clear national vision and framework for a comprehensive strategy toward improving disaster resilience, which can be tailored by regions, states, and cities for their specific needs and priorities.
Although local conditions vary across the country, the report identifies universal steps that all communities can take to improve their disaster resilience. Adopting and enforcing building codes and standards appropriate to existing local hazards and implementing risk-based pricing for property insurance would both achieve results. The report adds that risk-reduction measures should combine tangible actions, such as building dams and levees and reinforcing critical structures, along with other efforts that include zoning laws, land-use planning, and communication strategies. Long-term investments to improve resilience will need to come from both the public and private sectors.
To help communities assess resilience and track improvements, DHS, in conjunction with other federal agencies, state and local partners, and professional groups, should develop a national resilience scorecard, the report says. The scorecard should be adaptable to focus specifically on the hazards that threaten each community and should measure the ability of critical infrastructures to withstand and recover from impacts of earthquakes, floods, severe storms, or other disasters, as well as rate social factors such as language and special needs related to minority status, mobility, or health that enhance or limit a community’s recovery. Although some numerical basis for assessment is necessary to monitor improvement, the scorecard should not attempt unreasonable precision in its measurements of individual factors, the committee said.
Strengthening resilience of individual communities and the nation will require more consistent hazard and risk assessments supported by centrally available disaster loss data. The report recommends the development of a publicly accessible national repository that documents disaster-related injuries, loss of life, property loss, and impacts on economic activity. The data would allow communities to make informed decisions about investments as well as serve as a basis for biennial status reports on the nation’s resilience.
An event scheduled for October 2012 in Washington, D.C., will launch broader discussion and implementation of the committee’s recommendations. Other regional events around the country are planned for 2013 and will include participants from all levels of government, community and nonprofit organizations, the private sector, research community, and the public.
The study was a project of the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, and carried out by the National Research Council.

Global air control system largely defenseless against hacking

The ADS-b system, the multi-billion dollar communication system deployed at airports around the world over the last few years, has two major flaws: first, it has no means of verifying who is actually sending a message, which means that a hacker can impersonate an aircraft and send malicious and misleading information tocontrol towers and to other aircraft; second, the position, velocity, and otherinformation broadcast by aircraft is not encrypted and can be grabbed from theair; a presenter at the Black Hat cyber security event showed how it is possible to use the information to plot the route of Air Force Phone on an iPad; these two vulnerabilities can be easily exploited by anyone with modest technical skills and about $2,000 worth of electronics

The world’s air traffic control system is exceedingly vulnerable to hackers. This reality was demonstrated yesterday, Thursday, by Andrei Costin at a Black Hat gathering of cyber defenders in Las Vegas.

“This is for information only,” Costin emphasized as he outlined how someone with modest tech skills and about $2,000 worth of electronics could vex air traffic controllers or even stalk celebrities traveling in private jets. “Everything you do is at your own risk.”

AFP reports that Costin was pointing to the vulnerability of the ADS-B system, a multi-billion dollar communication system deployed in many airports around the world over the last few years for the purpose of improving communications between aircraft and control towers, and among aircrafts while in flight.

The glaring flaw of the ADS-b system: it has no means of verifying who is actually sending a message. This oversight by the system’s designers allows hackers to impersonate aircraft. “There is no provision to make sure a message is genuine,” he said. “It is basically an inviting opportunity for any attacker with medium technical knowledge.”

If air traffic controllers suspect the signal comes from a fake airplane, the only way available to them to ascertain the identity of signal sender is to resort to cross-checking flight plans, putting portions of air space off limits while they work.

“Imagine you inject a million planes; you don’t have that many people to cross-check,” Costin said. “You can do a human resource version of a denial of service attack on an airport.”

AFP notes that aviation agencies have experience identifying and locating rogue transmitters on the ground, but not at countering signals from drones or other robotic aircraft which are becoming more common and available.

Costin said that another danger in the new-generation air traffic control system is that position, velocity, and other information broadcast by aircraft is not encrypted and can be snatched from the air. “Basically, you can buy or build yourself a device to capture this information from airplanes,” Costin said.

In his Black Hat presentation, Costin showed how a friend of his was able to identify a plane broadcasting the identification numbers of Air Force One, the military jet used by the U.S. president, and plot Air Force One’s route on a map on an iPad.

“It can be a very profitable business model for criminals to invest a small amount of money in radios, place them around the world” and then sell jet tracking services or information about flights, Costin said. “If it was Air Force One, why does Air Force One show itself?” Costin wondered aloud. “It is a very high profile target and you don’t want everyone to know it is flying over your house.”

Since aircraft registration numbers are public — there are Web sites with databases matching aircraft registration numbers with the aircraft owners — this means that criminals or terrorists can track Air Force One or any other private plane for the purpose of doing harm to it. Air Force One is equipped with anti-missile defenses and jammers, and it always accompanied by a protective envelope of fighter planes, but other private are not, and are thus vulnerable.

The Disaster in Colorado Shooting

During the premiere of a Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises”in Aurora, Colorado, James Holmes, 24, a diehard fan of superheroes, includingBatman, had shot dead 12 people and injured 58 in the rampage. The first video footage of the suspect had showed him as a nervous, awkward guy, giving a chat at a science summer camp in San Diego on “temporal illusions” at Miramar College. It is also stated that before the attack, James Holmes, a cannabis smoker, had joined a dating website to seek women for pleasure and had also tried to join a gun club.

The University of Colorado is also investigating the matter whether Holmes, a neuroscience PhD student had taken advantage of his position to order thematerials that he used during the attack. When asked, he calmly told detectives that he had taken 100 mg of Vicodin a painkiller that had made him hallucinate and identify himself as the “Joker” of the film Batman.  Previously this same drug was noticed inside the body of the late actor Heath Ledger. The late actor had died of an accidental overdose of the prescribed drugs in the year 2008. Ledger had played the role of the Joker as a villain in the previous Batman film “The Dark Knight”. The Doctors from Colorado mentioned that the drug Vicodin has side-effects which include, euphoria (excitement), paranoia (fear), and hallucinations.

The video footage explained about temporal illusions, i.e.illusions that allow and help you hallucinate about the past. A woman who had introduced the talk show said that Holmes’s goals were to formulate scientific discoveries. During those days, he enjoyed playing football and other outdoor games. His main vision was to own a “slurpee machine” (play station).    Brad Garrett, a former FBI profiler, stated that Holmes has some significant mental issue and has to be sent for rehabilitation.

Six years after the video, Holmes was unrecognizable after dyeing his hair in red. His profile on dating website Match.com was headlined as;will you visit me in prison? On July 20, 2012, in the ongoing live premiere, Holmes with multiple guns had set off smoke canisters on the spectators. The police after a long chase arrested Holmes behind the Century 16 cinema, next to his car. They recovered several ammunitions and smoke bombs from inside his car.He also had stocked his apartment with different explosives before heading to the theatre.

The suspect was initially jailed at Arapahoe Detention Center, under intensive monitoring process to ensure that Holmes does not commit suicide. He is being protected from other inmates for precaution in such high profile cases. On July 23, 2012, Holmes made his first appearance before the court. The Judge William B. Sylvester has appointed a public defender for Holmes. Formal charges against Holmes will be filed on July 30, 2012. 

A record: half of U.S. land area is in various stages of drought

Source : http://armorbear.com/blogs 

Analysis of the latest drought monitor data revealed that 46.84 percent of the U.S. land area is in various stages of drought, up from 42.8 percent a week ago; previous records were 45.87 percent in drought on 26 August 2003, and 45.64 percent on 10 September 2002; looking only at the forty-eight contiguous states, 55.96 percent of the country’s land area is in moderate drought or worse — also the highest percentage on record.

More of the United States is in moderate drought or worse than at any other time in the 12-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, officials from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said the other day.

A University of Nebraska–Lincoln release reports that analysis of the latest drought monitor data revealed that 46.84 percent of the nation’s land area is in various stages of drought, up from 42.8 percent a week ago. Previous records were 45.87 percent in drought on 26 August 2003, and 45.64 percent on 10 September 2002.

Looking only at the forty-eight contiguous states, 55.96 percent of the country’s land area is in moderate drought or worse — also the highest percentage on record in that regard, officials said. The previous highs had been 54.79 percent on 26 August 2003, and 54.63 percent on 10 September 2002.

“The recent heat and dryness is catching up with us on a national scale,” said Michael J. Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center. “Now, we have a larger section of the country in these lesser categories of drought than we’ve previously experienced in the history of the Drought Monitor.”

The monitor uses a ranking system that begins at D0 (abnormal dryness) and moves through D1 (moderate drought), D2 (severe drought), D3 (extreme drought) and D4 (exceptional drought).

Moderate drought’s telltale signs are some damage to crops and pastures, with streams, reservoirs or wells getting low. At the other end of the scale, exceptional drought includes widespread crop and pasture losses, as well as shortages of water in reservoirs, streams and wells, creating water emergencies. So far, just 8.64 percent of the country is in either extreme or exceptional drought.

“During 2002 and 2003, there were several very significant droughts taking place that had a much greater areal coverage of the more severe and extreme drought categories,” Hayes said. “Right now we are seeing pockets of more severe drought, but it is spread out over different parts of the country. It’s early in the season, though. The potential development is something we will be watching.”

The U.S. Drought Monitor is a joint endeavor by the National Drought Mitigation Center at UNL, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and drought observers across the country.To examine the monitor’s current and archived national, regional and state-by-state drought maps and conditions, go to the monitor’s Web site.

New Facebook app detects pedophiles, criminals

Researchers have developed a new privacy solution for Facebook; the Social Privacy Protector (SPP), developed by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) undergraduate students, can help parents adjust their children’s profiles in one click, prevent criminals from gathering valuable personal information, and keep teens safe from pedophiles.

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) undergraduate students have developed a new privacy solution for Facebook. The Social Privacy Protector (SPP) can help parents adjust their children’s profiles in one click, prevent criminals from gathering valuable personal information, and keep teens safe from pedophiles.

An American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev release reports that the SPP app has multiple levels of protection, but the most important component reviews a user’s friends list in seconds to identify which have few or no mutual links and might be “fake” profiles. The app analyzes each friend and scores the “connectedness” of every friend. It flags the lowest scores as suspicious and asks whether the friend should be restricted from personal user information, but does not defriend them.

“An important feature of our app is the ability for parents to better protect their kids’ privacy with just one click instead of having to navigate the more complicated Facebook privacy settings,” Michael Fire, a Ph.D. candidate in BGU’s Department of Information Systems Engineering explains.

“While Facebook encourages connecting with as many people as possible, we advocate limiting users, and have, for the first time, provided an algorithm to scientifically determine who to remove from friend lists,” Fire adds. “Predators rely on people friending anyone, and with teens now allowed to have Facebook accounts, we believe that our solution can provide necessary protection for all users.”The SPP also notifies the user about the applications installed on their profile that could threaten his or her privacy.

Fire, working with Professor Yuval Elovici and undergraduate students Dima Kagan and Aviad Elishar of BGU’s Telekom Innovation Laboratories and Information Systems Engineering Department, developed the Facebook application and software based on their research on Facebook and social networks in general. The app was part of a final project for Kagan’s and Elishar’s bachelor’s degrees.

“Social media is an incredible phenomenon, but has significant pitfalls if used haphazardly, especially by teens,” explains Doron Krakow, executive vice president, American Associates, Ben-Gurion of the Negev (AABGU). “We’re very proud of the fact that at BGU even undergraduate students have the opportunity to work with top researchers and can devise such an important app that could protect millions of youth.”

The free software is available as a Facebook app for all browsers, and as an add-on for Firefox. The paper has been submitted for publication.

Source : http://armorbear.com