** UPDATE: Berkeley to Lead $19m Cybersecurity Research Gig ** 9 Iraqi Policemen Killed Trying to Defuse a Bomb; Security Spending Initiates Disputes; Concerns Over ID Theft Mount

Berkeley to Lead $19m Cybersecurity Research Gig

The University of California at Berkeley will lead a group of eight universities in a $19 million government-funded cybersecurity research project. According to The Register, the National Science Foundation tabbed Berkeley for the lead role in the Team for Research in Ubiquitious Secure Technology (TRUST). Other universities on the project are Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Mills College, San Jose State University, Smith College, Stanford University and Vanderbilt University. Said S.Shankar Sastry, TRUST center director, “The cybersecurity community has long feared that it would take an electronic Pearl Harbor for people to realize the scale of disruptions possible from a concerted attack by terrorists.” The Berkeley campus has come under scrutiny recently for the theft of a laptop there that contained personal data of nearly 100,000 people.

For more details, read the full article in The Register

9 Iraqi Policemen Killed Trying to Defuse a Bomb

Nine Iraqi policemen were killed Wednesday as they tried to defuse a bomb. According to a report in The New York Times, the bomb wounded three others when it exploded under an oil pipeline north of Kirkuk. In other attacks Wednesday, insurgents attacked a car in the southern part of the city. Gen. Naji Saub Hussein and his driver were wounded. The attacks coincide with the arrival of Robert B. Zoellick, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s top deputy, who will visit Fallujah today.

For more details, read the full article in The New York Times. (Registration required.)

Security Spending Initiates Disputes

Two congressional committees are meeting this week to discuss the allocation of homeland security funds and answer the question, Why does the government spend more homeland defense dollars per capita in Wyoming ($37.74) than New York ($5.41)? The Washington Post reports that the problem arises from a provision inserted into every homeland security bill since 9/11. Namely, that every state gets at least three-quarters of a percentage point of the funds from several of the largest homeland security grants. “We need to put the nation’s interests ahead of any parochial interests,” said Daniel J. Kaniewski, deputy director of George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute. “Parochial interests are what we’re seeing this week as the Congress takes up this debate.”

For more details, read the full article in the Washington Post. (Registration required.)

Concerns Over ID Theft Mount

Tuesday was a red-letter day in the privacy struggle as LexisNexis announced that an earlier breach was 10 times more severe that previously thought and GM MasterCard moved to replace credit cards of customers affected by a breach at an unidentified national retailer. GM sent letters to customers last week notifying them of the breach. The Boston Globe obtained one of those letters, but neither GM nor Houshold Bank, which issues the GM card, would comment Tuesday. According to the Globe Accurint, which was acquired by LexisNexis as part of its purchase of Seisint last year, routinely offered customers access to names, addresses, birthdates, phone numbers and even Social Security numbers of Americans. In an e-mailed response to written questions submitted by the Globe last year, Keith Kuehn, Seisint’s chief marketing officer, said: ”Seisint provides access only to commercial organizations in good standing in their respective industries and for permissible uses.” Kuehn added that eligible clients include law enforcement officials, government agencies, banks, collection agencies, some private investigators, and some ”general businesses.”

For more details, read the full article in the Boston Globe.