Technology and security intersect at campuses on the campaign trail

Here's a leftover from last month, four stories about technology and security, both personal and national, from campuses on the campaign trail that I originally included in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (LADEE launched) and Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (IgNobel Prizes) on Daily Kos.

Virginia Tech gets the honor of going first, as Virginia Tech creates Global Forum on Urban and Regional Resilience to better prepare for natural disasters.

Virginia Tech has announced a presidential initiative, the Global Forum on Urban and Regional Resilience, to bridge public policy and practice in the broad domain of community resiliency.

“We live in an interconnected and complicated world. This initiative aims to foster interaction among varied disciplines that contribute to global understanding of resilient communities,” said Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger.

In concert with the most recent university strategic plan that calls for expansion of work in the realm of interdisciplinary and translational research, the new group will serve as an information nexus for organizations around the globe looking at disaster response and recovery, critical infrastructure, and urbanization.

I thought this story should go first because of its commentction to Floods in Colorado from ABC News and University of Colorado, which has jumped from 841 page views to 939 page views to become the second most read entry in this blog's history.

Follow over the jump for stories about more conventional aspects of security and technology.

Virginia Tech: Virginia Tech and partner universities to study problems in broadband wireless access and security
Sept. 4, 2013

Virginia Tech is part of a five university member group being funded by the National Science Foundation to expand access to and security of the nation’s broadband wireless network. The university consortium will work with private industry as it carries out research.

The consortium is the latest effort of the Virginia Tech College of Engineering as it remains a leading national research institute of wireless technologies and cyber security, critical to the nation’s economy and security.

Virginia Tech will receive $300,000 during a five-year period for its research efforts in the public/private consortium known as the Broadband Wireless Access & Applications Center, or BWAC for short. Joining Virginia Tech in the consortium are Auburn University, Notre Dame University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Virginia.

Auburn University: NSA names Auburn University a center of excellence in cyber operations
September 6, 2013

Auburn University is one of four universities selected by the National Security Agency to carry the designation of a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations. Joining Auburn are Carnegie Mellon University, Mississippi State University and the Air Force Institute of Technology.

The program is designed to cultivate more U.S. cyber professionals in an ever-changing global environment.

“Auburn has devoted significant resources and interdisciplinary rigor across campus to expand new cyber initiatives and extensive collaboration with external organizations,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ron Burgess, senior counsel for national security programs, cyber programs and military affairs at Auburn.

Wayne State University: International legal scholar to give free lecture on drone attacks Sept. 23 at Wayne Law
September 13, 2013

DETROIT - International human rights law as it applies to U.S. use of armed drones attacking targets in Pakistan and beyond will be the topic of a lecture Monday, Sept. 23, at Wayne State University Law School.

Wayne Law's Program for International Legal Studies is sponsoring the free lecture, "International Law and Drone Attacks Beyond Armed Conflict Zones," by Professor Mary Ellen O'Connell of the University of Notre Dame Law School. The event will be from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in the law school's Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium, 471 W. Palmer St., and lunch will be provided. Parking is available for $6.50 in the structure across Palmer Street from Wayne Law.
...
"Professor O'Connell will address the United States' use of drones outside 'hot' battlefields," said Wayne Law Professor Gregory Fox, director of the Program for International Legal Studies. "Drones would be entirely uncontroversial if they were just another weapon used by the United States in an ongoing armed conflict. But in many of the places where drones are used, there is no armed conflict. One way to look at the drone attacks in such situations, therefore, is as extra-judicial killings, which are profoundly condemned by international human rights law."

I'll be back later, probably with more on the effects of the federal government shutdown.  Stay tuned.