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This October will mark the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, the “superstorm” that slammed into the East Coast and wreaked record-setting havoc on parts of New York and New Jersey. Six years later, city planners in New York are still struggling with an uncomfortable truth: many climate models point to rising sea levels and more intense, more frequent storms in the region. How long will it really be before another “storm of the century” hits New York?

Robert Laga, a program manager at New York City Transit, isn’t waiting to find out what another storm like Sandy does to the city. He remembers the first vividly enough.

“A day or two after the storm, I went down to the Rockaways, because we were doing some work down there,” he said in a recent interview with The Verge. “And I saw boats in the middle of the street. Then I knew how bad this storm was.”

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Laga and his team have the daunting task of keeping New York City’s massive subway system dry in the event of another cataclysmic storm. In June, The Verge sent a video team to follow Laga as he showed off some of the MTA’s most impressive pieces of anti-hurricane hardware. The gear makes subway stations look as though they’re prepared for battle and, in a way, they are: in some places the MTA is bracing for 14-foot storm surges.

Watch the video above to see how New York is preparing for the next superstorm — and whether the city will be ready.

Finland is known for its picturesque winters, its world-class education system, and its capital, Helsinki, which routinely tops global lists of the world’s most liveable cities.

But it also has a fragile history. The tiny European nation shares a long border with Russia, and despite celebrating a century of independence, the threat of its larger neighbor constantly looms in the background.

Finland has an ongoing policy of political neutrality and was recently ranked as the world’s happiest country. But it’s always prepared for war.

How Finland has prepared for outside attacks

Deep beneath the streets of Helsinki lies an elaborate network of tunnels and caverns capable of housing the city’s entire population of 640,000.

The bunker is equipped with food, bedding, medical facilities, and even an underground ice skating rink, the Australian Broadcasting Company reported.

Many of the areas are for public use, including parking lots, swimming pools, children’s playgrounds and shopping malls. In the winter, residents use them to escape the freezing climate.

But if a fierce conflict was to break out, these shelters could house people underground for up to two weeks.

According to the public broadcaster, it will hold 240 bathrooms and a specific area where people can shower if they’ve been contaminated during a chemical attack.

Experts say Russia is the only real threat to the smaller country, and the only reason these bunkers might be used for their intended purpose.

The Finnish capital is located around 155 miles from the Russian border.

Why Finland is suspicious of Russia

Finland was officially declared independent of Russia just over a century ago, but it remains a potential target for its neighbor.

The smaller country had struggled for more than 100 years to assert its independence from Moscow, before the Finnish Declaration of Independence was finally signed in 1917.

The two countries have long shared a border, and Finland has suffered a history of invasion by Russia.

Their relationship inspired an actual term called “Finlandization” — the process of being obliged to accept the interests of a more powerful neighboring country, in order to keep its independence and own political system.

There’s been a lot of discussion around the prospective outbreak of war recently.

Last week, Donald Trump suggested the US could be drawn into a major global conflict with Russia if it had to defend a smaller country that it’s obligated to protect under NATO, like Montenegro.

If Russia was to go to war with the west, Finland — as its closest neighbor — would be in a vulnerable position.

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As our country struggles to piece together what happened in the 2016 election, the harsh reality is that the 2020 campaign is already under attack. Russia continues to hack, probe, and meddle and they’re not going to quit anytime soon.

And here’s something even more sobering to consider: our elected officials are not up the task to stop it.

The President has sided with Vladimir Putin. His enablers in Congress are too frightened of a presidential Twitter lashing to push back, and the rest of the federal government, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, are focused on intelligence gathering and reactionary investigations.

Those running for office have been left on their own when it comes to combating foreign nation-state attacks, which are happening every single day in the form of phishing scams, DDOS attacks, network probes, social engineering schemes, and brute force intrusions. Indeed, on Thursday, Microsoft’s VP of Customer Security said the company had already intercepted attacks on three high-profile 2018 candidates that had been launched by the same Russian group that hacked the DNC.

For those running for office—or, even, with designs to do so down the road—let me state in unequivocal terms that the time to start prepping is now. Having served as the Chief Information Officer of the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, along with 15 years in the field, I am acutely aware of what happens when that prep work comes too late.

The most important step is to change IT security culture—or, in many cases, create one. It’s a way of thinking that must be practiced from the campaign manager down to the volunteers, along with a commitment to doing so in a smart way, so people can still function in their fast-paced, transient, high-pressure jobs.

IT Security is complicated, I know. But so is legal work, accounting, polling, compliance, and ad buying. Campaigns budget for those necessary services. And yet, they too often are frugal when it comes to engaging with IT security experts who can tell them what to do and how to stay out of trouble. After all, if you don’t know what to ask, or even what the threats are, what chance does your campaign stand against a nation-state hacking group?

The good news is that at the top level, major campaign committees like the DNC, DCCC, and DSCC are working to change the culture by investing millions of dollars into combating foreign attacks. The DNC installed a formidable CTO previously at Twitter and Uber, Raffi Krikorian, and added former Yahoo executive Bob Lord as Chief Security Officer. Both come from companies that are on the front lines of cyber attacks. They understand that IT security is not a piece of hardware you plug in or some software you install, but a holistic effort across an organization.

But the big organizations can’t be all that we worry about. Smaller and mid-tier campaigns are still falling short of the commitment needed. Worse, some still don’t recognize the seriousness of the problem. Many don’t even know where to begin.

Security and expertise costs money, and many campaigns—especially those that are just coming together, including prospective 2020 candidates—aren’t yet committed to funding these new needs.

Some folks might say, “Well, my campaign doesn’t have any interesting documents or data.” And they may be right!

But what they do have are people, and people who start on small campaigns end up working on larger campaigns later. If those people are compromised by lax security early on, they can unwittingly bring those compromised accounts and devices with them, compound the problem, and perpetuate the cycle. As the most recent Mueller indictment outlined, the DNC was compromised through a DCCC staffer’s account, who provided Russian actors an end-run around DNC security.

Finally, candidates, high profile surrogates, and staff need to take responsibility for all their personal accounts and devices. Everything you touch needs to be secured. The weakest link can create a cascading effect that leads to your private emails plastered across the Internet.  

Do the Russians really care what you’re watching on Netflix? Probably not. But they do care about the billing address you have stored there and the answers to your security questions they can see once they’ve logged in. A single compromised account may not seem like a lot. But taken in aggregate, an attacker can build a profile over time to compromise more sensitive accounts like your email, iCloud, or Dropbox.

The most powerful tool in a hacker’s arsenal, in the end, is human error. And the best way to guard against human error is to start thinking critically about these issues now, before they became major problems down the road.

Campaigns need to recognize what’s at stake, or 2020 will turn into the Wild Wild West where Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea throw everything they have at attacking our democracy. After all, these countries know the current U.S. President may end up siding with them.

by Steve Pfarrer

Half-Witch

By John Schoffstall

Big Mouth Press/Small Beer Press

johnschoffstall.com

In an alternative medieval Europe, where God talks directly to people and goblins and witches have their place in the world, 14-year-Lizbet has a big problem. Her magician father, Gerhard, a chronic screw-up whose career has been “one magical mishap after another,” has been jailed in the kingdom of Abalia after his spell to produce a rain of gold for the country’s ruler instead calls down a plague of mice.

Gerhard tries to make amends as soldiers arrest him. “I could try and cast a rain of cats,” he suggests. “That might help.”

That’s a good example of the wry, slightly absurdist tone of John Schoffstall’s “Half-Witch,” a picaresque fantasy novel for young adults that’s built around the budding relationship between Lizbet and Strix, a surly young witch of about the same age. She has been assigned to take Lizbet over the forbidding Montagnes du Monde to find a book of magic, which might help free Gerhard from prison.

“Half-Witch,” published by Big Mouth Press, an imprint of Easthampton’s Small Beer Press, is the first novel by Schoffstall, a Pennsylvania writer and former physician who has previously published short fiction in a number of fantasy and science fiction publications.

With “Half-Witch,” Schoffstall has fun re-imagining Europe during the era of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the dominating force of religion in people’s lives. Lizbet, for one, has an up-and-down relationship with God, who seems an amiable sort and offers promises to Lizbet when he talks with her that never seem to be realized.

Lizbet also has a contentious relationship at first with the sarcastic Strix, who is made out of sticks and leaves, as brown as Lizbet is fair (“a thin, pale girl on whom adults always felt they had to urge second helpings”), and as ornery and sullen as Lizbet is kind-hearted and determined. “I hate mortals. I hate them with a passion!” says Strix early in the book.

Yet on their journey through the Montagnes du Monde, the two must come to trust and care for each other as they face mounting dangers. There’s an additional problem: Strix’s magic is turning Lizbet into a witch herself, something she hadn’t bargained for. 

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“Injury to the body represents not just pain, disfigurement or disability, but a damage to our image of our self on a metaphysical or ontological level,” he says. “This profound unease with physical injury is something with immense emotional resonance in many people, and something I want to tap into.”

Kirkus Reviews calls “Half-Witch” a tale of “powerful female friendships and sui generis whimsy” that offers “a climax that’s genuinely thrilling, unexpectedly poignant, and oddly reverent. As Lizbet and Strix together realize their individual identities and agency, even greater joint adventures beckon.”

PREPPING 101: 40 STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TO BE PREPARED

By Kathy Harrison

Storey Publishing

storey.com

Cummington author Kathy Harrison, who’s previously written about her experience of being a foster parent, has also tackled the issue of how families can prepare to meet serious emergencies — the kind that come when the electricity goes off, supermarket shelves empty, and self-sufficiency becomes vitally important.

In “Prepping 101,” by Storey Publishing of North Adams, Harrison lays out a basic primer for preparing for emergencies, extensive or otherwise. From learning how to preserve food and purify water to designing a successful garden and protecting your property, Harrison provides tips for dealing with weather-related disasters, in particular.

For example, she provides a list of essential non-power tools for effecting home repairs: a tape measure, T-square, pipe wrench, hammer, pump pliers and caulk, to name a few items. Equally important, she writes, are things like lanterns, camp stoves, water filters, emergency radios and lots and lots of batteries.

Harrison, who has written on this topic before, says events over the last 17-odd years — 9/11, the 2008 global recession, devastating hurricanes, climate change and the possibility of pandemics — have convinced her it’s unrealistic to think the government is equipped to handle extensive crises. Individual preparation, as well as coordination with neighbors and community organizations like CSAs, will be key during emergencies, she writes.

“I’m not suggesting you build a bunker … or cash in the college fund to purchase a year’s supply of freeze-dried food. You won’t be a wilderness survival expert after reading this book … I do suggest you spend some time thinking about your home and community systems and assessing how you can make them more resilient should you have to live through an extended power outage or be unable to leave your home due to a security crisis.”

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazetttenet.com.

  

The emphasis on school security across the nation based on recent and not so recent events has not left Carbon School District untouched.

This summer the district is implementing not only new protocols for building security but also constructing new types of physical security measures to protect students, staff and the public from possible violent acts.

In addition the district participated with law enforcement agencies and Castleview Hospital on a drill at Carbon High School on June 21 as a follow up to the active shooter drill that was conducted on campus during class hours this past spring.

“We have a continuing effort to train  and coordinate with local law enforcement and health care in the area so that we are prepared,” said Carbon School District Security Supervisor Ken Labrum. “Everyone wants to train so they can be ready. In this drill the hospital was widely involved so they could see what they would need to do to respond and proceed in the case of an emergency in one of our schools.”

Labrum said that the drill was quite real, with not only shooters involved but casualties as well; hospital staff learned details that would help them in such an emergency, too.

The shooter drill began early in the morning of June 21 as members of the cross country team came to the high school as volunteers to be “victims” of a shooter.

They spent some time learning about how they needed to act and what to do before makeup artists put on some finishing touches to make the drill seem more real. In the end a lot of lessons were learned and officials walked away better prepared than before they started.

“We appreciate everyone who was involved in the drill from the peace officers, to the medical staff to the students who volunteered,” he said.

While the drills are important and timely, so are some of the physical changes that are taking place at many schools across the district this summer. From the Lighthouse High School to Helper Middle School things are changing so that buildings can be made more secure.

“The changes in the entry ways to the Lighthouse is similar to what we are doing at Helper Middle School,” stated Labrum. “We are creating access control to many of the buildings, so that no one has direct entry into a school building without someone either buzzing them in or knowing about it.”

Lighthouse High School is probably seeing the most changes as the front entrance of the school is being moved entirely. An access control vestibule is being put in and that entire part of the building is being remodeled.

Another control factor that is coming into play is that key cores to outside doors through much of the district are being removed. This is so the doors cannot be accessed from the outside even with a regular key. All doors are going to be converted to electronic mechanisms that can only be manipulated with an access card.

“At this point we still will have keyed entrances on the inside of buildings,” said Labrum. However that could change someday. The new controls that are now in place and will be in place in some buildings will keep someone from getting into more than the front office.

“Castle Heights is a good example,” said Labrum. “The doors to the halls and to the kindergarten area can only be opened from the office.”

Since Castle Heights, Creekview and Wellington are sister buildings, they all displayed a perplexing security problem until recently. The kindergarten rooms in all the schools are right off the main lobby. Now they are protected by access doors. And Sally Mauro, after the remodeling of the office area last year, has also been secured so no one can enter without going through the office area.

Some people have suggested that all schools have a police officer in them for protection. However a police presence in all the schools is financially not viable at this time. At a recent Price City Council meeting an additional School Resource Officer position was approved so that now there will be two from the Price City Police Department, one at Mont Harmon and the other at Carbon High.

“We will continue to improve our security as we go along,” said Labrum.

“We continue to look for new ways to make the schools safer for everyone.”

Retailing giant Walmart is mulling a move into the subscription VOD business — to take on the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, according to a published report.

According to a report by The Information, citing anonymous sources, Walmart is contemplating introducing a streaming-video product with price point of $8 per month as well as launching a free, ad-supported video service.

Walmart reps didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Execs for Walmart see an opportunity to undercut Netflix and Amazon Prime Video with the $8 price point, according to The Information. (Netflix’s standard HD plan is currently $10.99 monthly.) But the report had no details on what kind of TV shows, movies or other programming might be available in a Walmart SVOD service.

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Netflix and Amazon “are seen as more popular with people on the East and West Coasts of the U.S.,” according to a source cited by The Information. Walmart believes there’s an opportunity to roll out a cheaper service for consumers “in the middle of America,” per the report.

Walmart already has its foot in the digital-entertainment door. In 2010, it acquired movie-streaming service Vudu, which offers a collection of several thousand titles to buy or rent, including in Ultra HD and Vudu’s proprietary HDX format. Two years ago, Vudu launched a free streaming service, “Movies On Us,” which is ad-supported.

Walmart may decide to not go forward with the launch of a streaming service, The Information report added.

Separately Tuesday, Walmart announced a five-year pact with Microsoft under which the retailer will standardize on Microsoft’s cloud solutions. That will include Walmart migrating a “significant portion” of its walmart.com and samsclub.com websites to the Microsoft Azure cloud-computing platform.

At its first training camp since qualifying for the 2018 U-17 Women’s World Cup, Coach Mark Carr  has called in 18 players who weren’t part of his Concacaf championship-winning
team.

“Obviously, we are very
excited to be at the NDC in Kansas City,” said Carr in a press release. “It will be inspiring for our young players, and it will set the standard as we start to build and prepare for the
U-17 FIFA World Cup. After qualifying, we wanted to make sure that we looked at the whole U-17 WNT pool again and reward top performers in both the Development Academy and in our younger girls’
national teams.

“We’ve evaluated everyone individually and determined which players needed more programming and who needed a bit of a break. It has been an intensive period for all
national team players coming off the club season and World Cup qualifying, and with the injuries we’ve suffered and the schedule ahead, it’s important to open up the pool now, and then
narrow it once again as we get closer to the World Cup.”

Ten of the 28 players at the July 12-22 training camp at the new U.S. Soccer National Development Center in Kansas City were part
of the USA’s first-place team in June at the Concacaf U-17 Championship, from which the USA, Mexico and Canada qualified for the 2018 U-17 Women’s World Cup in Uruguay Nov. 13-Dec. 1.

• Defender Kate Wiesner has been ruled out of the World Cup after suffering a serious knee injury while playing for the LAFC Slammers during the U-18/U-19 Development
Academy final.

• Players born after in 2001 or later are eligible for this year’s U-17 World Cup. Carr’s roster is comprised of 20 2001s, five 2002s, and three 15-year-olds born in
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• The USA faces Cameroon, defending champion North Korea, and Germany in group play at the 2018 U-17 World Cup.

U-17 girls
national team
GOALKEEPERS (4): Rachael Black (SC del Sol; Phoenix, Ariz.), Julia Dohle (New York City FC; Scarsdale, N.Y.), Halle Mackiewicz (Real Colorado;
Broomfield, Colo.), Lindsey Romig (IMG Academy; Midlothian, Va.).
DEFENDERS (11): Michela Agresti (FC Stars of Mass.; Swampscott, Mass.), Talia DellaPeruta (NTH Tophat;
Cumming, Ga.), Samar Guidry (FC Dallas; McKinney, Tex.), Tori Hansen (NC Courage Academy; Raleigh, N.C.), Madison Haugen (Concorde Fire SC; Cumming, Ga.), Smith Hunter (Seattle Reign; Seattle, Wash.),
Makenna Morris (Bethesda SC; Germantown, Md.), Kellie Pagador (Placer United; Roseville, Calif.), Nicole Payne (Concorde Fire FC; Birmingham, Ala.), Kennedy Wesley (So Cal Blues; Rossmoor, Calif.),
Lawson Willis ( Colorado Rush; Centennial; Colo.).
MIDFIELDERS (7): Hannah Bebar (Eclipse Select; Naperville, Ill.), Isabella Cook (Eclipse Select; Elmhurst, Ill.), Maya Doms
(Davis Legacy; Davis, Calif.), Madison Mercado (San Diego Surf; San Diego, Calif.), Alexis Missimo (Solar Chelsea; Southlake, Tex.), Jadyn Shinn (San Jose Earthquakes; Manteca, Calif.), Ellis Wheeler
(FC Virginia; Fairfax Station, Va.).
FORWARDS (6): Trinity Byars (Solar SC; Richardson, Tex.), Isabella D’Aquila (So Cal Blues; Mission Viejo), Mia Fontana (San Jose
Earthquakes; Burlingame, Calif.), Diana Ordonez (FC Dallas; Prosper, Tex.), Trinity Rodman (So Cal Blues; Laguna Niguel), Taeya Schueppert (Real Colorado; Highlands Ranch, Colo.).

For decades, former secretary of state and White House chief of staff James Baker has touted his version of a salty military catchphrase as a good-government mantra: “Prior preparation prevents poor performance.”

That doesn’t necessarily apply to intelligence; even exquisite inputs from the CIA and other spy agencies cannot guarantee that policymakers will perform well at high-stakes events like summits. A whispered maxim in CIA is, “You can lead a policymaker to intelligence but you can’t make him think.”

Yet intelligence should be a part of every step of planning and executing meetings between US leaders and their counterparts—from the first inklings of a summit to the face-to-face session itself—to raise the odds of achieving favorable outcomes.

This is Cipher Brief Level I Member Only content. It can be accessed via login or by signing up to become a Cipher Brief Member.​

Cipher Brief Members engage in high-level conversations about national and global security issues every day. If you’re not already a member, you should be.

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