Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

H.R. McMaster Joins Board of Zoom as Security Concerns Plague China-Linked App

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats Cyber Security

Comments: 0

Retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, the former National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump, has joined the board of Zoom, the video conferencing platform that has been plagued by security issues and concerns about communist China.

Usage on the platform has skyrocketed since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdowns, with hundreds of millions around the world now using the platform to conduct meetings. The platform’s users jumped twentyfold in the first quarter of 2020, from 10 million in December to 200 million by the end of the first quarter.

However, Zoom’s rapid rise has brought with it heightened scrutiny, particularly around the platform’s security vulnerabilities.

A former NSA hacker discovered that hackers can use Zoom to secretly record users via their webcams and microphones. In March, the New York Attorney General sent a letter to Zoom expressing concern about the platform’s privacy protections. And Google has banned the app from its employees’ computers over security worries.

Zoom’s links to China are also under scrutiny. Members of the U.K. Parliament, who have been using Zoom to conduct official business, have been warned not to use the platform to discuss confidential matters, over concerns that Chinese spies may be listening in.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued similar warnings, alleging that the app’s Chinese workforce could spy on behalf of Beijing. In April, Zoom admitted that some of its users’ video calls had been routed through China without their knowledge.

H.R. McMaster joined the Trump administration as National Security Adviser in 2017, and left the post a year later in 2018. A favorite of the Democrat-supporting media, McMaster’s tenure was marked by successive reports of his anti-Trump views, with one report suggesting that the retired general privately said that the President has the intelligence of a “kindergartner.”

McMaster is also a board member of the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy establishment think-tank that is helping Facebook meddle in elections around the world.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Link: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/06/h-r-mcmaster-joins-board-of-security-plagued-zoom/

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