Insider knowledge about a complex technical system, coupled with access to its elements, has the potential to be used for triggering the most disastrous of terrorist attacks. Technological terrorism is the unauthorized impact on a complex technical system with the intention of breaking down its protection and initiating secondary catastrophic processes to cause damage and loss outside the facility. Intelligent terrorism, on the other hand, is the unauthorized purposeful interference in the processes of design, construction or maintenance of a complex technical system, and is either aimed at increasing existing vulnerabilities or creating new ones. This book is based on the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on ‘Comparative Analysis of Technological and Intelligence Terrorism Impacts on Complex Technical Systems’. It lays the foundation for a risk-informed approach to modeling, analyzing, managing and controlling complex technical systems in the face of terrorist attacks. To formulate such an approach, it is necessary to combine the insights of a spectrum of disciplines across engineering, human and social sciences, and economics. The book explains how an understanding of the vulnerabilities of complex technical systems to terrorist attack can reduce these vulnerabilities and contain or limit the impact of terrorism, and also the way in which such an understanding is crucial to the development of a set of design criteria and codes which will take such vulnerabilities into account. The book also identifies areas of further research and opportunities for future exchange and collaboration.

This book is intended for systems analysts, designers, developers, users, experts, as well as those involved in quality, risk, safety and security management, and, of course, scientists and students. The various sets of original and traditional probabilistic models and interesting results of their applications to the research of different systems are presented. The models are understandable and applicable for solving system engineering problems: to optimize system requirements, compare different processes, rationale technical decisions, carry out tests, adjust technological parameters, and predict and analyze quality and risks. The engineering decisions, scientifically proven by the proposed models and software tools, can provide purposeful, essential improvement of quality and mitigation of risks, and reduce the expense of operating systems. Models, methods, and software tools can also be used in education for system analysis and mathematical modeling on specializations, for example "systems engineering," "operations research," "enterprise management," "project management," "risk management," "quality of systems," "safety and security," "smart systems," "system of systems," etc.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

This volume presents the papers and summarizes the discussions of a workshop held in Goa, India, in January 2004, organized by the Indian National Institute of Advanced Science (NIAS) and the U.S. Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC). During the workshop, Indian and U.S. experts examined the terrorist threat faced in both countries and elsewhere in the world, and explored opportunities for the U.S. and India to work together. Bringing together scientists and experts with common scientific and technical backgrounds from different cultures provided a unique opportunity to explore possible means of preventing or mitigating future terrorist attacks.

All U.S. agencies with counterterrorism programs that collect or "mine" personal data-such as phone records or Web sites visited-should be required to evaluate the programs' effectiveness, lawfulness, and impacts on privacy. A framework is offered that agencies can use to evaluate such information-based programs, both classified and unclassified. The book urges Congress to re-examine existing privacy law to assess how privacy can be protected in current and future programs and recommends that any individuals harmed by violations of privacy be given a meaningful form of redress. Two specific technologies are examined: data mining and behavioral surveillance. Regarding data mining, the book concludes that although these methods have been useful in the private sector for spotting consumer fraud, they are less helpful for counterterrorism because so little is known about what patterns indicate terrorist activity. Regarding behavioral surveillance in a counterterrorist context, the book concludes that although research and development on certain aspects of this topic are warranted, there is no scientific consensus on whether these techniques are ready for operational use at all in counterterrorism.

This report describes many ways in which science and engineering can contribute to making the nation safer against the threat of catastrophic terrorism. The report identifies key actions that can be undertaken now, based on knowledge and technologies in hand, and, equally important, describes key opportunities for reducing current and future risks through longer-term research and development activities.