How the Common Core standardizes our kids’ education—and how it threatens our democracy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most controversial pieces of education policy to emerge in decades. Detailing what and when K–12 students should be taught, it has led to expensive reforms and displaced other valuable ways to educate children. In this nuanced and provocative book, Nicholas Tampio argues that, though national standards can raise the education bar for some students, the democratic costs outweigh the benefits. To make his case, Tampio describes the history, philosophy, content, and controversy surrounding the Common Core standards for English language arts and math. He also explains and critiques the Next Generation Science Standards, the Advanced Placement US History curriculum framework, and the National Sexuality Education Standards. Though each set of standards has admirable elements, Tampio asserts that democracies should disperse education authority rather than entrust one political or pedagogical faction to decide the country’s entire philosophy of education. Ultimately, this lively and accessible book presents a compelling case that the greater threat to democratic education comes from centralized government control rather than from local education authorities.

Carbon is the chemical scaffolding of life and civilization; indeed, the great cycle by which carbon moves through organisms, ground, water, and atmosphere has long been a kind of global respiration system that helps keep Earth in balance. And yet, when we hear the word today, it is more often than not in a crisis context. Journalist Roston evokes this essential element, from the Big Bang to modern civilization. Charting the science of carbon--how it was formed, how it came to Earth--he chronicles the often surprising ways mankind has used it over centuries, and the growing catastrophe of the industrial era, leading our current attempt to wrestle the Earth's geochemical cycle back from the brink. Blending the latest science with original reporting, Roston makes us aware of the seminal impact carbon has, and has had, on our lives.--From publisher description.

"... an engaging book that will empower readers in both large and small software development and engineering organizations to build security into their products. ... Readers are armed with firm solutions for the fight against cyber threats."—Dr. Dena Haritos Tsamitis. Carnegie Mellon University"... a must read for security specialists, software developers and software engineers. ... should be part of every security professional’s library." —Dr. Larry Ponemon, Ponemon Institute"... the definitive how-to guide for software security professionals. Dr. Ransome, Anmol Misra, and Brook Schoenfield deftly outline the procedures and policies needed to integrate real security into the software development process. ...A must-have for anyone on the front lines of the Cyber War ..." —Cedric Leighton, Colonel, USAF (Ret.), Cedric Leighton Associates"Dr. Ransome, Anmol Misra, and Brook Schoenfield give you a magic formula in this book - the methodology and process to build security into the entire software development life cycle so that the software is secured at the source! "—Eric S. Yuan, Zoom Video CommunicationsThere is much publicity regarding network security, but the real cyber Achilles’ heel is insecure software. Millions of software vulnerabilities create a cyber house of cards, in which we conduct our digital lives. In response, security people build ever more elaborate cyber fortresses to protect this vulnerable software. Despite their efforts, cyber fortifications consistently fail to protect our digital treasures. Why? The security industry has failed to engage fully with the creative, innovative people who write software. Core Software Security expounds developer-centric software security, a holistic process to engage creativity for security. As long as software is developed by humans, it requires the human element to fix it. Developer-centric security is not only feasible but also cost effective and operationally relevant. The methodology builds security into software development, which lies at the heart of our cyber infrastructure. Whatever development method is employed, software must be secured at the source. Book Highlights: Supplies a practitioner's view of the SDL Considers Agile as a security enabler Covers the privacy elements in an SDL Outlines a holistic business-savvy SDL framework that includes people, process, and technology Highlights the key success factors, deliverables, and metrics for each phase of the SDL Examines cost efficiencies, optimized performance, and organizational structure of a developer-centric software security program and PSIRT Includes a chapter by noted security architect Brook Schoenfield who shares his insights and experiences in applying the book’s SDL framework View the authors' website at http://www.androidinsecurity.com/

This two-volume set LNCS 12918 - 12919 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23nd International Conference on Information and Communications Security, ICICS 2021, held in Chongqing, China, in September 2021. The 49 revised full papers presented in the book were carefully selected from 182 submissions. The papers in Part I are organized in the following thematic blocks:​ blockchain and federated learning; malware analysis and detection; IoT security; software security; Internet security; data-driven cybersecurity.

Countering Cyber Sabotage: Introducing Consequence-Driven, Cyber-Informed Engineering (CCE) introduces a new methodology to help critical infrastructure owners, operators and their security practitioners make demonstrable improvements in securing their most important functions and processes. Current best practice approaches to cyber defense struggle to stop targeted attackers from creating potentially catastrophic results. From a national security perspective, it is not just the damage to the military, the economy, or essential critical infrastructure companies that is a concern. It is the cumulative, downstream effects from potential regional blackouts, military mission kills, transportation stoppages, water delivery or treatment issues, and so on. CCE is a validation that engineering first principles can be applied to the most important cybersecurity challenges and in so doing, protect organizations in ways current approaches do not. The most pressing threat is cyber-enabled sabotage, and CCE begins with the assumption that well-resourced, adaptive adversaries are already in and have been for some time, undetected and perhaps undetectable. Chapter 1 recaps the current and near-future states of digital technologies in critical infrastructure and the implications of our near-total dependence on them. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the origins of the methodology and set the stage for the more in-depth examination that follows. Chapter 4 describes how to prepare for an engagement, and chapters 5-8 address each of the four phases. The CCE phase chapters take the reader on a more granular walkthrough of the methodology with examples from the field, phase objectives, and the steps to take in each phase. Concluding chapter 9 covers training options and looks towards a future where these concepts are scaled more broadly.

Busby explains how climate change can affect security outcomes, including violent conflict and humanitarian emergencies. Through case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, the book develops a novel argument explaining why climate change leads to especially bad security outcomes in some places but not in others.

Threat modeling is one of the most essential--and most misunderstood--parts of the development lifecycle. Whether you're a security practitioner or a member of a development team, this book will help you gain a better understanding of how you can apply core threat modeling concepts to your practice to protect your systems against threats. Contrary to popular belief, threat modeling doesn't require advanced security knowledge to initiate or a Herculean effort to sustain. But it is critical for spotting and addressing potential concerns in a cost-effective way before the code's written--and before it's too late to find a solution. Authors Izar Tarandach and Matthew Coles walk you through various ways to approach and execute threat modeling in your organization. Explore fundamental properties and mechanisms for securing data and system functionality Understand the relationship between security, privacy, and safety Identify key characteristics for assessing system security Get an in-depth review of popular and specialized techniques for modeling and analyzing your systems View the future of threat modeling and Agile development methodologies, including DevOps automation Find answers to frequently asked questions, including how to avoid common threat modeling pitfalls