The Price of Anything Videos

Henry David Thoreau once said, "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." Several organizations have banded together and produced a series of short videos about humanitarian safety and security using this quote as a theme. The advocacy videos are quite good, and if you've been around the NGO community for a while, you'll recognize a number of familiar names and faces from the security side of the house. Highly recommended for any safety and security practitioner and even more so for senior, middle, and line management to get a better sense of what safety and security is all about. Links to the YouTube videos can be found at the Security Management Initiative Web site. (SMI also hosts a wealth of other security-related documents you'll likely find interesting.)

Password Security

Ars Technica has an excellent article on the state of password security. It used to be that if you had a password with a mix of lower and upper case letters that was at least eight or nine characters long you were pretty secure. However over the past several years, the art and science of password cracking has changed considerably. The bottom line is you and your organization may be more at risk than you think. If your passwords aren't at least 13 characters long, you're not using randomly generated passwords for sensitive accounts and information, and you don't know what KeePass or Password Safe are, be sure to read the article.

Online Security for Human Rights Workers

Wired has a nice, non-technical piece on the challenges of providing effective online security for those involved in human rights work.

Haqqani Network Financing

NGO security practitioners serving organizations operating in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan will find the Haqqani Network Financing research report a fascinating and useful read. Released yesterday by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, the comprehensive report contains sections on kidnapping, extortion and other funding practices. Very timely and relevant in getting a better understanding of how this powerful group currently thinks and operates.