Bet you thought that some of those academic papers you’ve been attempting to read were gibberish. Well, maybe some of them actually were. Bruce Schneier cites a Nature report that the publishers Springer and, heaven forbid, IEEE, are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services. That’s after a French researcher “discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense.”

Security pros should be mindful that there’s a software program called SCIgen that “randomly combines strings of words to produce fake computer-science papers. SCIgen was invented in 2005 by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge to prove that conferences would accept meaningless papers – and, as they put it, ‘to maximize amusement.’” Well, there’s nothing funny about demonstrating how eminently useless crudely wrought writing can be.

The breakthrough design of PRO Barrier’s Arrestor barrier is illustrated in a video posted by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), in which a 15,000-ton truck traveling at 50 miles and hour is stopped dead by an Arrestor’s elastic bands.

There was no “breakthrough,” by the truck itself. It imploded upon hitting the aesthetically-pleasing blue, electric-powered barrier that could be readily raised and lowered before it was subjected to this test demonstration. Dr. Tom Potter’s vision of an attractive-looking vehicle barrier that can, nevertheless, stop an attacking truck was realized. (While the truck couldn’t be replaced, though, the barrier could.) PRO Barrier’s Arrestors are now in place at sensitive facilities around the world, and the NFIB has taken note of them.

Bruce Schneier has done us all a great service by running a blog post on how website passwords are cracked and, thereby, how to increase the chances that yours won’t be. This one rates printing out and saving.

“There’s still one (password concoction) scheme that works,” Schneier writes. Find out what it is. It takes a lot of guts, along with knowledgeability, for Schneier to write a post like this one. Yet the stakes are the web’s security.

Neiman Marcus has acknowledged that computer hackers in the retailer’s computer network “were able to move around unhindered for more than three months,” not because the chain was careless, but because the hackers were pretty smart.

Their actions “constantly tripped hundreds of alarms that were not detected by the Dallas-based retailer,” Blumberg Businessweek and NakedSecurity report. “The reason for this, according to Neiman Marcus spokeswoman Ginger Reeder, was that the hackers named their software in such a way that it appeared to be part of the company’s payment software, thereby ensuring that alerts would not stand out amongst the huge amount of data being reviewed by the firm’s security team.”

The NakedSecurity post has more information on this episode in the seemingly escalating computer security wars.

Ever wonder where credit cards come from, that is, how they’re produced and provided? The question arises in the wake of the recent Target stores security breach, and is answered in a Krebs on Security blog post today, Feb. 25, 2014.

The post provides guidance on credit cards in the wake of the Target breach during last year’s holiday shopping season. It’s interesting, pertinent reading for security-minded folks, as we all surely are.

What are the connections between security, protecting the environment and recycling? Strong, because humans, notes the Advanced Perimeter Systems Blog, are using up natural resources at an annual rate half again as fast as what the earth naturally provides. Thus scrap materials of all kinds, their value increasing, are subject to theft if “junk yard” security systems aren’t strong.

Scrap metal, for example, is in high demand. “The biggest target for metal theft,” we’re advised, “is without doubt scrap yards where everything from wrecked cars to old bicycles, old garden benches to exercise machines is dumped and collected for recycling.

“Scrap yard security is therefore a big concern with yard owners asking if their current system is effective enough.”

Electric fences and remote monitoring are listed as prime components of a scrapyard security plan. We’d add, of course, deterrents for unauthorized vehicles at the entrances.

There’s a lot to wrap your head around here, but the Federal Government is making an apparently earnest effort to coordinate and connect cybersecurity resources with the aim of protecting the nation’s critical energy and communication structures. The Department of Homeland Security calls it the Cyber Community C³ Voluntary Program.

You can check DHS’ thinking and process out here, on their Homeland Security website.

Meet Jeh Johnson, the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. After seven weeks on the job, Secretary Johnson delivered his first major address at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C. You can view it here. He had an overflow audience.

It’s always advisable to have agreed-upon standards for aspects of security systems, so we take note of this post on setting standards, via the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), for the use of electric security fences by detention and correctional facilities.

It’s possible, notes the writer, that an electric fence standard for correctional facilities could spread to commercial sites, too.

Reports of computer hacking and malware intrusions seem to be arising more frequently, as with the recent situation at Target. With IT being as much a part of security these days as perimeter controls, you might be interested in some insight into how hackers proceed.

So here’s a post from the Sucuri blog on that general situation. “This post,” says Sucuri, “will be about a different and quite unusual way of obtaining data about activity of a server-level attack that is known for being hard to detect and track.” And it becomes fairly detailed – as a lesson you hope never to relive in your own setting.