The Cyber attack that wasn't

AT&T reported it was not a cyberattack last Thursday but "the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network." How many believe this given the unpatriotic way the Biden crowd protects even a land border from invaders (including Chinese and Russians coming across) and allowed the "weather balloon" incident near military bases? Biden just gives away the store. Democrats need a really big incident come November to disrupt and change the rules that keep elections safe. But it requires a little practice.

Mis- Dis- and Mal- mischief in the Justice Department

THE WEAPONIZATION OF CISA: HOW A “CYBERSECURITY” AGENCY COLLUDED WITH BIG TECH AND “DISINFORMATION” PARTNERS TO CENSOR AMERICANS

"The First Amendment recognizes that no person or entity has a monopoly on the truth, and that the “truth” of today can quickly become the “misinformation” of tomorrow. Labeling speech “misinformation” or “disinformation” does not strip it of its First Amendment protection. As such, under the Constitution, the federal government is strictly prohibited from censoring Americans’ political speech. The government also may not use third parties to bypass the First Amendment and conduct censorship by proxy.2"

But that's exactly what our federal government did.

cisa-staff-report6-26-23.pdf (house.gov)

Among other things . . . 

• CISA is “working with federal partners to mature a whole-of-government approach” to curbing alleged misinformation and disinformation.8
• CISA considered the creation of an anti-misinformation “rapid response team” capable of physically deploying across the United States.9
• CISA moved its censorship operation to a CISA-funded non-profit after CISA and the Biden Administration were sued in federal court, implicitly admitting that its censorship activities are unconstitutional.10
• CISA wanted to use the same CISA-funded non-profit as its mouthpiece to “avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”11
• Members of CISA’s advisory committee agonized that it was “only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work.”12

Here’s how Democrats could help the country

The United States lacks a single, comprehensive federal law that regulates the collection and use of personal information. We've got piecemeal and pasted together regulations and state laws with enormous lobbying efforts by tech giants.

I have a suggestion. Maybe if we had a Congress or something like a gathering of people elected to study problems like this they could study it and pass laws? That might work. Instead we have fat cat politicians taking up space in Washington spending all their time colluding to oust the legally elected president whom they know they can’t beat with a ballot and their collection of clown candidates.

https://www.cfr.org/report/reforming-us-approach-data-protection?

Walls, fences, passwords, locks and security systems

I don't know if Meryl Streep’s mansion has a fancy wall around it or not (saw a photo on the internet, but you just never know), but I do know the "open border" liberals I know are not compassionate about others invading their space or belongings. They have locks on their doors, windows, phones; they have fire walls, security systems, passwords; they have their pets tattooed, locks on their bikes, fences made of steel, brick, concrete or even an electric wire to keep out the neighbors' dogs and burglars; they have play pens to keep an eye on their kids, a cloud to take care of their computer documents, a safe to hold their jewelry and guns; they use a fingerprint to open their I-pad, or their office elevator, they have garage door openers--which btw--don't open without the gizmo; they have safe deposit boxes and pin numbers on their library cards and credit cards. My open border friends want aliens to vote, but they personally don't want to pay the taxes if they don't live in my township/city/state which have boundaries. Some open border liberals, particularly the young ones, think there are "safe spaces" with imaginary boundaries where no conservative, Trump supporter, or Republican can wear a red MAGA hat.

The Facebook flap

Everyone is upset about Facebook sharing our data. Our carelessness in exchange for convenience has been going on a long, long time. Read the DSNB disclaimer that comes with your credit or debit card. To have the convenience of a piece of plastic in your wallet, you agreed years ago to share your personal information in any transaction the bank needs to maintain your account, including legal investigations and credit bureaus; you agreed they could use your personal information for marketing purposes; for uses with other financial companies; for their affiliates (whoever that is) to perform their "everyday" business purposes; for those affiliates to use your personal data for their business purposes, and for those affiliates to market to you using your own information you supplied when you applied for credit.

In 1967 when we moved to Columbus we had to request service from the utility companies. On ONE form there was a small error where a number took the place of a letter in my husband's name. That error continued to appear in all sorts of advertising we received for years because all that is sold. And resold.  Same with the BMV. So although the FB theft and misuse of our data is much bigger, we've been carefully eased into this lobster bath of warm water heating up for over 50 years.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2018/04/09/facebooks-data-scandal-impact/

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/12/19/facebook-used-data-from-chinese-security-threat-huawei-for-site-feature/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-privacy.html

Cyber Attacks on U.S Companies in 2016

Not sure what the Trump administration can do about cyber security given the "deep state" he inherited which is loyal to Obama, because this report for 2016 and the 2014 and 2015 and ones before them show the U.S.--government and businesses--really let us down. Voter records, Treasury, Homeland security, DNC, social network sites, banks, etc. Wonder why DNC wouldn't let FBI investigate. . . http://thf-reports.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/IB4636.pdf

 "This Issue Brief [above] is a continuation of a series of papers on cyber attacks against U.S. companies since 20141 and 2015.2 While the means of cyber attacks vary, the pattern of targets has been relatively consistent. Large databases, as well as point-of-sale systems, continue to be targeted for financial gain. Hackers with possible ties to nation-states continue to target infrastructure as well as systems for political insight."

"According to the FBI, about 4000 ransomware attacks happen every day.  In the United States alone, victims lost $209 million to ransomware in the first quarter of 2016.  Even worse is the threat to critical infrastructure, as seen by the malware infections at electrical distribution companies in Ukraine that caused outages to 225,000 customers in late 2015.  Recent reports on the Russian hacks into the Democratic National Committee and subsequent release of emails in a coercive campaign to apparently influence the U.S. Presidential Election bring further national attention to the inadequacy of cyber deterrence.  The U.S. government seems incapable of creating an adequate strategy to alter the behavior of the wide variety of malicious actors seeking to inflict harm or damage through cyberspace."

http://www.heritage.org/cybersecurity/event/strategic-cyber-deterrence-the-active-cyber-defense-option

Survey on cyber security, 2017

This is an interesting survey. Since the Obama Administration left us so vulnerable, could the "new White House" be worse? Apparently so, according to the Black Hats who recently met. But 15% in 2016 thought there would be a major security breach, and 13% in 2017. How safe is any organization when the head of the DNC has a password of "password," and the data gets leaked? Let's hope President Trump creates a safer environment than Obama did.

https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/2017-Black-Hat-Attendee-Survey.pdf

The most feared cyber attacker is someone with inside knowledge of their own organization. The average consumer needs to fear phishing and other social engineering attacks, not the government. The weakest link in security is end users who violate security policy and are too easily fooled by social engineering attacks. For some reason (not explained) the lack of diversity among security IT professionals is a reason for a shortage. Sounds like an obligatory response. Blame society if women prefer studying dance or law.