Yeah that is kind of a given, I just wish more people would wake up to that fact.

I use proton VPN, but no I always just get my phones from Amazon bc it’s cheap. Never was a real problem in the past, but now that the U.S. is (officially) a giant Oligopoly, probably not a wise idea.

I don’t really know any tech friends that are super in the know about that kind of thing. I have a paid Norton 360 subscription that does frequent scans for malware and says it never finds anything, but honestly wouldn’t even be surprised to learn I’m paying for a useless subscription.

I’m also in a state that was involved in a huge government data breach a few years back. They didn’t really go into it too much when it happened, but apparently just about everyone over the age of 18 had their private data compromised.

The only reason I even bring that up is bc our current Governor who has always been a power hungry authoritarian boot licker renewed the Executive Order for a state of emergency for a cyber incident that our previous governor first created when the data breach happened several years ago.

When he “renewed” the order, he also slipped in a new section that granted authority to the director of one of his cabinet’s agencies, Governor’s office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), to handle the emergency as he sees fit.

What’s even more concerning is that on the same day he renewed this order, he restructured GOHSEP so that it is now under the control of the state’s National Guard, gave the former director of GOHSEP a new title, and then named a member of the Guard “acting director.”

He’s been very vague about what the renewal was about, but it allegedly had something to do with updating the OMV/DMV data base for the state. Since then he has also created a hiring freeze for the state, which would seem to indicate that whoever was acting director is now indefinitely the director named in the executive order until the governor decides to lift the hiring freeze.

Even for someone not already paranoid, and without everything happening at a national level, that would all be a bit concerning right? I’m not a journalist, but I’ve been trying to get people to pay attention to it.

For some reason, no actual local journalists seem to be willing to point this out, but it’s all publicly available information.

I know I’m usually on the more paranoid side, but I’ve always assumed everything I do on a smartphone is potentially being monitored via camera or mics.

If the apps are just taking screenshots, or recording a few seconds of data via mic, it would be almost guaranteed that certain corrupt (and also paranoid) governments that are dismissive of privacy rights could force or bribe those apps to allow them to also access screens, mics, and cameras anyway, right?

I’m in the U.S., and especially with how glitchy my phone has suddenly become over the last few months, I’m just at the point where I just assume that’s what’s going on.

I had the same android for like 4 years without many issues, then suddenly around February it just became almost impossible to use. Weird glitchy things with the size of the tool bar at the bottom of my screen and the popup keyboard. Redirect notifications all the time for certain websites, and my VPN connection is just constantly interrupted and having to be reset.

I finally was like fuck it, this is an old phone so maybe that’s it. Brand new phone, but most of the same issues.

I use signal instead of text most of the time, and switched a lot of things to proton mail, but if someone is potentially recording your screen, does it really matter if what you’re doing is encrypted?

No it’s not clickbait, he really is a fucking moron.

I had the same visceral reaction reading the title of this post

Oh fuck me! The standard of living has already taken such a giant nose dive during my lifetime. First it was corporations and now this shit? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

He’s Trump’s science advisor, Peter Theil’s protege, and son in law of Brexit Secretary Sir David Davis. The best of the best.

Yeah it was a dumb thing to say, that’s the point

Have you never seen a dystopian scifi movie? If this administration somehow attempted to time travel, you don’t think the world would look exactly like it does now?

I mean, if we are to go by Kratsios’ speech, it would appear they are just the first brave and innovative enough to take advantage of technology already existing but intentionally weighed down by regulations. This timeline being a result of their brave innovation makes a lot of sense.

Maybe in your house, but in the White House, I’m not so sure. Mr. Kratsios holds a political science degree (with a focus on Hellenic studies) and appears to have no hard science qualifications.

No joke, he was actually Trump’s acting director of OSTP during his first administration. During that time, people were critical of him because he lacked any qualifying experience in science.

Democratic members of the House actually wrote a letter begging Trump to pick a real science advisor to avoid a potential disaster. Trump eventually picked a meteorologist as his official science advisor several months later. If not for Anthony Fauci’s meddling, those two would have been solely responsible for handling the COVID pandemic under Trump.

Just to be clear, the point is that Kratsios seemed to be making a sciencebro sales pitch about U.S. innovation under Trump, but given how delusional and unethical this administration has already been when it comes to making a name for U.S. tech supremacy, people took it seriously.

Wasn’t expecting such a weirdly strong reaction to pointing this out, but yikes.

You just gave me a mental image of the dumbest BTFII reboot

Nope. But given our elite technologist leaders often have some dangerous ideas about innovation and “improvements to society,” that don’t quite align with reality, I can’t say I blame people for worrying they might actually try.

I would make an inappropriate Ted Kaczynski joke if I didn’t know everything we do is being constantly monitored at all times by a bunch of turds with zero sense of humor.

I’m just wondering how Trump squares an explanation for this with the fact that we’re in a technology war with China. Why would we make ourselves more vulnerable to them?

I guess to clarify, it seems easier for Trump to make the argument to his base that everything he does to make us more vulnerable to Russia shouldn’t really be a big deal bc he has so much respect and trust for Putin.

Most people (myself included) don’t really know about this program, but if cutting funding makes us more vulnerable to China and other bad actors, it seems like a point more Americans should be made aware of.

They’re doing so much of this shit quietly, but when you start to put each piece together it should be frightening to anyone that doesn’t believe Russia is our BFF.

In late Feb, just after the whole Zelenskyy White House visit, Hegseth issued an order to Cyber Command to halt all planning against Russia including cybersecurity offensive strategies.

He gave the order to Commander Timothy Haugh, who is also head of the National Security Agency. Haugh told the outgoing director of operations, and cyber command begun putting together an official document of why this is a very bad idea.

I missed this completely until yesterday, but it turns out that Haugh and his NSA deputy were both suddenly ousted from their positions less than 2 weeks ago.

No reason was given they were just told “your services are no longer required.” Apparently Laura Loomer requested Trump have them removed and made some vague accusations against them bc they had been installed under Biden.

I admit I hadn’t heard of CVE program before today. Since we are BFFs now and Russia is “totally not a threat” to the U.S., I guess it’s supposed to be ok because friends share everything. But wouldn’t this also make us incredibly more vulnerable to China and any other country?

Omg so just go to Mars and leave us all the fuck alone.

These bros are so goddamn stupid, and I wouldn’t even care except they’re going to kill us all in their delusional dumbass pursuit of a technocratic AI powered utopia.

And they’re all so fucking miserable even if they succeed they will just wind up all alone in their robotic powered biodomes wondering wtf the point of existence is bc nobody is left to stroke their dumb fucking egos.

Pretty positive there is no actual plan to improve cybersecurity, it’s a facade to quietly hand over power and control to the national guard to keep people in line.

The same day the emergency order was signed by the governor, he announced he was restructuring GOHSEP (governors office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness) under the National guard as part of his state DOGE plan to cut waste and save money.

The emergency order grants the director of GOHSEP authority to act however they seem fit to handle cybersecurity. But on the same day the director of GOHSEP was given a new title, and is no longer director.

The “acting director” is now Louisiana National Guard Brig. Gen. Jason P. Mahfouz