onfocus

The devastating hacks confirm the analysis that I'm sharing in this post: that TeleMessage's server – hosted on the public AWS cloud, run by an Israeli company that's led by a former IDF spook – has plaintext access to the Signal chat logs they're archiving (along with chat logs for Telegram, WeChat, and WhatsApp).

SignalGate is even worse than we thought because they weren't just using Signal. They had this other insecure layer on top.

“We have ended HHS’s role as the principal vector in this country for child trafficking,” Kennedy declared. “During the Biden administration, HHS became a collaborator in child trafficking for sex and for slavery, and we have ended that. We’re very aggressively going out and trying to find these 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration.”

It’s like we’re being governed by a 4chan thread. Every conspiracy theory is just taken as truth without need for evidence. JFC.

“Are you gonna launch an investigation of the reported violation of the due process of several hundred individuals?” Merkley asked Patel.

Patel’s job is indeed investigating criminal acts and he’s not looking in the right place. Thanks to Oregon Senator Merkley for clarifying this.

I will be resigning after this semester from my tenured position at West Point after 13 years on the faculty. I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly. I am ashamed to be associated with the academy in its current form.

Republican ideology is so paper thin they have to ban books and entire areas of study because even being aware that other ideas exist is an existential threat for them.

First, you have Elon Musk, the belief that AI can and will essentially replace research scientists and the related belief that AI-backed tech has essentially achieved a kind of escape velocity from government-supported science. So AI will soon replace research scientists. I, Elon (or tech generally) own the AI. So there’s no big harm shutting down this research apparatus. And since I own the AI, not only will we cure all the diseases but I’ll own all the cures! What’s not to like?

Good analysis of why they're trying to destroy research. These tech guys are so high on their own hype supply and they don't understand how anything works. Everyone is going to lose because of it.

I see something recognizable in this rage from what I’ve seen studying climate change denial. Science is saying: This is the best way to save lives. But this is not the best way to run the business. And this is actively threatening my bottom line. This is part of the wholesale attack on research and public health.

CEO thinking: if a civil democracy says I need to close down my business for a few weeks while a pandemic is killing millions of people then it’s time for that democracy to end.

“It’s not being done with any thought about human life, it was just ‘this seems so woke so let’s get rid of it,’” Bennett said. “People think water is free and comes out of your tap whenever you want, but it’s not that simple.”

Good lord. It’s just new pieces of critical infrastructure dismantled every day. Everything must seem like waste when you don’t understand how anything works.

Sure, the buck stops here. Trump is all powerful. But he — the President — is not making the decisions, did not make the AEA invocation based on lies. “The lawyers” did that. And they don’t want him to pick up that phone and facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

Complying with the Supreme Court is out of his hands, really. Someone else makes those decisions. They probably can't be held accountable either so no use finding out. Just... the lawyers.

The 52-46 vote delivers a key victory to major companies and trade groups in the fossil fuel and petrochemical sectors that had lobbied against the regulation. It also marks the first time in the Clean Air Act’s 55-year history that Congress has scaled back protections under the landmark environmental law.

Not content to let Trump make all of the decisions that harm Americans, the Senate votes in favor of cancer, brain damage, and other serious health effects to show they too are evil.

The nation’s forecasting agency is in tatters as what could be a destructive hurricane season nears. Several current and former agency meteorologists told CNN they are concerned forecasts and life-saving warnings are not going to be issued in time.

Not great.

Only a hundred days in, and there’s so much going on at once that it’s basically impossible to keep up.

It's a parade of horribles but I enjoyed this episode basically summarizing recent Verge articles about the administration. Nilay Patel and Verge editor Adi Robertson have a great conversation about where we're at. I appreciate the optimism about people rediscovering the benefits of government, but man oh man, feels like a pipe dream at the moment.

In many cases it’s still unclear what exactly DOGE engineers have done or intend to do with that data. Despite Elon Musk’s protestations to the contrary, DOGE is as opaque as Vantablack. But recent reporting from WIRED and elsewhere begins to fill in the picture: For DOGE, data is a tool. It’s also a weapon.

Sounds like blackmail everyone all the time is the strategy.