whitehouse
Latest
Most White House email domains could be vulnerable to phishing
We can likely all agree that governmental cyber security is an important issue. While the Attorney General has created a task force to deal with election hacking, there have been plenty of digital security fails in the past year. And the FCC doesn't seem to care too much about data privacy, either. Now, according to a report from security firm Global Cyber Alliance (GCA), more than 95 percent of the email domains managed by the Executive Office of the President (EOP) — including WhiteHouse.gov — could be used in a phishing attack due to lax security protocol.
Trump blocks Broadcom's attempted takeover of Qualcomm
Broadcom's hopes of acquiring Qualcomm might have been quashed for good. President Trump has issued an order blocking Broadcom's proposed takeover and anything "substantially equivalent" to it over concerns that it might "impair the national security" of the country. The order also disqualifies all 15 of Broadcom's proposed directors for Qualcomm. The move follows a letter from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US warning the companies that it believed the takeover would pose too great a security risk.
Trump's video game meeting may not lead to any further action
Early this week, Trump at last announced that he would meet with leaders of the video game industry. Not to discuss the rising frustration with loot boxes, but to rehash the exhausted and research-debunked notion that playing games causes people to become more violent. Predictably, Trump invited zero scientists or respected researchers to the summit, instead stacking it with outspoken video game critics and a trio of Republican lawmakers. And surprising nobody, the hour-long meeting produced very few actionable results.
Trump spurns experts for his video game meeting
Donald Trump is hosting a meeting today, which, according to a White House spokesperson, has been set "to discuss violent video-game exposure and the correlation to aggression and desensitization in children." CNN's Jake Tapper tweeted the list of attendees earlier today and it includes members of the video game industry as well as outspoken critics of violent video games. However, as Rolling Stone points out, there aren't any scientists included in the meeting -- a glaring omission if you're interested in having a truly representative discussion about video games and real-world violence.
For the people in the back: Video games don't cause violence
Video games do not cause violent behavior. There is no scientific, consensus-backed research supporting the idea that playing video games -- even bloody, realistic shooters -- leads to real-life acts of brutality. However, this misguided theory prevails. After a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead on February 14th, a handful of politicians decried video games for corrupting young minds and inciting violent behavior. Days later, President Donald Trump said during a meeting about safety in schools, "I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts." Tomorrow, video game industry leaders are scheduled to meet with Trump to discuss the (non-existent, completely imaginary) problem. The Entertainment Software Association will be there and it has a clear message for the White House: "Video games are plainly not the issue: entertainment is distributed and consumed globally, but the US has an exponentially higher level of gun violence than any other nation."
White House wants to let law enforcement disable civilian drones
The White House is gearing up to request that law enforcement and security agencies be allowed to track and shoot down civilian drones, Bloomberg reported. An official told the publication that the effort has been underway for months and it involves a number of US agencies, but didn't specify many details of the plan.
Paul Ryan moves to replace election security official
The White House and House Speaker Paul Ryan are looking to replace a federal official who's been working to protect election systems from possible Russian cyber attacks. According to Reuters, Matthew Masterson, who holds a seat picked by the House Speaker and formally nominated by the president, won't be re-appointed as a commissioner for the US Election Assistance Commission. Masterson made cybersecurity his priority when he became the commission's chairman in February 2017 in response to what happened during the 2016 Presidential Elections.
Judge rejects AT&T request for White House records on Time Warner merger
After the Department of Justice filed suit last November to block AT&T's intended $85 billion merger with Time Warner, the telecom giant wanted to find out how much the White House was involved. The company had good reason to wonder how much direction the DOJ may or may not have taken from the Trump Administration given how much the President had publicly opposed the merger during his 2016 campaign. But today, a federal judge denied AT&T's request for any communications records between the DOJ and the White House.
White House also blames Russia for NotPetya attacks
The White House has officially joined the UK government in blaming Russia for last year's NotPetya attacks. Shortly after the UK publicly accused Kremlin of unleashing the wiper worm on various organizations around the globe, particularly in Ukraine, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued the administration's formal statement. She called the NotPetya attacks reckless and indiscriminate and warned that they will be met with "international consequences."
Air Force general behind government 5G memo leaves White House
That scrapped proposal for a goverment-run 5G network is triggering a political fallout. A senior official has confirmed to the Washington Post that the author of the memo pushing for the 5G network, Brigadier General Robert Spalding, has left his position as the National Security Council's senior director for strategic planning and returned to the Air Force. He wasn't fired, the insider claimed, and this wasn't prompted by the leak -- rather, the Council decided against renewing his position in part because his push for government 5G had "gone beyond his role."
Trump reportedly seeks massive budget cuts to clean energy research
The Trump administration has made it very clear that it is pro fossil fuels and has little interest in pushing programs the promote renewable energy. Now, the Washington Post reports that the president's proposed 2019 budget slashes funds for Energy Department programs focused on energy efficiency. While the proposal is just a jumping off point, the fact that it seeks to cut such funding by 72 percent underscores where the administration's interests lie and in which direction its policies will continue to go.
US coal industry saw little growth in 2017 despite White House push
The Trump administration has been eager to prop up the US coal industry despite evidence that it's in a steep decline. But did it have much of an effect? Not really. Reuters has obtained preliminary Mining Health and Safety Administration data showing that there was negligible job growth in coal mining during 2017. The field added a total of 771 jobs, reaching 54,819 -- a figure still near historic lows. There was growth in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, but that was largely offset by mine closures in several states, including Ohio (414 jobs lost) and Texas (455).
White House bans personal cell phones for staff and guests
The White House has issued a ban on employees using personal cell phones while at work, according to Bloomberg. Rumors of the ban surfaced back in November, but according to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it is going into effect Monday. The order reportedly came from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and security concerns are cited as the reasons behind the decision.
Trump removes climate change from national security strategy
It's no secret that the Trump administration has a sceptical view of all things science-based -- earlier this week it banned the CDC from using that very term -- and now, in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, it's taken climate change out of the US national security strategy (NSS) claiming it's not a threat. And in an unprecedented move, Trump broke with normal protocol to launch the new NSS with a speech.
White House temporarily shuts down 'We the People' petition site
The "We the People" site was launched back in 2011 as a way for the rank and file citizens to get a response from the Obama administration if they were able to get 100,000 signatures on any given petition. The site will now be unavailable until late January, and the Associated Press reports that all existing petitions and responses will be restored next year.
Uber, but for toxic techbro culture
Some companies are just born with an infinite number of chances to keep doing everything wrong and yet somehow seem immune to the consequences. Uber is one of those companies. Uber's latest scandal -- a fat hack and its dirty coverup -- is just one in a long line of Uber-riffic examples on just how far a certain kind of privilege gets you.
White House reportedly considering personal phone ban for staff
Bloomberg reports today that the White House is considering a ban on personal phone use among its staff. According to anonymous sources, the ban has been proposed as a security measure not as an action against press leaks. However, some staff are concerned that because the White House already blocks websites like Gmail and Google Hangouts, this move would wholly isolate them from friends and family during the work day. Further, if staff instead use their government-issued phones for personal use, some worry about those calls being archived and made public.
US-UK plan would share tech companies’ data with both governments
Companies like Microsoft and Google store some of their data overseas and when US agencies want access to that data, during a criminal case, for example, they often have a fight on their hands. That's because current laws don't require these companies to provide that data, just as they don't require these companies to hand over data stored in the US to foreign agencies. This has posed a problem on both sides because it can slow down investigations being conducted by US or other countries' officials and it puts tech companies in a sort of legal limbo as they've typically chosen to protect users' privacy since there are no laws compelling them to do otherwise.
Coal power plant closures ramp up in spite of White House plans
The Trump administration may hope that it can reverse coal power's decline by ending the Clean Power Plan and other eco-friendly efforts, but the industry's moves suggest otherwise. Luminant has announced plans to close three major coal plants in Texas (in Freestone, Milam and Titus counties) between January and February of 2018. The shutdowns will take a combined 4,200MW of power off the grid -- enough to run over 4 million homes, as Reuters notes. The news boosts the expected capacity of 2018 power plant closures to over 13,600MW, or a whopping 79 percent more than the known closures for this year. It's not a record high (nearly 18,000MW went offline in 2015), but it's clear that the trend is toward more closures, not fewer.
Trump’s chief of staff reportedly used ‘compromised’ phone for months
John Kelly, the White House's chief of staff, spent months using a "compromised" personal cell phone, according to a new report from Politico. Despite noticing limited functionality on his personal device — it wouldn't update its software correctly, for one, Kelly didn't contact the White House's tech support team sometime this summer. That was months after the strange behavior began, leading officials to believe the attack on his phone could've happened as far as back as December 2016.
