What Is the Point of the SEC ECPA-Reform Power Grab?
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing on Electronic Communication Privacy Act reform, the main goal of which is to provide protection for content served on a third party's server. Because reform is looking more inevitable in…
Did the OPM Hack Fix Jack Goldsmith's Anonymity Problem?
In a piece claiming "the most pressing problem the United States sees in its cyber relations with China [is] the widespread espionage and theft by China in U.S. public and private digital networks," Jack Goldsmith argues any cyber agreement…
What's So Tricky about DOD's PKI That It Needs to Expose Thousands of Service Members?
Motherboard decided to call out DOD for not using STARTTLS to encrypt the transiting email of much of DOD's emails.
[A]s encryption spreads to government sites, it hasn’t reached government emails yet. Most of the military as well as the…
The New Stellar Wind Language
Charlie Savage got another drip drip drip of language declassified from the Joint IG Stellar Wind reports (his story, annotated document).
The new language reveals a bit more about what Alberto Gonzales included in his March 11, 2004 authorization…
So There Was ONE Cultural Difference the Military Recognized in Afghanistan
Joseph Goldstein broke a devastating story this afternoon in the New York Times:
In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan…
Killer Football Is Trashing Its Real Capital
So we are on to week two of Trash Talk for the nascent NFL season, and week three for the NCAA. There is a ton that could be unpacked as to the particular players, plays and whatnot but, as was the case with the first week, I have little inclination…
The Costs of Politically Free Cybersecurity Failures
Ben Wittes looks at the WaPo article and accompanying National Security Council Draft Options paper on how the White House should respond to FBI's campaign against encryption and declares that "Industry has already won."
[T]he document lays…
Revisiting David Petraeus' Crack Plan to Ally with Al Qaeda
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on potential airstrikes against Assad, September 3, 2013
SEN. CORKER: What I’m unaware of is why it is so slow in actually helping them with lethal support — why has that been so slow?
SEC.…
Jeb's Cyber-Corporate-Welfare-as-Security Program
Jeb! Bush has issued a cybersecurity policy as an excuse to bitch about Hillary having her own email server when he himself did the same thing (and exposed users when he revealed some but not all of those emails).
Kudos to Jeb! for releasing…
Will September 16, 2015 Mark the Beginning of the End of the War on Drugs
At Salon yesterday, I pointed to the most interesting part of the GOP debate on Wednesday -- the policy debate over how to deal with addiction. As I point out, one reason this debate is taking place is because New Hampshire is really struggling…
A Really Interestingly Timed Corruption Extradition
The AP reports that the US extradited a long-sought Chinese corruption target, Yang Jinjun.
A most-wanted Chinese fugitive suspected of graft and bribery was brought back from the U.S. on Friday after he fled there in 2001, officials said,…
DOJ Threatens to Invoke State Secrets Over Something Released in FOIA
In a hearing today, Judge Richard Leon said that Larry Klayman could pursue his dragnet challenge by adding a plaintiff who did business with Verizon Business Services. But as part of Klayman's effort, he noted -- weakly -- that evidence got…
National Counterintelligence Director Evanina about OPM Breach: "Not My Job"
I've been tracking Ron Wyden's efforts to learn whether the National Counterintelligence and Security Center had anticipated how much of a counterintelligence bonanza the Office of Personnel Management's databases would be. Wyden sent National…
Another Reason GM May Have Come Around to CISA
Last week, Wired had a story about a hack of GM vehicles that the car company took 5 years to fix. As the story explains, while GM tried to fix the vulnerability right away, their efforts didn't completely fix the problem until GM quietly sent…
While We're Investigating Intelligence Failures on Syria...
For the past several weeks, we've had a series of stories about how the intelligence on ISIS was cooked -- at least within DIA. I had grand plans to write some posts on it -- to track DIA's past recent politicization (which I think should raise…
The Special Sanger Cyber Unicorn: Iran Warmonger Edition
I noted earlier that the reporting on the US not imposing cybersanctions on China appears to have credulously served its purpose in creating a narrative that may have helped create the environment for some kind of deal with China.
NYT's David…
Cyber-Unicorn Journalists Shocked the Unicorn Didn't Appear, Again
When last we checked in on claims the US was going to cyber-deter China, I suggested people should understand the underlying dynamics at work.
Before people start investing belief in unicorn cyber deterrence, they’d do well to understand…
John Doe Ungagged: Nicholas Merrill Wins the Right to Reveal Contents of 11-Year Old National Security Letter
Nicholas Merrill, who first challenged a National Security Letter 11 years ago, has won the right to talk about what he was ordered to turn over to the FBI in 2004. A key holding from the decision is that private citizens -- as distinct from…
What If the Intelligence Community Is Looking for the Wrong Malicious Use of OPM Data?
The revelation in last week's cyber threats hearing the press has been most agog about is that James Clapper predicted hackers would get around to changing, rather than just stealing, data.
[after 19:00] In the future I believe we'll see more…
Real Football Is Here Again, Rock The Wheelhouse!
Okay, rough start for the season in the Pac-12 South. The Devils sucked, and Texas A & M handed them their asses. Really ugly. And some random B1G team, okay, the Mighty Fighting Journalists, whipped, even worse, the Trees of Stanford.
Oh,…