Gongol.com Archives: July 2017
July 7, 2017
Two Presidents, zero serious strategy for cybersecurity
Both Presidents Obama and Trump deserve blame for failing to take seriously the threat of cyberwarfare (in all its forms, from attempts to steal voter lists to efforts to interfere with voting machines to influence campaigns and microtargeting). It's a high-leverage problem: Bad actors can get their hands on powerful cyberweapons with little investment and can do asymmetrical damage.
CNN says Russia has 150 spies in the United States
That's a significant non-zero number, and certainly doesn't count the number working on things like "signals intelligence" back home
"[T]he White House hasn't submitted nominations"
Of 564 high-level appointive positions being tracked by the Washington Post, 68% have no nominee. That's after 168 days in office.
Russia's government is overcompensating for a bad economy
To understand why the Putin regime would want to meddle with foreign elections, look at the state of the Russian economy. A bad economy raises the proportional returns to investment on creating chaos elsewhere. People perceive relative status -- so efforts to make everywhere else look "just as bad" may be a more effective strategy than fixing what's falling short domestically.
Iowa City/Cedar Rapids hospitals agree: Fireworks injured a lot more Iowans this year
Lifting the ban on the sale of fireworks may have seemed like striking a blow for freedom, but dozens of people were injured in the process
