GG the OG

Big news for stinky broke nerds: we'll be giving away tickets to DEFCON. More details coming soon (you still have to pay for travel, food, hotel, i'm saving you $600 though)

This video is all over social media right now. This is a VERY silly video. I audibly laughed out loud several times. Elon Musk and co. are not experts in DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response). No matter how much of a sycophant you are for him or his organizations, Musk has no background in malware reverse engineering, identification, or development. What I suspect Kristi Noem is referring to in this conversation is the installation of an EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) system. An EDR is basically an anti-virus that a system administrator can make rules for, add custom detection logic, etc. This is used in enterprise environments and installed on user managed endpoints (computers, electronic devices). Some people worry about EDRs because they monitor the device for any potential malware or compromise. Yes, EDRs can be incredibly invasive, but you should not expect privacy when using company equipment or government devices. The reason why I suspect she is referring to an EDR system is she states, "Elon and his team helped me identify some of my own employees in my department had downloaded software on my phone, and on my laptop, to spy on me, record our meetings, ... they had done that to several other politicals" If an employee, working with the United States Department of Homeland security, was actively working as an Insider Threat and performing ESPIONAGE, spying on politicians and people of power, it would be all over the news. Musk and/or Trump would have been SCREAMING about whoever had done it. Additionally, this would be a VERY serious charge to whoever was identified doing this. It would have been a massive scandal. The second super silly thing Noem says is she complains she was unable to email a PowerPoint presentation to someone because it was too large ("over six pages long"). She is implying here this is a technological problem, but it is NOT. This is done intentionally to prevent data exfiltration. The idea is network administrators put data size restrictions in place to prevent data theft. If someone successfully compromised the United States government, and was unable to steal data by traditional means (tunneling, C2, etc), a common exfiltration tool is email. They take the stolen data, and send it to a disposable email address to receive it. Hence, if they restrict the size of data allowed to be sent outbound, it makes it substantially more difficult for data exfiltration to occur. If a Threat Actor tries to send an email with a large attachment the EDR flags it as a potentially suspicious event and notifies network operations. She is comparing standard cybersecurity policies to ... lack of technology ... ? And also somehow saying this has something to do with the "deep state" (an ominous unidentified threat, or something). Regardless if you believe there is a "deep state" (???), cybersecurity policy and network restrictions are NOT a technological disadvantage. I also want to give a big shoutout to RT (Russian Today) for blasting this all over social media. RT knows this video and conversation is ridiculous. Russian Intelligence is probably giggling right not at the absurdity of it. They are loving the fact they can spit this video all over social media and (using Noems own words) imply the United States government has SPYS actively present from THE DEEP STATE. It sows distrust and misinformation. Bravo, RT.