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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

We’ve noted for decades that U.S. telecom security and privacy standards aren’t great. T-Mobile has been hacked so many times in the last five years it’s easy to lose count. AT&T not long ago had a breach impacting the data of 73 million users it initially tried to pretend hadn’t happened.

Telecoms have lobbied relentlessly to dismantle much in the way of corporate oversight, so when hacks or breaches or bad choices manifest, executives and companies alike routinely see little in the way of real, meaningful accountability. Which, of course, ensures nothing much changes.

This all came to a head recently with the Salt Typhoon hack, which involved 8 major U.S. telecom operators suffering a major intrusion by Chinese hackers. The hack, oddly getting far less attention than the TikTok moral panic did, was leveraged to help spy on U.S. political officials. It was so severe and extensive that the involved, unnamed telecoms have yet to fully remove the intruders from their networks:

This is par for the course for a country that’s literally too corrupt to pass even a baseline privacy law for the internet era, or hold telecom giants meaningfully accountable for much of anything. At best, telecoms have grown fat and comfortable with a paradigm that involves a tiny fine and wrist slap for their incompetence, assuming they get challenged over it at all.

Enter Senator Ron Wyden, who is proposing a new law that would require the FCC to take broader ownership of telecom cybersecurity.

His Secure American Communications Act would more clearly establish FCC authority to monitor telecoms for privacy and cybersecurity violations, require they conduct routine testing of their networks and systems, and contract outside independent auditors to make sure they’re doing a competent job. They’d also have to submit formal annual reviews to the FCC.

“It was inevitable that foreign hackers would burrow deep into the American communications system the moment the FCC decided to let phone companies write their own cybersecurity rules,” Wyden said. “Telecom companies and federal regulators were asleep on the job and as a result, Americans’ calls, messages, and phone records have been accessed by foreign spies intent on undermining our national security. Congress needs to step up and pass mandatory security rules to finally secure our telecom system against an infestation of hackers and spies.”

Of course the last thing AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, T-Mobile and Charter want is additional (or any) government oversight, so even if perfectly designed to minimize headaches and problems, the bill likely has zero real chance of passing a corrupt Congress.

fliptop writes:

An Idaho mine will be the only US source of the key mineral antimony after 18 years of permitting:

The Chinese government in recent weeks expanded its ban on exports of a handful of minerals found in critical military and energy technologies in America. The move puts a spotlight on America's domestic mineral supplies, many of which are locked in years-long federal permitting and regulatory reviews.

One such case is a project located at an abandoned gold mine in the heart of Idaho. That mine contains some of the nation's largest known deposits of the rare mineral antimony, which is among those affected by China's export restrictions. But after a staggering 14 years, the federal government has yet to give the Idaho project a green light to begin production.

Perpetua Resources, the developer of the Stibnite gold mine in Valley County, Idaho, first initiated study, engineering, and community engagement on the project in 2010. Since then, it has faced mountains of permit filings and lengthy environmental reviews conducted by at least five separate federal agencies.

Experts and legislators say the federal regulatory and permitting behemoth with which developers like Perpetua must contend is both costly and detrimental to American national security. And they have pointed to the project as an example of why they say Congress must take up permitting reform legislation as soon as possible.

"China has weaponized the world's mineral supply chains," Rich Nolan, the president and CEO of the National Mining Association, told the Washington Free Beacon. "Again and again, Beijing has reached for the minerals lever to exert geopolitical leverage."

[...] Antimony, like the other minerals targeted by China, has significant defense and energy applications—it is a key component of munitions, night-vision goggles, and military uniforms and is required for both utility-scale and electric vehicle batteries.

The United States, though, imports 100 percent of its antimony supplies, 63 percent of which comes from China. China supplies the international market with about half of its antimony.

According to Perpetua, the Stibnite mine—which contains roughly 67,000 metric tons of antimony—could account for 35 percent of the nation's antimony demand in its first six years of production and fulfill long-term defense needs.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/trump-says-elon-musk-will-lead-doge-a-new-department-of-government-efficiency/

President-elect Donald Trump today announced that a new Department of Government Efficiency—or "DOGE"—will be led by Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

[...] DOGE apparently will not be an official federal agency, as Trump said it will provide advice "from outside" of government. But Musk, who has frequently criticized government subsidies despite seeking public money and obtaining various subsidies for his own companies, will apparently have significant influence over spending in the Trump administration.

[...] Trump's statement said the department, whose name is a reference to the Doge meme, "will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending." Trump said DOGE will "liberate our Economy" and that its "work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026" because "a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence."

[...] The Wall Street Journal wrote today that "Musk isn't expected to become an official government employee, meaning he likely wouldn't be required to divest from his business empire."

Obligatory SolyentNews Articles:
Elon Musk Reveals Real Reason He Supports Dogecoin, Says Many People at Tesla and Spacex Own DOGE - 20211030
Dogecoin: Inside the Joke Cryptocurrency That Somehow Became Real - 20210222
Hacker Exploits Synology NAS Box Vulnerabity, Mines $620k in Dogecoin - 20140620

Original Submission

NotSanguine writes:

ProPublica is reporting on a number of ad networks posting fake/deceptive/scam ads on Meta properties.

Reporting highlights from TFA:

• Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks have placed over 160,000 election and social issues ads across more than 340 Facebook pages in English and Spanish.
• Harmed Users: Some of the people who clicked on ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges or lost health coverage, among other consequences.
• Spotty Enforcement: Meta removed some ads after first approving them, but it failed to catch others with similar or identical content — or to stop networks from launching new pages and ads.

More from TFA:

In December, the verified Facebook page of Adam Klotz, a Fox News meteorologist, started running strange video ads.

Some featured the distinctive voice of former President Donald Trump promising "$6,400 with your name on it, no payback required" just for clicking the ad and filling out a form.

In other ads with the same offer, President Joe Biden's well-known cadence assured viewers that "this isn't a loan with strings attached."

There was no free cash. The audio was generated by AI. People who clicked were taken to a form asking for their personal information, which was sold to telemarketers who could target them for legitimate offers — or scams.
[...]
Klotz's page had been co-opted by a sprawling ad account network that has operated on Facebook for years, churning out roughly 100,000 misleading election and social issues ads despite Meta's stated commitment to crack down on harmful content, according to an investigation and analysis by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism School's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, as well as research by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that researches large tech platforms. The organizations combined data and shared their analyses. TTP's report was produced independently of ProPublica and Tow's investigation and was shared with ProPublica prior to publication.

The network, which uses the name Patriot Democracy on many of its ad accounts, is one of eight deceptive Meta advertising operations identified by ProPublica and Tow. These networks have collectively controlled more than 340 Facebook pages, as well as associated Instagram and Messenger accounts. Most were created by the advertising networks, with some pages masquerading as government entities. Others were verified pages of people with public roles, like Klotz, who had been hacked. The networks have placed more than 160,000 election and social issues ads on these pages in English and Spanish. Meta showed the ads to users nearly 900 million times across Facebook and Instagram.
[..]
Most of these networks are run by lead-generation companies, which gather and sell people's personal information. People who clicked on some of these ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges, among many other schemes. Some, for example, were conned by an unscrupulous insurance agent into changing their Affordable Care Act health plans. While the agent earns a commission, the people who are scammed can lose their health insurance or face unexpected tax bills because of the switch.

The ads run by the networks employ tactics that Meta has banned, including the undisclosed use of deepfake audio and video of national political figures and promoting misleading claims about government programs to bait people into sharing personal information. Thousands of ads illegally displayed copies of state and county seals and the images of governors to trick users. "The State has recently approved that Illinois residents under the age of 89 may now qualify for up to $35,000 of Funeral Expense Insurance to cover any and all end-of-life expenses!" read one deceptive ad featuring a photo of Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois state seal.

There's much, much more, so please do read TFA.

What say you Soylentils? What's the solution to this sort of thing? My solution was to leave Facebook (in 2014) and never return.

Original Submission