NSA Chief Testimony, Cyber Security Threats and Solutions

French presidential candidate Marcon was hacked on Friday before the Sunday voting. Per the NSA Chief, U.S. Tipped Off France on the Russia hacks. The U.S. tipped off France when it saw that Russians were carrying out cyberattacks targeting French President-elect Emmanuel Macron, NSA chief Adm. Mike Rogers told a Senate panel on Tuesday. Macron’s campaign revealed it was hacked just hours before a campaigning blackout in the country ahead of the presidential election on Sunday. Macron ended up handily defeating his rival, Putin-backed Marine Le Pen. “We had become aware of Russian activity. We had talked to our French counterparts and gave them a heads-up—‘Look, we’re watching the Russians. We’re seeing them penetrate some of your infrastructure. Here’s what we’ve seen. What can we do to try to assist?’” Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

*** Meanwhile….there is no strategy or policy position on U.S. cyber warfare. However…

Next Steps for U.S. Cybersecurity in the Trump Administration: Active Cyber Defense

The failure of the government to provide adequate protection has led many cybersecurity analysts, scholars, and policymakers to suggest that there is a need for private-sector self-help. If the government is unable or unwilling to take or threaten credible offensive actions to deter cyberattacks or to punish those who engage in them, it may be incumbent upon private-sector actors to take up an active defense. In other words, the private sector may wish to take actions that go beyond protective software, firewalls, and other passive screening methods—and instead actively deceive, identify, or retaliate against hackers to raise their costs for conducting cyberattacks. Taking into consideration U.S., foreign, and international law, the U.S. should expressly allow active defenses that annoy adversaries while allowing only certified actors to engage in attribution-level active defenses. More aggressive active defenses that could be considered counterattacks should be taken only by law enforcement or in close collaboration with them.

Key Takeaways

If the government is unable or unwilling to deter cyberattacks, it may be incumbent upon private-sector actors to take up an active defense.

Before the U.S. authorizes private hack back, it must consider not only U.S. laws, but also foreign and international laws governing cyberspace.

Congress should establish a new active cyber defense system that enables the private sector to identify and respond to hackers more effectively.

***

Heritage: Americans want their cyber data to be safe from prying eyes. They also want the government to be able to catch criminals. Can they have both?

It’s an especially pertinent question to ask at a time when concerns over Russian hacking are prevalent. Can we expose lawbreakers without also putting law-abiders at greater risk? After all, the same iPhone that makes life easier for ordinary Americans also makes life easier for criminals.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has described the operating system of the iPhone as “warrant-proof,” saying criminals are using the devices – encrypted by default – to their advantage. In one instance, he quoted an inmate who, ironically, called the iPhone a “gift from God.”

Divine involvement is a matter of debate, but there’s no question that when it comes to the choice of breaking the cybersecurity of criminals without also endangering the personal data of ordinary Americans, well, the devil is in the details.

This is especially true given the evolving nature of the threat. Even if we wanted to give the government access to all the metadata it wants (when, where, and who called), technology is moving away from phone calls to text messages and other non-telephony applications. Traditional metadata will be of limited use to law enforcement in pursuit of the savvy criminal of the future. Law enforcement needs to develop new strategies and investigative techniques without making us all prey.

It’s nearly impossible to assess the total monetary value for all successfully prosecuted cybercrimes in the U.S., let alone estimate the number of criminal cases that would have fallen apart without access to a smartphone’s data. The Department of Justice doesn’t publish such data. But, according to the 2014 Center for Strategic and International Studies report “Net Losses: Estimating the Global Cost of Cybercrime,” global cybercriminal activity is valued at $400 billion a year. Cybercrime damages trade, reduces competitiveness, and limits innovation and global growth.

The fundamental problem is that no one in the government is responsible for securing the internet for all of us. The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for safeguarding our nation’s critical infrastructure, yet the insecure internet presents cyberthreats to non-enterprise users affect individual security, safety and economic prosperity. Who is responsible for their security?

Some elements of the federal government are so focused on hunting down information against a few horrendous criminals that they don’t seem to realize they’re doing it at the expense of our right to privacy and online protection. We can appreciate their dedication in these noble causes, but the fact remains that the internet has become a host to more and more personal information ever since Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone.

Since then, the smartphone has evolved to have much more control over our lives, homes and vehicles. There is no sign of less data being held in the cyberspace.

In attempting to square this cyber-circle, the government would be wise to take a cue from the medical profession, which uses the Hippocratic oath to dictate an underlying requirement to refrain from causing harm to patients.

There is no such oath for members of the Department of Justice. They simply affirm that they will faithfully execute their duties without affirming that they will do so without harming the citizenry as a whole.

DOJ lawyers focus on individual prosecutions. That is too narrow of a definition of success. It forces them to use all means they can muster to make their prosecutions successful with little or no consideration of the larger harm their efforts may cause to the population in general.

That is a problem today and will only be magnified in the coming years as technology advances and the gap between those advances and the DOJ’s understanding of them widens. Within this environment, where insecurity breed’s criminality and stopping individual high-value criminals can motivate the DOJ to undermine security, one can only wonder, who is responsible for our security?

The world has changed. A new paradigm is needed to ensure the safety and security of all American’s data predicated on applying airtight security to our data. There is no return to the past. Perhaps the Trump administration will make this need for security a priority in a manner the previous administration did not.

Mexico’s Cartel Kids and a Deadly State

Reuters: The Mexican army says its fight against surging opium production that feeds U.S demand is increasingly complicated by the rise of smaller gangs disputing wild, ungoverned lands planted with ever-stronger poppy strains.

The gangs have engulfed the state of Guerrero in a war to control poppy fields, turning inaccessible mountain valleys of endemic poverty and famous beach resorts into Mexico’s bloodiest spots.

Colonel Isaac Aaron Jesus Garcia, who runs a base in one of the state’s most unruly cities, Ciudad Altamirano, told Reuters on an operation to chop down poppies high in the Guerrero mountains that violence increased two years ago when a third gang, Los Viagra, began a grab for territory.

Bodies are discovered almost daily across the state, tossed by roads, some buried in mass graves. In Ciudad Altamirano, the mayor was killed last year and a journalist gunned down in March at a car wash.

“These fractures (in the gangs) started two years ago, and that caused this violence that is all about monopolizing the production of the drug,” Jesus Garcia said.

From this frontline of the fight against heroin, Jesus Garcia sees a direct link between a record U.S. heroin epidemic that killed nearly 13,000 people in 2015 and violence on his patch.

“The increase of consumers for this type of drug in the United States has been exponential and the collateral effect is seen here,” Jesus Garcia said.

REUTERS/Henry Romero

Heroin use in the United States has risen five-fold in the past decade and addiction has more than tripled, with the biggest jumps among whites and men with low incomes.

Jesus Garcia said the task of seeking out poppy fields in one of Mexico’s poorest and least accessible regions, rising above the beach resorts of Acapulco and Ixtapa, was practically endless.

His 34th Battalion and others send platoons of troops on foot for month-long expeditions every season. They set up camps and fan through treacherous terrain, part of a campaign that destroys tens of thousands of fields a year.

One such field visited by Reuters was deep in a lawless region six hours from Ciudad Altamirano through winding dirt roads thick with dust that rose into the mountains.

It was irrigated by a lawn sprinkler mounted on a pole that spritzed water over less than a hectare of poppies and fertilizer bags were piled nearby, basic farming techniques the soldiers nevertheless said were a sign of growers’ new sophistication.

A dozen troops fanned out, chopping down the flowers with machetes.

HIGHER YIELDS

Army officials said gangs use poppy varieties that produce higher yields and more potent opium from smaller plots, and that its higher value is driving violent competition between gangs.

“Now we see more production of poppy in less terrain, and it has to do with the quantity of bulbs each plant has,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jose Urzua as he showed bulbs oozing valuable gum from slits. He explained opium is often harvested by families.

In these tiny mountain hamlets opium has grown for decades, officials said, but a coffee plague and the U.S. opiate epidemic has led farmers to plant much more.

The harvest has become central to Guerrero’s economy, also dependent on cash sent home by immigrants.

One army official said the field seen by Reuters could produce around 3 kilos (6.6 lb) of opium, fetching up to $950 per kilo from traffickers who sell it for up to $8,000.

“There aren’t many alternatives here,” said a woman selling soft drinks and snacks from a pine shack by a dirt road. Her husband grows poppies, and she said anyone who runs a business faces extortion by gangs.

***   Image result for cnn no way out cartel kids CNN

(CNN)It was the second deadliest conflict in the world last year, but it hardly registered in the international headlines.

As Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the news agenda, Mexico’s drug wars claimed 23,000 lives during 2016 — second only to Syria, where 50,000 people died as a result of the civil war.
“This is all the more surprising, considering that the conflict deaths [in Mexico] are nearly all attributable to small arms,” said John Chipman, chief executive and director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which issued its annual survey of armed conflict on Tuesday.
“The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan claimed 17,000 and 16,000 lives respectively in 2016, although in lethality they were surpassed by conflicts in Mexico and Central America, which have received much less attention from the media and the international community,” said Anastasia Voronkova, the editor of the survey.   
In comparison, there were 17,000 conflict deaths in Mexico in 2015 and 15,000 in 2014 according to the IISS.

Rising death toll

Voronkova said the number of homicides rose in 22 of Mexico’s 32 states during 2016 and the rivalries between cartels increased in violence.
“It is noteworthy that the largest rises in fatalities were registered in states that were key battlegrounds for control between competing, increasingly fragmented cartels,” she said.
“The violence grew worse as the cartels expanded the territorial reach of their campaigns, seeking to ‘cleanse’ areas of rivals in their efforts to secure a monopoly on drug-trafficking routes and other criminal assets.”
Mexican drug cartels take in between $19 billion and $29 billion annually from US drug sales, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Rivalries between the cartels wreak havoc on the lives of civilians who have nothing to do with narcotics. Bystanders, people who refused to join cartels, migrants, journalists and government officials have all been killed.

Not on news agenda

Jacob Parakilas, assistant head of the US and the Americas Programme at London-based think tank Chatham House, said part of the reason for the relative lack of attention paid to Mexico in the international media is “it’s not a war in the political sense of the word. The participants largely don’t have a political objective. They’re not trying to create a breakaway state. It doesn’t come with the same visuals. There are no air strikes.
“Also this has been going on since the beginning of the modern drug trade in the Americas. It’s not news in that sense. And Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. They are intentionally targeted in Mexico, which puts a dampener on the ability to report on this.”
Drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is facing trial in New York.

There have, however, been significant arrests in relation to the Mexican drug trade in recent times.
Damaso Lopez Nunez, a high-ranking leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested on May 2 in Mexico City and could face charges in the US, authorities said.
His arrest follows January’s extradition of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is accused of running the Sinaloa cartel — one of the world’s largest drug-trafficking organizations.
He awaits trial in New York on 17 counts accusing him of running a criminal enterprise responsible for importing and distributing massive amounts of narcotics and conspiring to murder rivals.

World conflict deaths fall

The number of conflict fatalities globally edged down last year, from 167,000 to 157,000, according to the IISS.
This was the second successive annual drop — 180,000 people were killed in 2014.
The number of deaths in Syria fell from 55,000 in 2015. But there were 1,000 more deaths in Afghanistan last year than 2015 and 4,000 more in Iraq.
Voronkova from the IISS said: “Civilians caught amid conflict arguably suffered more than in the preceding years. Between January and August, 900,000 people were internally displaced in Syria alone.”
The internal displacement figures were 234,000 for Iraq and 260,000 for Afghanistan.

 

WH Visitor Logs Sequestered, but here is the list

This is a product of Politico but with shame, Politico wanted to add the race and gender as a twist to the article. Anyway, this Trump White House is busy for sure.

Image result for trump white house Zimbio

The process and methodology on how Politico compile this report and summary is noted at the base of the post.

The people who have met with Donald Trump since he became president tend to have a lot in common, according to a database POLITICO compiled from public documents, media accounts and its own reporting: They’re mostly male, largely Republican and often rich.

Of the more than 1,200 people who have had direct access to the president as of Monday night, the majority — about 80 percent — are white. And almost 63 percent are white men.

Trump has huddled with at least 270 business executives and nearly 350 politicians — mainly Republicans but also dozens of Democrats. And he’s met in person or spoken by phone with 47 world leaders, most often the leaders of Japan and Germany, plus a vast grab bag of other figures, from pro golfers to rocker Ted Nugent to Matt Drudge.

Aside from Democrats in Congress, Trump has met with relatively few ideological opponents, according to the data. But there have been a number of exceptions: Zeke Emanuel, a doctor who served in the Obama administration and helped design Obamacare, took part in an Oval Office discussion in March, and the president has spoken with several CEOs who had previously donated to Democratic politicians.

This database is inevitably incomplete, partly because the White House — unlike the Obama administration — refuses to release a public log of its visitors. (Barack Obama’s version was not a full record of all his meetings either, of course.) Official White House media advisories about Trump’s activities have also left out information at times, failing to mention his encounters with Drudge or former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

But POLITICO has compiled its own log, drawn from sources including White House schedules, news stories and pool reports filed by reporters who follow the president’s travels. The dataset is the most comprehensive public list available of the people who have had access to the president since Jan. 20, either in the White House, on the phone or in locations such as Mar-a-Lago.

Information about who meets with the president would be valuable to understanding any administration, offering a window into the range of interest groups and personalities that have an opportunity to shape the White House’s deliberations. That may be doubly true for Trump, who has been known to make decisions on the fly based on even brief conversations — for example, the 10-minute exchange with Chinese President Xi Jinping that he says changed his thinking about China’s influence on North Korea.

People who have met with Trump say he has a surprisingly informal and improvisational style, sometimes scheduling last-minute meetings after seeing people on cable television. The president is said to make frequent calls at night to his friends and trusted outside advisers, and he often holds court with Mar-a-Lago members during his trips to the club in Palm Beach, Florida.

The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story.

POLITICO will continue to update its records based on feedback from readers and sources inside and outside the administration. For now, here’s a breakdown of what it has found:

Business executives

Trump has talked to or appeared at events with at least 270 business executives, from JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon to PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi and United Airlines’ Oscar Munoz.

About 75 percent of the executives who have gotten time with Trump are white men, according to POLITICO’s analysis. That lack of diversity also reflects the reality at many large companies: According to Forbes, women made up just 4.2 percent of the CEOs last year at the 500 largest U.S. companies. And a recent study found that women and minorities make up just 31 percent of the 500 largest U.S. companies’ boards.

Executives representing the finance, manufacturing, auto and energy industries met with Trump most frequently, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

Although all presidents have met with business leaders, Trump, a career businessman, seems particularly comfortable with them. These meetings also foster the public view Trump cultivated while sitting in the biggest chair in the boardroom on his TV series Celebrity Apprentice.

Meg Jacobs, a research scholar at Princeton University who has studied business-government relations, said the meetings with executives project the image “that he can get deals done, he’s a negotiator, a wheeler-dealer and he’s loved and effective.”

And this comfort with CEOs comes across in their meetings. Corporate heads who have met with Trump describe him as curious about which regulations hurt their bottom lines.

“He’s not, from the normal characterization of him, or even from his own tweets sometimes, what you would expect,” said Robert Murray, an outspoken Trump supporter who heads the coal company Murray Energy.

During the campaign, Trump spoke out against Wall Street and Big Business, running as a populist who would “drain the swamp” of Washington influence. For any executive who may have found that rhetoric unnerving, publicly meeting with CEOs sends a reassuring message that Trump will follow the classic Republican playbook of tax cuts and deregulation.

“Not a single member of the Obama administration made anyone from the coal industry welcome, nor would they give us any meetings,” said Murray, who has appeared with Trump twice since he took office. “We have a government now that’s wanting to hear on behalf of the electric power grid and the coal miners.”

Business executives’ priorities often align closely with Trump’s policy agenda. Murray, for example, said the administration has already tackled the first four agenda items on a list of policy recommendations he provided to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Watchdog groups expressed concern over Trump’s heavy interaction with executives.

“There’s a risk of crony capitalism. Individual business leaders are very good at advocating for their individual company’s situation,” said Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations at the Project on Government Oversight. “That does not necessarily translate to being better for the economy as a whole.”

Foreign leaders

Trump has spoken to or met with at least 47 world leaders since his inauguration. He has most frequently been in contact with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Prime Minister Theresa May and China’s Xi, based on POLITICO’s analysis.

Abe and Merkel are tied in the data for the most publicly announced interactions with the president, with the records showing that each leader has met with or talked to Trump seven times. Those include their visits to the United States, where Merkel huddled with Trump at the White House and Abe visited Mar-a-Lago.

Who is President Trump meeting with?

47
Foreign leaders

Trump’s meetings reflect his foreign policy objectives, including concerns about North Korea’s aggression — Trump has spoken with South Korea’s acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at least three times — and his ongoing deliberation about how to interact with the European Union.

The president has also made frequent contact with Middle Eastern and North African leaders, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (two phone calls and one in-person meeting), Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (two phone calls and one in-person meeting) and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi (three phone calls), as well as top officials from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Politicians

Trump has wooed nearly 350 politicians of both parties since taking office. And according to POLITICO’s data, congressional Republican leaders Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise have been his most regular guests as he pursued priorities including his push for health care legislation.

But Trump has also met with Democrats, including critics like Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, who later said he had told the president his rhetoric has been “hurtful” to African-Americans. Democratic House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer also got time with Trump.

Still, his meetings have had a decidedly partisan tilt: He’s met with at least 250 Republican politicians and 92 Democrats, according to POLITICO’s records.

Who is President Trump meeting with?

250
Republican politicians
92
Democratic politicians

One of Trump’s home-state senators and frequent sparring partners, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), has visited the White House at least five times. Trump has also seemingly taken a liking to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, the moderate West Virginian who faces a contentious reelection fight in 2018 in a state Trump won handily. Trump and Manchin have met at least four times, more than any other Democratic senator except Schumer.

He’s also mingled with his former rivals on the campaign trail more than other Republican senators, based on the data. Trump has met with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at least five times, and with Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky at least four times apiece, including a golf outing with Paul.

Alaska’s Republican senators, Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, have both had above-average face time with the president, with at least five interactions for Sullivan and four for Murkowski.

One early Trump supporter, Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue, has been rewarded for his loyalty, with at least five interactions with the president. The first-term senator is said to be close to members of Trump’s inner circle.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has been Trump’s most frequent gubernatorial guest, with at least four interactions. He’s also met at least three times with New Jersey’s Chris Christie, a former presidential rival who briefly headed his transition, and is said to speak with Christie more frequently.

Cabinet secretaries

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spent Trump’s earliest weeks enduring a reputation as a social outcast in the administration. But his stock has risen as he’s taken a leading role on Syria, Russia, North Korea and China — and the records show he has had more publicly disclosed direct contact with Trump than anyone else in the Cabinet.

Tillerson has met with the president at least 22 times, according to the analysis.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao also have had frequent interactions with Trump.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has also emerged as one of Trump’s go-to Cabinet officials, having joined the president repeatedly at Mar-a-Lago.

Others appear to have spent little time with Trump. POLITICO could document only four instances in which Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has met with the president since he’s taken office, and just three for Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

The rest

Trump has met with a wide range of other figures. Trump welcomed Palin, Nugent and musician Kid Rock in April to the White House, where they posed mockingly underneath a portrait of Hillary Clinton.

An avid golfer, Trump played rounds with Rory McIlroy and Ernie Els on one of his Florida golf courses in February, which led to online blowback from some of the golfers’ fans. Former Yankees closer Mariano Rivera also sat down with Trump as part of a meeting on the opioid epidemic.

Trump reunited with friends Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick when they visited the White House with their Super Bowl champion New England Patriots in April. Some Patriots skipped the event to protest Trump’s policies, though Trump friend Tom Brady was absent as well. Team owner Kraft, a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago, has enjoyed unprecedented access to the president, even sitting in on his dinner at the Palm Beach resort with the Japanese prime minister.

Trump has held more traditional meetings and photo opportunities, ranging from the presidents of historically black colleges and universities to Medal of Honor recipients. He’s also met with female small-business leaders and America’s national and state teachers of the year.

The president has also engaged conservative leaders during his first 100 days, meeting with them to discuss health care, abortion and other topics of interest. Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has been spotted at the White House, as has conservative radio firebrand Laura Ingraham. Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch reportedly speaks with Trump weekly, and Fox anchor and Trump defender Sean Hannity also advises the president.

Trump has also granted at least 33 interviews with at least 22 news outlets since taking office, not counting off-the-record meetings. While Fox has been Trump’s outlet of choice, The New York Times places second in access to the president, with Times political correspondent Maggie Haberman interviewing him at least three times.

Methodology

This analysis includes publicly available information, media reports and POLITICO reporting regarding meetings President Donald Trump has held since his inauguration. This includes executive order signings, White House meetings, public appearances, phone calls and interactions at Mar-a-Lago. Some events, such as the White House Easter egg roll, inauguration and others were not included because interactions with the president were superficial.

The analysis does not include Trump’s meetings with White House aides or meetings held by Vice President Mike Pence or other administration officials. Trump family members are also not included. It is limited by access to full guest lists as well as knowledge about whom Trump speaks with daily.

Individuals’ races were determined according to definitions used by the U.S. Census Bureau, except in the case of Hispanics, who were treated as a separate racial group for the purposes of this database.