Thanks to Jonathan A. Weiss for sending

Trump undermines all of our agencies !!!!

Trump to Sign Executive Order Reining in ‘Rogue Agencies’ Rules

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/trump-to-sign-executive-order-reining-in-rogue-agencies-rules-1.1328642

President Donald Trump is expected to sign a pair of executive orders on Wednesday that would limit the use of memos, letters, and other guidance that federal agencies use to help individuals and companies comply with regulations, a person briefed on the plans said.

Conservatives and business groups have long complained that the agencies use the process to establish “stealth regulation” that circumvents Congress and avoids public scrutiny. Unlike formal government rules the interpretations are issued without the typical notice and comment period required by law.

“Americans deserve to have their side of the story properly considered by the government and not punished by rogue agencies who use fear and costly court cases to force Americans into following their directives,” the White House said in talking points on the executive orders distributed to supporters on Tuesday.

Under the Obama administration, agencies broadened existing laws and regulations through interpretations that were then issued in blogs, letters memos and brochures.

Trump has made deregulation a cornerstone of his presidency, and the executive orders are intended to protect small businesses from agencies who use it as an “off-the-book way around the regular rule-making process,” the White House said in the talking points.

According to the talking points, one executive order would require agencies to seek public input on certain guidance while a second executive order seeks to prohibit “secret or unlawful bureaucratic interpretations of rules” as well as “unfair or unexpected penalties from agencies.”

White House cybersecurity chief quits, says leadership is inviting an attack
https://thenextweb.com/politics/2019/10/25/white-house-cybersecurity-chief-quits-says-leadership-is-inviting-an-attack/

White House computer security Chief Dimitrios Vistakis gave the White House one helluva resignation notice earlier this week when he quit over practices he dubbed “absurd” including the systemic purging of cybersecurity staff.

Russian hackers modify Chrome and Firefox to track secure web traffic
The perpetrators may have Russian government support
Many hackers won’t touch web browsers beyond exploiting their vulnerabilities, but one group is taking things one step further. Kaspersky has detailed attempts by a Russian group, Turla, to fingerprint TLS-encrypted web traffic by modifying Chrome and Firefox. The team first infects systems with a remote access trojan and uses that to modify the browsers, starting with installing their own certificates (to intercept TLS traffic from the host) and then patching the pseudo-random number generation that negotiates TLS connections. That lets them add a fingerprint to every TLS action and passively track encrypted traffic.
Just why the intruders would need to do that isn’t entirely clear. If you’ve infected a system with a remote control trojan, you don’t need to patch the browser to spy on traffic. ZDNet suggested it might be a failsafe that let intruders spy on traffic for people who remove the trojan, but aren’t cautious enough to reinstall their browsers.

The perpetrators appear to be easier to identify, and that might reveal their motives. Turla is believed to work under the protection of the Russian government, and initial targets were located in Russia and Belarus. The group is sophisticated enough to have compromised Eastern European internet providers in the past to infect otherwise clean downloads. This may be an attempt to snoop on dissidents and other political targets using a method that’s difficult to thwart.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/06/russian-hackers-modify-chrome-firefox/

Scoop: Cyber memo warns of new risks to White House network
https://www.axios.com/scoop-cyber-memo-warns-of-new-risks-to-white-house-network-9aa19c6c-77a3-485b-919b-1dd9bd691514.html

‘It’s going to be painful’: Pentagon official urges contractors to improve cybersecurity
https://www.cyberscoop.com/katie-arrington-pentagon-contracting/

Scoop: Cyber memo warns of new risks to White House network
https://www.axios.com/scoop-cyber-memo-warns-of-new-risks-to-white-house-network-9aa19c6c-77a3-485b-919b-1dd9bd691514.html

An internal memo on cybersecurity, obtained by Axios, warns that “the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again.”
The state of play: That’s after at least a dozen top- or high-level officials have resigned or been pushed out of a cybersecurity mission that was established under Barack Obama to protect the White House from Russian hacking and other threats, according to conversations with several current and former officials.
Why it matters: Warnings by officials from the former Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO) — which in July was folded into the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) — suggest new intelligence vulnerabilities. One White House official familiar with the developments said the consolidations could lead to a “Wild West” atmosphere.

Former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn’s next move: investing in a phone secure enough for the president
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/24/20930668/gary-cohn-trump-economic-adviser-goldman-hoyos-secure-phone