17D_guy

Lots is happening on the gov't side as related to cybersecurity and IMO none of it is good. I can't speak to DoD anymore, so I won't focus on that. On the civ side the overall focus from the administration seems to be that cyber not a national strategy concern. They've de-funded or cancelled many of the coordination groups (ISAC's) between gov't, business and local leaders. ISACs now require a fee to participate, if they're continued at all. The FCC just rolled back the cybersecurity standards that were proposed in the wake of the Salt Typhoon hack that popped a ton of US telco's (and those around the world). The rule required - Create and implement cybersecurity risk-management plans Submit annual FCC certifications proving they were doing so Treat general network cybersecurity as a legal obligation Since retiring I have done Incident Response for everything from a local school board, city governments, state agencies, and businesses from non-profits to multi-billion dollar, world wide critical manufacturing organizations. I wish I could completely articulate the complete shit show that most of these organizations are when it comes to cybersecurity, especially the bigger ones. They only care about 2 things - what is the minimum amount of security to show legally (customer lawsuit) we did due diligence and what does the gov't require us to do? The fines are not high enough and counted as "the cost of doing business" (re: Facebook fines) and they lobby actively to have a "self evaluation" standard for regulations. We all know how that goes. The fact that these companies successfully said making a risk management plan is "too hard" really tells me all I need to know. Step one of incident response (and I'd assume anything critical) is "have a plan." The telco's said, "no." Big business basically says no, unless they're a bank. Don't even ask me about the health care sector, you'd think $10K HIPPA fines per instance would be a forcing function. It's not.

Kinda random, but has anyone started a gun club in their local area? I'm looking to get one going where I'm at and would love some pointers/warnings.

Republican senator replaced by republican senator? It's a red state, but that wasn't the crux of my statement, so fair comment and I'll clarify. In 2024 Trump got ~1% more vote than 2020 in Utah (data here - https://vote.utah.gov/historical-election-results/). All 3 races he's competed in - 2016 - 45.5% 2020 - 58.13% 2024 - 59.39% (+1.25) Look at his gains in other states, All of these states are close culturally with Utah. All data below is from the wiki articles about the elections for these individual states. AZ for example - 2016 - 48.67% 2020 - 49.06% 2024 - 52.25% (+3.19%) Lets look at NV - 2016 - 45.5% 2020 - 47.67% 2024 - 50.59% (+2.92%) Idaho (crazy cousins up north) - 2016 - 59.25% 2020 - 63.84% 2024 - 66.87 (+3.03) NM (he lost every year) - 2016 - 40.04% 2020 - 43.50% 2024 - 45.85% (+2.35%) So, a more correct statement would be (and I'm now remembering it from the "fun" poli-sci presentations I've sat through) we didn't slide right nearly as much, and are an outlier in the Southwest Basin states. When you get into the county and precinct data it's actually very interesting from 2020 forwards. There's a reason the state Leg further gerrymandered State districts after 2020 to solidify the super-majority, just as R's are trying to do now in other red states for Congressional districts. I will also add a confounding variable is the number of D's who register R here to "have a say in the primary process/elections" because we are so gerrymandered and have such a super-majority. After the success of our municipal elections we've seen the following change in a month: registered D's increased by 2,000 people, R's decreased by 400. A drop in the bucket to be sure, not statistically significant and likely not to change the outcome of state-wide an up races...but an interesting change. Do no extrapolate this to changes in other states, heck the past couple elections (municipal included) could be outliers. Registrations could reverse in the new year when people are gearing up for 2026 elections. However, Utah has the youngest, most educated population with a large chunk of women who are politically active (both sides). Who knows, maybe in a few years I'll be the second Congress critter you all hate. LOL.

You can check the truth social posts. The "death" one doesn't have anything about a trail or conviction. There's a tweet 16 posts/retweets before that one where he says they should be locked up. Fuck this dude needs to touch grass. Thanks for the article, gonna read that one. It's really one of my favorite areas of thought. I just watched a video on YouTube about something like this in Kosovo. Gen Clark ordered a British force to take the airport by force from the Russians. The Brits obviously said fuck off and waited until the Russians ran out of food (because of course they did) and then got 1/2 the airport. For a little view into my local small political world - all 3 of our D candidates won city council (non-partisan race, so I'm not counting them as "wins"), the No Kings protests had large turnouts throughout the state, and I have more D's interested in running than the last few years. Utah did not slide right with the rest of the country, and some precincts (like mine) were overwhelmingly Harris/D voters. We got fairer maps, though the leg is doing everything they can to restrict ballot initiatives while they started their own initiative to repeal the fair maps initiative. EDIT - Fantastic article, thanks again for sharing

Watched these a lot growing up in Southern CA. That was until one guy stopped on a bridge and decided to eat a shotgun shell traveling at high velocity. The guy was too fast for the cameras to switch/pull back. Didn't see too many chases on TV after that where I lived. As I recall the man's dog was in the passenger seat. Kinda wish I could forget that shit.

My adopted Dad, super strong MAGA, and I were talking this weekend. He took the grandkids to SF and was amazed at how much it had changed. He said they didn't see a homeless person until the last day they were there and no dodging needles and feces. He grew up there, though doesn't live there anymore but visits often for baseball (big fan w/ season tickets). After that he said he'll never go to Chicago and no one should ever vote for Gavin Newsome. All anecdotal, I know, but I was very surprised.

"...Pres has absolute plenary authority...*reboot*," Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.

Can I get a TL; DR?

From the dudes that bitched about Obama's golfing costing tax payers money yet silent now. GG.

Oh, I didn't know we had gotten rid of the VTCs. My bad.

So...you were right. Could have just been an email.

Can't wait for the enemy within to get dealt with by deploying the military to every major city in the US to train. Real strong "states rights" vibe from the side that consistently cried about it. Also, “When you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes, so you have to address the small stuff,” Hegseth said. “This is on duty, in the field and in the rear... We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans.” Been on here a while, and some of you should hate the small stuff/big stuff comment. Also, did he check with the FBI director? I thought we were supposed to go to Valhalla?

Dept of War renaming def a good use of tax payer funds.

Well, isn't that just about how it should go with this admin - https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-air-force-denies-early-retirement-group-transgender-service-members-2025-08-07/

What? Details of their affairs weren't known by the public until years later. > I didn't want a mentally impaired octogenarian in charge. So you're not happy with the...lemme see... 79 yr old in office?

Someone come get your boy. Apparently its been a hoax all along.

There's only one office forcing this to be a constitutional crisis. The Rs have 2 of 3 levers of govt. They could fund a fast track courts to go through these quick(er). but as we saw the the R border bill in 2024, it's better to scream about it in the news than actually solve the problem.

No, I hated Obama's use of drones and splattering citizens. Impeachable. Opens the door to anyone getting called a terrorist and being disappeared...kinda like the rhetoric we're starting to hear now. "Mass invasion" is interesting wording. We have a refugee process that should be followed and funded to operate. A Venezuela refugee fleeing a communist dictator warms my Reagan-era heart. Non-violent illegals here wanna cut my grass, build houses and make baller tacos? I'm down, let's fund the process to make them not-illegal. Violent ones, here and coming here? GTFO.

Like you'd address it in a realistic way if he did.

Depends if you think everyone deserves due process or just the people you want to have it. Also an independent but co-equal branch of the government exercising its power as it sees appropriate. Pretty sure I heard about some guy that was a founding father saying something along the lines of "I disagree with what you say but defend you right to say it," as a right or something.

lol

If this dude got bounced because Laura Loomer...wtf is even this administration. Holy shit, is this real life? https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/national-security/3370237/trump-fired-nsa-director-tim-haugh-laura-loomer/ or https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/04/democrats-attack-discredited-conspiracy-theorist-laura-loomer-as-nsa-director-and-deputy-are-reportedly-axed/

Representation has generally meant the Congress, which is my argument. These powers should not run unchecked for any administration, much like the War Powers Act.

Worked for him when I was in CYBERCOM. Good dude, mostly good ideas and really cared about the mission and the people. His bad idea(s) were trying to solve a problem he was put in, and the didn't ever take effect. I can't speak on the CSAF, CNO, VCSAF getting fired with a personal anecdote. But Haugh knew his shit, was a cyber "operator" (stop laughing), and cared about his people. This is a massive loss for warfighing in the "new" domain. And if this is because he wouldn't co-sign splitting up NSA and CYBERCOM then whoever replaces him to do that is setting back our capes at minimum a decade, if not more.