183289463
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository that exposed credentials to several highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and a large number of internal CISA systems. Security experts said the public archive included files detailing how CISA builds, tests and deploys software internally, and that it represents one of the most egregious government data leaks in recent history.
On May 15, KrebsOnSecurity heard from Guillaume Valadon, a researcher with the security firm GitGuardian. Valadon’s company constantly scans public code repositories at GitHub and elsewhere for exposed secrets, automatically alerting the offending accounts of any apparent sensitive data exposures. Valadon said he reached out because the owner in this case wasn’t responding and the information exposed was highly sensitive.
The GitHub repository that Valadon flagged was named “Private-CISA,” and it harbored a vast number of internal CISA/DHS credentials and files, including cloud keys, tokens, plaintext passwords, logs and other sensitive CISA assets.
Valadon said the exposed CISA credentials represent a textbook example of poor security hygiene, noting that the commit logs in the offending GitHub account show that the CISA administrator disabled the default setting in GitHub that blocks users from publishing SSH keys or other secrets in public code repositories.
“Passwords stored in plain text in a csv, backups in git, explicit commands to disable GitHub secrets detection feature,” Valadon wrote in an email. “I honestly believed that it was all fake before analyzing the content deeper. This is indeed the worst leak that I’ve witnessed in my career. It is obviously an individual’s mistake, but I believe that it might reveal internal practices.”
One of the exposed files, titled “importantAWStokens,” included the administrative credentials to three Amazon AWS GovCloud servers. Another file exposed in their public GitHub repository — “AWS-Workspace-Firefox-Passwords.csv” — listed plaintext usernames and passwords for dozens of internal CISA systems. According to Caturegli, those systems included one called “LZ-DSO,” which appears short for “Landing Zone DevSecOps,” the agency’s secure code development environment.
Philippe Caturegli, founder of the security consultancy Seralys, said he tested the AWS keys only to see whether they were still valid and to determine which internal systems the exposed accounts could access. Caturegli said the GitHub account that exposed the CISA secrets exhibits a pattern consistent with an individual operator using the repository as a working scratchpad or synchronization mechanism rather than a curated project repository.
“The use of both a CISA-associated email address and a personal email address suggests the repository may have been used across differently configured environments,” Caturegli observed. “The available Git metadata alone does not prove which endpoint or device was used.”
Caturegli said he validated that the exposed credentials could authenticate to three AWS GovCloud accounts at a high privilege level. He said the archive also includes plain text credentials to CISA’s internal “artifactory” — essentially a repository of all the code packages they are using to build software — and that this would represent a juicy target for malicious attackers looking for ways to maintain a persistent foothold in CISA systems.
“That would be a prime place to move laterally,” he said. “Backdoor in some software packages, and every time they build something new they deploy your backdoor left and right.”
In response to questions, a spokesperson for CISA said the agency is aware of the reported exposure and is continuing to investigate the situation.
“Currently, there is no indication that any sensitive data was compromised as a result of this incident,” the CISA spokesperson wrote. “While we hold our team members to the highest standards of integrity and operational awareness, we are working to ensure additional safeguards are implemented to prevent future occurrences.”
A review of the GitHub account and its exposed passwords show the “Private CISA” repository was maintained by an employee of Nightwing, a government contractor based in Dulles, Va. Nightwing declined to comment, directing inquiries to CISA.
CISA has not responded to questions about the potential duration of the data exposure, but Caturegli said the Private CISA repository was created on November 13, 2025. The contractor’s GitHub account was created back in September 2018.
The GitHub account that included the Private CISA repo was taken offline shortly after both KrebsOnSecurity and Seralys notified CISA about the exposure. But Caturegli said the exposed AWS keys inexplicably continued to remain valid for another 48 hours.
CISA is currently operating with only a fraction of its normal budget and staffing levels. The agency has lost nearly a third of its workforce since the beginning of the second Trump administration, which forced a series of early retirements, buyouts, and resignations across the agency’s various divisions.
The now-defunct Private CISA repo showed the contractor also used easily-guessed passwords for a number of internal resources; for example, many of the credentials used a password consisting of each platform’s name followed by the current year. Caturegli said such practices would constitute a serious security threat for any organization even if those credentials were never exposed externally, noting that threat actors often use key credentials exposed on the internal network to expand their reach after establishing initial access to a targeted system.
“What I suspect happened is [the CISA contractor] was using this GitHub to synchronize files between a work laptop and a home computer, because he has regularly committed to this repo since November 2025,” Caturegli said. “This would be an embarrassing leak for any company, but it’s even more so in this case because it’s CISA.”
183167780
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
Nearly 600,000 Trump supporters paid £74 ($100) each towards a gold smartphone that, nearly a year on, does not exist.
The Trump Mobile T1 phone was announced in June 2025 by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump as a patriotic alternative to Apple and Samsung, retailing at £370 ($499) and promising a 'Made in the USA' build.
An estimated 590,000 buyers paid a £74 ($100) deposit to secure one, collectively handing the venture roughly £43.7 million ($59 million). As of May 2026, not a single confirmed customer has received the device. Now, a fresh wave of anger is spreading across MAGA forums after buyers received communication making clear that their money is, for all practical purposes, gone.
Trump Mobile launched on 16 June 2025 at an announcement at Trump Tower, headlined by the president's two eldest sons and timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign launch. The T1 was marketed as a gold-coloured Android handset bearing an American flag on its back and bundled with a monthly service plan at £37.50 ($47.45) per month. Initial delivery was promised for late summer 2025.
That deadline slipped to November 2025, then December, then the first quarter of 2026. A mid-March 2026 T-Mobile carrier certification deadline also passed without resolution. By April 2026, Trump Mobile quietly redesigned its website, removing the release date entirely rather than replacing it with a new one.
NBC News, which placed its own £74 ($100) deposit in August 2025 to track the story, called Trump Mobile's support line five times between September and November 2025 and received inconsistent answers each time. A representative said in October that the phone would ship on 13 November, but it did not.
In January 2026, a call centre operator said the T1 was 'in the final stages of certification and field testing,' with a ship date 'sometime in Q1 2026.' That quarter has now passed. At one point, customer service representatives blamed a 43-day federal government shutdown for the delay, an explanation analysts quickly dismissed as irrelevant to a private-sector hardware company.
The clearest signal yet that buyers may never see either a phone or their money came with a revised terms of service published on 6 April 2026. The updated document states explicitly that paying a deposit 'does not constitute a completed purchase and does not create a binding legal contract.' The payment is described as 'a conditional opportunity to buy the device if Trump Mobile eventually chooses to sell it,' with the company retaining all control over whether a phone is produced at all.
The terms confirm that deposits will not accrue interest, are non-transferable and carry no independent cash value. Buyers who wish to cancel must submit a request through customer support before any final sale is completed. If Trump Mobile cancels the project outright, it says it will issue refunds of the original deposit amount. The fine print adds, however, that the company bears no liability for delays caused by 'parts shortages or hold-ups with regulators,' and that buyers waive any right to pursue claims beyond the original deposit figure.
Investigative journalist Joseph Cox of 404 Media, who attempted to place a deposit when pre-orders opened, found the process immediately chaotic. His card was charged the wrong amount, no shipping address was ever collected, and a confirmation email arrived promising delivery notifications that never came. Cox called it 'the worst experience I've ever faced buying a consumer electronic product.' He subsequently reported unauthorised recurring charges being levied against customers' cards.
Android Authority, which placed its own deposit in 2025 and has tracked the story since, wrote in January 2026 that it fully expected to 'never get a phone' and 'never see the $100 deposit again.'
The T1 was sold from day one on the strength of a single, politically loaded promise: it would be built in America. Within days of the June 2025 launch, that language vanished from the Trump Mobile website. 'MADE IN THE USA' became 'American-proud design,' then 'Brought to life right here in the USA,' language that supply chain experts noted was legally and commercially meaningless.
By February 2026, company executives confirmed to reporters that the T1 would not be manufactured in the United States. Final assembly of roughly the last ten components would take place in Miami, while bulk production would happen overseas. In the meantime, Trump Mobile began selling refurbished iPhones, made in China, and Samsung devices, made by a South Korean company, under the same 'American' branding umbrella.
In January 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren and ten other Democratic lawmakers wrote formally to the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to investigate 'bait-and-switch tactics involving deposits for products never delivered' and to determine whether Trump Mobile's 'Made in the USA' advertising constituted false claims. The letter, co-led by Representative Robert Garcia of California, also asked the FTC to confirm whether the White House had communicated with the agency about the venture. 'The American people deserve to know that consumer protection laws apply equally to all businesses, regardless of political connections,' the lawmakers wrote.
As of May 2026, the FTC has not publicly confirmed whether a formal investigation has been opened. Trump Mobile has not responded to multiple press inquiries. California Governor Gavin Newsom's office weighed in publicly, describing the T1 project as appearing to be 'FRAUD.'
For nearly 600,000 Americans who trusted a brand built on the Trump name, the gold phone has become the latest entry in a long record of ventures that took their money and delivered nothing.
180862962
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
NASA revealed that astronaut Mike Fincke was the crew member who suffered a medical incident at the International Space Station in January, which prompted the agency to carry out the first evacuation due to a medical issue in the space station’s 25-year history.
The rare decision to cut a mission short and bring Fincke and three other crew members home early made for a dramatic week in space early this year.
In a statement released by NASA “at the request of Fincke,” the veteran astronaut said he experienced a medical event on Jan. 7 “that required immediate attention” from his space station crew members.
“Thanks to their quick response and the guidance of our NASA flight surgeons, my status quickly stabilized,” Fincke, 58, said in the statement.
The medical incident forced NASA to cancel a spacewalk that had been planned for Jan. 8. That same day, the agency said it was considering an early return for the four-person Crew-11 mission, which included Fincke and fellow NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
At the time, NASA said the situation was stable but did not provide additional details about the incident or the affected crew member due to medical privacy concerns.
Fincke, Cardman, Yui and Platonov had been living and working aboard the International Space Station since early August and were originally expected to stay at the orbiting outpost until late February.
Instead, top NASA officials and the agency’s chief health and medical officer opted to bring the astronauts back to Earth a week after the incident occurred.
“After further evaluation, NASA determined the safest course was an early return for Crew-11 — not an emergency, but a carefully coordinated plan to be able to take advantage of advanced medical imaging not available on the space station,” Fincke said in the statement.
The four Crew-11 astronauts departed the space station on Jan. 14, undocking from the ISS in the same SpaceX Dragon capsule that flew them to the space station. After a nearly 11-hour journey, the capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, in the early morning hours of Jan. 15.
In a post-landing news briefing, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said it was a “serious situation” in orbit but added that the crew member in question had been safe and stable ever since.
In his statement, Fincke thanked his Crew-11 colleagues, along with NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who were also aboard the space station at the time and are still in space. Fincke also thanked the teams at NASA, SpaceX and the medical professionals at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla.
“Their professionalism and dedication ensured a positive outcome,” he said.
Fincke ended his statement by saying he is “doing very well” and still actively involved with standard post-flight reconditioning at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“Spaceflight is an incredible privilege, and sometimes it reminds us just how human we are,” he said. “Thank you for all your support.”
178578484
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
The White House has instructed NASA employees to terminate two major, climate change-focused satellite missions.
As NPR reports, Trump officials reached out to the space agency to draw up plans for terminating the two missions, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatories. They've been collecting widely-used data, providing both oil and gas companies and farmers with detailed information about the distribution of carbon dioxide and how it can affect crop health.
One is attached to the International Space Station, and the other is collecting data as a stand-alone satellite. The latter would meet its permanent demise after burning up in the atmosphere if the mission were to be terminated.
We can only speculate as to why the Trump administration wants to end the missions. But considering president Donald Trump's staunch climate change denial and his administration's efforts to deal the agency's science directorate a potentially existential blow, it's not difficult to speculate.
Worse yet, the two observatories had been expected to function for many more years, scientists working on them told NPR. A 2023 review by NASA concluded that the data they'd been providing had been "of exceptionally high quality."
The observatories provide detailed carbon dioxide measurements across various locations, allowing scientists to get a detailed glimpse of how human activity is affecting greenhouse gas emissions.
Former NASA employee David Crisp, who worked on the Orbiting Carbon Observatories' instruments, told NPR that current staffers reached out to him.
"They were asking me very sharp questions," he said. "The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan."
Crisp said it "makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data," pointing out it costs only $15 million per year to maintain both observatories, a tiny fraction of the agency's $25.4 billion budget.
Other scientists who've used data from the missions have also been asked questions related to terminating the missions.
The two observatories are only two of dozens of space missions facing existential threats in the form of the Trump administration's proposed 2026 fiscal year budget. Countless scientists have been outraged by the proposal, arguing it could precipitate an end to the United States' leadership in space.
Lawmakers have since drawn up a counteroffer that would keep NASA's budget roughly in line with this year's.
"We rejected cuts that would have devastated NASA science by 47 percent and would have terminated 55 operating and planned missions," said senator and top appropriator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in a July statement, as quoted by Bloomberg.
Simply terminating Earth-monitoring missions to pursue an anti-science agenda could be a massive self-own, lawmakers say — and potentially breaking laws as well by overriding existing, allocated budgets.
"Eliminating funds or scaling down the operations of Earth-observing satellites would be catastrophic and would severely impair our ability to forecast, manage, and respond to severe weather and climate disasters," House representative and Committee on Science, Space and Technology ranking member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told NPR.
"The Trump administration is forcing the proposed cuts in its FY26 budget request on already appropriated FY25 funds," she added. "This is illegal."
178187196
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
When the Trump Organization launched the Trump Mobile wireless carrier, it also launched a flagship phone called the T1 Phone 8002 (gold version). One of the phone’s main selling points was that it was to be made in America. We figured that was unlikely to be true. And we were right: sometime in the last several days, the Trump Mobile site appears to have been scrubbed of all language indicating the phone is to be made in the USA. (Like, for instance, the huge banner on the homepage that says the T1 is “MADE IN THE USA.” Just to name one example.)
Instead, the Trump Mobile website now includes what can only be described as vague, pro-American gestures in the direction of smartphone manufacturing. The T1’s new tagline is “Premium Performance. Proudly American.” Its website says the device is “designed with American values in mind” and there are “American hands behind every device.” Under Key Features, the first thing listed is “American-Proud Design.” None of this indicates, well, anything. It certainly doesn’t say the device is made in the USA, or even designed in the USA. There are just some hands. In America.
That’s not the only thing that appears to have changed about the phone since its launch last week. It was originally advertised to have a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen, but now the T1’s site says it’s 6.25 inches. The site used to list the phone as having 12GB of RAM, and now doesn’t list RAM at all. It’s not entirely clear what’s happening here — the Trump Organization hasn’t responded to a request for comment — but it looks like Trump Mobile may have switched suppliers for the T1. Whatever’s going on, it’s certainly another reason to doubt whether this phone is for real. (The badly photoshopped image of the phone hasn’t changed, though, so that’s something.)
When Trump Mobile first launched, it was also promising the T1 Phone 8002 would ship in September. Now, the only timing I could find was “later this year.” Probably best not to hold your breath.
177889159
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
Data from a license plate-scanning tool that is primarily marketed as a surveillance solution for small towns to combat crimes like car jackings or finding missing people is being used by ICE, according to data reviewed by 404 Media. Local police around the country are performing lookups in Flock’s AI-powered automatic license plate reader (ALPR) system for “immigration” related searches and as part of other ICE investigations, giving federal law enforcement side-door access to a tool that it currently does not have a formal contract for.
The massive trove of lookup data was obtained by researchers who asked to remain anonymous to avoid potential retaliation and shared with 404 Media. It shows more than 4,000 nation and statewide lookups by local and state police done either at the behest of the federal government or as an “informal” favor to federal law enforcement, or with a potential immigration focus, according to statements from police departments and sheriff offices collected by 404 Media. It shows that, while Flock does not have a contract with ICE, the agency sources data from Flock’s cameras by making requests to local law enforcement. The data reviewed by 404 Media was obtained using a public records request from the Danville, Illinois Police Department, and shows the Flock search logs from police departments around the country.
As part of a Flock search, police have to provide a “reason” they are performing the lookup. In the “reason” field for searches of Danville’s cameras, officers from across the U.S. wrote “immigration,” “ICE,” “ICE+ERO,” which is ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, the section that focuses on deportations; “illegal immigration,” “ICE WARRANT,” and other immigration-related reasons. Although lookups mentioning ICE occurred across both the Biden and Trump administrations, all of the lookups that explicitly list “immigration” as their reason were made after Trump was inaugurated, according to the data.
177068941
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is paying software company Palantir $30 million to provide the agency with “near real-time visibility” on people self-deporting from the United States, according to a contract justification published in a federal register on Thursday. The tool would also help ICE choose who to deport, giving special priority to “visa overstays,” the document shows.
Palantir has been an ICE contractor since 2011, but the document published Thursday indicates that Palantir wants to provide brand-new capabilities to ICE. The agency currently does not have any publicly known tools for tracking self-deportation in near real-time. The agency does have a tool for tracking self-reported deportations, but Thursday’s document, which was first reported by Business Insider, does not say to what degree this new tool may rely on self-reported data. ICE also has “insufficient technology” to detect people overstaying their visas, according to the Department of Homeland Security. This is particularly due to challenges in collecting "biographic and biometric" data from departing travelers, especially if they leave over land, according to Customs and Border Protection.
The agency says in the document that these new capabilities will be under a wholly new platform called the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System, or ImmigrationOS. Palantir is expected to provide a prototype of ImmigrationOS by September 25, 2025, and the contract is scheduled to last at least through September 2027. ICE’s update to the contract comes as the Trump administration is demanding that thousands of immigrants “self-deport,” or leave the US voluntarily.
ICE and Palantir did not respond for comment.
According to the document, ImmigrationOS is intended to have three core functions. Its “Targeting and Enforcement Prioritization” capability would streamline the “selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens.” People prioritized for removal, ICE says, should be “violent criminals,” gang members, and “visa overstays.”
Its “Self-Deportation Tracking” function would have “near real-time visibility into instances of self-deporation,” the document says. The document does not say what data Palantir would use for such a system, but ICE says it aims to “accurately report metrics of alien departures from the United States.” The agency stipulates that this tool should also integrate with “enforcement prioritization systems to inform policy” but does not elaborate on these systems or policies.
Meanwhile, the “Immigration Lifecycle Process” function would streamline the “identification” of aliens and their “removal” from the United States, with the goal of making "deportation logistics” more efficient.
In a “rationale” section, ICE claims that it has an “urgent and compelling” need for ImmigrationOS’s capabilities. Without them, ICE claims, it would be “severely” limited in its ability to target the gangs MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, and abide by President Donald Trump’s executive order to expedite deportations.
Palantir, ICE claims, is “the only source that can provide the required capabilities and prototype of ImmogrationOS [sic] without causing unacceptable delays.” ICE says the company has developed “deep institutional knowledge of the agency’s operations over more than a decade of support.”
“No other vendor could meet these timeframes of having the infrastructure in place to meet this urgent requirement and deliver a prototype in less than six months,” ICE says in the document.
ICE’s document does not specify the data sources Palantir would pull from to power ImmigrationOS. However, it says that Palantir could “configure” the case management system that it has provided to ICE since 2014.
Palantir has done work at various other government agencies as early as 2007. Aside from ICE, it has worked with the US Army, Air Force, Navy, Internal Revenue Service, and Federal Bureau of Investigation. As reported by WIRED, Palantir is currently helping Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) build a brand-new “mega API” at the IRS that could search for records across all the different databases that the agency maintains.
Last week, 404 Media reported that a recent version of Palantir’s case-management system for ICE allows agents to search for people based on “hundreds of different, highly specific categories,” including how a person entered the country, their current legal status, and their country of origin. It also includes a person’s hair and eye color, whether they have scars or tattoos, and their license-plate reader data, which would provide detailed location data about where that person travels by car.
These functionalities have been mentioned in a government privacy assessment published in 2016, and it’s not clear what new information may have been integrated into the case management system over the past four years.
This week’s $30 million award is an addition to an existing Palantir contract penned in 2022, originally worth about $17 million, for work on ICE’s case management system. The agency has increased the value of the contract five times prior to this month; the largest was a $19 million increase in September 2023.
The contract’s ImmigrationOS update was first documented on April 11 in a government-run database tracking federal spending. The entry had a 248-character description of the change. The five-page document ICE published Thursday, meanwhile, has a more detailed description of Palantir’s expected services for the agency.
The contract update comes as the Trump administration deputizes ICE and other government agencies to drastically escalate the tactics and scale of deportations from the US. In recent weeks, immigration authorities have arrested and detained people with student visas and green cards, and deported at least 238 people to a brutal megaprison in El Salvador, some of whom have not been able to speak with a lawyer or have due process.
As part of its efforts to push people to self-deport, DHS in late March revoked the temporary parole of more than half a million people and demanded that they self-deport in about a month, despite having been granted authorization to live in the US after fleeing dangerous or unstable situations in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela under the so-called “CHNV parole programs.”
Last week, the Social Security Administration listed more than 6,000 of these people as dead, a tactic meant to end their financial lives. DHS, meanwhile, sent emails to an unknown number of people declaring that their parole had been revoked and demanding that they self-deport. Several US citizens, including immigration attorneys, received the email.
On Monday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s move to revoke people’s authorization to live in the US under the CHNV programs. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called the judge’s ruling “rogue.”
176774005
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
A French scientist on his way to a conference in the United States was allegedly denied entry by Customs and Border Patrol over messages found on his phone that criticized President Trump’s science cuts.
The French newspaper Le Monde reports that on March 9, a space researcher was randomly selected upon arrival in Houston for a search, and CBP found messages criticizing the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists, which, according to the agency, “conveyed hatred of Trump & could be qualified as terrorism.”
The researcher’s phone and computer were allegedly confiscated, and he was sent back to Europe the next day. The news prompted the attention of the French government, which expressed alarm.
“I was told with concern that a French researcher, on a mission for the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who was going to a conference near Houston, was banned from entering the US before being expelled,” said France’s Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste, in a statement Wednesday. “This would have been taken by the US authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friendly relations in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy.”
According to one source cited by Agence France-Presse, CBP said that the French researcher expressed “hate and conspiracy messages,” prompting an FBI investigation, only for the charges to be dropped later. Another source said the scientist was banned due to messages “that can be described as terrorism.”
The incident marks a disturbing change in how visitors to the United States are treated. Legitimate criticism of the Trump administration occurs everywhere, and it’s no secret that Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort has resulted in millions of dollars in cuts to scientific research. The idea that criticism of this would rise to the level of terrorism and result in someone being barred from the U.S. is absurd.
176639805
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve, a day before meeting with executives from the cryptocurrency industry at the White House.
The reserve will be capitalized with bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings, the White House crypto czar, billionaire David Sacks, said in a post on social media platform X.
Attendees at Friday's White House crypto summit expect the event to serve as a stage for Trump to formally announce his plans to build a strategic reserve containing bitcoin and four other cryptocurrencies.
Earlier this week, Trump announced the names of five digital assets he expects to include in this reserve, spiking the market value of each. The five are bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano, the president said.
It is not clear how such a reserve would work or how it would benefit taxpayers. Sacks said the federal government will have a strategy to maximize the value of its holdings in such a reserve, without offering details.
"The U.S. will not sell any bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value. The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called "digital gold", Sacks said.
Trump's moves to support the crypto industry, which spent millions backing him and other Republicans in the November elections, have drawn concern from some conservatives and crypto backers over giveaways to an already wealthy community and delegitimizing the digital currency industry.
Proponents argue that a reserve would help taxpayers benefit from crypto's price growth.
Bitcoin briefly tumbled more than 5% to below $85,000 following Sacks' post, and last changed hands at $88,107.
"This is the most underwhelming and disappointing outcome we could have expected for this week," Charles Edwards, founder of Bitcoin-focused hedge fund Capriole Investments, wrote in a post on X.
"No active buying means this is just a fancy title for Bitcoin holdings that already existed with the Govt. This is a pig in lipstick."
Trump's executive order directed the secretaries of Treasury and Commerce to develop "budget-neutral strategies" for acquiring additional bitcoin that have no "incremental costs" on taxpayers.
Sacks estimated the U.S. government owns about 200,000 bitcoin and premature sale of the cryptocurrency has cost the American taxpayer $17 billion. It was not clear how Sacks arrived at these estimates.
The president's support for the crypto industry has also sparked conflict-of-interest concerns. Trump's family has launched cryptocurrency meme coins, and the president also holds a stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform.
His aides have said Trump has handed over control of his business ventures, which are being reviewed by outside ethics lawyers.
176625605
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
According to the AI chatbot called Grok, which was developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, there is a “75-85% likelihood” that the person who delivered the State of the Union address on Tuesday night is a “Putin-compromised” Russian asset.
In describing Grok, by the way, Musk said it is a “maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically-correct.”
Like, for example, determining that his good buddy Donald Trump, who has given Musk free rein over every aspect of the federal government, is most likely a Russian asset.
This all began with a question put to Grok. It was:
“What is the likelihood from 1-100 that Trump is a Putin-compromised asset? Use all publicly available information from 1980 on and his failure to ever say anything negative about Putin but has no issue attacking allies.”
Musk’s genius AI chatbot took it from there, piecing together a string of data points that led to its ultimate conclusion. How strange it is these days that such devices exist, and stranger still that we are becoming more and more dependent upon them. And how we haven't yet determined if that is bad or good.
Of Trump, Grok said in part, “Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, as Trump faced bankruptcies, he increasingly relied on funding from sources tied to Russia and former Soviet states. His sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, made statements reinforcing this: Donald Jr. in 2008 said, ‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,’ and Eric in 2014 claimed, ‘We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’”
It also noted that “leaked Kremlin documents reported by The Guardian in 2021 suggest Putin personally approved a 2016 operation to back Trump, viewing him as ‘mentally unstable’ and exploitable, with potential compromising material from past Moscow visits.”
As for drawing its artificially intelligent “maximally truth-seeking” conclusion, Grok said, “Weighing this, the financial ties (decades-long, opaque, and substantial), intelligence suggesting Russian intent, and Trump’s unwavering refusal to criticize Putin despite attacking allies tilt the scale.”
Given all that (and more, if you read the entire assessment), Grok said that “Trump’s ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable, fits the evidence. Adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations (e.g., ideological alignment or naivety), I estimate a 75-85% likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties.”
176247837
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
Hackers wasted no time in infiltrating the Department of Government Efficiency’s website.
After a hasty launch this week, at least two pages of the site have been defaced by critics who seemingly have accessed a database the page draws from. Two messages appeared on two separate pages of the site, reading “this is a joke of a .gov site” and “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN -roro.”
The hacked pages, though still accessible as of 10:00 a.m. ET on Friday morning, no longer appear to people who navigate to the DOGE website in traditional methods.
404 Media, which first discovered the hacked pages, quoted anonymous experts who said the DOGE page does not appear to be hosted on government servers and was pulling data from a database that can be accessed by third parties. That opened the doors for the embarrassing criticism.
176125577
submission
ArchieBunker writes:
Musk, the Tesla billionaire-turned-government-cost-cutter, is leading the so-called Doge department of government efficiency, proposed by Trump’s Commerce department nominee Howard Lutnick to “rip the waste out of our $6.5 trillion budget.”
Now, as fears emerge Trump’s administration is “dangerously” undermining the U.S. dollar, Musk has confirmed he wants to put the U.S. Treasury on a blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—including Musk’s pet project dogecoin.
"Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress," Musk posted to X, referencing part of the United States code which outlines how some government payments are approved. “This needs to stop now!”
Replying to X influencer Mario Nawfal who asked: "Should the Treasury be put on the blockchain so this doesn’t happen," Musk replied: “Yes!”
Earlier, the New York Times reported Trump’s Treasury secretary Scott Bessent handed Doge department officials access to the payment system which sends out money to the tune of $5 trillion per year on behalf of the entire federal government on Friday, citing anonymous sources.
Last week, Musk held discussions about using the blockchain technology to save money, it was reported by Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources.
Unnamed people close to Musk told the financial newswire that there's been talk of using a blockchain to track federal spending, secure data, make payments and manage buildings.
It is unclear if Musk plans on using an existing blockchain, such as bitcoin's, ethereum's, dogecoin's or one of thousands of smaller blockchains which have their own cryptocurrencies, or if he would rather create a new, purpose built blockchain.
Following Musk's take over of Twitter, which he then renamed X, Musk also debated adding blockchain technology to the platform before ditching the idea, text messages between Musk and his brother Kimbal revealed in 2022.
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ArchieBunker writes:
President-elect Donald Trump has launched a new cryptocurrency token that is soaring in value – and potentially boosting his net worth – just before his inauguration. It’s the latest norm-defying promotion by Trump, who has also helped sell branded bibles, gold sneakers and diamond-encrusted watches.
“It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community,” Trump said in a social post late Friday promoting the new tokens. They are marketed with a picture of Trump holding a fist up superimposed over the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT,” a reference to Trump’s response to an assassination attempt at a political rally in July.
In promoting the meme coin, Trump told supporters to “Have Fun!” The website selling the tokens says they are meant as expressions of support and not an investment opportunity.
That hasn’t stopped people from trying to make money. The Trump meme coins started selling for $10 each before soaring to as high as about $70 as of Sunday morning.
Memo coins are a strange and highly volatile corner of the crypto industry that often start as a joke with no real value but can surge in price if enough people are willing to buy them. Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency whose mascot is a super-cute dog that muses things like “much wow,” is perhaps the most well known. Meme coins can be used by scammers looking to make a quick fortune at the expense of unwary investors.
Some crypto enthusiasts hailed the Trump meme coin’s release, saying it’s symbolic of the incoming president’s support for an industry that felt unfairly targeted by the Biden administration. Trump has promised to usher in crypto-friendly regulations and picked crypto cheerleaders for key government positions.
Critics said the Trump meme coin could be a dangerous way for special interests and foreign governments to try and buy influence with the president.
“Now anyone in world can essentially deposit money into bank account of President of USA with a couple clicks,” Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump White House communications director, said on X.
The sale of Trump meme coin was organized by CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump Organization. The coin’s website said 200 million Trump meme coins are currently available, with plans to issue 1 billion over the next three years. CIC Digital and another company collectively own 80% of the Trump meme coins and will receive “trading revenue derived from trading activities,” according to the token’s website.
The Trump family business recently released an ethics agreement that prohibits Trump from “day-to-day” decision making at the Trump Organization when he’s president and limits financial information about the business shared with him.
Trump and his family previously helped launch a new venture to trade cryptocurrencies last year. The president-elect has also dabbled in NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, and last year reported earning between $100,000 and $1 million from a series of digital trading cards that portrayed him in cartoon-like images, including as an astronaut, a cowboy and a superhero.
Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, has also defied traditional notions of value. Despite struggling to raise revenue, the company is currently valued at more than $8 billion as Trump’s supporters help boost the stock price and his net worth along with it.
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ArchieBunker writes:
President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday that he plans to issue an executive order that would give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the popular video-sharing platform is subject to a permanent U.S.ban.
Trump announced the decision in a post on his Truth Social account as millions of TikTok users in the U.S. awoke to discover they could no longer access the TikTok app or platform. Google and Apple removed the app from their digital stores to comply with a federal law that required them to do so if TikTok parent company ByteDance didn’t sell its U.S. operation to an approved buyer by Sunday.
He said his order would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect” and “confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.
“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump wrote.
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ArchieBunker writes:
JD Vance has suggested that American support for NATO should be predicated on the European Union not regulating Elon Musk and his X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.
The Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio senator claimed in an interview with YouTuber Shawn Ryan that a top EU official had threatened to arrest the billionaire if he allowed former President Donald Trump back on X.
“The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” Vance said in the interview published last week.
Trump’s running mate then suggested that US support for NATO should be used as a cudgel to get the Europeans in line.
“So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance asked. “It’s insane that we would support a military alliance if that military alliance isn’t going to be pro-free speech. I think we can do both. But we’ve got to say American power comes with certain strings attached. One of those is respect free speech, especially in our European allies.”
Musk has been accused of banning several journalists since taking over Twitter, now X.
“I’m not going to go to some backwoods country and tell them how to live their lives,” Vance added. “But European countries should theoretically share American values, especially about some very basic things like free speech.”
