Cyber memo warns of new risks to White House network | Hacker News Reader

Cyber memo warns of new risks to White House network

axios.com

90 pointshsnewman27 comments

"Senior staffer quits over "highly concerning" lack of security practices."
[...]

"It is my express opinion that the remaining incumbent OCISO staff is being systematically targeted for removal from the Office of Administration," departing White House network defense branch chief Dimitrios Vastakis wrote in the memo. The security team had seen incentive pay revoked, scope of duties cut, and access to systems and facilities reduced, Vastakis noted. Staffers' "positions with strategic and tactical decision making authorities" had also been revoked. "In addition, habitually being hostile to incumbent OCISO staff has become a staple tactic for the new leadership... it has forced the majority of [senior civil servant] OCISO staff to resign."

This is the story.

I don't think it's a complete story either way. It's just some bureaucrats complaining that they've been made redundant and from there we are lead by the author to conclude that the White House has inadequate IT security going forward. This is unrealistic.

It's a reorganization. That shit happens all the time in organizations everywhere. Of course the people losing their jobs are unhappy, and it's their right to complain about it, but not necessarily a bad thing that the DoD is now in charge of White House security.

I'm curious if I'm being downvoted because something about my comment was wrong, or simply because "orange man bad." Maybe share some insight about the right chain of command for government IT security operations? I'm not saying that the reorganization is a good thing, only that there is insufficient evidence provided to conclude that it's a bad thing.

>The security team had seen incentive pay revoked, scope of duties cut, and access to systems and facilities reduced, Vastakis noted. Staffers' "positions with strategic and tactical decision making authorities" had also been revoked

You consider this a re-org?

The article said the responsibilities had been transferred to a DoD entity and tried to imply that having the DoD involved in White House operations is somehow bad.

Yea that's a re-org. That's how you fire someone in government because it's so convoluted to outright terminate people.

[Note] since I posted this, the original article link was updated from an Ars Technica link to an Axios article with even _less_ analysis. This is kind of absurd.

If you were running the show, how would you get rid of those people? Regulations make it slow and expensive to get rid of horrible employees. These people could be actively hostile and thus a security risk, which wouldn't be surprising if they were hired by political opponents.

Options are limited. One idea would be to relocate their offices to central Alaska. Another idea is rotating shift work.

If this were normal at-will employment, then they would quickly be replaced.

> But in a July reorganization, the OCISO was dissolved and its duties placed under the White House Office of the Chief Information Officer, led by CIO Ben Pauwels and Director of White House IT Roger L. Stone. Stone was pulled from the ranks of the National Security Council where he was deputy senior director for resilience policy. (Stone is not related to indicted Republican political consultant Roger J. Stone.)

I wonder if Roger L. Stone feels any sympathy for people who have similar names to those on the No Fly List. I wonder if people ask him about indictment, and he says "No, it is the other Roger Stone in the Trump administration, Roger J. Stone who was indicted. I am Roger L. Stone"

I remember reading about how were two Stephen R. Bournes working at Bell Labs at the same time (only one of whom was the author of the Bourne shell).

https://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/README.cf.8.8.html

> [...] and at one time Bell Labs had two Stephen R. Bournes with offices along the same hallway. Which one will be forced to suffer the indignity of being Stephen_R_Bourne_2? The less famous of the two, or the one that was hired later?

> [The Office of Administration's general counsel] added that it also puts information required to be preserved by the Presidential Records Act outside of the Executive Office of the President's oversight.

The rest of the article seems really bad, but isn't this bit a good thing? Shouldn't a somewhat-independent body be responsible for ensuring that presidential records are properly preserved?

I may be wrong, but just because they are outside the oversight of the “Executive Office of the President” does not mean they have been transferred into the oversight of some equally competent authority. The president is probably still in control of this info but he doesn’t want it formally handled by this office. (Realistically there's a 50/50 chance it’s being managed by Rudy Giuliani at this point.)

Or deleted by a 500 lb bed hacker after all the security guys are removed.

> outside of the Executive Office of the President's oversight

> The president is probably still in control

What you're saying is directly contrasting the quote you responded to

"Executive Office of the President"

"President"

Not the same thing.

> isn't this bit a good thing?

Well, yeah, but you're kind of missing the bigger picture of what's going on here, which is that the administration is apparently trying to undermine this safeguard. So yes, it's a good thing that the safeguard exists, but no, it's not a good thing that the administration is trying to do an end-run around it, which is what makes this news.

No, the White House wants to transfer records which must legally be preserved into the hands of pliable partisan hacks who can hide or destroy them with no accountability, instead of leaving them in the hands of ethical information-security experts.

Why was this post nuked? It was at the top, then all of a sudden it was merged in to another lower post and has very quickly dropped to the bottom.

It's a technique to control public discourse and provide the illusion of free speech. Read this[0] and weep.

[0]: https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

It's another indication of the danger of the incompetency of the current administration as outlined in Michael Lewis' excellent book "The Fifth Risk". The Fifth Risk being "Project management", or lack thereof. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk

This will surely end well...

They should hire Alex Stamos

Are you serious? If you read the article, it's quite clear this is a coordinated effort within the administration to gut this group (OCISO). They don't want to improve things by hiring Stamos. That is the opposite of their goal.

Url changed from https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/white..., which points to this.

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