Cybersecurity takes a big hit in new Trump executive order

arstechnica.com

12 pointsderbOac4 comments

Bailing on PQC does seem like a mistake. It's getting merged into/has been merged into a lot of open source software at this point. It's just a matter of flipping the switch.

On the face of it, this seems like a really bad idea unless Trump is working at the behest of the U.S.A's enemies.

However, another possibility is to weaken the controls around voting machines to enable them to be easily hacked/controlled, assuming that they're not already compromised.

In some ways this was the most eye-raising part of it to me: "...barring the Treasury Department from sanctioning people in the US who are involved in cyberattacks on US infrastructure. The accompanying White House statement said the change would prevent 'misuse against domestic political opponents.'" Maybe there's some nonobvious explanation but it seems strange to me.

That makes me think of Musk and the unauthorised Starlink connection to the Whitehouse.

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