Incompetents, Hackers and Trolls, Oh My!

(Image by Bob Gorrell)

Several days ago, new broke that the TSA had a 95% failure rate during an evaluation. 

I was busy with both off-line and on-line activities to write about this story.  And to be honest, I wasn't all that surprised.  TSA hasn't exactly been scandal-free since Dubya's dimwitted idea of creating another bureaucracy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

(Image by Steve Breen)

Before the dust of TSA's Exercise Epic Fail settled, another agency suffered a cyber breach, believed to be the work of Chinese hackers, that potentially affects 4 million federal employees.  Once again, I was busy writing other posts. so I didn't devote anything more to this story than scanning the headlines.

But sometimes one has to look outside the news to understand the magnitude of an issue.  

Yesterday, one of my on-line friends sent us a recent post by Former Spook, which details the Mother Lode of data the Chinese were able to mine.   

The Chinese aren't the only cyber claim-jumpers either.

Apparently, there's a cadre of "professional trolls" working for the Internet Research Agency in Russia. 

None of this inspires confidence in me that our government can effectively defend the realm, without turning into a police state.

But fear not citizens!  Our Community Organizer-in-Chief is focused on the true threat to Civilization As We Know It...

(Image by Gary Varvel)