Project 2025 Tracker – The site tracks overall progress now at 34% as well as well as detailed objectives specific to each government agency. This is a significant and very disconcerting tool. Thanks go out to the folks at the free project you can support via Patreon. See also Searchable Full Project 2025 Text: Mandate… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Records
DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million.
The New York Times: “The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error. The Department of Government Efficiency, the federal cost-cutting initiative championed by Elon Musk, published on Monday a list of government contracts it has canceled, together amounting to about $16 billion in savings itemized… Continue Reading
Will DOGE Soon Take Over the Federal Procurement Data System?
I am going to deduce, based on many ongoing purging and illegal take over of federal government finance related databases (among a vast array of other subject matter) that this announcement is cover for DOGE to take control of this critical e-government federal government contract system: NOTICE: FPDS Downtime Notification The FPDS production application (https://www.fpds.gov)… Continue Reading
Google’s new policy tracks all your devices with no opt-out
digitaltrends: “Google has begun enforcing new tracking rules across connected devices, such as smartphones, consoles, and smart TVs, as BBC reports. The tech giant once called the fingerprint tracking technique “wrong” in 2019, but has since reintroduced it.Google has commented that other companies broadly use the data, and it started using it on February 16,… Continue Reading
Back Up Everything. Even if Elon Musk Isn’t Looking at It.
The New York Times [unpaywalled] – “In recent weeks, Elon Musk and his aides have gained access to many federal agencies’ systems and unknown amounts of data. Many readers have written in to share their fears that the agencies — and the personal data they possess on hundreds of millions of taxpayers — are now… Continue Reading
The Best AI-Free, Encrypted Alternatives to Google Docs
Lifehacker: “Face it: with the competition spending hundreds of millions of dollars on it, Google’s recent foray into AI isn’t going to stop anytime soon. While you can hide Google Workspace’s Gemini buttons and prompts for now, you can’t actually stop the company from continuing to build its apps around a technology that revolves around… Continue Reading
Federal workers say they increasingly distrust platforms like Facebook
The Verge: “As Elon Musk and President Donald Trump have sought to gut and remake the federal government to their liking, federal workers have changed how they communicate with one another and with friends. They have locked down communication channels, migrated to new platforms, and what was once skepticism has grown into deep distrust —… Continue Reading
USAspending Data Sources and SAM.gov
“USAspending.gov links data from many government systems, including agency financial systems and governmentwide award systems. Scroll below to learn more about these systems, as well as the context for this historic initiative to provide federal spending transparency.” Try searching for contracts by vendor name such as AWS, Inc., Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Tesla Laboratories, Inc.… Continue Reading
UK – Secure sanitisation and disposal of storage media
How to ensure data cannot be recovered from electronic storage media. In this guidance What is electronic storage media? What is sanitisation? Before you sanitise Preparing ESM for re-use Disposing of ESM This guidance is for organisations who need to ensure that data held on electronic storage media can’t be read by unauthorised parties after… Continue Reading
Don’t let Donald Trump and Elon Musk talk us out of democracy
Law Dork – “President Donald Trump and shadow-president Elon Musk are losing. When Justice Department lawyers go to court, trying to defend many of Trump and Musk’s actions, DOJ has regularly lost — and often face tense moments in court before being dealt those losses. On Monday, for example, Judge John Bates, a George W.… Continue Reading
Cybersecurity Experts Warn of DeepSeek Vulnerabilities as Governments Ban App
Gizmodo: “A cybersecurity company is warning businesses and organizations not to use a popular app from the generative AI company DeepSeek, saying that the program contains a number of security vulnerabilities that could compromise users’ data. The DeepSeek app, which shocked the stock market when it moved to the top of the Apple App Store… Continue Reading
GovWayback
“GovWayback is a simple tool to quickly access archived versions of government websites from before January 20, 2025 – just add “wayback.com” after “.gov” in any government URL. GovWayback automatically redirects you to that page’s archived version from the Internet Archive. Why January 20, 2025? January 20th is Inauguration Day for the U.S. presidential term.… Continue Reading
