Short Takes – 1-3-23

Conservatives threaten to withhold critical McCarthy support, hours before speaker vote. Politico.com article. Pull quote: “McCarthy ally Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Monday his previous warning — that a band of moderate Republicans would work with Democrats to elect a centrist GOP speaker, if conservatives tank McCarthy — remains on the table.”

Ukraine Has Digitized Its Fighting Forces on a Shoestring. WSJ.com article. Is Russian Army tech savvy enough to respond? Pull quote: ““It’s called connected war, and the Ukrainian army will be the most advanced ever because of life experience,” said Roman Perimov, who is leading a new military technology development unit within a brigade of the Ukrainian army. His team is building homemade drone-jamming equipment and churns out cheap, high-capacity battery units to keep soldiers online during the fighting.”

Here Are the House Republicans to Watch if McCarthy’s Bid for Speaker Falters. NYTimes.com article. Pull quote: “But the landscape could quickly change should Mr. McCarthy falter on Tuesday, when the new Congress convenes and lawmakers vote to elect a new speaker. House precedent requires that lawmakers continue voting on ballot after ballot if no one is able to win the gavel. If Mr. McCarthy is unable to quickly win election, Republicans would be under immense pressure to coalesce around an alternative, ending a potentially chaotic and divisive fight on the floor that could taint the start of their majority in the House.”

George Santos and the failure of imagination. TheHill.com article. Pull quote: “Santos’s story may be extreme, but it is not unique. Power brokers, CEOs, and wealthy heiresses have all had their stories unravel. And that holds a lesson for us all. We choose to hire people, work with people, and invest with people, based on the stories they tell and the capabilities and intentions those stories imply.” An interesting take on an odd political story.

Lessons Learned from Cybersecurity Mentoring. Tisiphone.net blog post. Excellent suggestions for any growing field, but especially cybersecurity. Pull quote: “These are not hard and fast rules, but they’re problems that I see continually with advice I give out on a quite regular basis. Since my calendar is filling up pretty far in advance, I hope you find this a useful start and some of these concerns resonate with you. Wishing you all a happy and successful New Year!”

Two Men Charged in Christmas Day Attacks on Washington Power Substations. WSJ.com article. Pull quote: “Mr. Greenwood told investigators that he and Mr. Crahan planned to disrupt power so they could burglarize a business, according to the criminal complaint filed Saturday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Tacoma.” So, not terrorism, just an interesting way to disable an alarm system.

Why the U.S. is enlisting a spy agency during hurricanes. WashingtonPost.com article. Pull quote: “At the peak, the analysts’ system was processing about 60,000 images per day, Robb said, helping to produce rich information about the geography of the damage that made rescue efforts more effective. The agency [U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency] has deployed to natural disasters for years, but it hadn’t previously used drones, which meant it didn’t have as rich or as many low-altitude images to work with.”