White House officials said the installation was an effort to increase internet availability at the complex. They said that some areas of the property could not get cell service and that the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was overtaxed.

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    In any healthy democracy, this would have been seen as a scandal exposing signs of corruption and would have likely resulted in the dissolution of the government and early election.

    But the US is not a healthy democracy.

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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        2 minutes ago

        Besides the security concerns, I want to know what they’re using it for, and how much bullshit they’re hiding by avoiding the official network.

        It’s certainly not a speed and convenience thing.

    • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      2 hours ago

      The corruption is clear, obvious, and blatant. Everyone knows about it, but there’s not a whole lot they can do. A good chunk of our citizens picked it on purpose.

    • tabular@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Given it’s unrepresentative voting system I think how much is enough to be a democracy. T hot take for people that see democracy. Two parties to choose from is just one more than a clear dictatorship. If neither actually represents you then yeah it’s not healthy .

      • kautau@lemmy.world
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        38 minutes ago

        Agreed, except for one point. It’s in oligarchy. Our “dictator” was just selling cars on the White House lawn. Capitalism won to get to it’s late stages, happy to let racist hatred and russian influence fester for continued capital self-interest

  • c1a5s1c@feddit.org
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    1 hour ago

    Anyone see the Johnny English with the American billionaire cyber-terrorist Jason Volta as the main antagonist?

    That’s how I see news coming from Washington developing on a daily basis.

    We need you Rowan Atkinson.

  • a_postmodern_hat@lemmy.world
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    32 minutes ago

    Musk is literally a James Bond villain. Literally. Like LITERALLY a Bond villain.

    Edit: minus the genius and charisma

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    If you live in the DC area, absolutely do NOT sign up for this service.

    100% chance that the government, as well as musks companies would be monitoring you directly 24/7.

    • arf@lemmy.today
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      3 hours ago

      I wholeheartedly agree.

      However, it’s hard to say that AT&T, Comcast, Cox and the like aren’t all doing the same thing.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        2 hours ago

        The way I see stuff like this is that you don’t have to hand over your information on a silver platter directly to the agents.

        Like when a trainload of east germans was allowed to migrate to the west through a separate country, they just had to hand their passports to the Stasi before being let go.

        When the Stasi agents came to the train to collect the passports the east germans just threw them on the floor instead of handing them over, that is kinda how this should be viewed.

    • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Well now the Chinese and Russians just need to get a way into Shartlink and they can also monitor you and your government.

  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    The existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was “overtaxed” so they just threw up satellite instead of , I don’t know, improving the Wi-Fi infrastructure? There’s perfectly fine WiFi at sprawling work and college campuses, and stadiums that seat tens of thousands of people. What a joke.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      14 minutes ago

      Network infrastructure is a science and we don’t need no damn science in this country!

    • xzot746@sh.itjust.works
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      2 minutes ago

      Well it looks like more people need to be screwed over, I guess maybe after it affects enough “Me’s” it’ll probably stay the same. The amount of damage that will be done before the American people stand up will be immense.

      I honestly cannot believe that the average American is in agreement with this and that they think holding signs up will do anything. Sorry but they say violence is never the right course of action, but I think in this case you might need to see if that well regulated militia is ready to defend your freedom.

      And shame on the Democratic party for just rolling over.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    The only security this White House cares about is its own power and hiding (for the time being) its complete disregard for anything else.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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    4 hours ago

    “some areas of the property could not get cell service”

    Like the bunkers? Like hell did the white house not have cell service.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      I can believe areas of the White House have no cell service, on purpose. Remember when they found those fake cell towers around DC?

      https://www.wired.com/story/dcs-stingray-dhs-surveillance/

      I bet at some point they installed some cell phone jammers specifically to limit the amount of foreign spying that could be done by fake towers, and they simply “forgot” to tell the incoming Trump administration…

      • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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        3 hours ago

        probably more likely they fired the original IT team and replaced them with Muskite interns

    • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Plenty of federal facilities have garbage reception. I think it’s probably due to the bureaucracy involved in telecoms installing their hardware on sensitive property. The White House in particular probably has lots of thick walls/armor attenuating signals, too.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    3 hours ago

    it’s necessary so the Saudis can livestream all the blowjobs and asslickling happening in the oval office.