@nprofile1q... challenge accepted! thanks!

ICYMI, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has suspended more than 1,000 small business contractors in the 8(a) Business Development Program, designed to provide contracting opportunities and training to small business owners that are socially and economically disadvantaged.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliemadeiracofield/2026/01/27/1000-firms-out-65-in-whats-happening-to-the-8a-program/

On December 5th, SBA announced that every 8(a) firm would be required to provide detailed financial information to the agency with limited guidance. The SBA initially provided just 31 days to comply with their request, over the holidays, before extending the deadline to January 19th.

On Monday, Defense News said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Jan. 16 "lambasted a decades-old contracting program that provides business opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses, calling it a breeding ground for fraud and disparaging it as a “DEI” effort."

"In a video posted on social media, Hegseth described the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program in harsh terms, connecting it with diversity programs he has strongly criticized and ordering a strict review."

“We’re actually taking a sledgehammer to the oldest DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] program in the federal government,” Hegseth said. “A program few people outside of Washington have ever heard of, that I hadn’t heard of. It’s called the 8(a) program.”

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2026/01/26/critics-see-chilling-effect-of-dod-crackdown-on-8a-small-biz-deals/

Finally got around to learning the song "Breathe" by Pink Floyd on the piano. The chord sequences are just dripping with chill. This song reminds me of Zepplin's "Rain Song," in that I could listen to it and play it for hours on end. Pink Floyd recorded this song with a guitar mostly doing the chords. It sounds amazing with the keyboard filling in, especially with some funky preset like 70s funk.

Breathe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcz0YxYl6Ac&list=RDjcz0YxYl6Ac&start_radio=1

Quick and dirty tutorial on the chords (you can mess around within the chord in the right hand for a melody):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apQRi_B5miE

Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine sent a letter to the DHS inspector general, regarding what they called "a muddled patchwork of technology procurements that have significantly expanded DHS’ ability to collect, retain, and analyze information about Americans."

"We are deeply concerned that ICE’s surge in brutality against American communities is being facilitated by the inappropriate and unsupervised use of surveillance technology."

"DHS law enforcement agencies have moved to amass potentially sensitive personal data with the unprecedented $165 billion DHS was allocated during last year’s partisan reconciliation process. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alone received $75 billion, more funding than that
allocated to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), an agency responsible for investigating violations of a significantly greater number of laws."

"To date, DHS has:

1. Issued a Request for Information (RFI) to Big Data and Ad Tech providers to support ICE’s investigation activities;

2. Published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), Collection and Use of Biometrics by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that would expand the types and amount of biometric data the agency can – including allowing collection of biometric data from children under 14;

3. Issued a RFI to hire 30 social media surveillance contractors to collect information from social media and commercial databases and build profiles on individuals for the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division;

4. Issued a Notice of Intent for licenses from Bi2 Technologies - used for scanning individuals’ irises;

5. Entered a contract with Palantir to upgrade the Investigative Case Management (ICM) system – which has access to information from across the federal government – to include the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System (ImmigrationOS);

6. Reactivated a contract with Paragon Solutions under the FAR 6.302-1 rule, which is reserved for the most unique services."

https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/8/a/8a89f505-7fa5-43cc-846a-2210f13996c1/EF33E15E3EADE3BEEA2CCCFAAFB6168F2F8AD47FDAB4FBED3DA68EF10886002A.2026.01.29-letter-to-dhs-oig-re-data-final.sign.pdf

IDK why, but I usually feel compelled to like someone's comment on LinkedIn before I tear into it with an opposing view. Feels more civil that way, I guess.

The WSJ reports that Google has moved to seize dozens of domains belonging to IPIDEA, a Chinese residential proxy service and the largest by far with ~10M proxies for rent. Google has also taken steps to remove hundreds of apps affiliated with the company from Android devices

https://www.wsj.com/tech/google-aims-knockout-blow-at-chinese-company-linked-to-massive-cyber-weapon-3c3fdc40?st=tzboX3

Earlier this month, we broke the news about how the world's biggest botnet -- Kimwolf -- grew very quickly to well more than 2 million devices by exploiting a weakness in IPIDEA that allowed them to probe the local networks of proxy endpoints, and infect unofficial Android devices like TV boxes.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/

IPIDEA's proxy service has become synonymous with these Android TV boxes, which generally come backdoored at purchase. According to Synthient, the proxy tracking startup that figured out how Kimwolf was spreading, the majority of traffic being funneled through IPIDEA proxies is for account takeover activity and ad fraud.

The Washington Post is reportedly planning deep staff cuts, possibly more than 10 percent of the newsroom, but nobody really knows at the moment. Guess Mr. Bezos needs more money for his oh-so-profitable space ventures.

"A growing number of journalists and supporters of the Washington Post are imploring Jeff Bezos, the outlet’s billionaire owner, to stop massive layoffs that are expected to hit the news organization next month."

"The Post, according to multiple reports, is planning to dramatically reduce the size of its staff in the coming weeks and is reportedly considering making the steepest cutbacks to its foreign desk and sports department."

More here:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5708949-bezozs-washington-post-layoffs/

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/26/washington-post-february-job-cuts-layoffs

https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/1qnsidv/no_one_knows_anything_washington_post_staffers/

PSA: If you're planning to do your taxes w/ TurboTax 2025 desktop software this year on a Windows 10 computer, you should know the software won't install, regardless of whether you took advantage of Microsoft's offer for an extra year of security updates for Windows 10. Yes, those customers can still use TurboTax Online at no extra cost, but that pushes users to a cloud product that probably a lot of people avoid for all kinds of reasons.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/download-products/end-support-windows-8-affect-turbotax-experience/L4v9atO3O_US_en_US

@nprofile1q... Politico has been doing some amazing reporting on this guy.

Interesting developing story. Can't wait for more details. From Risky Biz:

"A cyberattack has wreaked havoc across Russia on Monday after the servers of the Delta smart alarm system went down.

Per reports in local media, car owners using Delta's alarm system couldn't unlock cars or stop active alarms. In some cases, owners couldn't start engines or their engines jammed while driving.

The company confirmed the incident but did not provide other details besides calling it a "large-scale external attack."

Delta's phone lines and website were down all day on Monday and the disruption continued the next day."

https://risky.biz/RBNEWS518/

@nprofile1q... Are you letting AI agents manage your life?

Letting AI agents run your life is like handing the car keys to your 5-year-old. What could go wrong?

I was marveling while reading this PCMag piece, which describes how to secure an agentic AI setup that essentially mimics malware: To do it's job properly, the AI agent has to be able to read private messages, store credentials, execute commands, and maintain a persistent state. How do you do that? You chase after it like you would your child.

"The important thing is to make sure you limit "who can talk to your bot, where the bot is allowed to act, [and] what the bot can touch" on your device, the bot's support documentation says."

https://www.pcmag.com/news/clawdbot-moltbot-hot-new-ai-agent-creator-warns-of-spicy-security-risks?test_uuid=04IpBmWGZleS0I0J3epvMrC&test_variant=A