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Cake day: March 7th, 2024

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  • So, like, here I am, on my phone, playing games and browsing the internet. Sometimes my connection is a little slow, but that’s just the nature of things because sometimes it just takes a tiny bit longer to get a response and sometimes my phone just runs a little slow.

    What I don’t know is that my phone is infected with malware. And that malware lets other people access whatever internet I have access to; and that whatever those other people are doing looks like it’s coming from my IP address and my device. I am the unwitting exit node for an unscrupulous VPN service (or driving similar).

    Someone working in the White House has an infected phone and doesn’t know it. They are at the White House most days, work late afternoon to around midnight.

    If the person in charge of the botnet knew the phone of a White House worked was compromised, they could use that access to appear as a legitimate user and bypass security protocols, have accounts and passwords compromised, and have their data scraped and stolen.

    I would assume most normal people working in the White House have their phones regularly checked for malware, or use special phones for government work. However, higher ups in the Trump White House have routinely violated and ignored security protocols; they could abuse their power to use their own personal phones and to ignore security checks.

    Given that the times the node was used are so consistent, I think it’s unlikely that there are two infected phones involved.

    Given that this happened on most days in October, it’s unlikely to be Trump or anyone who regularly travels with him, because he spends a lot of time not at the White House. There was no exit node activity on two Thursdays, one Friday and one Monday; activity was recorded every other day in October. Meaning this isn’t someone who comes into the office M-F with weekends off; days off seem to be somewhat rare for this person, and don’t occur on normal weekends. I have no idea who the person is, but security should probably make more of an effort to re-secure all phones permitted on the premises.