The Tom’s Hardware article makes it sound like the attackers were using IoT botnets which I’m guessing were using known domains to coordinate.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/us-justice-department-claims-chinese-state-sponsored-hackers-infiltrated-systems-at-nasa-senate-federal-reserve-and-more-fbi-moves-forward-with-domain-seizures

The US is claiming they “denied access” to China via domain seizures? What?

I heard some versions of the DeepSeek model that made headlines a ehile back would refuse to talk about Tiannamen Square, but that’s it. I haven’t confirmed that personally.

Hungary might disagree

The user is likely not the target of the spying. The white house is likely spying on other branches and agencies within the government.

A lot of government jobs provide you with a phone that is provisioned for closed government networks.

The White House spp is likely being used to spy on those networks.

I use Intel NUCs off eBay for this kind of stuff. A few years ago you could get one for ~$200 on eBay.

Matthew Green the CS/cryptography professor is actively writing about this in fairly broad language https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/03/02/anonymous-credentials-an-illustrated-primer/