Summary
The Pentagon warned employees against using the encrypted messaging app Signal due to a potential vulnerability exploited by Russian hackers.
The warning came just before a security breach where top Trump administration officials, including the vice president and defense secretary, accidentally added a journalist to a Signal group chat discussing military strikes in Yemen.
The leak sparked outrage and criticism, though Trump downplayed it as a “glitch.”
Signal stated it was unaware of any unaddressed vulnerabilities.
I personally don’t think it’s the Peter Principle at all.
When I was in college in the early 2000’s I had a friend at OSU who was struggling to pay his tuition to finish his Masters degree. To make ends meed, he took up an illicit under-the-table job writing original research papers for wealthy students are more prestigious universities. This way, the wealthy student could never be accused of plagiarism, because it was a wholly original research paper. They got the grade, my friend got paid, and he eventually graduated. He and I often discussed the implications of this job, and he often spoke of his deep misgivings about it and what it meant for society.
In our agreed opinion, it meant for society that since there was an entire underground network of writing original research wealthy students that it meant that many wealthy students at universities like Harvard and Yale had barely any relevant knowledge of their own fields, because they had spent their college years paying for someone else to do the research. Especially at the Masters level and up, where testing becomes basically unimportant and research and writing becomes the centerpiece of the education.
I am of the opinion that this underground system had existed earlier than my friends introduction to it, and the internet had simply made it explode in popularity and ease of access for both the poor students and the wealthy alike. This has led to a society where the poor but masterfully intelligent and educated get their degrees, but from what are less illustrious universities and the wealthy have essentially faked all their credentials to get the best jobs.
That’s not the peter principle at all, that’s just buying your way in and pretending you know what the fuck you’re doing. In my personal opinion, this is much more rampant than the Peter Principle, because I don’t actually see a lot of people being promoted endlessly, especially not the people who were writing the actual papers. Those people seem to be still struggling their way through life as adjunct professors.