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predatory pricing Elizabeth Warren calls for crackdown on Internet monopoly youve never heard of Senator wants to investigate whether VeriSign is ripping off customers and violating antitrust laws. Joel Khalili, WIRED.com Nov 23, 2024 1:00 pm | 33 Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday, May 18, 2023. Credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday, May 18, 2023. Credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreUS Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York have called on government bodies to investigate what they allege is the predatory pricing of .com web addresses, the Internets prime real estate.In a letter delivered today to the Department of Justice and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch of the Department of Commerce that advises the president, the two Democrats accuse VeriSign, the company that administers the .com top-level domain, of abusing its market dominance to overcharge customers.In 2018, under the Donald Trump administration, the NTIA modified the terms on how much VeriSign could charge for .com domains. The company has since hiked prices by 30 percent, the letter claims, though its service remains identical and could allegedly be provided far more cheaply by others.VeriSign is exploiting its monopoly power to charge millions of users excessive prices for registering a .com top-level domain, the letter claims. VeriSign hasnt changed or improved its services; it has simply raised prices because it holds a government-ensured monopoly.We intend to respond to senator Warren and representative Nadlers letter, which repeats inaccuracies and misleading statements that have been aggressively promoted by a small, self-interested group of domain-name investors for years, said Verisign spokesperson David McGuire in a statement to WIRED. We look forward to correcting the record and working with policymakers toward real solutions that benefit internet users.In an August blog post entitled Setting the Record Straight, the company claimed that discourse around its management of .com had been distorted by factual inaccuracies, a misunderstanding of core technical concepts, and misinterpretations regarding pricing, competition, and market dynamics in the domain name industry.In the same blog post, the company argues that it is not operating a monopoly because there are 1,200 generic top-level domains operated by other entities, including .org, .shop, .ai, and .uk.Though far from a household name, VeriSign takes in about $1.5 billion in revenue each year for servicing its particular section of the Internets inscrutable plumbing.In their letter, Warren and Nadler allege that VeriSign has exploited its exclusive right to charge for highly sought-after .com addresses to juice its revenues and drive up its share priceall at the expense of customers for whom there is no viable alternative.The letter claims that separate agreements with the NTIA and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit established by the Commerce Department to oversee the webs domain name system, have allowed VeriSign to establish monopoly power. The former sets how much the company can charge its customers for registering .com addresses, while the latter assigns VeriSign as the sole operator of the .com domain. The letter also alleges that VeriSign might be in violation of the Sherman Act.The NTIAs decision in 2018 to lift the price cap imposed on VeriSign also benefited ICANN, which in its role as overseer can reject price increases proposed by domain registry services. ICANN signed an agreement with VeriSign in 2020, sanctioning the maximum allowable price increases in return for $20 million over a five-year period. Thus, allege Warren and Nadler, Verisign and ICANN may have a collusive relationship.In June, a coalition of activist groups wrote to the DOJ and NTIA to express similar allegations. ICANN and VeriSign function as a de facto cartel, and the NTIA should stop sanctioning the incestuous legal triangle that serves as a shield to deflect overdue antitrust scrutiny into their otherwise likely illegal collusive relationship, the coalition claims. The group urged the government to stop this cycle of exploitation by refusing to renew the relationship between the NTIA and VeriSign.Neither ICANN nor the NTIA responded immediately to requests for comment.The NTIA has since indicated that it will renew its agreement with VeriSign. However, the terms of that agreement are up for review on November 30, before the start of Trumps second term, leaving the outgoing Democratic administration with an opportunity to put in place pricing rules that will apply for a six-year period, as a parting gift.In an August letter, the NTIA told VeriSign that it had questions related to [the company's] pricing and wanted to discuss possible solutions. VeriSign said it welcomed an opportunity to have this important discussion. But Warren and Nadler are now publicly pressing the NTIA to make sure that customers cannot be overcharged by VeriSignand pressing the DOJ to review for potential antitrust violations, too.Verisign has squeezed customers to enrich its investors while doing nothing to improve service, they claim. NTIA and DOJ should take action to ensure that over the next six years, VeriSigns consumers are charged fair prices for .com registration.This story originally appeared on wired.com.Joel Khalili, WIRED.com Wired.com is your essential daily guide to what's next, delivering the most original and complete take you'll find anywhere on innovation's impact on technology, science, business and culture. 33 Comments Prev story

Not so total recall Tweaking non-neural brain cells can cause memories to fade Neurons and a second cell type called an astrocyte collaborate to hold memories. Jacek Krywko Nov 23, 2024 7:00 am | 17 Astrocytes (labelled in black) sit within a field of neurons. Credit: Ed Reschke Astrocytes (labelled in black) sit within a field of neurons. Credit: Ed Reschke Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIf we go back to the early 1900s, this is when the idea was first proposed that memories are physically stored in some location within the brain, says Michael R. Williamson, a researcher at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. For a long time, neuroscientists thought that the storage of memory in the brain was the job of engrams, ensembles of neurons that activate during a learning event. But it turned out this wasnt the whole picture.Williamsons research investigated the role astrocytes, non-neuron brain cells, play in the read-and-write operations that go on in our heads. Over the last 20 years the role of astrocytes has been understood better. Weve learned that they can activate neurons. The addition we have made to that is showing that there are subsets of astrocytes that are active and involved in storing specific memories, Williamson says in describing a new study his lab has published.One consequence of this finding: Astrocytes could be artificially manipulated to suppress or enhance a specific memory, leaving all other memories intact.Marking star cellsAstrocytes, otherwise known as star cells due to their shape, play various roles in the brain, and many are focused on the health and activity of their neighboring neurons. Williamsons team started by developing techniques that enabled them to mark chosen ensembles of astrocytes to see when they activate genes (including one named c-Fos) that help neurons reconfigure their connections and are deemed crucial for memory formation. This was based on the idea that the same pathway would be active in neurons and astrocytes.In simple terms, we use genetic tools that allow us to inject mice with a drug that artificially makes astrocytes express some other gene or protein of interest when they become active, says Wookbong Kwon, a biotechnologist at Baylor College and co-author of the study.Those proteins of interest were mainly fluorescent proteins that make cells fluoresce bright red. This way, the team could spot the astrocytes in mouse brains that became active during learning scenarios. Once the tagging system was in place, Williamson and his colleagues gave their mice a little scare.Its called fear conditioning, and its a really simple idea. You take a mouse, put it into a new box, one its never seen before. While the mouse explores this new box, we just apply a series of electrical shocks through the floor, Williamson explains. A mouse treated this way remembers this as an unpleasant experience and associates it with contextual cues like the boxs appearance, the smells and sounds present, and so on.The tagging system lit up all astrocytes that expressed the c-Fos gene in response to fear conditioning. Williamsons team inferred that this is where the memory is stored in the mouses brain. Knowing that, they could move on to the next question, which was if and how astrocytes and engram neurons interacted during this process.Modulating engram neuronsAstrocytes are really bushy, Williamson says. They have a complex morphology with lots and lots of micro or nanoscale processes that infiltrate the area surrounding them. A single astrocyte can contact roughly 100,000 synapses, and not all of them will be involved in learning events. So the team looked for correlations between astrocytes activated during memory formation and the neurons that were tagged at the same time.When we did that, we saw that engram neurons tended to be contacting the astrocytes that are active during the formation of the same memory, Williamson says. To see how astrocytes activity affects neurons, the team artificially stimulated the astrocytes by microinjecting them with a virus engineered to induce the expression of the c-Fos gene. It directly increased the activity of engram neurons but did not increase the activity of non-engram neurons in contact with the same astrocyte, Williamson explains.This way his team established that at least some astrocytes could preferentially communicate with engram neurons. The researchers also noticed that astrocytes involved in memorizing the fear conditioning event had elevated levels of a protein called NFIA, which is known to regulate memory circuits in the hippocampus.But probably the most striking discovery came when the researchers tested whether the astrocytes involved in memorizing an event also played a role in recalling it later.Selectively forgettingThe first test to see if astrocytes were involved in recall was to artificially activate them when the mice were in a box that they were not conditioned to fear. It turned out artificial activation of astrocytes that were active during the formation of a fear memory formed in one box caused the mice to freeze even when they were in a different one.So, the next question was, if you just killed or otherwise disabled an astrocyte ensemble active during a specific memory formation, would it just delete this memory from the brain? To get that done, the team used their genetic tools to selectively delete the NFIA protein in astrocytes that were active when the mice received their electric shocks. We found that mice froze a lot less when we put them in the boxes they were conditioned to fear. They could not remember. But other memories were intact, Kwon claims.The memory was not completely deleted, though. The mice still froze in the boxes they were supposed to freeze in, but they did it for a much shorter time on average. It looked like their memory was maybe a bit foggy. They were not sure if they were in the right place, Williamson says.After figuring out how to suppress a memory, the team also figured out where the undo button was and brought it back to normal.When we deleted the NFIA protein in astrocytes, the memory was impaired, but the engram neurons were intact. So, the memory was still somewhere there. The mice just couldnt access it, Williamson claims. The team brought the memory back by artificially stimulating the engram neurons using the same technique they employed for activating chosen astrocytes. That caused the neurons involved in this memory trace to be activated for a few hours. This artificial activity allowed the mice to remember it again, Williamson says.The teams vision is that in the distant future this technique can be used in treatments targeting neurons that are overactive in disorders such as PTSD. We now have a new cellular target that we can evaluate and potentially develop treatments that target the astrocyte component associated with memory, Williamson claims. But theres lot more to learn before anything like that becomes possible. We dont yet know what signal is released by an astrocyte that acts on the neuron. Another thing is our study was focused on one brain region, which was the hippocampus, but we know that engrams exist throughout the brain in lots of different regions. The next step is to see if astrocytes play the same role in other brain regions that are also critical for memory, Williamson says.Nature, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08170-wJacek KrywkoAssociate WriterJacek KrywkoAssociate Writer Jacek Krywko is a freelance science and technology writer who covers space exploration, artificial intelligence research, computer science, and all sorts of engineering wizardry. 17 Comments

Amine Anoun, CTO, EvisortNovember 22, 20245 Min ReadJ.V.G. Ransika via Alamy StockArtificial intelligence is a critical tool for companies looking to keep pace in the current competitive business landscape. The potential of AI promises great things -- greater efficiency among the workforce, customized customer experiences, better informed decision making for C-suite executives -- but it also comes with great risk, being just as useful to bad actors as it is to those with good intentions.To combat nefarious use and promote transparency around the new technology, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently released ISO/IEC 42001. The new standard guides the ethical and responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence management systems -- effectively giving organizations a vehicle to demonstrate that their approach to AI is ethical and secure.In a world where AI is rapidly reshaping industries, having a structured approach like the one outlined in ISO 42001 ensures that businesses are harnessing AI's power while maintaining ethical and transparent practices. Having recently gone through the certification process, heres what other companies considering taking this step should know:What Is ISO 42001 and Why Does It Matter?ISO 42001 is a groundbreaking international standard designed to establish a structured roadmap for the responsible development and usage of AI. This standard addresses critical challenges such as ethics, transparency, continual learning, and adaptation, ensuring that AI technologies are harnessed ethically and effectively.Related:The standard is also intentionally structured to align with other well-known management system standards, such as ISO 27001 and ISO 27701, to enhance existing security, privacy, and quality programs. For companies that touch AI, its of the utmost importance to be on top of the most rigorous AI frameworks and to implement strict guardrails to protect customers from malicious intent. It also gives organizations a foundation to comply with upcoming regulations, like the EU AI Act and related legislation in Colorado.The Journey to ISO 42001 ComplianceAchieving compliance with ISO 42001 required our organization to take a risk-based approach to the establishment, implementation, maintenance, and continuous improvement of an AIMS. This approach involved several phases, including:Defining the context in which our AI systems operate.Identifying relevant external and internal stakeholders.Understanding the expectations and requirements of the framework.Related:Additionally, building out a comprehensive, ISO 42001-certified AIMS required us to standardize the fairness, accessibility, safety, and various impacts of our AI systems. The standard looks at an organization's policies related to AI, the internal organization of roles and responsibilities for working with AI, resources for AI systems such as data, impact analysis of AI systems on individuals, groups, and society, the AI system life cycle, data management, information dissemination to interested parties (like external reporting), the use of AI systems, and third-party relationships.Undergoing this certification process took approximately six months and involved us working closely with our auditing partner. Upon completion of our assessment, we received certification of compliance with ISO 42001 standards to serve as an indicator of our prioritization of responsible and secure AI to all stakeholders. Moving forward, we must sustain the practices mandated by the framework and undergo future routine assessments to continuously ensure we maintain compliance.The Impact of ISO 42001 Compliance on Our AI StrategyCompliance with ISO 42001 is not just about meeting a set of standards; it fundamentally impacts how we utilize AI moving forward. With many companies building out their own AI capabilities, proving to customers and stakeholders that they can trust our systems is crucial -- and ultimately becomes a competitive differentiator.Related:ISO 42001 addresses these concerns through comprehensive requirements, providing a roadmap to satisfying security and safety concerns about our AI. Getting ISO 42001 certified has allowed us to do the following:Validate our AI management: ISO 42001 certification provides independent corroboration that we manage our AI systems ethically and responsibly.Enhance trust with stakeholders: The certification demonstrates our commitment to responsible AI practices and ethical, transparent, and accountable AI development and usage.Improve risk management: The certification helps us identify and mitigate risks associated with AI, ensuring potential ethical, security, and compliance issues are proactively addressed.Gain a competitive edge: As ISO 42001 was published recently, becoming one of the first globally to certify our AIMS gives us an edge in the market, signaling to clients, partners, and regulators that we are at the forefront of responsible AI use.The Importance of Working With an Accredited BodyAchieving ISO 42001 certification is a significant milestone, but its essential to work with an accredited body to ensure the certifications credibility. In our certification process, we prioritized working with Schellman, an ANAB-accredited auditing certification body, as our partner in this journey. Schellmans accreditation gave us assurance that they are properly equipped to verify our compliance with the ISO 42001 framework, adding an extra layer of validation to our certification while guiding us through the process.While compliance does not equate to absolute security, it positions an organization to mitigate risks effectively and demonstrate to customers that their security is a top priority. By adhering to the rigorous standards set out in ISO 42001, we are committed to responsible AI practices that not only meet but exceed stakeholder expectations, ensuring the safe and ethical use of AI technologies.About the AuthorAmine AnounCTO, EvisortAmine Anoun is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Evisort. Prior to Evisort, Anoun served as a data scientist at Uber. Anoun is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and CentaleSupelec. He was a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and was also recognized as one of the Top 100 MIT Alumni in Technology in 2021.See more from Amine AnounNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also LikeReportsMore Reports

Comment and SocietyA recent scandal over food hygiene ratings shows how deception destroys trust within society. We need to fight back, says Jonathan R. Goodman 20 November 2024 Simone RotellaUntil a few weeks ago, I relied on restaurant hygiene ratings when deciding where to have dinner. The score given by the UKs Food Standards Agency ranges from 0 to 5, where 0 indicates urgent improvement is required. It is traditionally a good predictor if you are fastidious or if you just want to avoid nasty parasites like Giardia.Yet in October, the BBC revealed some businesses misrepresent their hygiene scores, posting a 5 when their ratings are as low as 0. The signal of hygiene I relied on wasnt always reliable.This was just one incident that had

Humidity makes Shanghais heat more unbearablelukyeee1976/Getty ImagesMy office felt like a steamer on Monday morning, wrote Chinese influencer Bi Dao in a social media post in August. He fetched a drink from a supposed cold-water dispenser it was 40.8C (105F). Bi, who lives in Hangzhou, a regional capital on Chinas east coast, decided to roam the city with a temperature gun, pointing it at things to find out exactly how hot they had got. The ground was 72.6C, the seat of a sharing bike was 56.5C, the handrail in the metro station was 45C, even the tree bark was 38.7C, he wrote. He ended his post by thanking Willis Carrier for inventing the air conditioner.Hangzhou is known for its beautiful lake, large pagoda and rolling green tea farms not for heat. But what Bi witnessed was only one of the 60 high-temperature days ones that topped 35C (95F) that grilled the city and its 12.5 million inhabitants this year. Hangzhou isnt alone. Many cities worldwide are feeling the heat. Things are getting so bad that growing numbers of people face temperatures that are beyond human endurance.Already, such conditions kill around half a million each year. That will inevitably rise as climate change increases the number and intensity of heatwaves around the globe. Cities are on the front line of this unfolding crisis. And Chinas vast, densely packed megacities are leading the way. As well as providing a glimpse of what we are in

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Reviews weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Well, what about China? This is a comment I get all the time on the topic of climate change, both in conversations and on whatever social media site is currently en vogue. Usually, it comes in response to some statement about how the US and Europe are addressing the issue (or how they need to be). Sometimes I think people ask this in bad faith. Its a rhetorical way to throw up your hands, imply that the US and Europe arent the real problem, and essentially say: if they arent taking responsibility, why should we? However, amid the playground-esque finger-pointing there are some undeniable facts: China emits more greenhouse gases than any other country, by far. Its one of the worlds most populous countries and a climate-tech powerhouse, and its economy is still developing. With many complicated factors at play, how should we think about the countrys role in addressing climate change? Chinas emissions are the highest in the world, topping 12 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency. Theres context missing if we just look at that one number, as I wrote in my latest story that digs into recent global climate data. Since carbon dioxide hangs around in the atmosphere for centuries, we should arguably consider not just a countrys current emissions, but everything its produced over time. If we do that, the US still takes the crown for the worlds biggest climate polluter. However, China is now in second place, according to a new analysis from Carbon Brief released this week. In 2023, the country exceeded the EUs 27 member states in historical emissions for the first time. This reflects a wider trend that were seeing around the world: Developing nations are starting to account for a larger fraction of emissions than they used to. In 1992, when countries agreed to the UN climate convention, industrialized countries (a category called Annex I) made up about one-fifth of the worlds population but were responsible for a whopping 61% of historical emissions. By the end of 2024, though, those countries share of global historical emissions will fall to 52%, and it is expected to keep ticking down. China, like all nations, will need to slash its emissions for the world to meet global climate goals. One crucial point here is that while its emissions are still huge, there are signs that the nation is making some progress. Chinas carbon dioxides emissions are set to fall in 2024 because of record growth in low-carbon energy sources. That decline is projected to continue under the countrys current policy settings, according to an October report from the IEA. Chinas oil demand could soon peak and start to fall, largely because its seeing such a huge uptake of electric vehicles. One growing question: With all this progress and a quickly growing economy, should we be expecting China to do more than just make progress on its own emissions? As I wrote in the newsletter last week, the current talks at COP29 (the UN climate conference) are focused on setting a new, more aggressive global climate finance goal to help developing nations address climate change. China isnt part of the group of countries that are required to pay into this pot of money, but some are calling for that to change given that it is the worlds biggest polluter. One interesting point hereChina already contributes billions of dollars in climate financing each year to developing countries, according to research published earlier this month by the World Resources Institute. The countrys leadership has said it will only make voluntary contributions, and that developed nations should still be the ones responsible for mandatory payments under the new finance goals. Talks at COP29 arent going very well. The COP29 president called for faster action, but progress toward a finance deal has stalled amid infighting over how much money should be on the table and who should pay up. Chinas complex role in emissions and climate action is far from the only holdup at the talks. Leaders from major nations including Germany and France canceled plans to attend, and the looming threat that the US could pull out of the Paris climate agreement is coloring the negotiations. But disagreement over how to think about Chinas role in all this is a good example of how difficult it is to assign responsibility when it comes to climate change, and how much is at play in global climate negotiations. One thing I do know for sure is that pointing fingers doesnt cut emissions. Now read the rest of The Spark Related reading Dig into the data with me in my latest story, which includes three visualizations to help capture the complexity of global emissions. Read more about why global climate finance is at the center of this years UN climate talks in last weeks edition of the newsletter. Keeping up with climate Fusion energy has been a dream for decades, and a handful of startups say were closer than ever to making it a reality. This deep dive looks at a few of the companies looking to be the first to deploy fusion power. (New York Times) I recently visited one of the startups, Commonwealth Fusion Systems. (MIT Technology Review)President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy. Wright is head of the fracking company Liberty Energy. (Washington Post) In the wake of Trumps election, it might be time for climate tech to get a rebrand. Companies and investors might increasingly avoid using the term, opting instead for phrases like energy independence or frontier tech, to name a few. (Heatmap) Rooftop solar has saved customers in California about $2.3 billion on utility bills this year, according to a new analysis. This result is counter to a report from a state agency, which found that rooftop panels impose over $8 billion in extra costs on consumers of the states three major utilities. (Canary Media) Low-carbon energy needs much less material than it used to. Rising efficiency in making technology like solar panels bodes well for hopes of cutting mining needs. (Sustainability by Numbers) New York governor Kathy Hochul has revived a plan to implement congestion pricing, which would charge drivers to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. It would be the first such program in the US. (The City) Enhanced geothermal technology could be close to breaking through into commercial success. Companies that aim to harness Earths heat for power are making progress toward deploying facilities. (Nature) Fervo Energy found that its wells can be used like a giant underground battery. (MIT Technology Review)

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman hopes a second Trump term can usher in an era of AI innovation.In a recent op-ed for The Financial Times, he shared several concerns he has for the administration.Hoffman warned that Elon Musk shouldn't use his relationship with Donald Trump to boost xAI.LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman said Elon Musk has a "serious conflict of interest" when it comes to guiding a second Trump administration on AI policies in the US.In an op-ed published Friday with The Financial Times, Hoffman said the advisory role Musk has taken up with Donald Trump could pose a conflict of interest if the xAI founder is guiding the president-elect on laws around artificial intelligence."With direct ownership in the fledgling AI start-up xAI, Elon Musk, who is advising Trump in many domains, has a serious conflict of interest in terms of setting federal AI policies for all US companies," Hoffman wrote. "Using his position to favor xAI in any way, such as awarding it government contracts, encouraging federal agencies to unfairly target AI companies, or imposing new regulations that limit exports will come at the expense of US technological, economic and cultural security and competitiveness."Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Hours after the FT published the op-ed, Musk responded to an X post unrelated to Hoffman's column, criticizing people who post on LinkedIn."I instantly lose respect for anyone who posts on LinkedIn," he said. "Unbearably cringe."Hoffman, who is also the cofounder of Inflection AI, shared his hopes and concerns for Trump's second term in the FT op-ed.Hoffman credited the Biden Administration for leaving behind a "strong Democrat-engineered economy" and said he was hopeful that Trump could build on it, ushering in more business investments and technological innovations around artificial intelligence.But he also warned that a Trump White House could stifle innovation by being unwilling to work with US global allies to develop technology such as AI."While Trump campaigned on the promise of making America more unilateral and insular, I continue to believe a pluralistic, multilateral approach is what creates innovation and prosperity in an increasingly networked world," Hoffman said. "That extends to AI. In contrast, I expect the administration will adopt a mercantilist AI policy that will bar long-standing global allies from accessing US models, infrastructure, and technology."A spokesperson for Trump's transition team did not respond to a request for comment.Hoffman and Musk have a bitter rivalry that dates back to thePayPaldays in 2000, when Musk's online banking company at the time,X.com,merged with Confinity, a security software company, to become PayPal.The two CEOs have recently been more public about their rivalry, particularly over political disputes. Musk, who has gradually shifted to the Republican Party over the years, has been a vociferous supporter of Trump. Hoffman supported Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign.After Trump's victory on November 5, Musk has already been spending a lot of time in Trump's orbit and has been tasked to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency focused on reducing the size of the federal government.Hoffman did not respond to a request for comment.