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Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#51

Post by slg »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #42
dang wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent all day responding to the replies here, and then detaching them in order to save space at the top of the thread. But I just had a better idea. This is a stub comment so we have a single root to collapse the replies. This way (1) replies can stay close to their parent (the top comment) without flooding the screen with offtopicness; and (2) we can all re-experience the timeless truth of https://en.wikipedia.org…

> All: please don't post the sort of low-information / high-indignation comment that could just as easily appear in any semi-related thread. Such generic comments make the discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here. We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for, but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supp…

At what point does a story become big enough to disable the flagging mechanic? Maybe this post isn't the one to do it, but there has been an onslaught of stories about the damage Musk and DOGE is doing to the US government including lots of tech specific stories. This is an important ongoing story that is relevant to the community here and every post about it shoots up the front page of HN only to disappear minutes later because of mass flagging.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#52

Post by dang »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #42
dang wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent all day responding to the replies here, and then detaching them in order to save space at the top of the thread. But I just had a better idea. This is a stub comment so we have a single root to collapse the replies. This way (1) replies can stay close to their parent (the top comment) without flooding the screen with offtopicness; and (2) we can all re-experience the timeless truth of https://en.wikipedia.org…

> All: please don't post the sort of low-information / high-indignation comment that could just as easily appear in any semi-related thread. Such generic comments make the discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here. We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for, but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supp…

> We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for,

Alas, that is not true for all values of "we". Let's see how we do in the current thread. (Edit: so far it does seem to be a little better.)

> but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged

Yes, and at the same time we've turned off the flags on quite a few of them—enough that this continues to be by far the most-discussed topic on HN right now. I realize that's not enough for those who want more, but this is always the case whenever there is a MOT (Major Ongoing Topic - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)

> by apparent supporters of Musk

But also by users who just care about protecting HN for its intended purpose, which is vulnerable to getting consumed by political flames. The pattern we've observed over the years is that when a MOT keeps getting flagkilled, the flags are coming from a coalition of these two groups (i.e. users who oppose it politically and users who are trying to protect HN), neither of which would have enough oomph to do this on their own.

> We're being censored.

That word has so many different meanings nowadays that nearly all sentences including it are both true and false. In one sense, sure, any story getting removed from HN's front page could be called censorship—but it's maybe not the most helpful description on a site where frontpage space is the scarcest resource and some kind of curation/selection is essential.

In another sense, the fact that this MOT is the most discussed topic on HN of the past few weeks means that no, it is not being censored—there have been thousands of posts about it.

Using the word 'censored' ultimately just means you'd like to see more of this topic on HN. I certainly respect that, but there are also a lot of other users who would like to see less of it. Our job is to serve the community as a whole, which is not easy when the community is so divided. Ultimately, whatever solution we come up ends up feeling unsatisfactory to nearly everyone. That is probably my least favorite square on the Cycle of Life of HN, but it comes up once or twice in every go-round.

Here are links to some other comments I've posted in the last few days about this specific issue. If you (or anyone) are willing to read them, take in the explanations, and then have a question that I haven't answered, I'd be curious to know what it is* and happy to take a crack at it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978572

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978389

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42977160

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011

* (because as far as I know, all the important questions have already been answered, which is not to say everyone is happy!)

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#53

Post by leptons »

jslezak wrote: post #39
camillomiller wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Their next move - and the Rubicon none of us can uncross - will be defying the court orders that are inevitably issued to stop the flagrant criminality Once they defy those, it’s done. The enforcement of federal laws including court orders requires the Trump justice department to act. And his first moves (naturally) were to fire all oversight people, install extremist hardcore loyalists at the top, and fire anyone un…

I have no doubt the Rubicon will be crossed this year, probably already has.

I'm preparing for a war on American soil, by "Americans" or whatever they're going to call themselves - MAGA I guess.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#54

Post by the_snooze »

fabian2k wrote: post #47

Ignoring the horrifying political parts, I think one aspect here about data access that is inherently worrying is that it seems like all usual controls were bypassed and the DOGE people had very low level access to systems. So there are probably copies of sensitive data now in their possession, and nobody knows exactly what was copied and where it is stored. This kind of access would be dangerous even in the hands of…

At the very least, it’s a field day for foreign intelligence in DC. Offering these guys some money, women, status, or drink would pay massive dividends.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#55

Post by viraptor »

jonhohle wrote: post #41
wobblyasp wrote: post #20

Say what you will about the cuts, you can't have people with zero clearance being given access to all of this data.

Why shouldn’t all public transactions be public? IRS and personal taxes may be legitimate since it’s, well, personal, but we are all “shareholders” with equal stake in all other payments. This is the perfect use case for public ledger. We should all have access to all of this data. All outflows should note which bill authorized that expenditure, every bureaucrat that’s involved with spending it. If I’m getting $600 i…

They had access to both financial and personal data. This included for example social security numbers and bank accounts. Sure, more financial data being public would be nice, but the current dataset as it is can't be made public safely and definitely needs clearance.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#56

Post by esmevane »

jonhohle wrote: post #41
wobblyasp wrote: post #20

Say what you will about the cuts, you can't have people with zero clearance being given access to all of this data.

Why shouldn’t all public transactions be public? IRS and personal taxes may be legitimate since it’s, well, personal, but we are all “shareholders” with equal stake in all other payments. This is the perfect use case for public ledger. We should all have access to all of this data. All outflows should note which bill authorized that expenditure, every bureaucrat that’s involved with spending it. If I’m getting $600 i…

This is philosophizing, and it isn't even on topic.

The laws are broken, so regardless of what you think "should" be legal, it isn't. They are being selectively enforced, though, and that's both the problem and probably the thing more worth your philosophical energy. Is that okay, when a criminal operation is too wealthy and influential to be held accountable?

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#57

Post by nemo44x »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8
camillomiller wrote: post #5

[flagged]

> and yet the absolute frustration is that there is nothing that anyone but the judiciary system can do. Why would there be? The people hired Trump to be the CEO, the CEO hired Musk (personally, I think it is mostly to serve as a distraction while real personal/political goals are handled elsewhere), but regardless, any government only works when most leaders (and voters) have mostly good intentions. It is not feasib…

It’s more like Trump is the chairman of the board of directors representing shareholders interest (voters, loyalists, contributors) and Musk is the CEO.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#58

Post by ben_w »

jonhohle wrote: post #41
wobblyasp wrote: post #20

Say what you will about the cuts, you can't have people with zero clearance being given access to all of this data.

Why shouldn’t all public transactions be public? IRS and personal taxes may be legitimate since it’s, well, personal, but we are all “shareholders” with equal stake in all other payments. This is the perfect use case for public ledger. We should all have access to all of this data. All outflows should note which bill authorized that expenditure, every bureaucrat that’s involved with spending it. If I’m getting $600 i…

While I am in favour of radically open records for government and private sector alike, consider what hostile governments' intelligence agencies can do with a detailed budget when deciding where to draw the line.

Everything about this should worry patriotic Americans*, because this does look like a fantastic opportunity for everyone else on the planet to spy on your government at the top level.

* also anyone in a country that has a military or economic relationship with the USA: we're still impacted even though we don't have a say in it

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#59

Post by ty6853 »

1over137 wrote: post #40
camillomiller wrote: post #5

[flagged]

> there is nothing that anyone but the judiciary system can do. Sure there is. A general strike for example. But we’re talking about the USA, so fat chance.

General strikes are illegal. If illegal stuff is on the table then there's way more than that, although i don't advocate it.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#60

Post by SamBam »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #21

Another DOGE member created a tool that generates ballot images to be used by counting machines to satisfy any statistical outcome requirements: https://bsky.app/profile/denisedwheeler.bsky.social/post/3lh... He worked in contact with Musk and his sponsorship to create this tool Interesting cybercrime research credentials Yes there's not evidence available that this research was used for crime, just that the project…

That thread seemed low on evidence. It seemed reasonable that that code could be part of a test suite.
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