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DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

theatlantic.com

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Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#491

Post by laserbeam »

lucasyvas wrote: post #490

Because there are bigger fish to fry, I think people don’t appreciate the sheer cost of the system rebuild that will be required for security reasons later. There’s absolutely no telling what additional software has been installed alongside existing, or which systems have been modified that would require audit. Purging this will be an absolute fucking nightmare to the American taxpayer. This may turn into one of the…

And there's no telling how many backups they compromised (let's be generous and assume backups exist).

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#492

Post by techorange »

jongjong wrote: post #100

[flagged]

“Now at least I get to watch horrible people get a dose of their own medicine”

Doge is not being this careful, in fact I’d argue that Doge will disproportionately impact people not on your target list.

All the “horrible” people you don’t like are going to be “punished” with lucrative contracts in the private sector while line workers, most of whom may agree with you suffer

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#493

Post by dralley »

tabakd wrote: post #35

Is there any reason this data shouldn't be public for everyone to read?

Most of it already was, but normies don't go looking for public expenditure databases, so they assume it doesn't exist. Then DOGE comes along and pretends they're doing something new.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#494

Post by KittenInABox »

ck2 wrote: post #382

Federal level government is not a startup Breaking things will destroy lives if not literally kill people If it was this "easy" someone would have made a proposal years ago even if it was turned down And Congress, not ANY President controls spending We do not elect Kings in this country, there was an entire very brutal war to make it that way This data is going to leak if it's not copied already into insecure sources…

> Breaking things will destroy lives if not literally kill people

It is already killing people. They fired people giving out food and medicine. They fired people on suicide hotlines. And of course, people have been killing themselves in response to being fired.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#495

Post by theossuary »

jcranmer wrote: post #476
justin66 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO it's a bit of a shame that the productivity and efficiency gains that computing and cybernetics can bring to complex systems They're just firing people at random, they haven't discovered any innovative new way to make systems more efficient. ("at random" is a bit generous and ignores the retaliation against political adversaries)

From the reporting I've seen, they're not firing "at random", they're firing more or less every single new hire they can, because new hires have less protections than more established employees.

Not just new hires, but also anyone who took a promotion or lateral move, which also puts them into a probationary period. So they're firing all the new employees and all the employees exceptional enough to be promoted or recruited to another department.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#496

Post by laserbeam »

drowsspa wrote: post #18

I find it wild that apparently there is no law onto which government workers can cling to refuse these requests. Is it all just based on conventions, goodwill and culture?

The value of laws (in general) is being challenged in the US right now. At least, so it appears from afar. Enjoy going through a power grab.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#497

Post by kardianos »

bullfightonmars wrote: post #355
kardianos wrote: post #334

I actually believe the executive branch should actually control the executive branch.

The presidency is not a monarchy! The president might be commander-in-chief but it can’t just order random people killed just because he is “in charge” of the military. There are laws and layers of control saying who can do what. These laws are on the books and are being completely ignored! Most of this power is vested in congress whom is abdicating their power.

In a sense, I agree.

The president should not be able to declare war without an act of Congress. The constitution grants the power to make law to congress, but then congress has enacted many laws which create agencies under the executive branch, which in turns empowers the executive branch.

So I agree that Congress should make/repeal laws that reduce the size of the executive branch so that only necessary powers are entrusted to the executive branch.

However, until that day comes, the separation of powers is the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive. Within the executive, inward looking (not external like killing people), yeah, the president and his appointed cabinet should have control. Without that control, you are defining an unaccountable form of government.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#498

Post by exDM69 »

Etheryte wrote: post #242
willis936 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You personally are cool with me personally knowing your salary and where you live? Please just post that here right now.

That might sound incredibly foreign to you, but this is the norm in many Nordic countries, see Norway, Sweden and Finland, for a start. Tax returns for everyone are public, and so are addresses through a national registry.

Neither is really true at least for Finland.

Addresses are not public information, you can opt out from having your info public. They are not even a national registry (one exists, not public) but your telco will put you in "the phone book" if you don't opt out.

Taxes are public information but only to a degree. You can opt out from having them shared en masse (primarily to the media) but you can still inquire someone else's paid taxes from the tax office but it requires you to know their full given name, year of birth and home town.

Salary is not public information, only the total amount of paid income taxes. You can correlate them to some degree but you won't be able to know how many jobs a person has or where their capital gains are from.

Access to this information can also be limited in exceptional cases (politicians, harassment victims, identity theft etc).

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#499

Post by nerdponx »

gattr wrote: post #451

Perhaps the whole situation will finally convince the "I don't mind, I have nothing to hide" crowd about the need to scrutinize & limit as much as reasonably possible the personal data collection and retention by government and other entities. What good are rules, statutes, checks & balances, passwords and ACLs, if at some point someone you don't like or trust can just come in "as a root" and circumvent everything?

The "I don't mind, I have nothing to hide" people are cheering this on. They don't know or care about any of the things you just said.

Re: DOGE has 'god mode' access to government data

#500

Post by JohnHaugeland »

eecc wrote: post #201

IMHO it's a bit of a shame that the productivity and efficiency gains that computing and cybernetics can bring to complex systems -- including government -- are always tainted and currently championed by anti-social elites that use them to break apart these collective machines. Bureaucracies are a common good, and it should be in everyone's interest to apply state-of-the-art system engineering to make them as valuabl…

Efficiency efforts are common.

It's just that the abusers are the only ones who make an effort to talk about it, because talking about it provides them cover.

Otherwise it's a regular part of the daily job.

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