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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

#601

Post by CyrsBel »

watwut wrote: post #553
CyrsBel wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Even if DOGE is operating without any ill intent, and I don't think they have ill intent, the possibility of errors alone is massive and they need to slow down. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/trum...

There is no reason to think they don't have ill intent.

My nature is to give the benefit of the doubt, but after seeing that they are rushing and it manifests in laying off even teams of highly skilled and critical nuclear safety staff...that means someone there doesn't know what they're doing or the chaos could be the point as well. I would hope it's not to that extent, but this is why I maintain that CAT should be auditing DOGE's changes.

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

#602

Post by diob »

marcosdumay wrote: post #433
mexicocitinluez wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Even though there isn't a single moment in history they can point to that's similar In US history, maybe. But you can look at the raise to power of almost any dictatorship, you'll find the same exact concep of cleptocrats taking unrestricted access to whatever entity used to fight them.

Yeah, a lot of folks think the USA is untouchable and "it can't happen here", but so many other countries felt the exact same way.

You're fine until one day, you aren't. There's no magical barrier making the USA immune to things other nations have experienced.

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

#603

Post by wpm »

swat535 wrote: post #587

Setting politics aside for a moment, I find it fascinating that an audit of this scale is taking place within the government. Has there ever been a historical precedent where an external agency thoroughly reviewed all departments, published its findings for the public, and then based decisions on that analysis? Is it really possible to root out governmental fraud using this approach? Fraud and theft exist at every le…

>Is it really possible to root out governmental fraud using this approach?

It's possible it will, but not without a lot of false positives and innocent bystanders.

At the scale of the federal government, there are plenty of things that appear to be fraud but actually have a reasonable justification.

In the Dunning-Kruger world we unfortunately seem to live in now, I don't think having every single yokel personally analyzing every line item on a budget as large as the federal government's, especially when those yokels don't really understand any of it, is the best way to go about this.

This admin isn't trustworthy either. They'll sit here an cry about 0.01% of the federal budget being "wasted" on a bunch of National Park probies, and meanwhile the self-appointed king is out golfing on the taxpayer dime.

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

#605

Post by amarcheschi »

dmix wrote: post #546
CyrsBel wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Even if DOGE is operating without any ill intent, and I don't think they have ill intent, the possibility of errors alone is massive and they need to slow down. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/trum...

You mean misunderstanding the data, coming to the wrong conclusions, etc? Data science always has an issue with bullshit KPIs, shallow depth of statistics, and mostly mangling stuff keeping the manager happy. Still it's much better than not having any data analysis. Whether it benefits from being in a single datalake idk. We really don't know how the operations are being done, we're mostly just reacting to news repor…

This time you're not dealing with a data scientist, you're dealing with someone who willingly spews lies, those situations aren't comparable

Furthermore, another comment went in depth about how boosting the irs and following other agencies guidelines would have had a positive return, but none of this happened. On the contrary, we're seeing agencies such as the irs being infiltrated by this thing that resembles a metastasis

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

#606

Post by yreg »

swat535 wrote: post #587

Setting politics aside for a moment, I find it fascinating that an audit of this scale is taking place within the government. Has there ever been a historical precedent where an external agency thoroughly reviewed all departments, published its findings for the public, and then based decisions on that analysis? Is it really possible to root out governmental fraud using this approach? Fraud and theft exist at every le…

I think it's certain that there will be positive and negative consequences and both of those will be on a large scale. I too am curious about the positives.

I think the negatives could have been easily minimized to more-reasonable-level without affecting the positive ones, if it wasn't headed by hothead Elon.

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

#607

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

watwut wrote: post #553
CyrsBel wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Even if DOGE is operating without any ill intent, and I don't think they have ill intent, the possibility of errors alone is massive and they need to slow down. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/trum...

There is no reason to think they don't have ill intent.

If they did have ill intent, towards what is that ill intent targeted, and why should I care? These aren't organizations or missions I much care about. This isn't my government, except by an accident of geography. I have little say in how it's managed or what it does, but I have a high burden for it. It's unclear that this government protects me in any substantial way (or even in indirect, insubstantial ways). Meaningful reform is impossible at the sociological level, it requires too much buy-in too slowly, and that will always be hijacked by those with influence or watered down to meaninglessness.

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

#608

Post by bugtodiffer »

CyrsBel wrote: post #530
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…

Yes. Even if DOGE is operating without any ill intent, and I don't think they have ill intent, the possibility of errors alone is massive and they need to slow down. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/trum...

> I don't think they have ill intent

...

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

#609

Post by 9dev »

axus wrote: post #517

Government should have access to its own data. Justice and Congress should have the same access for oversight. The only problem I see is personal data about non-government people is being exposed to the entire planet. They should have developed good security practices first and maybe spent more than a week reviewing a plan, and not having a double standard about their own activities.

Government is doing a lot of work here. We’re talking about thousands of people, who, other than working for the government, also are humans with their own agenda. Are you okay with just giving all of them access to your most personal data? Even if some of them live right next to you, have a personal grudge, and may be slightly psychotic? No? Well apparently, then, it’s not just as hand-wavy as you claim it to be. The only reasonable thing is granting access to data on a need-to-know basis, with tight access control, audit logging, and anonymisation where not strictly impossible. That would be the reasonable thing if you’re handling data for hundreds of millions of people. It isn’t what’s happening.

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

#610

Post by CyrsBel »

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?

This is an interesting side effect indeed. The people I know irl who have espoused this view are, ironically, the people who never liked Elon Musk in the first place. It'll be interesting to see how their narrative evolves now, if at all, as they stare at a practical example which contradicts them!
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