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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

#671

Post by rich_sasha »

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?

It's a bit of a straw man. I might get labelled as part of that group. But in reality, I have nothing to hide given a search warrant of my digital data, issued by a court in accordance to tight privacy-respecting laws. And I am happy the bandwidth-limited court can issue these against me, and against everyone around me, as opposed to no data ever being available for anyone.

That's quite different to Musk's minions taking a DB dump onto a USB stick.

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

#672

Post by vuln »

_heimdall wrote: post #307
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?

Democracy is held together by people willing to follow the rules. In Trump's first administration they realized the trick is to just move so fast that you flood the system and can do whatever you want before anyone sees through all the noise or has a chance to stop you. Steve Bannon was interviewed on camera saying as much.

This is also the MO of startups.

Look at AirBnB, Uber, Lyft.

All illegal businesses that had enough capital to burn through lawsuits and keep operations going until they were too big to fail and whipped the snot out of city and state legal counsels.

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

#673

Post by tmaly »

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…

Assuming they have a read only copy to the data, how would having access to just data require rebuilding the systems?

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

#674

Post by justin66 »

cratermoon wrote: post #556
FigurativeVoid wrote: post #537

At my first gig, I had "god" level access to our production database. All I learned is that nobody should have this level of access unless it is some sort of temporary break glass situation. It is extremely dangerous and even experienced engineers can cause irreparable data loss or some other bad outcome. In our case, some engineer accidentally sent around 10,000 invoices to customers that shouldn't have gotten them.…

I loathe working places where they just give you all the permissions because it's "easier". One risk is if something does happen, and they don't have exceptional tracing and logging, (and let's be honest, at an organization sloppy enough to hand out privileges like candy, what's the chance of that?) it's difficult or impossible to pin down the source to any individual. As a result, both responsibility and suspicion i…

It's not just about the risk. It signifies that you're not dealing with an experienced database administration staff. (At a startup that might just mean one guy, but that's better than zero.

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

#675

Post by lesuorac »

delecti wrote: post #569
goshx wrote: post #523

Don’t they need security clearances to do this?

Legally, probably. But in the US, "legally" is enforced by the executive, and that's who's telling them to comply.

To be clear, Security Clearances is just an EO thing.

The actual laws just speak about things being critical to national security and don't use the words like "Top Secret" and etc.

The whole actually labeling things "Top Secret" and etc started off with Clinton [1] but then Bush [2] and Obama [3] modified the rules around classification.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12958

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13292

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13526

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

#676

Post by vuln »

regularfry wrote: post #637
vezycash wrote: post #624

My two cents. God-mode privilege already existed before DOGE, someone else had (or still has) this privilege. Priority - How to limit power of such privilege in future.

Often what you'll find is that the power was limited through separation of privileges. One person would not be able to do much beyond a limited boundary. Sounds like that's no longer true.

“Often” false. I’d bet 60-70% of the Fortune 500 doesn’t fully adhere to these “best practices” maybe only the government when handling classified information comes close.

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

#677

Post by insane_dreamer »

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…

It's shocking to me how many people think that auditing government agencies is some new thing being implemented by Trump/Musk.

These agencies all have Inspector Generals, who are outside of the agency and responsible for auditing their particular agency. And they do, there are reports on this sort of thing.

Most of the IGs, if not all, were fired by Trump first thing.

> corruption wouldn’t persist

We still haven't seen any evidence of corruption, by the way. Yeah, I'm sure there's some gov employees here and there doing fraudulent stuff, skimming off the top or getting gov contracts to their buddies. But there has been zero evidence of any widespread or systemic corruption in a single agency. Nothing.

The agency that did get axed the most -- USAID -- was because of "woke ideology" that they were supposedly pushing (though there wasn't any evidence of that being widespread either), not corruption/fraud (breaking the law).

It's like the WMD excuse to invade Iraq.

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

#678

Post by kmlx »

mikeyouse wrote: post #542
kmlx wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bureaucracies are a common good never saw it like that. to me bureaucracy represents inefficiency. today we have automation that can be quite advanced. as long as you have a structured, rules based system there is no need for bureaucrats. i do understand that there will always be edge cases, or moral issues with automation, but there should be a constant drive in society to dismantle as much bureaucracy as morally…

Even if this was true, breaking things with reckless abandon has real human costs today and will until they’re fixed. That’s part of the reason government is ‘inefficient’ is the responsibility to serve everyone and get as close to zero downtime as possible.

yours is a stability-over-change argument: bureaucracy exists to prevent reckless, harmful disruptions.

you're assuming the alternative to bureaucracy is reckless destruction, but what about the harm bureaucracy already causes? slow government processes, redundant approvals, and outdated rules waste time, money, and even lives. how many people suffer due to delays in healthcare, housing permits, or business licenses?

you're framing efficiency as 'reckless abandon' but efficiency doesn't mean chaos, it means designing systems that work smoothly without unnecessary friction. if private companies can process global transactions in seconds, why does it take months to approve basic permits?

if bureaucracy ensures stability, why does it fail so often? government shutdowns, dmv backlogs, and welfare mismanagement don’t scream 'zero downtime'. in reality, bureaucracy is often fragile, not resilient.

other industries use automation and streamlined processes to reduce friction without 'breaking things recklessly'. why should government be any different?

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

#679

Post by ganoushoreilly »

root_axis wrote: post #642
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…

Before even debating the effectiveness of this audit, we have to address the fundamental problem: Elon Musk has no legal authority to be conducting this in the first place. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is not a real government agency and Musk has not been confirmed by the Senate or given formal oversight. It's illegal and unconstitutional. Beyond that, yes, large-scale government audits have been do…

[flagged]

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

#680

Post by ushiroda80 »

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...

He is being criminally reckless
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