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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

#861

Post by thechao »

nprateem wrote: post #621
torpfactory wrote: post #469

Hear me out. Elon wants ultimate control over people’s lives and choices. Why he would want this is a psychological question about which we can only speculate. This is a change from (at least in appearance) his previous libertarian leanings. Whatever the case, this is the plan: 1) Acquire god mode access to government systems and citizens information (contacting, grants, spending, taxes, SSI benefits, you name it). 2…

It's pretty obvious isn't it? Trump stacked the Supreme Court the first time round which turned out to be the best thing he ever did. Now they'll control payments to defund opponents as well as sacking anyone who doesn't support them to gain total loyalty. In fact, the way they're doing this is clever: Sack and then make former colleagues compete to be rehired. That way they'll feel extra grateful to have a job and w…

The plans were laid down with "Red Map" in 2010, and reinforced in 2020: this is control of the GOP "at the base" via gerrymandering and primary control. It means that the individual representatives no longer control their own districts since a central authority (Trump) can easily out primary the individual representatives if they don't toe-the-line. One of the non-obvious impacts of the 2010 gerrymander we learned was that the populace actually votes roughly in line at the state-level as they do at the district level; this means you can use the district-level gerrymander to control Senate-level seats. This has bought the GOP a ~+3-+8 bias in the Senate.

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

#862

Post by jart »

simpaticoder wrote: post #811
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've worked with older governmental systems, and chances are they are running a wide variety of systems, some of which, the oldest and most critical, are probably written in COBOL running on IBM mainframe hardware. In those environments, there is no real distinction between "database" and "application". COBOL systems are very file- and batch-oriented, and are "monolithic" in the extremist sense. The technology itself…

[flagged]

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

#863

Post by acdha »

polski-g wrote: post #847
skizm wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is part of the point. "As hire As. Bs hire Cs." A-tier folks want to work with the best, B-tier folks want to work with lackeys that will do their bidding. It's pretty clear there's no A-tier folks in charge at the moment.

If you've ever worked on a government contract, you would know there are not and have never been A's on the government side.

This is not and has never been true as a blanket statement. Contractors perform to expectations just like in every other sector of the economy, so variation is high, just like in every other sector of the economy.

I’ve seen both high and low-performing teams in .com, .edu, and .gov and there’s nothing magic about any sector: you get what senior management sets the incentives to get. The NSA gets really good hackers because they don’t leave that to chance, just like how NASA or MIT hire really good scientists and engineers, and the places which just trust the big consulting companies usually get taken to the cleaners.

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

#864

Post by cryptonector »

crooked-v wrote: post #827
tiffanyh wrote: post #806

> ‘GOD MODE’ ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT DATA Isn't this title clickbait? There's an implication this is access to all government data - but the article doesn't explicitly state that but would lead you to believe that. Given that I highly doubt all government data is in a single data store ... this is probably more like - GOGE has access to all GSA contracts (just one department) ... which is way less sensationalized (and a…

They have full admin access to all USAID systems (which, let's be real, also includes some US intelligence service cover material, since USAID has long been used for that), and are actively seeking full admin access to the systems for every other federal department.

They do, however, have the clearance for that level of access, and the delegated authority. In that sense this is much ado about nothing, or just a complaint about the politics, which, ok, sure, HN loves to do right now.

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

#865

Post by acdha »

cryptonector wrote: post #858
skizm wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is part of the point. "As hire As. Bs hire Cs." A-tier folks want to work with the best, B-tier folks want to work with lackeys that will do their bidding. It's pretty clear there's no A-tier folks in charge at the moment.

Yes, Elon hires Cs. eyeroll

When is FSD shipping again? Why is Tesla falling behind in the market they defined for a decade? When will Boring actually deliver on the hype? Why is X suing former customers trying to get the revenue they so desperately need to pay off debts best on wildly over-estimating the company’s worth?

He’s been able to buy some good companies but nobody has a magic trick for being good at everything and the man is stretched really thin between all of his CEO positions and spending hours per day on politics.

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

#866

Post by Gormo »

whymeogod wrote: post #696
Gormo wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bureaucracies are a common good Bureaucracies are just organizations of humans, who have the same motivations, biases, and incentives ans everyone else, everywhere else in society. They're not a "common good", they're just people, and because they have de jure authority over certain domains, they need be subject to oversight and accountability if we're to trust them. Bureaucracies often have perverse incentives, ul…

> Bureaucracies are just organizations of humans, who have the same motivations, biases, and incentives ans everyone else, everywhere else in society No, the biases and incentives are different in government than in business. Yes, there are biases and incentives, but they are different. The main attraction of government work is the ability to serve your country, and to be rewarded by taking actions which produce (wha…

> No, the biases and incentives are different in government than in business

Not really, no. Certain cognitive biases and elements of self-interest are fundamental to all humans in all situations, and while different scenarios lead to those biases manifesting in different forms, they still share the same underlying substance.

> The main attraction of government work is the ability to serve your country, and to be rewarded by taking actions which produce (what you believe is) long-term social good.

No, the main attraction of government work is the ability to have a decently-paying career with a high degree of job security. Most people in such jobs simply dutifully do the tasks asked of them in exchange for a regular paycheck, and don't deeply consider the broader effects of their work on society (except to convince themselves of the importance of their work, as we all do).

A few outliers will prioritize theoretical ideals about doing "social good" over their own career goals, and a few outliers on the opposite end will prioritize having access to political power and opportunities for graft. (And some mistakenly think they are doing "social good" by forcefully advancing their own particular normative ideology.)

> Your belief that an adversarial relation between forces of government leads to a favorable equilibrium is indeed the basis of the US constitution, and the very thing which DOGE/Trump are attacking with such force.

No, I don't DOGE and Trump attacking the concept as much as participating in it here. None of the parties involved have good intentions, as far as I can evaluate, but, again, there's a chance that things will work out in the balance.

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

#867

Post by skissane »

simpaticoder wrote: post #811
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've worked with older governmental systems, and chances are they are running a wide variety of systems, some of which, the oldest and most critical, are probably written in COBOL running on IBM mainframe hardware. In those environments, there is no real distinction between "database" and "application". COBOL systems are very file- and batch-oriented, and are "monolithic" in the extremist sense. The technology itself…

> The technology itself makes it impossible to give read only access to such systems.

This isn't true. Mainframe COBOL systems commonly store data in VSAM files, or DB2, or IMS, or sometimes some more obscure non-IBM database (e.g. CA/Broadcom's Datacom/DB or IDMS, or Software AG's ADABAS). But whichever one they use, there are multiple ways of granting read-only access.

For example, if it is VSAM, you can configure RACF (or TopSecret or ACF2) to allow an account read (but not write) permission to those VSAM datasets. Or, you can stick DB2 in front of VSAM (on DB2 for z/OS, CREATE TABLE can refer to a pre-existing VSAM file, and make it look like a database table), and then you can have a readonly account in DB2 to give you access to that database schema. Or, there's a lot of other ways to "skin this cat", depending on exactly how the legacy app is designed, and exactly how it stores data. But, probably this is already implemented – most of these apps have read-only access for export into BI systems or whatever – and if it happens for whatever reason not to be, setting it up should only be a modest amount of work, not some multiyear megaproject.

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

#868

Post by guax »

skizm wrote: post #665
insane_dreamer wrote: post #638

Another very negative long-term effect of all of this is how is the government going to recruit talent in the future? How many people, who have good prospects elsewhere, are going to work for a government agency -- usually a lower pay -- to put up with shit like this that doesn't even happen in industry? Would you? Sure there are sometimes mass layoffs that are handled pretty badly in industry, but not these Gestapo-…

I think that is part of the point. "As hire As. Bs hire Cs." A-tier folks want to work with the best, B-tier folks want to work with lackeys that will do their bidding. It's pretty clear there's no A-tier folks in charge at the moment.

This gets repeated a lot but in reality hiring is a skillset that good programmers sorely lack.

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

#869

Post by Gormo »

dionian wrote: post #458
ideashower wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bureaucracies are a “common good” because of their human element: the ability to exercise discretion, recognize unique circumstances, and be held accountable to the public they serve. The challenge is harnessing technology while strengthening these essential human capacities. Anything otherwise erodes public trust and sows division.

I don't think unelected bureaucrats should have more power than the elected leaders of the Executive. Try the "shoe on the other foot" principle: Imagine if Trump put lifetime leaders in those agencies and they fought against the next Progressive president.

I don't think elected leaders in the executive branch should be allowed to supersede the role of the elected legislature in formulating public policy.

The whole problem can be sidestepped by pulling back on the excessive levels of discretion and rule-making that have been delegated to executive agencies in the first place.

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

#870

Post by rapido-gato »

namuol wrote: post #791
ethagknight wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very dramatic take on something you (and many others) are making extremely broad presumptions upon. It’s clear that DOGE is reviewing payment data and has the same access to various components of the US Govt that Obama’s US Digital Services, created to rebuild the ACA website but also provisioned for a number of other digital services. DOGE has the same access to services that USDS had. USDS was praised for…

> the same access to various components of the US Govt that Obama’s US Digital Services …but also much more. It is intellectually dishonest to equate these two. Cutting through red tape can technically be done by nuking the red tape, but why cause all this harm when you can use scissors?

I don't think intellectually honest people can support the current takeover.
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