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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

#881

Post by aredox »

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

Has anybody more competent than Elon (which isn't a very high bar) survived contact with him in one of his firms? It is well know he doesn't tolerate any pushback and that e.g. SpaceX has a whole team dedicated to babysitting him away from operations.

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

#882

Post by cryptonector »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #34
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?

There are laws, but you will get fired if you try to follow them, and lawsuits to remedy that take time. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/usaid-sec...

Statutes can't really constrain the president's authority to do this sort of thing (firing appointees, firing employees for cause, laying people off, auditing the executive agencies). Constitutionally the president is just plenipotent within the executive branch.

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

#883

Post by TeaBrain »

mempko wrote: post #832
1970-01-01 wrote: post #625

What should happen, and nobody is talking about this, is the USA is severely downgraded in its overall credit rating due to an unhinged and ongoing "fire, aim, ready" self-audit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...

The deficit hawks don't understand how money works. Everything about DOGE and their mission has a fundamental deep misunderstanding of why governments with their own currency must have deficits. Literal accounting 101. Unfortunately Elon has an economics degree, which means he is completely uneducated in accounting.

It doesn't appear that DOGE is handling the problem with the appropriate amount of care or analysis, but the US does have a deficit problem. The issue is not simply that the US has a deficit, nor have I heard anyone argue this point, but that the deficit to GDP ratio is around twice as large as the historical average, and is projected to continue to increase.

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

#884

Post by babycheetahbite »

chatmasta wrote: post #356
dzdt wrote: post #320

Related to a comment on a now-flagged subthread: can anyone who believes that DOGE is uncovering fraud please post a reliable reference that gives a specific example of fraud uncovered by DOGE? To be clear, this should be a third-party analysis of some credibility, not DOGE's or Musk's twitter feed or "receipts" website which shows cancelled contracts with no clear link to fraudulent activity.

It’s marketed as “fraud, waste and abuse.” The top-line summaries are definitely consistent with “waste.” Probably some of them have more nuance when you dig deeper, but does anyone disagree that there is not waste in the government? Fraud and abuse are less clear. But it’s also difficult to ascertain the legitimacy of payments when they’re leaving treasury on checks with no memo or reference, and they’re compared to…

I am shocked, and overjoyed, that this post has not been downvoted; well said.

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

#885

Post by reciprocity »

jart wrote: post #862
simpaticoder wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

The USG does in fact know how to build a website and it is intellectually lazy (so very lazy) to suggest otherwise. A high profile illustration of this is login.gov, which is SSO used across USG agencies. It's not possible to take a comment like this seriously, at all.

Elon Musk is also not an auditor. DOGE is not an auditing entity. You bring in accountants to audit. These are 20 y/o something programmers. How DOGE has been operating has been completely opaque and this lack of transparency just plays to the point that what someone says their goals are and what their actual goals are are not mutually exclusive, so no, Elon Musk shouldn't be allowed anywhere near these systems.

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

#886

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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

In government, yes, he's hiring Cs. I can speak to SpaceX--they're all As. But it's also the company he's most shielded from himself.

Elon qua SpaceX and possibly xAI and Neuralink is an A. Elon qua Boring Company, X and DOGE is very, very clearly a B player. (Idk what's going on with Tesla, he seems to be treating it more like a piggy bank to be raided to get to Mars (A) and indulge his impulses (B).)

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

#887

Post by aredox »

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…

Only because you didn't inform yourself properly. Did you know about the position of inspection general? Did you read any of their reports? Do you know Trump fired all of them? In a totally illegal move?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43116844

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/25/trump-fires-inspectors-gene...

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

#888

Post by tim333 »

karel-3d wrote: post #93

Honestly when DOGE was first announced, I thought it will be a tiny department that does almost nothing and produces recommendations and PDFs that nobody reads. I didn't expect this.

Nobody expects the DOGEish inquistion! Yeah I kinda thought that too.

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

#889

Post by rayiner »

jart wrote: post #862
simpaticoder wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

> What's with you people

Right?

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

#890

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mempko wrote: post #832
1970-01-01 wrote: post #625

What should happen, and nobody is talking about this, is the USA is severely downgraded in its overall credit rating due to an unhinged and ongoing "fire, aim, ready" self-audit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...

The deficit hawks don't understand how money works. Everything about DOGE and their mission has a fundamental deep misunderstanding of why governments with their own currency must have deficits. Literal accounting 101. Unfortunately Elon has an economics degree, which means he is completely uneducated in accounting.

> Everything about DOGE and their mission has a fundamental deep misunderstanding of why governments with their own currency must have deficits

DOGE has nothing to do with deficits, they're not even bothering to count it properly [1]. DOGE will remake the federal government for Musk's benefit. That's why he's using cannon-fodder DOGE bros instead of his best and brightest. That's why the collateral damage isn't of principal concern, and why they're moving quickly: they need to finish their work before checks and balances start swinging.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/upshot/doge-contracts-mus...

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