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DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#331

Post by jiggawatts »

thrwaway438 wrote: post #307
jiggawatts wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your argument makes sense. I still speculate they're doing malicious things.

DOGE was given a mandate by a President with unprecedented (hah) unitary power. They’re executing on that, roughly how you’d expect them to, given their instructions and the time and resources available to them.

I personally feel that they’re being reckless and sloppy, uncovering “waste” that is often simply an artefact of their hubris. In doing so, they’re risking exposing the internal systems of the government to outside attack.

This is the rough equivalent of the guards in a prison turning over everything in a cell looking for contraband.

It’s not nice. It’s rarely productive. It is also a tool of intimidation. That’s part of the point. The prisoner is not supposed to like it. They’re not invited politely to present what they want others to see. They’re humiliated and powerless. That’s what the MAGA and DOGE want.

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#332

Post by LiquidSky »

grandempire wrote: post #321
0x_rs wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The repository has been deleted. In addition, 26 other repos have been removed from the account. This is in line with DOGE members' quick response scrubbing data whenever put into spotlight, as previously seen with another "teen hacker". [0] Archived repo page: https://archive.ph/LI7tt ; archived previous repo count: https://archive.ph/tgkg5 0. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/i-no-longer-hack...

[flagged]

These are government employees, you don't get to do that.

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#333

Post by Larrikin »

BrenBarn wrote: post #161
awesome_dude wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are only as strong as the enforcement. One of the things that is being exposed by the current administration is that, even though the Judiciary is an arm of the government, and supposed to provide a check on the Executive, the reality is that the Executive has the power to pardon anyone it sees fit, voiding the power of the judiciary (the argument is that the ultimate power lies with the voters who can pass thei…

> Laws are only as strong as the enforcement. This is one of the fundamental issues that underlies our broken system in the US. The gaps between what the law actually is, what people think it is, what people want it to be, and what it in practice is, are enormous. Some of the recent deportation cases highlight this. You have cases where people were living in the US illegally for decades but faced no repercussions, an…

Do you believe there should be criminal prosecution for state and local government officials currently refusing to to work with ICE in its current form in the Trump administration?

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#334

Post by AIPedant »

dfedbeef wrote: post #111

The CEO of Tesla and Space-X; a self-proclaimed high IQ individual, an alleged programmer, has apparently hired a straight-up script kiddie to their elite delta force of technical government downsizers.

I hated Elon Musk long before it was cool: I was a fan of Tesla in the early days, and when I read Musk's "super-secret master plan" for Tesla I thought "yeesh, the board chairman is an idiot, where did they find this bozo?" (I knew a bit about SpaceX but somehow didn't make the connection.)

That said, I was surprised to learn much later that, by all accounts, Elon Musk was a competent and resourceful leader in SpaceX's early days. Maybe these stories are just his personality cult in action, but I found it plausible. It appears he once knew his place as an engineering manager, without LARPing as a Chief Engineer (he didn't appoint himself to CTO until quite a bit later). I worked for a really good manager who didn't know how to code, but he knew a lot about software and was very good about pulling back on coding things vs pushing forward on software design. It seemed like Musk was similar at SpaceX.

Which is all to say that celebrity is a helluva drug. I don't think Musk was ever an especially "high-IQ individual," and his first marriage suggests he's always been a misogynistic loser. But being anointed "a real life Tony Stark!" seems to have destroyed his brain. Ketamine probably doesn't help.

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#335

Post by LiquidSky »

mfer wrote: post #305
throwworhtthrow wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Setting aside legitimate (thats a matter of judgement) By definition, a judge decides what's legitimate. If DOGE expects their access to be blocked by a court judgement, and bum-rushes agencies to exfiltrate data ahead of the judgement, that's also criminal intent. I am not sure what you are getting at. "Covert" isn't how I'd describe DOGE's actions. "Brazen" maybe?

People have admitted in news interviews to destroying government data to prevent others from knowing what the government was doing. That’s likely criminal. This is a legitimate reason to get at information before people who might destroy have the opportunity. What’s happening with judges is very political. We likely won’t know what’s allowed until things have gone through the appeals process. There have been cases of…

>People have admitted in news interviews to destroying government data to prevent others from knowing what the government was doing. That’s likely criminal. This is a legitimate reason to get at information before people who might destroy have the opportunity.

Yes, this is precisely the accusation being made against DOGE: they are the government actors criminally trying to to prevent the public from knowing what they're doing.

>There have been cases of judges admitting they will rule against the current administration no matter the topic or law.

No, there haven't, but feel free to provide a source.

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#336

Post by Braxton1980 »

avs733 wrote: post #299
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have thought that a Russian state sponsored attack would trivially mask the IP to originate from within the USA. This is just brazen.

Sometimes getting caught isn’t a bad thing. If you are trying to seed division between to groups, acting in a way that divides them - e.g., getting caught helping one side - is more effective than what you gain by not getting caught. I struggle to see what Russia would gain with nlrb data, but getting caught “helping doge” furthers distrust between the two sides of our country - which is something they gain from

Why would the Russians do this when Trump won the election. Isn't that the best outcome for them related to Ukraine?

>furthers distrust between the two sides of our country - which is something they gain from

How?

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#337

Post by rtkwe »

stephenitis wrote: post #266
rtkwe wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse when you know more of the whistleblower's story which is that ~15 minutes after one of DOGE's accounts were made there was an attempted login with the correct password from Russia. Not many explanations for that that look good for DOGE...

Citation?

Take your pick it was widely reported and you can read the original whistleblower report;

https://whistlebloweraid.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025... - page 2 & 11

"This declaration details DOGE activity within NLRB, the exfiltration of data from NLRB systems, and – concerningly – near real-time access by users in Russia. Notably, within minutes of DOGE personnel creating user accounts in NLRB systems, on multiple occasions someone or something within Russia attempted to login using all of the valid credentials (eg. Usernames/Passwords)"

"For example: In the days after DOGE accessed NLRB’s systems, we noticed a user with an IP address in Primorskiy Krai, Russia started trying to log in. Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming. Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created accounts that were used in the other DOGE related activities and it appeared they had the correct username and password due to the authentication flow only stopping them due to our no-out-of-country logins policy activating. There were more than 20 such attempts, and what is particularly concerning is that many of these login attempts occurred within 15 minutes of the accounts being created by DOGE engineers."

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/04/whistleblower-doge-sipho...

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-...

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#338

Post by bequanna »

Pompidou wrote: post #316
bequanna wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just seems odd. Why would they attempt a login from Russia (if it was indeed Russians)? It is incredibly cheap to use a VPN with a US residential IP.

Maybe not everyone involved is quite the genius you might've been expecting.

I guess I don’t buy that.

Many non technical people use VPNs to access region restricted content. It is trivial to understand and use.

Assuming this all actually happened as described, it sounds like someone wanted it to appear that these attempts were coming from Russia.

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#339

Post by 9283409232 »

lukev wrote: post #320
tenpies wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the third option: false flag. The objective may not have been to obtain access or any useful data. The objective may have been to get the scary headlines about Russians and use the existing media and political agitprop to further destabilize the government you seek to color revolution away.

I don't follow. Are you saying the DOGE boys are trying to give Trump bad press?

The theory I'm seeing is that they are creating an excuse to try to drum up public support for expanding use of AI in government under the guise of security. You already have people in this very thread and every DOGE thread playing Elon's advocate. Give them a vague reason like security and I'm sure they'll be onboard with no questions asked.

Re: DOGE worker’s code supports NLRB whistleblower

#340

Post by Braxton1980 »

XorNot wrote: post #84
tw04 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Root on Linux isn’t exempt from logging. I also don’t know any enterprise that allows admin accounts to bypass logging. There is no legitimate justification for this request.

root on Linux can just kill the log forwarder and erase the relevant logs, or refill them with junk.

Assuming the Whistleblower is telling the truth, why would they make the request if they could cover their tracks themselves
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