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Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#341

Post by MisoRamen »

ineptech wrote: post #94
fabian2k wrote: post #47

Ignoring the horrifying political parts, I think one aspect here about data access that is inherently worrying is that it seems like all usual controls were bypassed and the DOGE people had very low level access to systems. So there are probably copies of sensitive data now in their possession, and nobody knows exactly what was copied and where it is stored. This kind of access would be dangerous even in the hands of…

What's more worrying is whether the access can realistically be revoked. As a general rule, when a security even rises to the level of root access to internal systems, you don't even try to remove them - you just rebuild the affected VMs from scratch because it's the only way to be sure the attacker didn't leave anything behind. For the systems we're talking about, payment processing stuff at Treasury and Social Secu…

How does someone even clean up this mess? One of the DOGE kids may have just cloned every repo and then connect the machine to public internet because they need to fed it to an AI to figure out how things work. We can only assume the worst and that foreign adversaries may already be combing the code line by line.

What will happen when PIIs of every individual with dealings with the Treasury gets leaked?

Then there is going to be thousands of hours of meetings to review various processes...

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#342

Post by talldayo »

milesrout wrote: post #294
dang wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent all day responding to the replies here, and then detaching them in order to save space at the top of the thread. But I just had a better idea. This is a stub comment so we have a single root to collapse the replies. This way (1) replies can stay close to their parent (the top comment) without flooding the screen with offtopicness; and (2) we can all re-experience the timeless truth of https://en.wikipedia.org…

I don't see how this kind of story is on-topic for HN. Yes, we all appreciate that HN is more than just a website for discussing garbage collection algorithms, graph algorithms, javascript frameworks, etc (i.e. computer science and programming) but isn't it meant to be about things that hackers would find interesting by virtue of being hackers ? My understanding of that broader topicality was that it was intended to…

> It isn't particularly newsworthy.

I disagree. Krebsonsecurity has regularly delivered HN salient and interesting frontpage material, and this is currently the most flagged submission they've ever had on HN. We've discussed security assessments very similar to this in the past, even political ones, with technical curiosity and good faith discussion. The constraining factor is now people who unconditionally idolize Elon Musk. It's easy to see who's in the wrong when flagging relevant, well-written and objective reports like this one.

My personal view is that HN shouldn't promote political content at all. It should just be moderated out or flagged with no opportunity for recourse, whether it's Syrian independence or the invasion of Ukraine. But I abide by the exceptions made in HN's guidelines and consider this a technically imperative article that most can tune out if they dislike. It's very easy to see the title and decide for yourself whether you're comfortable reading and discussing the article.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#343

Post by rcpt »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #327
SamBam wrote: post #24

Is it the same Edward Big Baller that tweeted that Elon stole the election and is setting up more computers within the government to be hacked? https://bsky.app/profile/cartwright776.bsky.social/post/3lhr...

That’s not the same guy clearly

https://x.com/natedog155/status/1886180417549545674?s=19

I think it is the same guy.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#345

Post by rcpt »

likeabatterycar wrote: post #63
ty6853 wrote: post #38

A career fed guy in his 50s being forced to beg for his job in a 15 minute teleconference to an arrogant zoomer in shorts and an unbuttoned suit is peak representation of democracy.

> guy in his 50s being forced to beg for his job in a 15 minute teleconference to an arrogant zoomer So, like every private sector job nowadays? Everyone is acting like this is the first time in history someone's been called into a meeting with a ponytailed 25 year old to have the "What is it ya do here?" discussion. Memorialized in a movie so old now that most zoomers haven't even heard of it, let alone seen it. Onl…

There were no 25 year olds taking over in that movie.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#346

Post by risyachka »

mmastrac wrote: post #236

The reason security clearances are so important, and why people are so upset about randos going through so much sensitive government information, is that things like this can be used by adversaries to lean on these employees in the future. One of these kids might have worse skeletons in their closet. Given how well-known their names are, adversaries of the USA are likely combing through their own intelligence archive…

Also a lot of consequences of musks actions will appear only decades later and they will claim they have nothing to do with it.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#347

Post by SoftTalker »

blondie9x wrote: post #332
alecco wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did everybody already forget only a month ago it was revealed Chinese hackers had access to US Treasury computers including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen 's own? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-16/chinese-h... ( https://archive.ph/xeEaO ) (January 16, 2025)

That's a bit different than complete access to the complete payments database isn't it?

OPM has had major leaks. I think it’s safe to assume most federal IT leaks like a sieve.

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#348

Post by kjrfghslkdjfl »

fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #176
cjbgkagh wrote: post #140

I don't like Musk and have not for many years, but the left has been venerating some very flawed people for a very long time. It’s hard to be outraged now when we’ve been selectively told to ignore the past of others. Let’s not forget that Trump is the pied piper candidate promoted by the left to make it easier to win elections. I remember when Ron Desantis was successfully undermined by the news media casting him as…

> I don't like Musk and have not for many years, but the left has been venerating some very flawed people for a very long time. It’s hard to be outraged now when we’ve been selectively told to ignore the past of others. Such as? I'll be seriously impressed if you can come up with anywhere near the volume and severity of flaws of the people in Trump's orbit.

[dead]

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#349

Post by the_snooze »

Aurornis wrote: post #186
the_snooze wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least, it’s a field day for foreign intelligence in DC. Offering these guys some money, women, status, or drink would pay massive dividends.

This person was fired from a trivial teenage script kid job after two months because he couldn’t resist sharing their internal information. Only a few years later, he was thrust into the core information systems of the United States right next to people with security clearance. Targets like this are a dream come true for foreign adversaries looking for someone to corrupt. Who knows how much compromising content his o…

SF-86 Section 13A Employment Activities

>For this employment have any of the following happened to you in the last seven (7) years?

>Fired, quit after being told you would be fired, left by mutual agreement following charges or allegations of misconduct, left by mutual agreement following notice of unsatisfactory performance.

>Provide the reason for being fired.

https://www.opm.gov/Forms/pdf_fill/sf86.pdf

Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'

#350

Post by c22 »

milesrout wrote: post #294
dang wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent all day responding to the replies here, and then detaching them in order to save space at the top of the thread. But I just had a better idea. This is a stub comment so we have a single root to collapse the replies. This way (1) replies can stay close to their parent (the top comment) without flooding the screen with offtopicness; and (2) we can all re-experience the timeless truth of https://en.wikipedia.org…

I don't see how this kind of story is on-topic for HN. Yes, we all appreciate that HN is more than just a website for discussing garbage collection algorithms, graph algorithms, javascript frameworks, etc (i.e. computer science and programming) but isn't it meant to be about things that hackers would find interesting by virtue of being hackers ? My understanding of that broader topicality was that it was intended to…

I think the fact that we keep hearing about DOGE grey-area accessing of computer systems run by the US government and not about whatever else the Trump administration is currently doing is pretty good evidence that HN maintains a bias towards stories of interest to hackers. Like it or not, I think most of the hackers here are also US citizens.
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