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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'

#511

Post by dralley »

vimy wrote: post #231
bearjaws wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are mad at your AWS bill, do you slide to your 10th line item? That is effectively what going after USAID is. To give you an idea of how poorly this has been handled, my wife's friend is an attorney working in non-profit immigration. She got told on Monday that her company is going to lay off 50% of their staff because they have no more money from USAID. Her boss found her a job at another firm a week later th…

Marco Rubio said that USAID wasn’t listening to orders. They were a rogue agency. From other things I’ve read it has been an issue for multiple administrations. Watch here: https://x.com/defiantls/status/1888533363117449619?s=46

USAID funding is controlled by Congress. Trump cannot just order them to redirect funds on a whim.

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

#512

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

qaq wrote: post #447
9283409232 wrote: post #106

The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?

People mentioned Elon's DOGE team is about 200 people including lawyers and accountants. I am guessing the focus on the 6 youngsters is mainly because here's a bunch of former Deloitte lawyers/accountants is not a newsworthy thing to focus on especially if your angle is to discredit the effort.

Just look in this thread for how many posters here are 100% certain that irreparable damage is being done - because they want to feel mad.

There is no proof of anything bad. Regardless how many people want that to be false, oddly.

So I guess tough to not think that the worldwide media that has been receiving government money would be mad and willing to focus on ”a handful of 20 year olds” as a means to discredit.

What I find strange is that it’s working so well. So many people here KNOW so much that hasn’t been reported or happened.

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

#513

Post by stainablesteel »

and if you want to be a good network/security/intelligence person, isn't this basically a requirement?

this is the kind of ground that people SHOULD be covering if they want to pursue a career of this nature

it doesn't make him a bad person, or even a criminal the internet is just the wild west and hacking is prevalent, long live the people who do this because it's needed

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

#514

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

daveguy wrote: post #444
hi_hi wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand how they are gaining the access credentials required? Where I work, it takes days to onboard people, through standard processes. Whats happening in this case. Given the highly volatile, and legally gray, situation; I'd expect the front line people who usually grant access are at least flagging these requests to their boss, who flags to their boss etc. Is everyone up the chain just giving a sh…

When you're the president, they let you do it. You can do anything. Especially if you're sending someone in to shut down entire departments and freeze communications.

Upvoted for the apt part of the quote that everyone leaves out.

They let you do it.

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

#515

Post by tayo42 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #385
9283409232 wrote: post #106

The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?

> The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending? If it's working, why would it matter? The most curious thing in all these discussions is that the elephant in the room is never addressed: they already found on hundreds of billions of pure fraud and funding for extremely dubious endeavors. But nobody t…

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/feb/07/social-med...

Seems like your first point is "fake news" as they say?

So it seems like its not working, what info we do get is false or slanted to support a narrative. Social media posts are making people hysterical. It's not clear why your other 7 bullet points are things to be concerned about. As you pointed out a few times, we don't have context into these deals. Your jumping to conclusions assuming the worst for some reason.

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

#516

Post by zeroCalories »

davesque wrote: post #344

Seems safe to assume that the DOGE kids probably scored copies of the data they had access to even if that access was or will be revoked, especially considering that some of them have a history of data theft as mentioned in the article.

That seems so incredibly stupid and risky. You're in with Elon and get to help shape the future of the country. Why jeopardize that? Trump will only pardon so much.

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

#517

Post by [deleted] »

swat535 wrote: post #356

I am wondering what will happen at the end of all of this? I see a few possibilities here: 1. Either this project will be a tremendous success for the American people, saving millions and uncovering massive fraud and waste in the government thanks to the audits 2. It will ab a complete failure, nothing of value will get discovered, published and time and money will be wasted for everyone involved (giving the DNC a hu…

[deleted]

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

#518

Post by acdha »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #385
9283409232 wrote: post #106

The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?

> The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending? If it's working, why would it matter? The most curious thing in all these discussions is that the elephant in the room is never addressed: they already found on hundreds of billions of pure fraud and funding for extremely dubious endeavors. But nobody t…

You appear to believe those things are true, but consider what evidence you actually have beyond social media claims. For example, the very first one has been circulating in right-wing social media but we don’t have any evidence that it’s actually true:

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-chelsea-clinton-foundati...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-foundation-paid-fo...

The second similarly wasn’t a DOGE find and is vaguely sourced because it was from Nancy Mace’s political fundraising and there’s a direct financial incentive to misrepresent what was actually funded. If you read the actual grants, they’re studying things like gender-based differences in how wounds heal or whether transgender people have different responses to things like HIV vaccination or other medical treatments - and unless your position is that transgender people shouldn’t exist, it’s hard to argue that a tiny fraction of a percent of government spending going to medical research is fraud.

Similarly, there is still no evidence that COVID was caused by gain of function research even if it would be really useful politically.

Finally, not understanding why the United States invests money building influence internationally is not fraud. We spent trillions invading Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s profoundly unsurprising that we spent money trying to improve our reputation in those countries.

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

#519

Post by zeroCalories »

apical_dendrite wrote: post #251
fujinghg wrote: post #218

I used to hang around with the late 90s's versions of these guys. I grew up, had a family, have had a successful career. They went to prison. I expect the same will happen to this lot.

I hung around with some guys like this too. I wouldn't trust them with even a trivial amount of money. They threw some fun parties though.

I feel like the people I knew could be trusted with money, but were straight up dangerous to be around. Most of them were smart enough to make and keep friends, but still had a psychopathic streak.

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

#520

Post by reneretord »

jdross wrote: post #185

I realized I’m treading in extremely hostile waters here, but the stories I hear from folks working in DOGE are closer to “I spend 8am to 2am with the leaders of department X going through all contracts and outflows and identifying what is important versus wasteful given a target of saving $X million per day, and there are some great people in this department who really know what’s been going on and it’s been great t…

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