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Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#792Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I will admit I did not think of that aspect of it. I think the reason I didn't is because, supposedly - as it was presented to me at the time, those systems run on some ancient hardware/software. In other words, even if something was left behind, it shouldn't be that hard to locate. If anyone with real experience in that area could chime in. Until now I was under impression COBOL ran it all:P
Worked in IT a long time ago for a branch. There was some Java, a lot of Perl and SVN. We got releases from DC to run on local servers. Folks with experience with SDLC were prevalent and that was a prerequisite for doing anything meaningful. Never saw Cobol, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#793Earlier 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…
> All: please don't post the sort of low-information / high-indignation comment that could just as easily appear in any semi-related thread. Such generic comments make the discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here. We'd love to have the sort of useful discussion you're aiming for, but all new discussions that reference Musk are being systematically flagged by apparent supp…
It's only censorship when the government does it, or so I've been told.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#794All: if you're going to comment here, please make sure you're up on the guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , and don't post low-information / high-indignation comments that could just as easily appear in any related thread. Such generic comments make discussion less interesting and more activating. That's not what we're trying for here. Rather, we want curious conversation. I know that's n…
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'm quite curious on your retrospective thoughts on this thread once this article goes off the front page! Also whether you'd do the same again.
Having looked around, probably around 80% of comments are mostly uninteresting/partisanship (though a fair few of those combine the mud slinging with an interesting fact or argument, which complicates categorization).
(Aside: One of the issues for me is that on high emotion topics like this I can't take people's word for things as much as in a usual thread, it just becomes visual noise)
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#795It has been a fairly common story, and part rumor, that intelligence agencies like to recruit young people active in the cyber criminal scene, and that the IT security industry also adapted this approach. They basically becomes part informer and part subject expert, especially since IT security expertise seems to be a difficult subject matter to teach in universities. When I studied IT security in university, about 1…
> that intelligence agencies like to recruit young people active in the cyber criminal scene Just linking this back to the story, am I mistaken in saying that DOGE is not an intelligence agency? (It certainly is a great position to exfiltrate information however.)
DOGE is a renamed Obama-era agency called the US Digital Service. This group basically tackles IT needs for different departments, which is how Elon is able to weasel his way into any department he decides to target.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#796tesla.sexy contains the following text, which is slightly concerning: love your fate become your own ubermensch you are the master of your soul be kind there is so much to love, so much to live for follow your heart, ok?
Why is this concerning? Note, it seems to me like their reference to "ubermensch" is to the Nietzschean definition [0] and not the Nazi remix. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Übermensch
There are quite a few too many accidental Nazi references these days imo ...
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#797It has been a fairly common story, and part rumor, that intelligence agencies like to recruit young people active in the cyber criminal scene, and that the IT security industry also adapted this approach. They basically becomes part informer and part subject expert, especially since IT security expertise seems to be a difficult subject matter to teach in universities. When I studied IT security in university, about 1…
> that intelligence agencies like to recruit young people active in the cyber criminal scene Just linking this back to the story, am I mistaken in saying that DOGE is not an intelligence agency? (It certainly is a great position to exfiltrate information however.)
I think the implication is that if the person concerned (dox-ed again by Krebs) would pass an intelligence agency review, they should be OK for fraud investigation.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#798Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally think it says volumes about how those in the Trump-Musk group (Musk group?) see this. They see the task as infiltrating an adversary, requiring someone with the technical skills to do so but who is also disposable. This in their mind is not about improving anything in the government for citizens, or with regard to US interests, it's about gaining access to a hostile entity without regard to their interes…
That’s generally true of political operatives. The problem here is having such activities in his past makes him an exploitable by criminal organizations or foreign adversaries who would seek the sensitive information he now has access to.
Second point is fair.
First point is not even true of the Watergate burglars. What makes crime indistinguishable from politics here is the recent ruling on presidential immunity.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally think it says volumes about how those in the Trump-Musk group (Musk group?) see this. They see the task as infiltrating an adversary, requiring someone with the technical skills to do so but who is also disposable. This in their mind is not about improving anything in the government for citizens, or with regard to US interests, it's about gaining access to a hostile entity without regard to their interes…
> They see the task as infiltrating an adversary, requiring someone with the technical skills to do so but who is also disposable. People who have had access to that kind of data, and who have those kinds of skills, you'd better be careful about how you dispose of them. (Consider the term "blowback".)
Seems more likely that this can be completely subdued when the outcome of swatting is not a nuisance, but a conveniently extra-judicial raid by armed militia.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#800> Musk’s DOGE team has gained access to a truly staggering amount of personal and sensitive data on American citizens, moving quickly to seize control over databases at the U.S. Treasury, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Resources, among others.
As an European, how is this not considered a coup d'etat? From my mindset, right or wrong, that is absolutely unthinkable to happen within a normal functional European country.