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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'

#801

Post by michaelt »

wraptile wrote: post #739
belorn wrote: post #114

It 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…

Equating script kiddies to some genius cyberhackers worth recruiting is laughable when we literally have PHDs and 6 figure salary professionals willing to be recruited legally with zero baggage. Why are the top digital safety institutions hiring the very bottom of the barrel?

> Why are the top digital safety institutions hiring the very bottom of the barrel?

I don't know anything about "The Com" or top digital safety institutions.

But I do know that historically, some parts of hacker culture have drawn heavily from political theories of anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, and libertarianism.

If the authorities and rules intend that I not have access to something, and I have a fascination with bypassing that and getting access anyway, am I not subverting power structures in the most literal sense?

If large corporations believe they alone should control the software that runs on my printer, so that they can ensure only authentic supplies are used and premium features are only available on premium devices, while I believe every user should be able to modify their printer's software and behaviour without limit, including to bypass such restrictions - is this not an anarchist stance, opposing coercion and mechanisms that perpetuate control?

If the exploit-discovering side of cybersecurity is inherently anti-authority, recruiting people who've never defied an authority in their life might not be the best move.

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

#802

Post by ttyprintk »

zapataband2 wrote: post #737
j_timberlake wrote: post #194

The more advanced AI gets and the more power that is at stake, the more these tech CEOs are going to drop their nice-guy acts and reveal their true intentions. The drama is going to get much worse over the coming years.

Uhh they've been openly talking about dismantling democracy and creating nation-states rules by corporations for literally almost a decade. JD Vance is their man in DC when trump is gone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no

As of September, Vance has indeed publicly cited Yarvin:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/13/jd-vance-n...

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

#803

Post by jdross »

Aurornis wrote: post #199
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…

> Versus whatever the media is reporting Where? The lack of transparency from DOGE has been a pain point even for advocates. I haven’t seen anything more than generic “we’re doing good work, trust us” PR The media is reporting the history of some of these people and their actual actions. Of course these people aren’t going to discuss their past membership in script kiddie DDoS groups or their highly racist Twitter ra…

Honestly it seems to me like a shock and awe PR campaign combien md with a daily grind. It’s been like 15 days, what thoughtful work do you think it’s being announced that happens that fast from a cold start (including hiring!)

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

#804

Post by FrustratedMonky »

zacharycohn wrote: post #751
onetimeusename wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've seen a number of people with criminal records hired. I don't really want to present my comment as an argument against every point Krebs made. I don't really have an opinion on whether the individual mentioned is a suitable hire. But in infosec a lot of people probably got into it because 'hacking' is cool and glorified by the media. It's rebellious and appeals to a lot of teens I think. I don't think it's a…

> Some of them just made stupid mistakes when they were younger and sometimes dumb kids get way overcharged for cyber crimes. For the most part I think it's fine for kids to go through a phase where they think it's cool but they don't really know what they are doing. I think a lot of the concern is that these kids aren't out of that phase yet.

Yeah. I'm all for kids hacking, and even hackers with criminal records getting a second chance at security firm. Hacking is done for a lot of reasons, it could be just an interest in solving puzzles, and they happened to get in trouble with the law.

The part I'm not digging, is they seem a bit young to be taking over the Treasury Dept, or any department. It seems like this would have been better done by an Accounting Audit Firm, not hackers.

Hackers are just trying to get in, get data. An accounting audit would be more about finding impropriety.

So, it seems on the surface like 'finding waste' is not the goal.

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

#805

Post by jdross »

crazygringo wrote: post #227
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…

This would be great if true. Unfortunately, from what we know of the people they've hired, they have little to no experience in doing that. They're not being transparent, we have no idea what metrics they're using, etc. If the team was meant to actually do what you claim, it would look very different in terms of its hiring, and there's no reason it would have to be operating so secretively.

I’m just telling you what I know from personal friends doing individual work in specific departments. The mandate is “find $X million per day” and they do, and it’s a lot of work, and it doesn’t happen overnight like big PR things

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

#806

Post by jdross »

TrackerFF wrote: post #781
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…

There are some real problems with this way of doing this. First, if you go to any department and find N different leaders/managers/etc. and ask them to pick what projects to cut...you'll get a whole range of different answers. There's a lot of bias involved, and a lot of internal politics going on. There's always internal fights for the resources. Second, if these kids are actually executing orders - meaning that the…

“These kids” I’m talking about are in their 30’s and 40’s and making recommendations to department heads which almost all seem to be approved

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

#807

Post by jdross »

demosthanos wrote: post #198
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…

Where are you getting these stories from? Are you claiming to know people and to have received firsthand accounts, or is this stuff written down somewhere where the rest of us can see it and read it?

These are people I personally know working “at DOGE” (appointed in departments, but under DOGE umbrella)

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

#808

Post by CivBase »

jvidalv wrote: post #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 abso…

This is not an illegal unseating of our government's leadership. Our leadership is the one facilitating it.

The more appropriate parallel would be a massive data leak. Although so far we don't have any confirmed cases of protected data being leaked to anyone who was not given access. But it might just be a matter of time.

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

#809

Post by jdross »

ttpphd wrote: post #207
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…

Gullibility is a thing, which is why we demand people go through channels of accountability, including security clearances.

For what it’s worth two of my friends did have to get appointed positions including these clearances

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

#810

Post by spacechild1 »

internet_points wrote: post #780
lenerdenator wrote: post #265

All I can think of when I hear about DOGE is Robert McNamara's Department of Defense, where the "Whiz Kids" from industry and academia were supposed to magically fix all sorts of problems with the military's bureaucracy. After all, they went to the right schools, and really, how hard could war-making be? We lost in Vietnam and there are people being born there with birth defects from Operation Ranch Hand to this day…

Wow, first time I heard of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbicidal_warfare / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ranch_Hand Strangely, there's a dearth of links between that and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids_(Department_of_Defen... / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara

You never heard of Agent Orange?
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