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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'

#821

Post by drawkward »

tayo42 wrote: post #213
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…

What the media is reporting isn't relevant. We have Elons own word where he is saying he shut downtown various departments, intends to or canceling payments, having people arrested. Others are trying to cause a scene on social media by sharing cut out spreadsheets.

[flagged]

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

#822

Post by psychlops »

relistan wrote: post #766
h0l0cube wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

The perfect place to exfiltrate information and absolutely no need for this level of security skills there unless they intended to break into government systems they were not given access to by e.g. the courts.

Their stated purpose is "to reduce wasteful and fraudulent federal spending". Organizations that have waste and fraudulent spending will not "give" access and will throw every obstruction in the way.

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

#823

Post by ttyprintk »

DannyBee wrote: post #616
n1b0m wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this case they’ll probably get sweeping presidential pardons

Won't save them from state prosecution, and it seems there is plenty to dig into here. For the types of crime Krebs is talking about, it's really easy to get charged in lots of states with lots of things, and the statute of limitations are fairly long depending on the crime. Often the feds charge you first, but clearly not gonna happen here. They seem too young and stupid to realize ahead of time how far people will…

DC is not a state.

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

#824

Post by naijaboiler »

DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

This!!! What makes democracy powerful isn't that it guarantees good governance. It is powerful because because it prevents power transfer problems and all the associated struggles.

The number 1 responsibility of any system of government is how well it handles power transfers, not whether it produces good governments.

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

#825

Post by threetonesun »

naijaboiler wrote: post #824
DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

This!!! What makes democracy powerful isn't that it guarantees good governance. It is powerful because because it prevents power transfer problems and all the associated struggles. The number 1 responsibility of any system of government is how well it handles power transfers, not whether it produces good governments.

I remember an American History teacher explaining that the most amazing thing about the new American government was that when we went from Washington to Adams nothing changed for the American citizen. Certainly that has not always held true but certainly I agree with you - thinking about the government is one of the last things I want on my mind.

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

#826

Post by DanielHB »

naijaboiler wrote: post #824
DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

This!!! What makes democracy powerful isn't that it guarantees good governance. It is powerful because because it prevents power transfer problems and all the associated struggles. The number 1 responsibility of any system of government is how well it handles power transfers, not whether it produces good governments.

I would say proper transitions of power is part of good government. Your phrasing makes it sound like governance doesn't need to be good as long as it transitions properly.

Improper transitions of power cause bad governance.

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

#827

Post by skirge »

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…

young people hack because of curiosity and some sort of believing in justice (fight corporations, political activism). They are not regular gangsters.

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

#828

Post by bko »

DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

Right, unfortunately the trend has been increasing power of the state for some time.

But I think the point also argues against having an extremely powerful administrative / regulatory state.

For instance, suppose you want to create a department to "fight misinformation" and it will have wide ranging power to push for censorship. But depending who is running it, it might censor vastly different kinds of speech.

If you believe such an entity should exist you should be indifferent to the kind of person running it. As an example, consider garbage removal. I'm relatively happy with my city's garbage removal. I wouldn't really be concerned if it was run by Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Maybe there would be some graft in one way or another, but it's pretty obvious what the organizations' goals are.

So I think that there's a difference between "government takeover to shrink the size of the state" is different from "government takeover to add another layer of unelected bureaucracy to run our lives"

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

#829

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

amazingamazing wrote: post #117
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?

Reporting on this is terrible. There are also senior (in age and experience) people, but much of the focus is on the youngins for obvious reasons. Musk also believes (either arrogance, or true belief) that much of this stuff can be figured out from first principals without much need of traditional experts.

>much of this stuff can be figured out from first principals without much need of traditional experts.

I agree with him. Corruption often get a pass when covered in layers of legalize.

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

#830

Post by jc_811 »

DanielHB wrote: post #815

I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is not to be efficient, it is to prevent generational abuse. Even a well intentioned benign autocrat if given power would not part ways with said power voluntarily. So even if the current administration is "good" there is no reason why this kind of power coul…

Completely agree. Being slow and not able to be flipped upside down on the whim of someone (or some party, or some group, etc) is a feature not a bug

In my opinion incremental change with a common passage toward a better future is the best way to have long term functioning democracies

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