5 ms·

25yr Old with Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System

53 points by thebeardisred 2y ago

thebeardisred 2y ago
https://archive.is/O3COo https://archive.is/O3COo
anigbrowl 2y ago
"Technically I don't see why this couldn't happen," a federal IT worker tells WIRED in a phone call late on Monday night, referring to the possibility of a DOGE employee being granted elevated access to a government server. "If you would have asked me a week ago, I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the fuck knows." Concerning
Terr_ 2y ago
Tangentially, people attempting to share some of this news are having their First Amendment rights violated. This occurs because government employee Elon Musk is censoring them for talking about his government job and his government co-workers, which also breaks the law that says their identities are public information. I guess what I'm saying is, spread the news, and if we're lucky and the Redcaps don't burn the Reichstag, you might someday get a few cents out of a class action lawsuit.
- unification_fan 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > reading comprehension "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        You're trying to chastise the wrong post in the thread.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      In febrile political times, sarcasm and satire are increasingly maladaptive. They can be useful in a defensive sense, but are a barrier to clear communication. I'm not having a dig at you personally, I think this is a social issue from a combination of media-driven irony poisoning and political nihilism.
    - unification_fan 2y ago
      Sorry, I'm autistic.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
th0ma5 2y ago
Probably one of the most important Wired articles in years. Surprising it isn't on the front page.
- jamincan 2y ago
  Everything related to what's going on in Washington seems to have been buried and flagged.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    The fact that this story is still flagged (with so many others this last two weeks) has my heart sunk. Some tech bros a few inches out of puberty have physical access to the US Treasury on behalf of Elon 'Sieg Heil' Musk; in brazen violation of innumerable laws. Yet, looking at the front page right now, you'd think nothing much was happening. That's insane. When a community decides to 'look the other way' at events of this magnitude (and even condone them), it's a blazing neon sign of deep and irreversible rot.
    - leotravis10 2y ago
      Exactly. HN and YC as a whole are all in on this administration and the coup. It's the reason why important pieces such as this are keep going to get buried and censored because they and most of the community at large can't handle the truth. It's sad really.
- 77pt77 2y ago
  It's flagged, like most others about this.
palmfacehn 2y ago
>Housed on a top-secret mainframe... So is it System Z?
oldpersonintx 2y ago
decades of government rot finally being subjected to the most trivial auditing and you have liberals invoking the Reichstag fire is this where we are? you literally cannot have even demand trivial operational competency without being called a nazi?
- garte 2y ago
  this is too simplistic, please read up on previous performances of elmo. in a democratic system you should have auditable changes to government systems. this does not seem to be that: ``` “You could do anything with these privileges,” says one source with knowledge of the system, who adds that they cannot conceive of a reason that anyone would need them for purposes of simply hunting down fraudulent payments or analyzing disbursement flow. ``` as a citizen this should concern you.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > demand trivial operational competency I've been moderately on board with DOGE's mission as an advisory group. Hell, even with Musk as SGE. But this is batshit fucking crazy. We put entire countries on grey lists because some oligarch's lacky even has read access to their national payments systems. And those governments at least give the lackey a role. This 25-year old is now a top intelligence target for every agency on the planet. He will probably remain so for the rest of his life. He wasn't elected. The man he is loyal to--who hired him and pays his salary--was never elected. He's so unknown that the first page of search results pulls up unrelated water polo players. Yet he's somehow in a position of, practically speaking, more power than the Federal Reserve?
  - palmfacehn 2y ago
    Even if we accept all of this, it doesn't justify the persistent reducto-ad-hitlerum. > We put entire countries on grey lists because some oligarch's lacky even has read access to their national payments systems. And those governments at least give the lackey a role. Presumably someone else had access to the system before the current changes. What's left to object to? Is ageism appropriate here? Going back to the OP's objection, the whole exercise seems like more partisan hyperbole.
ein0p 2y ago
Great idea on Musk's part: the Deep State can't go after their wives, jobs or kids since they don't have them. At the same time they are smart enough to mine some databases for fraud.

53 points by thebeardisred 2y ago

https://archive.is/O3COo https://archive.is/O3COo

"Technically I don't see why this couldn't happen," a federal IT worker tells WIRED in a phone call late on Monday night, referring to the possibility of a DOGE employee being granted elevated access to a government server. "If you would have asked me a week ago, I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the fuck knows." Concerning

Terr_ 2y ago

Tangentially, people attempting to share some of this news are having their First Amendment rights violated. This occurs because government employee Elon Musk is censoring them for talking about his government job and his government co-workers, which also breaks the law that says their identities are public information. I guess what I'm saying is, spread the news, and if we're lucky and the Redcaps don't burn the Reichstag, you might someday get a few cents out of a class action lawsuit.

unification_fan 2y ago
[flagged]
- Terr_ 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > reading comprehension "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      You're trying to chastise the wrong post in the thread.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    In febrile political times, sarcasm and satire are increasingly maladaptive. They can be useful in a defensive sense, but are a barrier to clear communication. I'm not having a dig at you personally, I think this is a social issue from a combination of media-driven irony poisoning and political nihilism.
  - unification_fan 2y ago
    Sorry, I'm autistic.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

th0ma5 2y ago

Probably one of the most important Wired articles in years. Surprising it isn't on the front page.

jamincan 2y ago
Everything related to what's going on in Washington seems to have been buried and flagged.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  The fact that this story is still flagged (with so many others this last two weeks) has my heart sunk. Some tech bros a few inches out of puberty have physical access to the US Treasury on behalf of Elon 'Sieg Heil' Musk; in brazen violation of innumerable laws. Yet, looking at the front page right now, you'd think nothing much was happening. That's insane. When a community decides to 'look the other way' at events of this magnitude (and even condone them), it's a blazing neon sign of deep and irreversible rot.
  - leotravis10 2y ago
    Exactly. HN and YC as a whole are all in on this administration and the coup. It's the reason why important pieces such as this are keep going to get buried and censored because they and most of the community at large can't handle the truth. It's sad really.
77pt77 2y ago
It's flagged, like most others about this.

palmfacehn 2y ago

>Housed on a top-secret mainframe... So is it System Z?

oldpersonintx 2y ago

decades of government rot finally being subjected to the most trivial auditing and you have liberals invoking the Reichstag fire is this where we are? you literally cannot have even demand trivial operational competency without being called a nazi?

garte 2y ago
this is too simplistic, please read up on previous performances of elmo. in a democratic system you should have auditable changes to government systems. this does not seem to be that: ``` “You could do anything with these privileges,” says one source with knowledge of the system, who adds that they cannot conceive of a reason that anyone would need them for purposes of simply hunting down fraudulent payments or analyzing disbursement flow. ``` as a citizen this should concern you.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> demand trivial operational competency I've been moderately on board with DOGE's mission as an advisory group. Hell, even with Musk as SGE. But this is batshit fucking crazy. We put entire countries on grey lists because some oligarch's lacky even has read access to their national payments systems. And those governments at least give the lackey a role. This 25-year old is now a top intelligence target for every agency on the planet. He will probably remain so for the rest of his life. He wasn't elected. The man he is loyal to--who hired him and pays his salary--was never elected. He's so unknown that the first page of search results pulls up unrelated water polo players. Yet he's somehow in a position of, practically speaking, more power than the Federal Reserve?
- palmfacehn 2y ago
  Even if we accept all of this, it doesn't justify the persistent reducto-ad-hitlerum. > We put entire countries on grey lists because some oligarch's lacky even has read access to their national payments systems. And those governments at least give the lackey a role. Presumably someone else had access to the system before the current changes. What's left to object to? Is ageism appropriate here? Going back to the OP's objection, the whole exercise seems like more partisan hyperbole.

ein0p 2y ago

Great idea on Musk's part: the Deep State can't go after their wives, jobs or kids since they don't have them. At the same time they are smart enough to mine some databases for fraud.