7 ms·

DOGE member previously fired by cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets

97 points by strangeloops85 2y ago

toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://archive.today/S70JE https://archive.today/S70JE
Trasmatta 2y ago
[flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
_fs 2y ago
[flagged]
- dang 2y ago
  > No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn Here is the largest HN thread from the last 3 months (and the 3rd largest in all of the last year): The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2954 comments) Other recent large discussions include: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (304 comments) DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 - Feb 2025 (355 comments) Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 - Feb 2025 (130 comments) In fact, this is probably the most-discussed topic of the last month on HN; I can't think of another, offhand, that would come close. (Edit: probably the Tiktok ban business?)
  - mdhb 2y ago
    Don’t tell me with a straight face when you have access to the data more than anyone that these posts aren’t getting flagged en mass. We are all watching it happen.
    - like_any_other 2y ago
      Which part of dang's post are you asserting is inaccurate?
      - mdhb 2y ago
        The part where he tries to point to a handful of exceptions to refute the idea that discussions about Musk are getting flagged en mass. It’s really not a difficult bit of text to parse. Edit: I have to reply to the comment below by editing this comment because I’ve now been banned from making new comments but I couldn’t help but notice you managed to take the original quote and literally remove half of it which would have made your argument look very silly. To be fair Dang did the exact same thing. Second edit: oh and would you look at that… it’s flagged. Exactly as predicted.
        like_any_other 2y ago
        But the claim was "No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn", and his data shows that significant discussion is happening. Mass flagging doesn't change this. That is despite violating HN's "intellectual curiosity" rule.
        anigbrowl 2y ago
        You know perfectly well that the original top comment was expressive and hyperbolic in nature, stop trying to analyze it as if it were a dry quantitative claim. The point, which is extremely obvious, is that many posts are being systematically flagged for reasons of favoritism. They're clearly HN relevant, given that they relate to a tech titan effecting drastic changes in government structure, with significant security and other, by technical rather than legal means. Systematic flagging of posts about the activites of the Biden administration would have been equally questionable.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
like_any_other 2y ago
[flagged]
- dekhn 2y ago
  Likely the company in question does not want to share what their internal proprietary data that was leaked was. Either way, that, along with the brags from the ex-employee about still having access to the company's machines after termination, speaks to his character. It seems pretty clear, taking all the evidence into account, that it was unwise to give him a high level of access to government data.
  - like_any_other 2y ago
    > Likely the company in question does not want to share what their internal proprietary data that was leaked was. If they want us to use it to evaluate his character, some hint would be needed. Was it a legitimate trade secret, or was it trivial and only an excuse to fire him. Companies claiming everything under the sun is a "trade secret" is nothing new - Microsoft famously claimed their extensions to Kerberos were a trade secret, despite releasing their spec to everyone, guarded only by a clickthrough license: https://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and-microsofts-dirty-tricks https://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and... But if they say what we like to hear, corporations turn into saints incapable of even slightly bending the truth. > Either way, that, along with the brags from the ex-employee about still having access to the company's machines after termination, speaks to his character. They neglected to change passwords, and yet "I never exploited it because it's just not me." were his words. Yeah, what vile character.
    - relaxing 2y ago
      How would he know the passwords weren’t changed.
    - dekhn 2y ago
      The magnitude of the secret does not matter: if your company says "don't steal and leak our data" and you go ahead and do it, it's still wrong (the main exception I can think of is ethical whistleblowing). Again, bragging you have access after being terminated is bad regardless of whether you exploited the access. To me these are the sort of details that could prevent you from passing a security clearance process, although I am not highly knowledgeable about the process beyond talking to people who have (and they weren't forthcoming).
skulk 2y ago
off topic (who even cares about the OP) but I heard a clip of Musk saying that "the bureaucracy subverts democracy. I want government by the people, not the bureau" and ... I don't even. Do people really fall for this? Is it not obvious that one bureau is just being sub'd out for another less accountable one? Are people really that stupid?
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Do people really fall for this? Yeah. There are still people that call it "Twitter" in 2025.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    What a weird comparison. Some people do that to annoy Musk fans, others do it because the original name for something is often preferred to a meaningless rebrand - much as everyone still refers to Alphabet corp as Google.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      It's not weird at all. Twitter isn't just symbolically dead, it's literally gone. If you still use it or even refer to it as a euphemism for X, you're promoting an alt-right radicalization platform intended to farm hatred. There's not really a middle ground here, advertisers will tell you. Similarly - there are still people looking at the Digital Service expecting great results and deferred gains. They don't understand that this effort has been damned since the starting gun was fired.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- archagon 2y ago
  More charitably, it seems relatively easy to hack people at scale by exploiting their cognitive biases. (Especially people lacking humility or self-reflection, e.g. the stereotypical "smart" software engineer.)
thomasdziedzic 2y ago
"He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine." https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887957783783391423 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887957783783391423
- inverted_flag 2y ago
  That was for the doge member who made a bunch of racist tweets, not to be confused with the other doge member who made a bunch of racist tweets or the doge member in the OP.
disposition2 2y ago
> The White House wouldn't comment directly on Coristine's employment, but an official who discussed the situation on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters said all DOGE staffers under Musk were working as employees of relevant agencies with security clearances. It sounds like they might want to review how they are doing security clearance reviews (assuming they aren't just a blank check for this group) if they're letting folks like this through
- mdhb 2y ago
  Actual real life clearances take between 6 - 12 months or longer depending on backlogs. These people have zero actual “vetting” but “presidential authority” can just say to give them clearances on the spot which is what happened here. So they have the legal bit of paperwork but it doesn’t actually mean anything. It was just an override of the regular checks and balances and would you believe it it turns out it’s filled with problems precisely like the process is designed to stop.
  - pragmatic 2y ago
    Even public trust (low level) requires som time to complete. This person obviously was fasttracked and bypassed the most basic of background checks.
  - tmaly 2y ago
    Does the president have the authority to grant immediate security clearances?
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
Krebsonsecurity reporting suggests that the "cyber security firm" is actually part of a gang of cyber criminals. Story submitted (but flagged and dead) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979187
drweevil 2y ago
So, if a post contains the 4-letter acronym DOGE the Elon hall monitors jump into action and flag it. This is getting tedious, as are the arguments made to justify flagging the posts. "This has already been discussed." Fine. Start flagging AI posts then. "This has nothing to with tech." But it has everything to do with tech, and one of the most influential players in tech, and how hubris blinds techies into thinking that they have tech answers to all problems (a bit of Dunning-Kruger). Here are the misconceptions behind the entire idea of DOGE: * Government waste is assumed as a given. No citations needed. * Government agencies should be run like a business (or worse, a startup). But government agencies are not businesses. They don't have investors. Their mission is not to make a profit. It is to provide a service and a social good, mandated by Congress. Ideological disagreement with that service or good does not make this waste. The idea that entities like the US Post Office operates at a "loss" is arrant nonsense. The value provided is in the service, without the overhead load of investors. * "Government bureaucrats" (said with contempt and disdain). Right wing propaganda notwithstanding, these folk are the domain experts in running a government (see point above). The trend of the last decade or so has been to replace many of the lower levels with call centers and/or websites, to the frustration of millions of citizens who require these services. The tl;dr is that the DOGE ppl don't have a clue. They are operating on false assumptions, and likely are running roughshod over the law. Bulls in a china shop fits here.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://archive.today/S70JE https://archive.today/S70JE

Trasmatta 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

_fs 2y ago

[flagged]

dang 2y ago
> No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn Here is the largest HN thread from the last 3 months (and the 3rd largest in all of the last year): The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2954 comments) Other recent large discussions include: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968430 - Feb 2025 (304 comments) DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42951458 - Feb 2025 (355 comments) Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936421 - Feb 2025 (130 comments) In fact, this is probably the most-discussed topic of the last month on HN; I can't think of another, offhand, that would come close. (Edit: probably the Tiktok ban business?)
- mdhb 2y ago
  Don’t tell me with a straight face when you have access to the data more than anyone that these posts aren’t getting flagged en mass. We are all watching it happen.
  - like_any_other 2y ago
    Which part of dang's post are you asserting is inaccurate?
    - mdhb 2y ago
      The part where he tries to point to a handful of exceptions to refute the idea that discussions about Musk are getting flagged en mass. It’s really not a difficult bit of text to parse. Edit: I have to reply to the comment below by editing this comment because I’ve now been banned from making new comments but I couldn’t help but notice you managed to take the original quote and literally remove half of it which would have made your argument look very silly. To be fair Dang did the exact same thing. Second edit: oh and would you look at that… it’s flagged. Exactly as predicted.
      - like_any_other 2y ago
        But the claim was "No discussion of this sort shall be allowed on hn", and his data shows that significant discussion is happening. Mass flagging doesn't change this. That is despite violating HN's "intellectual curiosity" rule.
        anigbrowl 2y ago
        You know perfectly well that the original top comment was expressive and hyperbolic in nature, stop trying to analyze it as if it were a dry quantitative claim. The point, which is extremely obvious, is that many posts are being systematically flagged for reasons of favoritism. They're clearly HN relevant, given that they relate to a tech titan effecting drastic changes in government structure, with significant security and other, by technical rather than legal means. Systematic flagging of posts about the activites of the Biden administration would have been equally questionable.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

like_any_other 2y ago

[flagged]

dekhn 2y ago
Likely the company in question does not want to share what their internal proprietary data that was leaked was. Either way, that, along with the brags from the ex-employee about still having access to the company's machines after termination, speaks to his character. It seems pretty clear, taking all the evidence into account, that it was unwise to give him a high level of access to government data.
- like_any_other 2y ago
  > Likely the company in question does not want to share what their internal proprietary data that was leaked was. If they want us to use it to evaluate his character, some hint would be needed. Was it a legitimate trade secret, or was it trivial and only an excuse to fire him. Companies claiming everything under the sun is a "trade secret" is nothing new - Microsoft famously claimed their extensions to Kerberos were a trade secret, despite releasing their spec to everyone, guarded only by a clickthrough license: https://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and-microsofts-dirty-tricks https://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and... But if they say what we like to hear, corporations turn into saints incapable of even slightly bending the truth. > Either way, that, along with the brags from the ex-employee about still having access to the company's machines after termination, speaks to his character. They neglected to change passwords, and yet "I never exploited it because it's just not me." were his words. Yeah, what vile character.
  - relaxing 2y ago
    How would he know the passwords weren’t changed.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    The magnitude of the secret does not matter: if your company says "don't steal and leak our data" and you go ahead and do it, it's still wrong (the main exception I can think of is ethical whistleblowing). Again, bragging you have access after being terminated is bad regardless of whether you exploited the access. To me these are the sort of details that could prevent you from passing a security clearance process, although I am not highly knowledgeable about the process beyond talking to people who have (and they weren't forthcoming).

skulk 2y ago

off topic (who even cares about the OP) but I heard a clip of Musk saying that "the bureaucracy subverts democracy. I want government by the people, not the bureau" and ... I don't even. Do people really fall for this? Is it not obvious that one bureau is just being sub'd out for another less accountable one? Are people really that stupid?

talldayo 2y ago
> Do people really fall for this? Yeah. There are still people that call it "Twitter" in 2025.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  What a weird comparison. Some people do that to annoy Musk fans, others do it because the original name for something is often preferred to a meaningless rebrand - much as everyone still refers to Alphabet corp as Google.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    It's not weird at all. Twitter isn't just symbolically dead, it's literally gone. If you still use it or even refer to it as a euphemism for X, you're promoting an alt-right radicalization platform intended to farm hatred. There's not really a middle ground here, advertisers will tell you. Similarly - there are still people looking at the Digital Service expecting great results and deferred gains. They don't understand that this effort has been damned since the starting gun was fired.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
archagon 2y ago
More charitably, it seems relatively easy to hack people at scale by exploiting their cognitive biases. (Especially people lacking humility or self-reflection, e.g. the stereotypical "smart" software engineer.)

thomasdziedzic 2y ago

"He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine." https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887957783783391423 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887957783783391423

inverted_flag 2y ago
That was for the doge member who made a bunch of racist tweets, not to be confused with the other doge member who made a bunch of racist tweets or the doge member in the OP.

disposition2 2y ago

> The White House wouldn't comment directly on Coristine's employment, but an official who discussed the situation on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters said all DOGE staffers under Musk were working as employees of relevant agencies with security clearances. It sounds like they might want to review how they are doing security clearance reviews (assuming they aren't just a blank check for this group) if they're letting folks like this through

mdhb 2y ago
Actual real life clearances take between 6 - 12 months or longer depending on backlogs. These people have zero actual “vetting” but “presidential authority” can just say to give them clearances on the spot which is what happened here. So they have the legal bit of paperwork but it doesn’t actually mean anything. It was just an override of the regular checks and balances and would you believe it it turns out it’s filled with problems precisely like the process is designed to stop.
- pragmatic 2y ago
  Even public trust (low level) requires som time to complete. This person obviously was fasttracked and bypassed the most basic of background checks.
- tmaly 2y ago
  Does the president have the authority to grant immediate security clearances?

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

Krebsonsecurity reporting suggests that the "cyber security firm" is actually part of a gang of cyber criminals. Story submitted (but flagged and dead) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42979187

drweevil 2y ago

So, if a post contains the 4-letter acronym DOGE the Elon hall monitors jump into action and flag it. This is getting tedious, as are the arguments made to justify flagging the posts. "This has already been discussed." Fine. Start flagging AI posts then. "This has nothing to with tech." But it has everything to do with tech, and one of the most influential players in tech, and how hubris blinds techies into thinking that they have tech answers to all problems (a bit of Dunning-Kruger). Here are the misconceptions behind the entire idea of DOGE: * Government waste is assumed as a given. No citations needed. * Government agencies should be run like a business (or worse, a startup). But government agencies are not businesses. They don't have investors. Their mission is not to make a profit. It is to provide a service and a social good, mandated by Congress. Ideological disagreement with that service or good does not make this waste. The idea that entities like the US Post Office operates at a "loss" is arrant nonsense. The value provided is in the service, without the overhead load of investors. * "Government bureaucrats" (said with contempt and disdain). Right wing propaganda notwithstanding, these folk are the domain experts in running a government (see point above). The trend of the last decade or so has been to replace many of the lower levels with call centers and/or websites, to the frustration of millions of citizens who require these services. The tl;dr is that the DOGE ppl don't have a clue. They are operating on false assumptions, and likely are running roughshod over the law. Bulls in a china shop fits here.