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DOGE as a National Cyberattack

413 points by mikece 2y ago

throw0101c 2y ago
A related article: "Treasury was warned DOGE access to payments marked an ‘insider threat’" > The assessment, done by the contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, came before Treasury tapped an ally of Elon Musk to oversee the sensitive payment system. * https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/07/doge-treasury-payments-system-warning/ https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-s... "A US Treasury Threat Intelligence Analysis Designates DOGE Staff as ‘Insider Threat’": * https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-bfs-doge-insider-threat/ https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-bfs-doge-insider-threat... The report was later walked back: > The government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton on Friday night said it had dismissed a subcontractor who prepared a draft report saying that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to the Treasury’s payment system poses an “unprecedented insider threat risk” and should be suspended immediately. * https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-08/treasury-warned-of-insider-threat-risk-from-musk-s-doge-access https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...
lenerdenator 2y ago
The behavior will continue until a consequence is assigned. EDIT: I should add, this consequence should be legislative or legal in nature.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  Why would there be consequences? The majority of voting Americans wanted this to happen. Let's not pretend this wasn't the likely conclusion and voters were solely focused on the price of eggs. By modifying core systems, the attackers have not only compromised current operations, but have also left behind vulnerabilities that could be exploited in future attacks—giving adversaries such as Russia and China an unprecedented opportunity. These countries have long targeted these systems. And they don’t just want to gather intelligence—they also want to understand how to disrupt these systems in a crisis. It's really hard to imagine this whole coup isn't some type of Russian / Chinese attack on the western world at this stage. It's too unbelievably good for them to just be a coincidence.
  - cglace 2y ago
    People were worried about the economy and inflation. To say that most voters wanted to dismantle the government is a bit of a stretch. I remember all the posters here expressing their belief that Doge would do nothing and was just an advisory role.
    - rs186 2y ago
      I agree, but I lament how voters quickly forget the chaos from the first Trump administration, and how much they didn't care about the DOGE agenda. They think they voted for a lower inflation (which is a very questionable premise by itself), but they didn't realize they were voting for the whole package. I definitely wasn't surprised, and American people deserve this. Hopefully the voters come to their mind in the next election, and hope it's not too late.
      - Swoerd 2y ago
        [flagged]
        slt2021 2y ago
        even more stupid are Democrat party leadership who could have won past elections in a slam dunk, have they had thought about transition strategy in advance
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        They did... It's clear their strategies are at best outdated, or at worst more focused on a neoliberal policy over a proper socialist strategy (hence, them blocking Sanders out twice). I know it's small fries given current issues, but this is part of why I think (or thoght) the biggest focus for the people should be getting more states to adopt ranked choice voting. That's the only way out of this game theory disaster.
        2y ago
- oneplane 2y ago
  I wonder how that would work out. It's a bit of an inverse-Ouroboros where the people that are the government keep saying they are 'doing something about the government' without realising that that's them. Maybe they see themselves as something that is not the government, but the whole race they took part in was the race to get elected for government work. At some point, enough destruction will have happened where the tools for useful government functionality no longer exist in usable capacity.
  - dandanua 2y ago
    I tell you more. They don't just consider themselves as a government, they don't consider themselves as humans either. They want to be a different kind of species, they want to be above humans, just like humans are above the cattle. And in some sense they are, if so many people were stupid enough to get them elected.
- kombine 2y ago
  Trump's admin already said that they will defy court rulings.
  - perrygeo 2y ago
    Worse, JD Vance has said repeatedly that they WANT courts to rule against them, so that they can directly challenge the court's power. I believe his exact words were "Let the court enforce it." Which of course is a sick joke - courts have no enforcement power without the executive branch. They fully intend to cause a constitutional crisis on purpose. It's all in plain sight, in their own words. America will get what it voted for.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Good. Nothing more wrathful than a Judge out for blood. let all the civil and criminal contempt fly out the aisles
- dariusj18 2y ago
  There's a reason Musk brought in younglings to do the illegal stuff. To ignorant to know that in a few years they will be in jail.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    Will they be? The last ten years have been an exercise in "they will be in jail" without any one of import actually going to jail. Hell, not many have even been arrested.
    - SpaceNoodled 2y ago
      A bunch of insurrectionists were in jail, but then something happened and the inmates are now running the asylum.
      - lenerdenator 2y ago
        The people that mattered didn't see jail. That's the problem.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >without any one of import actually going to jail. I'd argue these kids won't "be of import" in the long scheme of things. Maybe in future software ethics/security classes at best. I sadly don't think Musk will ever be in a jailcell, but I'll settle for him never stepping foot in a federal facility again.
  - barkingcat 2y ago
    nah, in a few years, they will be rich beyond your imagination, and they will be set up to be next in succession to be king of the us.
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      I think you mean vassals of Elon's gene carriers.
- Swoerd 2y ago
  "I should add, this consequence should be legislative or legal in nature." Should it be?
  - rat87 2y ago
    Yes Its illegal for a reason. The only good counterargument I've seen is that it might encourage worse actions to try to evade punishment.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Ideally, yes. Leaves little wiggle room, settles things with minimal bloodshed, and stamps a nigh objecive ruling. But if blood is spilt, it'll slow things down in ways congress seems unable to do. Not stop, but slow down.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
selfhoster 2y ago
[flagged]
4ndrewl 2y ago
Funniest thing is that Musk isn't getting paid for this. He's literally doing it for shits-n-giggles.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  He is getting paid in the sense he has a lot of power over everything that happens financially, it's how he will make a lot of money going forwards (if he doesn't get ousted somehow).
- cowfriend 2y ago
  Shutting down every agency that is investigating his companies is "shits-n-giggles"? Tesla's valuation is 10x the rest of the Magnificent 7, obviously investors think his ties to government are worth something. (edit- valuation means i.e. P/E ratio; I saw the chart about 2 weeks ago so forget the exact valuation metric)
  - 4ndrewl 2y ago
    From his pov yes. Look how he treated the press the other day. Closing USAid isn't anything to do with Tesla etc - this is just a rich kid showing how powerful he is.
    - JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
      It's a very powerful person deliberately sabotaging the checks and levers they've to adhere to, with the reasonable possibility that they'll get to outright create the new ones and the probability that they'll at the very least get to heavily influence the new ones from the ground up. What he's getting is worth way more than money.
    - cowfriend 2y ago
      Oh, really? Given that USAID is investigating Starlink? https://oig.usaid.gov/node/6814 https://oig.usaid.gov/node/6814 Going after the Treasury, given that X is moving into finance? https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/elon-musk-doge-cfpb-x-payments-platform/ https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/elon-musk-doge-cfpb-x-payment...
bronzejaguar 2y ago
God willing, the administrative state will be brought to its knees by the duly elected public officials meant to keep it in check.
- ryandvm 2y ago
  Republicans are their own best argument against big government.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
yks 2y ago
If the nation survives this insanity, the software will have to be rewritten from scratch, otherwise it is impossible to know which actors, both foreign and domestic, have the knowledge of the systems.
- laverya 2y ago
  Has everyone forgotten the lessons of open-source cryptography all of a sudden? Just because the systems are public does not mean that they are vulnerable, and "security through obscurity" is no security at all.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Well, DOGE has the keys and the data. I'm not sure how this will not stay vulnerable if/when the dust settles.
- e2le 2y ago
  >the software will have to be rewritten from scratch Would you even be able to trust the hardware anymore? If it's already compromised then it's safer to assume it goes deep (firmware).
sQL_inject 2y ago
[flagged]
- iwontberude 2y ago
  If you change things without the consent of stakeholders, you will find the changes undone in short order (or even overreacted to) despite their potential. The early wins are pyrrhic and take on a new opportunity cost as the community churns through events of no confidence.
- putzdown 2y ago
  You’ve drawn a false dichotomy. It is possible both for the existing system to be full of waste and for the process of shining the sun onto “blight” (good word) to raise significant, even catastrophic, security concerns with lasting implications. Bad + bad doesn’t necessarily = good.
  - intended 2y ago
    There is no outrage in the article. Its a very calm and level headed article.
- EnergyAmy 2y ago
  Don't let someone "fix" things that is clearly looting the government for his own gain as part of a coup. There are endless ways to address your concerns without supporting someone throwing around literal nazi salutes.
- bendmorris 2y ago
  >seemingly without audit or checks and balances Federal agencies are regularly audited - internally by their own inspectors general, and externally by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) - and most of those reports are publicly available. There are numerous checks on these agencies including management by the president, who can typically fire at will, and oversight by Congress. Like him or not, Elon Musk is not an auditor, has no relevant experience or expertise and is deeply compromised as he profits from large federal contracts. Giving him unchecked power with no accountability is not the proper way to shine a light on fraud, it's a way to get more of it.
seydor 2y ago
> And they don’t just want to gather intelligence—they also want to understand how to disrupt these systems in a crisis. Considering that these are payment systems, how can they be used during wartime
- bamboozled 2y ago
  Imagine the military, and all its supporting systems not being able to purchase fuel or food ?
  - IAmGraydon 2y ago
    I highly doubt that would happen. There are other ways to make payment, though a bit slower until things are figured out.
    - bamboozled 2y ago
      Foreign installations ? You need to allocate and make sure they have access to the money to pay for resources locally.
lores 2y ago
Why this isn't front-page news in every Western country is the press' failure to understand technical matters, or perhaps the public's utter disinterest in unglamorous infrastructure. This is the US' own Sulla moment, an incident that will be quoted in future history books as the beginning of the end of the republic.
- oropolo 2y ago
  Why isn't it front-page news on HN rather than being flagged? Is it just because Musk's "DOGE" is in the title? I think it's pretty significant that a number of agencies have handed root access to people who shouldn't have it and have made changes that could have significant unintended consequences. This is could end up being a case study in why you don't allow unfettered access even when ordered by the incoming regime (be it POTUS or CEO) because there be dragons and the new people don't know where they are yet.
  - cbovis 2y ago
    > Why isn't it front-page news on HN rather than being flagged? Is it just because Musk's "DOGE" is in the title? Essentially yes. Certain users are flagging because they don't want any discussion related to DOGE on HN. See for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036254.
    - oropolo 2y ago
      LOL... wow! I thought the "national cyberattack" and the root override/hijacking was far more relevant than the connection with the organization which shall not be named which is nominally led by he who shall not be named.
  - Namahanna 2y ago
    It's very sad and a stark commentary on the current state of Hacker News that a post by Bruce Schneier on cyber security is still flagged over an hour after it was posted.
dandanua 2y ago
Why is it flagged?
- Xunjin 2y ago
  @dang could you unflag it? For the sake of the consistency's principle you mentioned in our previous comment exchanges?
AnonC 2y ago
The concerns he points out — especially about hostile or enemy nations and actors getting a better chance to gather data and understand how to subvert or attach the country — seem valid. There is a difference between elected officials doing stupid or insecure things vs. unelected people being able to do this without any checks and balances. (Off topic: I’m upvoting this post to counter the flagging that seems to be going on for all posts on this topic. I respect Bruce Schneier and his opinions on several things.)
- lukev 2y ago
  Even elected officials are not allowed to do stupid or insecure things! I seem to remember something about a quite famous incident involving a private email server. Which boggles the mind when you compare it to what's going on right now.
  - SpaceNoodled 2y ago
    They're only disallowed so far as there are consequences for their actions.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      lawsuits are rolling in. Let's hope the executive branch actually furfills its ideal in being shielded from political atmosphere and properly access the situation.
- dmix 2y ago
  > There is a difference between elected officials doing stupid or insecure things vs. unelected people being able to do this without any checks and balances. Isn't the Treasury dept and most of the federal employees with access to this data unelected as well? They are appointed or hired as government officials and civil servants.
  - lurquer 2y ago
    There are only two elected officials in the entire Executive Branch.
rkapsoro 2y ago
[flagged]
- EnergyAmy 2y ago
  Did the platform include tidbits like "DOGE will trust sensitive personal information of millions of Americans to lackwits that got already fired for leaking personal information"? > If the President can't execute his mandate [..] "Executing his mandate" doesn't mean "doing a whole bunch of dumb shit while ignoring the rule of law and becoming a puppet to an unelected piece of human garbage".
- craftsman 2y ago
  The President can certainly do things that are both legal and Constitutional. If the team is, as you say, auditing government spending there is probably no debate. The question before us is: are they doing that, and only that? To that question the answer appears to be 'no'. To the extent that they are doing more than auditing, there are serious legal and Constitutional questions. And these questions cannot simply be brushed aside by asserting 'most people voted for this'.
- Xunjin 2y ago
  Well, there are checks and balances, if I understand correctly, all these changes are being done by executive order which needs to be approved by congress and is passive of being questioned by the justice system. Let's not forget that the Vice-President did post a tweet with the literally saying: “Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.”[0] 0. https://x.com/JDVance/status/1888607143030391287 https://x.com/JDVance/status/1888607143030391287 That goes against the entire idea of the USA Democracy.
- cowfriend 2y ago
  pro tip: an insider action does count as a cyberattack. Your first argument is nonsensical. re: mandate to audit government. If this was a serious audit, then DOGE would have put serious data privacy controls in place. An audit without proper data protection IS a cyberattack; an exfiltration of protected data.
- 2y ago
CompoundEyes 2y ago
Corporations are the unoffical 4th branch of government. If the stock market tanks they’ll be gone like that snaps fingers. The campaign donations and lobbyist spigot will turn off for these politicians, panic and leadership will change. I know Citizens United allows for dark money to flow in from anywhere to prop up their campaigns indefinitely but not enough to offset a tanked stock market due to lack of trust in the US dollar and markets.
- EnergyAmy 2y ago
  We need separation of corporation and state enshrined in the Constitution, if it's not too late.
- IAmGraydon 2y ago
  First of all, I doubt it. Trump will likely blame economic damage on everyone else (namely, the Fed), and his sycophants will eat it up. Second, even if they are ejected, the damage will already be done.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    we have a proof that this is not right - see 2018 and 2020. it is somewhat “easy” to run against an incumbent, especially one as fradulent as Biden (not to mention Kamala…) but when you are an incumbent THE BUCK STOP with you. while portion of the US electorate is dumb beyond repair they alone are not enough to win an election. if shit isn’t right come 2026 and 2028 the blame-everyone-else-nothing-is-ever-my-fault Donald will suffer the ass kicking much worse than 2018 and especially 2020 when he got demolished by a senile corrupt lifelong politician grandpa Joe
    - IAmGraydon 2y ago
      2028? He can't run again, so I don't think he much cares.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
lolc 2y ago
What is really sad to read in this whole debacle is all the nihilists who think that the US government "should burn". These people are largely ignorant of all the ways their government works for them. One could say the government has been working too well, much like vaccines.
luke-stanley 2y ago
There may be an error in Schneier's reasoning here: `They are also reportedly training AI software on all of this sensitive data.` Running inference isn't the same as training. That said, I don't think this should be flagged, that seems counter free-speech. He's got plenty of other well voted articles here on HN, a lot of HN clearly value his insights. Disagreement would be better expressed as a comment rather than trying to make it go away.
- zingababba 2y ago
  Yeah I think the articles make it sound like it's just inference. However my theory is the goal is to actually train on what is essentially the output of all of these departments. I honestly think what we are seeing in terms of the tech execution side basically boils down to BigBalls and co. asking an LLM what they should do next. If they ever get prosecuted I'd bet you good money that will be the defense...ROFL.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  The premise of the article is that DOGE are "the attackers" and preventing them from accessing the data is something "career officials" in the government ought to be doing. That's obviously a partisan framing. The other party's position is that they've just been elected to audit and reduce government waste and direct access to data is necessary to prevent the principal-agent problem in which government officials shape their reports to protect their budgets and activities from undesired scrutiny and oversight. The problem with framing it that way is that it's a request to get flagged by the opposing partisans even if there is some point to be made about maintaining change control etc.
  - rat87 2y ago
    There is nothing partisan about resistance to Trump. Resisting illegal acts causing damage yo the nation is not in any way partisan. I'm sure there are Republicans pushing for this as well. Blindly following Trump is partisan. Pretending Trump cares about waste isn't just silly its ridiculous and should be dismissed out of hand.
BluSyn 2y ago
The split of opinion on this in tech circles is quite surprising. No agency would voluntarily modernize systems, which would inevitably reduce head count and put half of them out of jobs. This has been a on-going fight for 30 years. Every politician who previously tried to modernize agencies failed due to intense internal resistance. Everyone in tech clearly fell on the modernization side. This is what many of us wanted since the 90s. Finally happening. In real time. Headed by one of the greatest tech disrupters since probably Edison. Now they act like the sky is falling? I can’t find any steel-man argument against DOGE. No modernization plan proposed the traditional way through committees, consultants, contractors, has worked or will EVER work. You have to rip off the bandaid the hard way. Only explanation I have for those opposing this is some combination of personality derangement spread by nefarious interests, financial incentive, or some crazy model of the world that glorifies bureaucratic power as some fundamental right enshrined in constitution. Imagine being on the side of the Empire and trying to stop the rebels as they infiltrate the Death Star.
- lores 2y ago
  "To save the village, we had to destroy it" comes to mind. Except the nuking irradiated the whole country, too.
  - BluSyn 2y ago
    This feels like hyperbole. Nobody is arguing to destroy the village, the federal government is not going to disappear due to 20% spending reduction. Reducing spending from ~$6T/year to ~$4T/year is not the end of government, which is the explicitly stated goal of DOGE.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >Nobody is arguing to destroy the village, it's already happening. Does it have to literally already be on fire to see it? >he federal government is not going to disappear due to 20% spending reduction Yes, that's more than enough to throw the country into chaos, 20% of 2024 spending is 1.3 TRILLION dollars. I don't think you understand how much money "20%" is in this scale. >Reducing spending from ~$6T/year to ~$4T/year is not the end of government, which is the explicitly stated goal of DOGE. 1. depends on where we make the cuts. 20% from the military? Maybe we'll be fine. 20% from Social security? There will be blood in the streets. Even the most diehard trump supporter won't like their income being reduced out of nowhere. 2. where do you think that 2 trillion dollars is going? Hint: we're not getting it. They are reducing spending by not taxing billionaires as much. So no, we're not paying off a defecit, Corporate America isn't paying its share.It will still increase and nothing was accomplished. Just the rich getting richer. Why does no one see this coming?
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Syndicated from FP Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43021873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43021873
z0r 2y ago
This shouldn't have been flagged.
qwertox 2y ago
Just be aware of the Chesterton's fence principle [0] > "Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
- soco 2y ago
  That's a solid principle we are, or should be, using in our daily work - namely in refactoring.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    I'd hope any reasonable senior programmer has hit enough landmines to understand why such a fence is necessary. Especially for legacy code. Doesn't matter how well you trace the behavior, you will hit some random quirk in your refactor because of some incocuous hotfix done over a decadde ago by an employee who no longer works there somehow keeping the entire repository from crashing in on itself. If you're lucky, there will be a: //todo fix this (10/10/2013) somewhere as a hint ;)
intended 2y ago
Schenier should not be flagged. I have been waiting for someone to come up with a calm collected assessment of the Cybersecurity risk, for days now. This is as close as we will get.
aubanel 2y ago
Many seem to fear the brutality of these methods. But could massive institutions be reformed continuously by fixing every problem carefully à la Chesterton's Fence ? I think not: admistrations only grow like a cancer until they are such a complicated knot that no one can disentangle them. See Europe's fossilization, accelerated by the fact that we have put an administration of bureaucrats over countries to add one layer of rules. I'd love a DOGE in Eurppe because our administrations can only be cut brutally, like the Gordian knot. That may destroy some good things, but I'll happily pay that to get rid of the bad things.
- anthk 2y ago
  Then you'll get similar parasites. Good luck with no healthcare on upcoming natural disasters. Good luck with the avian flu and measles. When corpos rule everything, y'all pray.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >But could massive institutions be reformed continuously by fixing every problem carefully à la Chesterton's Fence ? I think not: I do think so. But we need proper leaders voted in first. We've been quite horrible at that, to be frank. But I guess it represents us: a political gridlock too busy fighting each other (often o petty issues) to proper come together and identify what's actually wrong in our lives. > See Europe's fossilization, accelerated by the fact that we have put an administration of bureaucrats over countries to add one layer of rules you mean the institution where a bad fall doesn't put you in debt? That mandate 30 days vacation a year? that doesn't just roll over and let technocrats steal and sell your data without consent? Yea, caring for one another is such a fossilized concept. >I'd love a DOGE in Eurppe because our administrations can only be cut brutally, like the Gordian knot. That may destroy some good things, but I'll happily pay that to get rid of the bad things. I'll put this in your language: you're esssentially trying to make a proposal to a business to shut down its main product while your engineering team takes time to make a new, efficient product that guarantees a 10x ROI. Now, maybe there's a chance you're right. But there's no way in high hell any business would ever agree to that. You may be willing to pay, but you're not the only one paying. That reboot will lose shareholder value, piss off and permanently turn off customers, and may even make you vulnerable to security breaches. It makes no sense. Meanwhile, we can simply revisit our lovely fence and start things off the right way. You can make your own module and show how efficient it is before deprecating the old one. and you repeat that until you fully optimized the legacy code. There was no shutdown, you worked incrementally to prove your changes worked, and satisfied customers along the way. That's all I'm suggesting for such an "efficiency" process here.
xfce_dev 2y ago
Such a funny take. It is nominated by the legally elected president. If you want to emphasize their financial status, why don't you look at Soros, some democrats who officially have salaries in the range of $100k-$200k yet have net worth in tenths of millions? On the other hand it'd be strange to see that no one involved in corruption that DOGE tries to reveal would do something to attack it.

413 points by mikece 2y ago

A related article: "Treasury was warned DOGE access to payments marked an ‘insider threat’" > The assessment, done by the contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, came before Treasury tapped an ally of Elon Musk to oversee the sensitive payment system. * https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/07/doge-treasury-payments-system-warning/ https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-s... "A US Treasury Threat Intelligence Analysis Designates DOGE Staff as ‘Insider Threat’": * https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-bfs-doge-insider-threat/ https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-bfs-doge-insider-threat... The report was later walked back: > The government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton on Friday night said it had dismissed a subcontractor who prepared a draft report saying that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to the Treasury’s payment system poses an “unprecedented insider threat risk” and should be suspended immediately. * https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-08/treasury-warned-of-insider-threat-risk-from-musk-s-doge-access https://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...

lenerdenator 2y ago

The behavior will continue until a consequence is assigned. EDIT: I should add, this consequence should be legislative or legal in nature.

bamboozled 2y ago
Why would there be consequences? The majority of voting Americans wanted this to happen. Let's not pretend this wasn't the likely conclusion and voters were solely focused on the price of eggs. By modifying core systems, the attackers have not only compromised current operations, but have also left behind vulnerabilities that could be exploited in future attacks—giving adversaries such as Russia and China an unprecedented opportunity. These countries have long targeted these systems. And they don’t just want to gather intelligence—they also want to understand how to disrupt these systems in a crisis. It's really hard to imagine this whole coup isn't some type of Russian / Chinese attack on the western world at this stage. It's too unbelievably good for them to just be a coincidence.
- cglace 2y ago
  People were worried about the economy and inflation. To say that most voters wanted to dismantle the government is a bit of a stretch. I remember all the posters here expressing their belief that Doge would do nothing and was just an advisory role.
  - rs186 2y ago
    I agree, but I lament how voters quickly forget the chaos from the first Trump administration, and how much they didn't care about the DOGE agenda. They think they voted for a lower inflation (which is a very questionable premise by itself), but they didn't realize they were voting for the whole package. I definitely wasn't surprised, and American people deserve this. Hopefully the voters come to their mind in the next election, and hope it's not too late.
    - Swoerd 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - slt2021 2y ago
        even more stupid are Democrat party leadership who could have won past elections in a slam dunk, have they had thought about transition strategy in advance
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        They did... It's clear their strategies are at best outdated, or at worst more focused on a neoliberal policy over a proper socialist strategy (hence, them blocking Sanders out twice). I know it's small fries given current issues, but this is part of why I think (or thoght) the biggest focus for the people should be getting more states to adopt ranked choice voting. That's the only way out of this game theory disaster.
        2y ago
oneplane 2y ago
I wonder how that would work out. It's a bit of an inverse-Ouroboros where the people that are the government keep saying they are 'doing something about the government' without realising that that's them. Maybe they see themselves as something that is not the government, but the whole race they took part in was the race to get elected for government work. At some point, enough destruction will have happened where the tools for useful government functionality no longer exist in usable capacity.
- dandanua 2y ago
  I tell you more. They don't just consider themselves as a government, they don't consider themselves as humans either. They want to be a different kind of species, they want to be above humans, just like humans are above the cattle. And in some sense they are, if so many people were stupid enough to get them elected.
kombine 2y ago
Trump's admin already said that they will defy court rulings.
- perrygeo 2y ago
  Worse, JD Vance has said repeatedly that they WANT courts to rule against them, so that they can directly challenge the court's power. I believe his exact words were "Let the court enforce it." Which of course is a sick joke - courts have no enforcement power without the executive branch. They fully intend to cause a constitutional crisis on purpose. It's all in plain sight, in their own words. America will get what it voted for.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Good. Nothing more wrathful than a Judge out for blood. let all the civil and criminal contempt fly out the aisles
dariusj18 2y ago
There's a reason Musk brought in younglings to do the illegal stuff. To ignorant to know that in a few years they will be in jail.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  Will they be? The last ten years have been an exercise in "they will be in jail" without any one of import actually going to jail. Hell, not many have even been arrested.
  - SpaceNoodled 2y ago
    A bunch of insurrectionists were in jail, but then something happened and the inmates are now running the asylum.
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      The people that mattered didn't see jail. That's the problem.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >without any one of import actually going to jail. I'd argue these kids won't "be of import" in the long scheme of things. Maybe in future software ethics/security classes at best. I sadly don't think Musk will ever be in a jailcell, but I'll settle for him never stepping foot in a federal facility again.
- barkingcat 2y ago
  nah, in a few years, they will be rich beyond your imagination, and they will be set up to be next in succession to be king of the us.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    I think you mean vassals of Elon's gene carriers.
Swoerd 2y ago
"I should add, this consequence should be legislative or legal in nature." Should it be?
- rat87 2y ago
  Yes Its illegal for a reason. The only good counterargument I've seen is that it might encourage worse actions to try to evade punishment.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Ideally, yes. Leaves little wiggle room, settles things with minimal bloodshed, and stamps a nigh objecive ruling. But if blood is spilt, it'll slow things down in ways congress seems unable to do. Not stop, but slow down.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

selfhoster 2y ago

[flagged]

4ndrewl 2y ago

Funniest thing is that Musk isn't getting paid for this. He's literally doing it for shits-n-giggles.

bamboozled 2y ago
He is getting paid in the sense he has a lot of power over everything that happens financially, it's how he will make a lot of money going forwards (if he doesn't get ousted somehow).
cowfriend 2y ago
Shutting down every agency that is investigating his companies is "shits-n-giggles"? Tesla's valuation is 10x the rest of the Magnificent 7, obviously investors think his ties to government are worth something. (edit- valuation means i.e. P/E ratio; I saw the chart about 2 weeks ago so forget the exact valuation metric)
- 4ndrewl 2y ago
  From his pov yes. Look how he treated the press the other day. Closing USAid isn't anything to do with Tesla etc - this is just a rich kid showing how powerful he is.
  - JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
    It's a very powerful person deliberately sabotaging the checks and levers they've to adhere to, with the reasonable possibility that they'll get to outright create the new ones and the probability that they'll at the very least get to heavily influence the new ones from the ground up. What he's getting is worth way more than money.
  - cowfriend 2y ago
    Oh, really? Given that USAID is investigating Starlink? https://oig.usaid.gov/node/6814 https://oig.usaid.gov/node/6814 Going after the Treasury, given that X is moving into finance? https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/elon-musk-doge-cfpb-x-payments-platform/ https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/elon-musk-doge-cfpb-x-payment...

bronzejaguar 2y ago

God willing, the administrative state will be brought to its knees by the duly elected public officials meant to keep it in check.

ryandvm 2y ago
Republicans are their own best argument against big government.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

yks 2y ago

If the nation survives this insanity, the software will have to be rewritten from scratch, otherwise it is impossible to know which actors, both foreign and domestic, have the knowledge of the systems.

laverya 2y ago
Has everyone forgotten the lessons of open-source cryptography all of a sudden? Just because the systems are public does not mean that they are vulnerable, and "security through obscurity" is no security at all.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Well, DOGE has the keys and the data. I'm not sure how this will not stay vulnerable if/when the dust settles.
e2le 2y ago
>the software will have to be rewritten from scratch Would you even be able to trust the hardware anymore? If it's already compromised then it's safer to assume it goes deep (firmware).

sQL_inject 2y ago

[flagged]

iwontberude 2y ago
If you change things without the consent of stakeholders, you will find the changes undone in short order (or even overreacted to) despite their potential. The early wins are pyrrhic and take on a new opportunity cost as the community churns through events of no confidence.
putzdown 2y ago
You’ve drawn a false dichotomy. It is possible both for the existing system to be full of waste and for the process of shining the sun onto “blight” (good word) to raise significant, even catastrophic, security concerns with lasting implications. Bad + bad doesn’t necessarily = good.
- intended 2y ago
  There is no outrage in the article. Its a very calm and level headed article.
EnergyAmy 2y ago
Don't let someone "fix" things that is clearly looting the government for his own gain as part of a coup. There are endless ways to address your concerns without supporting someone throwing around literal nazi salutes.
bendmorris 2y ago
>seemingly without audit or checks and balances Federal agencies are regularly audited - internally by their own inspectors general, and externally by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) - and most of those reports are publicly available. There are numerous checks on these agencies including management by the president, who can typically fire at will, and oversight by Congress. Like him or not, Elon Musk is not an auditor, has no relevant experience or expertise and is deeply compromised as he profits from large federal contracts. Giving him unchecked power with no accountability is not the proper way to shine a light on fraud, it's a way to get more of it.

seydor 2y ago

> And they don’t just want to gather intelligence—they also want to understand how to disrupt these systems in a crisis. Considering that these are payment systems, how can they be used during wartime

bamboozled 2y ago
Imagine the military, and all its supporting systems not being able to purchase fuel or food ?
- IAmGraydon 2y ago
  I highly doubt that would happen. There are other ways to make payment, though a bit slower until things are figured out.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    Foreign installations ? You need to allocate and make sure they have access to the money to pay for resources locally.

lores 2y ago

Why this isn't front-page news in every Western country is the press' failure to understand technical matters, or perhaps the public's utter disinterest in unglamorous infrastructure. This is the US' own Sulla moment, an incident that will be quoted in future history books as the beginning of the end of the republic.

oropolo 2y ago
Why isn't it front-page news on HN rather than being flagged? Is it just because Musk's "DOGE" is in the title? I think it's pretty significant that a number of agencies have handed root access to people who shouldn't have it and have made changes that could have significant unintended consequences. This is could end up being a case study in why you don't allow unfettered access even when ordered by the incoming regime (be it POTUS or CEO) because there be dragons and the new people don't know where they are yet.
- cbovis 2y ago
  > Why isn't it front-page news on HN rather than being flagged? Is it just because Musk's "DOGE" is in the title? Essentially yes. Certain users are flagging because they don't want any discussion related to DOGE on HN. See for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036254.
  - oropolo 2y ago
    LOL... wow! I thought the "national cyberattack" and the root override/hijacking was far more relevant than the connection with the organization which shall not be named which is nominally led by he who shall not be named.
- Namahanna 2y ago
  It's very sad and a stark commentary on the current state of Hacker News that a post by Bruce Schneier on cyber security is still flagged over an hour after it was posted.

dandanua 2y ago

Why is it flagged?

Xunjin 2y ago
@dang could you unflag it? For the sake of the consistency's principle you mentioned in our previous comment exchanges?

AnonC 2y ago

The concerns he points out — especially about hostile or enemy nations and actors getting a better chance to gather data and understand how to subvert or attach the country — seem valid. There is a difference between elected officials doing stupid or insecure things vs. unelected people being able to do this without any checks and balances. (Off topic: I’m upvoting this post to counter the flagging that seems to be going on for all posts on this topic. I respect Bruce Schneier and his opinions on several things.)

lukev 2y ago
Even elected officials are not allowed to do stupid or insecure things! I seem to remember something about a quite famous incident involving a private email server. Which boggles the mind when you compare it to what's going on right now.
- SpaceNoodled 2y ago
  They're only disallowed so far as there are consequences for their actions.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    lawsuits are rolling in. Let's hope the executive branch actually furfills its ideal in being shielded from political atmosphere and properly access the situation.
dmix 2y ago
> There is a difference between elected officials doing stupid or insecure things vs. unelected people being able to do this without any checks and balances. Isn't the Treasury dept and most of the federal employees with access to this data unelected as well? They are appointed or hired as government officials and civil servants.
- lurquer 2y ago
  There are only two elected officials in the entire Executive Branch.

rkapsoro 2y ago

[flagged]

EnergyAmy 2y ago
Did the platform include tidbits like "DOGE will trust sensitive personal information of millions of Americans to lackwits that got already fired for leaking personal information"? > If the President can't execute his mandate [..] "Executing his mandate" doesn't mean "doing a whole bunch of dumb shit while ignoring the rule of law and becoming a puppet to an unelected piece of human garbage".
craftsman 2y ago
The President can certainly do things that are both legal and Constitutional. If the team is, as you say, auditing government spending there is probably no debate. The question before us is: are they doing that, and only that? To that question the answer appears to be 'no'. To the extent that they are doing more than auditing, there are serious legal and Constitutional questions. And these questions cannot simply be brushed aside by asserting 'most people voted for this'.
Xunjin 2y ago
Well, there are checks and balances, if I understand correctly, all these changes are being done by executive order which needs to be approved by congress and is passive of being questioned by the justice system. Let's not forget that the Vice-President did post a tweet with the literally saying: “Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.”[0] 0. https://x.com/JDVance/status/1888607143030391287 https://x.com/JDVance/status/1888607143030391287 That goes against the entire idea of the USA Democracy.
cowfriend 2y ago
pro tip: an insider action does count as a cyberattack. Your first argument is nonsensical. re: mandate to audit government. If this was a serious audit, then DOGE would have put serious data privacy controls in place. An audit without proper data protection IS a cyberattack; an exfiltration of protected data.
2y ago

CompoundEyes 2y ago

Corporations are the unoffical 4th branch of government. If the stock market tanks they’ll be gone like that snaps fingers. The campaign donations and lobbyist spigot will turn off for these politicians, panic and leadership will change. I know Citizens United allows for dark money to flow in from anywhere to prop up their campaigns indefinitely but not enough to offset a tanked stock market due to lack of trust in the US dollar and markets.

EnergyAmy 2y ago
We need separation of corporation and state enshrined in the Constitution, if it's not too late.
IAmGraydon 2y ago
First of all, I doubt it. Trump will likely blame economic damage on everyone else (namely, the Fed), and his sycophants will eat it up. Second, even if they are ejected, the damage will already be done.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  we have a proof that this is not right - see 2018 and 2020. it is somewhat “easy” to run against an incumbent, especially one as fradulent as Biden (not to mention Kamala…) but when you are an incumbent THE BUCK STOP with you. while portion of the US electorate is dumb beyond repair they alone are not enough to win an election. if shit isn’t right come 2026 and 2028 the blame-everyone-else-nothing-is-ever-my-fault Donald will suffer the ass kicking much worse than 2018 and especially 2020 when he got demolished by a senile corrupt lifelong politician grandpa Joe
  - IAmGraydon 2y ago
    2028? He can't run again, so I don't think he much cares.
    - bdangubic 2y ago

lolc 2y ago

What is really sad to read in this whole debacle is all the nihilists who think that the US government "should burn". These people are largely ignorant of all the ways their government works for them. One could say the government has been working too well, much like vaccines.

luke-stanley 2y ago

There may be an error in Schneier's reasoning here: `They are also reportedly training AI software on all of this sensitive data.` Running inference isn't the same as training. That said, I don't think this should be flagged, that seems counter free-speech. He's got plenty of other well voted articles here on HN, a lot of HN clearly value his insights. Disagreement would be better expressed as a comment rather than trying to make it go away.

zingababba 2y ago
Yeah I think the articles make it sound like it's just inference. However my theory is the goal is to actually train on what is essentially the output of all of these departments. I honestly think what we are seeing in terms of the tech execution side basically boils down to BigBalls and co. asking an LLM what they should do next. If they ever get prosecuted I'd bet you good money that will be the defense...ROFL.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
The premise of the article is that DOGE are "the attackers" and preventing them from accessing the data is something "career officials" in the government ought to be doing. That's obviously a partisan framing. The other party's position is that they've just been elected to audit and reduce government waste and direct access to data is necessary to prevent the principal-agent problem in which government officials shape their reports to protect their budgets and activities from undesired scrutiny and oversight. The problem with framing it that way is that it's a request to get flagged by the opposing partisans even if there is some point to be made about maintaining change control etc.
- rat87 2y ago
  There is nothing partisan about resistance to Trump. Resisting illegal acts causing damage yo the nation is not in any way partisan. I'm sure there are Republicans pushing for this as well. Blindly following Trump is partisan. Pretending Trump cares about waste isn't just silly its ridiculous and should be dismissed out of hand.

BluSyn 2y ago

The split of opinion on this in tech circles is quite surprising. No agency would voluntarily modernize systems, which would inevitably reduce head count and put half of them out of jobs. This has been a on-going fight for 30 years. Every politician who previously tried to modernize agencies failed due to intense internal resistance. Everyone in tech clearly fell on the modernization side. This is what many of us wanted since the 90s. Finally happening. In real time. Headed by one of the greatest tech disrupters since probably Edison. Now they act like the sky is falling? I can’t find any steel-man argument against DOGE. No modernization plan proposed the traditional way through committees, consultants, contractors, has worked or will EVER work. You have to rip off the bandaid the hard way. Only explanation I have for those opposing this is some combination of personality derangement spread by nefarious interests, financial incentive, or some crazy model of the world that glorifies bureaucratic power as some fundamental right enshrined in constitution. Imagine being on the side of the Empire and trying to stop the rebels as they infiltrate the Death Star.

lores 2y ago
"To save the village, we had to destroy it" comes to mind. Except the nuking irradiated the whole country, too.
- BluSyn 2y ago
  This feels like hyperbole. Nobody is arguing to destroy the village, the federal government is not going to disappear due to 20% spending reduction. Reducing spending from ~$6T/year to ~$4T/year is not the end of government, which is the explicitly stated goal of DOGE.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >Nobody is arguing to destroy the village, it's already happening. Does it have to literally already be on fire to see it? >he federal government is not going to disappear due to 20% spending reduction Yes, that's more than enough to throw the country into chaos, 20% of 2024 spending is 1.3 TRILLION dollars. I don't think you understand how much money "20%" is in this scale. >Reducing spending from ~$6T/year to ~$4T/year is not the end of government, which is the explicitly stated goal of DOGE. 1. depends on where we make the cuts. 20% from the military? Maybe we'll be fine. 20% from Social security? There will be blood in the streets. Even the most diehard trump supporter won't like their income being reduced out of nowhere. 2. where do you think that 2 trillion dollars is going? Hint: we're not getting it. They are reducing spending by not taxing billionaires as much. So no, we're not paying off a defecit, Corporate America isn't paying its share.It will still increase and nothing was accomplished. Just the rich getting richer. Why does no one see this coming?

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Syndicated from FP Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43021873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43021873

z0r 2y ago

This shouldn't have been flagged.

qwertox 2y ago

Just be aware of the Chesterton's fence principle [0] > "Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...

soco 2y ago
That's a solid principle we are, or should be, using in our daily work - namely in refactoring.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I'd hope any reasonable senior programmer has hit enough landmines to understand why such a fence is necessary. Especially for legacy code. Doesn't matter how well you trace the behavior, you will hit some random quirk in your refactor because of some incocuous hotfix done over a decadde ago by an employee who no longer works there somehow keeping the entire repository from crashing in on itself. If you're lucky, there will be a: //todo fix this (10/10/2013) somewhere as a hint ;)

intended 2y ago

Schenier should not be flagged. I have been waiting for someone to come up with a calm collected assessment of the Cybersecurity risk, for days now. This is as close as we will get.

aubanel 2y ago

Many seem to fear the brutality of these methods. But could massive institutions be reformed continuously by fixing every problem carefully à la Chesterton's Fence ? I think not: admistrations only grow like a cancer until they are such a complicated knot that no one can disentangle them. See Europe's fossilization, accelerated by the fact that we have put an administration of bureaucrats over countries to add one layer of rules. I'd love a DOGE in Eurppe because our administrations can only be cut brutally, like the Gordian knot. That may destroy some good things, but I'll happily pay that to get rid of the bad things.

anthk 2y ago
Then you'll get similar parasites. Good luck with no healthcare on upcoming natural disasters. Good luck with the avian flu and measles. When corpos rule everything, y'all pray.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>But could massive institutions be reformed continuously by fixing every problem carefully à la Chesterton's Fence ? I think not: I do think so. But we need proper leaders voted in first. We've been quite horrible at that, to be frank. But I guess it represents us: a political gridlock too busy fighting each other (often o petty issues) to proper come together and identify what's actually wrong in our lives. > See Europe's fossilization, accelerated by the fact that we have put an administration of bureaucrats over countries to add one layer of rules you mean the institution where a bad fall doesn't put you in debt? That mandate 30 days vacation a year? that doesn't just roll over and let technocrats steal and sell your data without consent? Yea, caring for one another is such a fossilized concept. >I'd love a DOGE in Eurppe because our administrations can only be cut brutally, like the Gordian knot. That may destroy some good things, but I'll happily pay that to get rid of the bad things. I'll put this in your language: you're esssentially trying to make a proposal to a business to shut down its main product while your engineering team takes time to make a new, efficient product that guarantees a 10x ROI. Now, maybe there's a chance you're right. But there's no way in high hell any business would ever agree to that. You may be willing to pay, but you're not the only one paying. That reboot will lose shareholder value, piss off and permanently turn off customers, and may even make you vulnerable to security breaches. It makes no sense. Meanwhile, we can simply revisit our lovely fence and start things off the right way. You can make your own module and show how efficient it is before deprecating the old one. and you repeat that until you fully optimized the legacy code. There was no shutdown, you worked incrementally to prove your changes worked, and satisfied customers along the way. That's all I'm suggesting for such an "efficiency" process here.

xfce_dev 2y ago

Such a funny take. It is nominated by the legally elected president. If you want to emphasize their financial status, why don't you look at Soros, some democrats who officially have salaries in the range of $100k-$200k yet have net worth in tenths of millions? On the other hand it'd be strange to see that no one involved in corruption that DOGE tries to reveal would do something to attack it.