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xAI dev leaks API key for private SpaceX, Tesla LLMs
- Cheer2171 2y agoWhat absolute incompetence. Not just on this dev, but any org with API keys ought to be scanning for leaked keys constantly. Failure of one and failure of many. Of course Elon hires only based on 'merit'...
- Everdred2dx 2y agoHow would you scan for your api keys on repos outside of your organization? I assumed this was a dev’s personal repo.
- kalkin 2y agohttps://docs.github.com/en/code-security/secret-scanning/secret-scanning-partnership-program/secret-scanning-partner-program https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/secret-scanning/sec... is one option
- Everdred2dx 2y agoNeat. Thanks!
- squigz 2y agoWell 1 option is the service from TFA. https://www.gitguardian.com/monitor-internal-repositories-for-secrets https://www.gitguardian.com/monitor-internal-repositories-fo...
- romellem 2y agoThe company I work for does this. I recently pushed an update to a personal repo that just contained a keyword match (the push included a dictionary.txt file which happened to include the company name) which flagged a review.
- mcdwayne 2y agoThis was on public GitHub, which anyone can scan for anything. Their API is a firehose you can consume: https://api.github.com/events https://api.github.com/events GitGuardian's public report on secrets sprawl talks about their methodology of scanning any commit https://www.gitguardian.com/state-of-secrets-sprawl-report-2025 https://www.gitguardian.com/state-of-secrets-sprawl-report-2...
- _ea1k 2y agoMusk has been talking about integrating Grok into Tesla cars and also adding a lot of space and rocketry specific training. It is completely possible that these models were trained on data that would logically be public at some point. It is also possible that the author's guess is right and that these were to contain sensitive data. Noone really knows, but honestly, these kinds of mistakes are happening all the time. Who hasn't accidentally leaked their own .ssh dir on github? lol
- hackernewds 2y agoAny competent engineer hasn't?
- ffsm8 2y agoIs that even at the competent level? You need to be particularly special to actually "accidentally" leak the .ssh dir via GitHub. Even incompetent people wouldn't fail to that degree for the most part. Leaking the directory through other avenues is a different matter though. Almost all package managers provide post install and compile scripts. Hence doing (as an example) "npm install" can potentially leak it. That's something not many people actually pay attention to (you would have to basically jail every command, which sadly isn't the norm today)
- unsupp0rted 2y agoI only use private repos, so that when my .ssh and .env leaks the public doesn’t see it. Probably. Maybe. Well…
- CER10TY 2y agoJust remember to go through your commit history if you ever plan on making that repo public.
- Normal_gaussian 2y agoI commonly flatten repos (by copy and create) when I share them. Its rare that the other person needs the commit history. I have often thought it would be nice to have a good tool to retroactively view and tidy them, but everything I've seen has not quite hit the nail on the head.
- timzaman 2y ago[flagged]
- BryanLegend 2y ago[flagged]
- stepupmakeup 2y ago[flagged]
- ralph84 2y agoSeems like a paid ad for GitGuardian. It even quotes their chief marketing officer.
- croes 2y agoSince when is the leak of an API key of a big company non news?
- tomlockwood 2y ago[flagged]
- papa_bear 2y agoTurns out it's a different Krebs. This is by Brian Krebs, vs Chris Krebs was the one targeted by the administration.
- ajcp 2y agoWow, I have been following the Chris Krebs saga quite closely AND been an avid consumer of Krebs on Security and for whatever reason always assumed they were one and the same. I even know his name is Brian Krebs! It's humbling when you're confronted with your blinders and stupidity, and they are the same as those you rail against for being so blindly stupid...
- unit149 2y ago[dead]
- mcs5280 2y agoSpaceX data LLM being exposed is likely a recipe for a huge ITAR violation
- foota 2y agoIs ITAR like other compliance sort of fields where you have to store data only in compliant places, or is it just based on actual leaks etc.,?
- freeone3000 2y agoITAR (International Trafficking in Arms Regulation) is paranoid. Every single specific person that knows even dual-use information, such as composite wing design, must be individually authorized. I’ve been asked to leave the room when my girlfriend, who works for a passenger aircraft manufacturer, was designing a repair for a plane I have literally flew on. It doesn’t matter how the person got access to dual-use info, like basically everything to do with large rockets, it’s 100% forbidden.
- foota 2y agoThat's the people aspect of it, but what about the technical aspect of it? Can I store ITAR restricted information in plaintext on a thumb drive if I think it's safe?
- dismalpedigree 2y agoThis seems like a company policy more than ITAR. Unless you are not a US citizen, then it could be ITAR.
- freeone3000 2y agoWe’re in Canada, and I’m a US citizen, but she is not.
- pavlov 2y agoDOGE has probably fired everyone who could pursue those penalties.
- Aurornis 2y ago> Fourrier found GitGuardian had alerted the xAI employee about the exposed API key nearly two months ago — on March 2. But as of April 30, when GitGuardian directly alerted xAI’s security team to the exposure, the key was still valid and usable. xAI told GitGuardian to report the matter through its bug bounty program at HackerOne, but just a few hours later the repository containing the API key was removed from GitHub. Having the security team redirect the report to the HackerOne program is wild. At least someone had enough thought to eventually forward it to someone who could fix it.
- fweimer 2y agoIt's come up before. HackerOne is not intended as a replacement for a PSIRT front desk, but many companies use it as such. It looks like Paypal still does this, for example.
- KristenDev 2y agoContacted the support team, DOD and FBI... nothing done a month or two ago.. its sad. But when see that studies are now sci-fi flicks.. my heart broke a little while ago. Never mind that this was swept under the radar by the DDOS attacks. Classic Oceans15 movie in the making.
- rcarmo 2y agoOne thing that sticks out to me is that there is an incorrect assumption from the journalists that having the API keys to an LLM can lead to injecting data. People still don’t know how LLMs work and think they can be trained by interacting with them at the API level.
- skissane 2y ago> People still don’t know how LLMs work and think they can be trained by interacting with them at the API level. Unless they are logging the interactions via the API, and then training off those logs. They might assume doing so is relatively safe since all the users are trustworthy and unlikely to be deliberately injecting incorrect data. In which case, a leaked API key could be used to inject incorrect data into the logs, and if nobody notices that, there’s a chance that data gets sampled and used in training.
- rcarmo 2y agoNobody really trains directly from logs without curation and filtering.
- skissane 2y agoSure, but there is a non-zero risk that some malicious data could slip through the curation and filtering processes undetected I agree that’s unlikely, but not astronomically unlikely
- rcarmo 2y agoConsidering the costs involved in fine-tuning, nobody does it unless they are a very rich corporation. And certainly not for public-facing models…
- drilbo 2y agounless I somehow skimmed over it, they only appear to refer to "prompt injection"
- AmazingTurtle 2y agoGuess who's going to be fired by elon :D
- endofreach 2y ago> Guess who's going to be fired by elon :D i know, you probably just meant it as a fun comment. but i don't get how this is funny. this person probably relies on income, might have a family to feed... and just made a mistake. a type of mistake, that is not uncommon. i mean i have seen corporate projects where senior engineers didn't even understand why committing secrets might be a bad idea. yes, of course, as a engineer you have responsibilities and this is clearly an error. but it also says a lot about the revolutionary AIs that will apparently replace all engineers... but the companies claiming it are not using it to catch stuff like this. and let's keep in mind– i am surely not the only one making this experience: every single time i am using an LLM for code generation, i have to remove hardcoded secrets and explicitly show them how to do it. but even then, it starts to suggest hardcoding sensitive info here and there. which means: A. troublesome results made by these models, presented to inexperienced engineers. and people are conditioned to believe in the superiority of LLM code, given all the claims in the media. but also B: that models suggest this practice, shows just how common this issue is. yes, this shouldn't happen at any company. but these AI companies with their wild claims should put their money where their mouth is. if your AI is about to replace X many engineers, why is it not supervising at least commits? to public repos? why are your powerful, AGI-agentic autonomous supernatural creations not able to regex the sh outta it? could it be that they don't really believe their own tales? or do they believe, but not think? of course, an incident like this could lead to attempts of turning it into a PR-win– claiming something like "see, this would have never happened with/to our Almighty Intelligence. that's why it should replace your humans." but then: if you truly believe it and have already invested so much resources, you believe to foresee the future so surely, why ignore the obvious? or are is this silent, implicit testimony, that you got caught up in a hype-train and got brainwashed into thinking, that code generation is what makes a good engineer? (just to be safe: i am not saying LLMs are not useful). also: that something this could even happen at a company like that, is not the fault of one engineer. it indicates either bad architecture or conventions and/or bad practice and culture... and... a l s o: no (human) code review process in place? the mistake was made by one engineer, yes. but as though it's made to seem like this mistake is the root... it's not. the mistake is a symptom, not the cause. i honestly hope the engineer does not get fired. and i really don't understand this mentality. if this person is actually good at their job and takes it seriously, it's certain: he or she is not going to leak a secret again. someone who replaces him or her, might.
- breakingcups 2y agoI'm much more interested in what the private model "tweet-rejector" could be used for...
- yk 2y agoif "Musk" in tweet and xAi.grok.sentiment(tweet) < .5: reject(tweet)
- SillyUsername 2y agoYou mean ex-AI dev surely?
- threecheese 2y agoThe biggest surprise to me was: “administration officials told some U.S. government employees that DOGE is using AI to surveil at least one federal agency’s communications for hostility to President Trump and his agenda”. I understand that there’s no expectation of privacy at work (especially in govt), and everything you write is “on the record”; however an employer monitoring comms for what’s essentially thoughtcrime is heinous. Isn’t disagreement healthy?
- erulabs 2y agoYes but it's worth understanding the executive branch (which according to this administration includes all federal agencies), in its constitutional form, is more or less just an extension of the president. Conceptually they all "perform at the pleasure of" the person of the president. The "balance" and "disagreement" can happen outside of the executive, in the legislative or judicial branches. Definitely not how I would run an organization (even a military organization), but it's not _conceptually_ wrong. If you were a general and you had lieutenants expressing "hostility to" your agenda, would you keep them on? Again, I'd probably say yes up to a limit, but it's not outside of a generals purview to concern themselves with this.
- threecheese 2y agoFair, and valid. I suppose in the case of a normal organization, leadership’s constraint is keeping enough good employees to be commercially viable. If your goal is to reduce the size and scope of your organization no matter the impact, that constraint is irrelevant.
- KristenDev 2y agoThis has ruined many careers in the making. The DDOS attacks happened while this breach like hotspot was open. who do we contact if any of our studies are leaked out like a publicity stunt day in day out and the x.ai hasnt responded for months after stating concern and rogue like actions on different AI services. Do we post videos, make statements or just gather and share tips and insight?
- waltercool 2y ago[dead]