DOGE as a National Cyberattack

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.<p>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.<p>(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.)

There may be an error in Schneier&#x27;s reasoning here: `They are also reportedly training AI software on all of this sensitive data.` Running inference isn&#x27;t the same as training.<p>That said, I don&#x27;t think this should be flagged, that seems counter free-speech. He&#x27;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.

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.

Just be aware of the Chesterton&#x27;s fence principle [0]<p>&gt; &quot;Chesterton&#x27;s fence&quot; is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton&#x27;s_fence" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton&#x27;s_...</a>

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.

Corporations are the unoffical 4th branch of government. If the stock market tanks they’ll be gone like that <i>snaps fingers</i>. 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.

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

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

A related article: &quot;Treasury was warned DOGE access to payments marked an ‘insider threat’&quot;<p>&gt; <i>The assessment, done by the contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, came before Treasury tapped an ally of Elon Musk to oversee the sensitive payment system.</i><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;national-security&#x2F;2025&#x2F;02&#x2F;07&#x2F;doge-treasury-payments-system-warning&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;national-s...</a><p>&quot;A US Treasury Threat Intelligence Analysis Designates DOGE Staff as ‘Insider Threat’&quot;:<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;treasury-bfs-doge-insider-threat&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;treasury-bfs-doge-insider-threat...</a><p>The report was later walked back:<p>&gt; <i>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.</i><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2025-02-08&#x2F;treasury-warned-of-insider-threat-risk-from-musk-s-doge-access" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2...</a>

Syndicated from FP<p>Earlier: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43021873">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43021873</a>

What is really sad to read in this whole debacle is all the nihilists who think that the US government &quot;should burn&quot;. 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.

This shouldn&#x27;t have been flagged.

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

Why is it flagged?

Why this isn&#x27;t front-page news in every Western country is the press&#x27; failure to understand technical matters, or perhaps the public&#x27;s utter disinterest in unglamorous infrastructure. This is the US&#x27; own Sulla moment, an incident that will be quoted in future history books as the beginning of the end of the republic.

Funniest thing is that Musk isn&#x27;t getting paid for this. He&#x27;s literally doing it for shits-n-giggles.

Such a funny take. It is nominated by the legally elected president. If you want to emphasize their financial status, why don&#x27;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?<p>On the other hand it&#x27;d be strange to see that no one involved in corruption that DOGE tries to reveal would do something to attack it.

Many seem to fear the brutality of these methods. But could massive institutions be reformed continuously by fixing every problem carefully à la Chesterton&#x27;s Fence ? I think not: admistrations only grow like a cancer until they are such a complicated knot that no one can disentangle them.<p>See Europe&#x27;s fossilization, accelerated by the fact that we have put an administration of bureaucrats over countries to add one layer of rules. I&#x27;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&#x27;ll happily pay that to get rid of the bad things.

The split of opinion on this in tech circles is quite surprising.<p>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.<p>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?<p>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.<p>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.<p>Imagine being on the side of the Empire and trying to stop the rebels as they infiltrate the Death Star.