> that intelligence agencies like to recruit young people active in the cyber criminal scene
Just linking this back to the story, am I mistaken in saying that DOGE is not an intelligence agency? (It certainly is a great position to exfiltrate information however.)
DOGE is a renamed Obama-era agency called the US Digital Service. This group basically tackles IT needs for different departments, which is how Elon is able to weasel his way into any department he decides to target.
First time I've seen this, and very interesting. I was aware of the USDS but not the DOGE connection. Presumably all the former employees were fired as the alien took over the host?
Yeah it was started after the Obamacare website debacle years ago. The intention was to have a group of IT professionals who could shuttle from various departments to help with different projects. Pretty innocuous, honestly. It was never intended to be used as a tool to dismantle the federal government.
The perfect place to exfiltrate information and absolutely no need for this level of security skills there unless they intended to break into government systems they were not given access to by e.g. the courts.
Their stated purpose is "to reduce wasteful and fraudulent federal spending". Organizations that have waste and fraudulent spending will not "give" access and will throw every obstruction in the way.
I'm not justifying anything. Every large organization gets audited and is required to allow outsiders in to review data. It's quite legal, necessary in fact. Nobody likes it. They don't call it "hacking".
If you read my original comment, it was about there not being a need for such security skills unless you have intentions to access the data regardless of what is put in your path. If you are denied access by the courts but you access it anyway, you are hacking. They also have no charter to audit, are not authorized by Congress, and are therefore already skirting the very knife edge of what is legal.
Skirting knife edges of legal is not illegal. Perhaps you are concerned about immoral, do you think it's immoral to review financial records?
I used an audit as an example. The agencies are acting as if their records cannot be reviewed unless they themselves vet they auditor which is suspicious given they are part of the executive branch.
By your logic, ex-cons are not employable because companies would not employ them unless they have intentions of using their skills.
Yes, if anyone hired a 19 year old ex-con into this role digging through the personal data of government employees... I would say it's pretty clear what their intention is. Furthermore there are established processes chartered by Congress for auditing and reviewing secure materials held by government agencies. Those require background checks, vetting, and proper processes. They don't involve random people hired a couple of weeks ago showing up and digging into whatever they feel like looking at.
They aren't "digging", they are looking for fraud and savings. They've have been vetted by elected officials, just not the ones that seem to have something to hide. I really don't think you know what their "intentions" are.
I don't think this conversation will go much further, please don't let me stand in the way of your outrage.
You don't know what they are doing other than what the said they are doing. Just because someone say's something about their motives, doesn't make it true. It sounds more like you have a position that you want to have promoted "auditing records for corruption reasons" (which is noble btw) and hoping the DOGE organization's behavior is lining up to that position. I'd be careful of this as it sounds more like cognitive bias.
Ah yes, you don't like how things turned out and so you resort to characterizing me as outraged as though I'm somehow less capable of being logical than your are. Feel free to not engage with my comments in future. I'd much prefer that.
I think the implication is that if the person concerned (dox-ed again by Krebs) would pass an intelligence agency review, they should be OK for fraud investigation.
Just linking this back to the story, am I mistaken in saying that DOGE is not an intelligence agency? (It certainly is a great position to exfiltrate information however.)