> 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
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.
Krebsonsecurity reporting suggests that the "cyber security firm" is actually part of a gang of cyber criminals. Story submitted (but flagged and dead) here:
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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...
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.
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).
> 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
I don't share your reverence for corporate secrets. To you, the exceptions are the secrets it is ok to share. To me, the exceptions are the secrets it is ok for corporations to keep. And corporations have certainly not earned the benefit of the doubt that I would assume, despite their willful silence, that these were legitimate.
you're entitled to your opinion, but it is not one shared by the normal parts of the government (which supports corporate IP). I think you have a larger issue that is independent of whether this individual is qualified for the role they most recently occupied.
Don't I know it. It's why trade secrets are protected by law, while smart TVs spying on users, with or without revealing it somewhere deep in their EULA, does not get even a slap on the wrist. And why the government bullies other countries into adopting restrictive, maximalist IP laws, but is wholly unbothered by consumer rights getting trampled by DRM and EULAs, or ridiculous patents getting granted.
We're racing to a corporate dystopia, and this is the reason why.
Hey, if it was secrets, and its confirmed to be secrets, and the cause is publicized, and the alleged secrets leaker confirmed it, then we are WAY WAY WAY beyond guilt-by-association.
> A spokesperson for the Arizona-based hosting and data-security firm said Thursday: “I can confirm that Edward Coristine's brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure.”
> Afterward, Coristine wrote that he’d retained access to the cybersecurity company’s computers, though he said he hadn’t taken advantage of it.
This isn't the ironclad defense you think it is. The company confirmed this is why they were fired, this all took place before he was even in the political spotlight and his response being to brag about it isn't exactly a stellar mark on his character.
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?)
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.
Of course. I've spent most of my time this week posting explanations about that and answering emails about it (and neglecting everything else!), so it's a bit odd to hear that I'm denying it! But I understand how these perceptions arise.
It may seem strange, but both of these things are true:
(1) it's the most-discussed topic that exists on HN right now; and
(2) most of the submissions about it are getting flagged.
If you think about how the internet (and HN) work, it's to be expected: there's a tsunami of submissions; some are getting through and producing condition #1; others are getting flagged and producing condition #2.
This has happened many times on HN over the years, and every time it happens, the community splits between the people who want more and the people who feel like it's too much.
For example, here's a case from 2020 where someone felt that HN was suppressing stories about what in fact was
the most-discussed topic on the site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962. This dynamic has been around a long time.
Voting and flagging are intimate data—I wouldn't dream of disclosing that about anyone. I think most HN users would take that as a betrayal of the basic community contract.
Also, I don't see what good would come of it. It would lead to much more conflict, and would change the character of the site. People would no longer feel free to express their preferences—actually they would no longer be free to express them. This is not a way to fix the problems we face as a community.
Maybe the number of flags a given post has could be exposed? Or other, non PII information about flags, like number of flags from old accounts or accounts with high karma, or showing that a post has the flag shield enabled? Just spitballing here but theres a lack of transparency into the process that throws some people into conspiracy theory land so just imo but it kinda seems like there's got to be some changes that could be done to assuage the fears of the more rational readers, so that we don't get the same boring accusations of some shadowy cabal burying inconvenient stories on every contentious subject. Maybe just linking to the active thread for an MOT for the flagged&dead posts so people can see the topic is being allowed, just elsewhere? Maybe allowing users to mark a thread a dupe instead of just flagging?
(sorry if this has already been asked & answered. I saw the post about turning flags off but haven't seen anything about exposing when it has been)
I see where you're coming from, but I don't believe that one can assuage people's fears or diminish accusations this way. It's the other way around: it would just provide more material, more degrees of freedom out of which to curve-fit those pre-existing views.
I could be wrong about this—my own fears and preconceptions definitely affect my thinking here. I fear trying things that can't easily be reversed, because I don't want to cause damage. Also, I'm suspicious of the idea of technical measures to solve non-technical problems. The conflicting emotions and perceptions that dominate this question seem deeply non-technical to me.
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.
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.
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.
I don't believe that's reliable, but more importantly, you seem to be denying the emotional thrust of what you wrote. "You know perfectly well [etc.]" is an aggressive trope to begin with, and you followed it with other similar thrusts ("Stop trying to", "which is extremely obvious").
Your comment would have been just fine if it started at the "Many posts are being [etc.]"
Weird you are able to characterize 'you know perfectly well' as an aggressive trope without having any special insight into my mental state, but when I characterize something someone else wrote, you want to be all philosophical and say that we can't make any inferences about other people.
My original comment expressed skepticism about the idea that an expressive remark should be interpreted as a formal assertion of fact. I think your efforts at semantic policing are misplaced.
HN's software contains spam filters and similar things that automatically kill certain posts. Those get marked as [dead] and removed from public view. [dead] posts are visible only to users who have 'showdead' set to 'yes' in their profile.
Other posts that have been heavily flagged by users get marked as [flagged][dead]. Those have been killed by user flags, not software.
I'm not interested in minimizing conversation on the topic! I just want the conversation to be fresh in each major thread. That requires enough new information to support a substantively different discussion. I didn't see that in the OP and I don't see that in most of the submissions that get posted about this topic.
In case anyone is interested: the way we approach situations like this comes out of what happened with the Snowden avalanche of 2013. It seems obvious now, but at the time we weren't clear about the difference between articles containing significant new information [1] and copycat / follow-up posts [2]. Tons of repetitive stories were on the frontpage, and there was a backlash from users complaining about it. The current principles around to handle this came from reflecting on how we could have handled that situation differently.
What we need here, in order to keep having major threads about this topic, is a story containing significant new information—something that moves the needle on the discussion. If one of those is getting flagged, I'd like to know about it!
I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting there aren't flags, and a lot of them. The argument is that this is pretty much how HN works and is supposed to, for most repetitive topics. You can certainly make the case it should work some different way, either in general or for this topic specifically. But it's not some nefarious plot.
As I write, 4 out of the top 10 stories on "active" appear related to Musk, Trump, or both (numbers 4, 5, 8, 10):
1. Meta torrented & seeded 81.7 TB dataset containing copyrighted data
2. Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor
3. Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel
4. A German court rules: X must provide researchers access to data
5. Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
6. The origins of 60-Hz as a power frequency
7. Stop Using Zip Codes for Geospatial Analysis
8. Announcing the data.gov archive
9. U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users' encrypted accounts
10. Feds Halt the National Electric Vehicle Charging Program
If you prefer what you see on "active", you can bookmark that as your standard entry point to HN. I flag stories when they appear to be getting repetitive. I haven't actually done that with any of these stories, but I have previously done it with submissions about COVID, OpenAI, and Matt Mullenweg when they come in waves.
Avoiding repetition is a core principle here. Of course it applies to every topic.
I've written extensively in the last few days explaining the moderation approach to cases like this. Let me dig up some links for you...
Edit: here's one post that covers the basics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011. If you (or anyone) want further explanation, here are links that cover some of the principles we're applying here:
All we're doing is applying those principles the way we usually do. That doesn't mean we make every individual call correctly—we definitely don't. (I wrote about that recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306.) But the principles are stable, and as far as I know they're the right ones for HN.
If people want us to change how we moderate, it's not enough to demand that we unflag more stories about a specific $Topic that some users feel strongly about. That argument doesn't work because there is always such a $Topic going on.
Rather, you'd need to argue either that we're not following our principles, or that they're the wrong principles (and in that case propose better ones). I'd personally be very interested in such arguments; like anyone who has worked hard on a problem for years, I'd be both surprised and gratified to learn about a better solution. We just need to be talking about the same problem. In HN's case, the problem is how to optimize an open web forum for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
>> it's not enough to demand that we unflag more stories about a specific $Topic that some users feel strongly about. That argument doesn't work because there is always such a $Topic going on.
Your line of reasoning doesn't make any sense.
Flagging the story hides valuable information, and if the topic is always going on then there is clearly interest in the community.
If my point didn't make sense, it may be because I compressed it too much. Here's some background information followed by a decompressed version of that specific point.
The optimal HN front page is not one consisting of stories that the strongest-feeling subsets of users feel strongest about. That would optimize for indignation and sensationalism—definitely incompatible with HN's mandate.
The tug-of-war between upvotes and flags is core to HN's functioning. Indignant and/or sensational stories are often propelled onto the frontpage by 'hot' upvotes and then demoted by 'cold' flags. For the most part, that's the system working as intended. Not having flags at all, which is (I think?) what you're arguing for, would definitely not be in the interests of the site.
There's unfortunately* still a need for moderation, though, because some stories stay on the front page even though they're not so good (I mean 'good' in the specific sense of 'in keeping with the site mandate), and some stories get flagged off the front page even though they are legit submissions that could produce good-for-HN threads.
Now here's a decompressed version of the point you quoted:
If it were a rare thing for a topic to get flagged even though some users care strongly about it, we could just turn off the flags whenever that happened. However, there are always topics going on that some users care strongly about, which other users want to flag. To unflag all of them would (practically) amount to not having flags at all, and that's not an option. Therefore, there needs to be some way of deciding which ones to unflag vs. to leave flagged; and the argument for this cannot just be "please turn off the flags because I really care about this story"—that would be treating one subset of users more favorably than others. Similarly, it can't be "let's turn off the flags because we (the mods) personally care about the story". There needs to be an argument from principle about why a given story is a good candidate for turning off flags (or not turning off flags). If people want to argue that about a particular story, then, they need to either show how (1) this is desirable given HN's principles as I've explained them; or (2) there could be different principles that are better at realizing the site mandate. Does that make more sense now?
* unfortunately, because it would be so much less work if there weren't!
While I appreciate all the submissions about running Doom on HDMI dongles, it doesn't affect the health of millions of people. The submissions that are flagged inhibit intelligent discussion about items that affect every person on this forum.
You're absolutely right. But this is the perennial question of what sort of site HN is supposed to be. If the criterion for frontpage threads were importance, then HN would be a current affairs site—a completely different place. That's not the mandate we have (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Optimizing for curiosity [1] means including whimsical things like "Doom on a dongle", "how much do all of the ants in the world weigh", and so on, and less space for a lot of more important things. This follows from the mandate of the site.
Sometimes people feel like we should exclude political stories altogether, but that's not right—what we've learned about optimizing-for-curiosity is that some political discussion needs to be included—just not too much [2].
How much is too much? Well, that's the thing that nobody agrees on. For the people who feel most strongly about a story, it's never too much. That's how "literally the most-discussed topic on the site" turns into the perception "all discussion on this topic is being suppressed" [3].
There are endless things that affect every person on this forum that are not a particularly great fit for the forum so that in itself isn't much of a practical criterion.
