I'm more concerned about lesser-known DOGE staffers taking huge paydays for sharing some "there's no way this is really classified" classified information and getting away with it.
Shenanigans like that usually land you in jail for 20+ years, but this is a presidential committee, so it's totally different.
It'd be interesting to do as much investigative journaling as has been done into Coristine with others in this department. I've seen very few people survive the majority of the media apparatus going through their lives with a fine-tooth comb.
And I'm not justifying anyone here. From my limited perspective, the guy doesn't belong anywhere near this place, but then again, I might have the same perspective for multiple people already operating there.
Other members of DOGE are getting dissected for past racist posts, but I personally think that's a lot less interesting and concerning than the historical leak allegations against this dude. DOGE will fire everybody except their own people. I think that double standard drives even more interest.
Educators have gotten pushed out for having attending a 2-day course on DEI in 2019 because of 'standards', I guess. But having a known leaker access to ALL the data is ok. Glad this administration is hiring people based purely on merit and qualifications <\s>.
Nextgov, About: "Nextgov/FCW is owned by GovExec" [1]
GovExec, About: "In March of 2020, we committed our entire organization to creating the leading sales and marketing intelligence company serving the public sector" (added emphasis)
I.e, it may just be that the that the story is written by an organization that is losing it's funding.
He's not innocent. He was a member of the cybercrime skid community called "The Com" that is regularly involved with cryptocurrency thefts, ddos attacks, and sim swapping. It's not normal. Dude is a blackhat skid with some crazy access to shit he shouldnt have access to imo.
The recent KrebsOnSecurity goes into why this is no joke. These are cybercriminals trading in fraud, pig butchering, illegal pornography and swatting attempts.
Shouldn't this kind of high-level access to federal systems come with a bar that's higher than this? Shouldn't even the appearance of impropriety be sufficient to bar this person from these kinds of positions where the largest datasets of sensitive information are stored?
> The presumption of innocence should direct opinion, not implication, but the links should be noted.
The standard in civil service is historically and conventionally "beyond even the appearance of impropriety," not "presumption of innocence." I think the person in question falls well below that standard.
There's been a long-standing exception for hackers going back to the '90s, although this has changed in recent years because the cyber security field has become saturated. While at the DOJ under Janet Reno, my uncle bypassed all of that just to have random hackers from Black Hat pen-test USCIS. They even got arrested and let out of jail following a successful attempt to print a greencard for "Mr. Kan G. Roo" - Some exceptions to that rule have been employed in positions of authority for decades, and for good reason too.
The fact that hackers have been productive civil servants doesn't really change the standard. To make it explicit: there is no obvious mitigating qualification in this case.
Yeah, that makes sense based on my experience, tho the problem is appearance - they often fabricate it without substance - leads to a huge level abuse, and erodes trust in the authorities you thought you could. A system that rewards liars and punishes honesty is not good.
I think it also contributes to a culture of corruption - ie, given how resistant some of these civil service positions are to being fired in practice, I wonder how much they carry their vaunted morals through.
Once you're in: do whatever you please! This also supports the appearance - "we are beyond reproach so we couldn't be doing anything bad." Plus, the secrecy shield to block accountability. Likely all enables the level of corruption and perversion that's so obvious.
I don't know, in those situations how can you tell? Based off of this reporting it's not conclusive. May have just been a junior they landed blame on for some issues with competitors?
He wasn't interacting with them as a researcher does. He was working for them as an employee. And then they fired him and accused him of leaking, and publicly humiliated him.
No one even knows what this kid is doing inside CISA's network!!
I think you're getting confused based on the article which says he was interacting with "The Com", and working for Path Networks which he was fired from for leaking.
There's already a reasonable approach to this, which DOGE is opting out of. Those who are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_hat are carefully given positions that require their specific skills, and aren't given run of the mill security sensitive IT roles.
I do agree that vetting would be a good idea - did they tho? We don't know. That's the thing. I guess DOGE is sorta like move fast and break things applied to gov? Hah :)
You said whiter than white when I just gave a link to the page about grey hat hackers, not endorsing the name grey hat, so I said allow hat instead of white hat and deny hat instead if allow hat to mirror allowlist/denylist in place of whitelist/blacklist.
That doesn't feel like a very convincing argument if you already believe that Elon, Donald, etc don't have the interests of the American taxpayers in mind... Given that they are also American taxpayers.
Let's be honest, if someone hates Elon/Donald/etc. then there is no argument that will convince them that everything they do isn't the worth thing to ever happen to America.
I don't passionately hate either, I just can't follow your logic. If these men are working to make six-figure salaries more profitable, then they could absolutely fuck over the majority of Americans while lining their own pockets and that of their employers.
How are the real taxpaying Americans supposed to hold them accountable? Where is the oversight board looking to ensure essential social services stay available? It all seems like a recipe for disaster - love them or hate them, Elon and Trump have obvious conflicts of interest that make this process disturbing.
Democracy not good enough fer ya? I'll explain: Because Elon was appointed by Trump who was appointed by the will of the American taxpayer? It should be commutative.
I don't understand why people think this means he should be given unilateral goodwill and authority. Honestly I don't think any of the people saying it really believes that. If they did, the same logic would apply to Biden and Obama and anyone questioning them would be questioning democracy. Yet somehow this 'will of the people so it must be good' only showed up when Trump was elected.
Bypassing the normal security procedures to ram a random person with a very shady background into our security apparatus seems like quite a lot of indulgence to me. I definitely don't believe Obama would have been granted the same.
One good reason? Look at the financial state of the country. We’ve been running trillion-dollar deficits, ballooning debt, and unsustainable spending for years. If Musk’s appointees are doing the opposite of what got us here—cutting waste, streamlining bureaucracy, and questioning sacred cows—that’s at least some indication they might be acting in taxpayers’ interests. The real question isn’t why assume they are—it’s why assume the status quo was working in the first place.
>>> why assume the status quo was working in the first place.
Spending has been "unsustainable" for 40+ years, ever since Reagan gave up on trying to get his own party to reduce it. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that the status quo was working well enough.
I'd feel better about this effort if they just benched the kid and replaced him with someone else. DOGE of all people should know that people are replaceable. Why did they put him specifically, with all that baggage, inside a cybersecurity agency? This doesn't feel right.
Again, this is so easily disproven. How are you buying this at all?
Musk and Trump are not concerned about debt or spending. If they were, Trump and Republicans wouldn't be rushing a billionaire tax cut bill that will add tens of trillions of dollars to the national debt.
If Trump cared about debt he wouldn't have run up $8 trillion in debt his last term with PPP helicopter money and more billionaire tax cuts.
Or proposing a bill to add Trump to Mount Rushmore.
Or proposing to create a PIF-like Sovereign Wealth Fund while gutting USAID, an organization with approved budget for many many years that actually provides assistance efforts globally.
Or proposing to invest $500B on AI development, which, coincidentally, just so happens to be the amount Sam Altman asked for to develop Stargate.
These days a criminal record is no bar for any computer-related thing...or at least it shouldn't be. However, it'd be prudent to monitor what they're keeping. Anyone who's any good will be keeping little nuggets of stuff for the future.
Their crime is, within the last 2 years, commiting corporate espionage? What in the world are you talking about - that is the literal definition of "should not be working with classified documents and every American's SSN".
Shenanigans like that usually land you in jail for 20+ years, but this is a presidential committee, so it's totally different.
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