@cwarzel.bsky.social and Ian Bogost both step back and dive into what Musk's minions might do in their exploration of and experimentation on federal systems. I'm quoted. I have more thoughts on this subject, and my thinking is evolving as time passes. Hint: There are ways to mitigate the risks. - ThreadSky

jscottcory.bsky.social • 19 days ago

@cwarzel.bsky.social and Ian Bogost both step back and dive into what Musk's minions might do in their exploration of and experimentation on federal systems.

I'm quoted. I have more thoughts on this subject, and my thinking is evolving as time passes.

Hint: There are ways to mitigate the risks.

Comments

dtipson.bsky.social•19 days ago

one thing I don't understand here and haven't seen mentioned much is the value of this information for investment. Couldn't these kids, or Musk himself, be using this information every night to make trades based on it? What stops them or gives anyone oversight on that?

vintageknits.bsky.social•19 days ago

Doesn't seem like there is any oversight at all. I don't think that this kind of thing happening was even anticipated by lawmakers. Musk is the richest man in the world and has been "given" (or just taken) free reign by the president, and no one seems to want to defy him or Trump.

kathykadane.bsky.social•19 days ago

Fed law enforcement paralyzed --no congressionally-based police power

vintageknits.bsky.social•19 days ago

Exactly.

vintageknits.bsky.social•19 days ago

He/they may have already copied, downloaded, removed, added or modified data/code. How are we to know without a full forensic audit? There is NOTHING to stop the files and data from being shared once they are on Musk's servers. This is a MAJOr NATIONAL SECURITY BREACH.

jscottcory.bsky.social•19 days ago

All true. But also: there are cybersecurity monitoring tools available to monitor the systems from outside for any number of actions.

vintageknits.bsky.social•19 days ago

That is very good to know.

jscottcory.bsky.social•19 days ago

And most of the systems were developed by teams of contractors, which means there are code repositories that haven't been modified and which can be used as baselines against which to restore clean code.

vintageknits.bsky.social•19 days ago

Awesome!! 😀👍

jscottcory.bsky.social•19 days ago

FWIW, this is a great example of compromise by social engineering, in this case done in plain sight, by people claiming authority they assumed because of hubris.

vintageknits.bsky.social•19 days ago

Well, it sounds like the backup plans are thorough and designed to help in a breach or other disaster with the system/code. But procedurally what baffles me is how the admins allowed Musk to just come in and access everything. He has no formal position, government authorization or clearance.

dtipson.bsky.social•19 days ago

That doesn't even speak to the question of whether this information could be used to make investments, including untrackable bitcoin investments. We've no way of knowing, for instance, whether TrumpCo made millions betting on the market drop from tariff announcements, & then again removing them

dtipson.bsky.social•19 days ago

And the data DOGE employees have access to is even more detailed than that, including all sorts of information on Musk's direct competitors, allowing them to make much smaller investment decisions that are much harder to track.

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