Comment by mandmandam

Comment by mandmandam 3 days ago

16 replies

The moment they had physical access to the system, it was necessary to assume this. It's called an 'evil maid' attack, and of all communities this one should have been blowing the whistle. Loudly, repeatedly, and in open defiance of people who argue that this is a storm in a teacup, a non issue, just another MOT, etc.

Especially when you look at the background of the Doge team - 'ex' hackers, 'security specialists', full-on racists...

Perhaps surprisingly, the CEO of YC and Paul Graham have been publicly supportive of the DOGE team, despite all the racism and existential threat. I don't know if that's from fear, or greed, but there are strong arguments for both.

Some of the stories about this topic which have been flagged here can be seen in my favorites. I'd be interested in collecting more examples, if you know of any missing.

> In the coming weeks, the team is expected to enter IT systems at the CDC and Federal Aviation Administration, and it already has done so at NASA, according to sources we’ve spoken with at each of those agencies. At least one DOGE ally appears to be working to open back doors into systems used throughout the federal government.

If discussing this openly and often this isn't possible due to very simple flag abuse, then what is this community actually even worth.

trymas 3 days ago

> Perhaps surprisingly, the CEO of YC and Paul Graham have been publicly supportive of the DOGE team, despite all the racism and existential threat. I don't know if that's from fear, or greed, but there are strong arguments for both.

> …

> If discussing this openly and often this isn't possible due to very simple flag abuse, then what is this community actually even worth.

Just want to add to this topic that HN advertises YC AI Startup school: https://events.ycombinator.com/ai-sus - where Musk is listed as a first speaker.

Though it doesn’t surprise me - YC is in the same circle of radical technocrats (a16z, Altman, Musk, etc.) and hosted Balaji talking about dystopian plans about techno-authoritarian city states 10 or 15 years ago.

  • mexicocitinluez 3 days ago

    Paul graham has his head so far up his on ass it's unreal.

    Listening to him talk about Elon taking over Twitter and that leading to more free speech was embarrassing. Like, actual adults believe this shit.

    • trymas 3 days ago

      I just checked his blog. Latest post “The Origins of Wokeness”.

      Protesting against police brutality of suffocating apprehended person is apparently “peak woke”.

      Musk apparently “succeded in neutralizing” twitter - “without censoring either” (left or right). He argues in the notes that Musk prioritized paid users and paid users are more right wing and hence left wing users self censored themselves, but left “could tilt it back if they wanted to”.

      EDIT: also again proving my original comment - PG is thanking Sam Altman for proof reading the post…

hotpotatoe 3 days ago

It’s not surprising the CEO of YC supports this, he also supports the idea of the network state. This community is now primarily exists to launder Curtis Yarvins galaxy brain ideas.

  • alabastervlog 3 days ago

    The most surprising thing about the fascist takeover is that it’s so incredibly stupid.

CalRobert 3 days ago

I think this community stopped caring about actual hacking some time ago. Remember when we cared about privacy?

  • intended 3 days ago

    I didn’t get something until it was pointed out very recently.

    The issue isn’t what we think. The issue is what we think OTHERS think.

    This is what social media truly fucks up. We can’t see the people nodding in disagreement. We can only see their silence, and we must respond to the person who IS talking and holding our attention.

    Practically - I care about privacy, and I expect that damn near most people here care about it.

    People can have their “well actually” arguments, but when push comes to shove, techies on HN should vocalize their annoyance with the way this is being done. Even if you support their politics, this ISNT how you execute secure projects.

    Wrong from the start. The Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes territory. We dont have to agree on other things.

[removed] 3 days ago
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imafish 3 days ago

[flagged]

  • matwood 3 days ago

    > Can someone explain to me where the issue lies?

    I'm starting to wonder if HN has also been taken over by bots and astroturfers.

    Audits require transparency and people who know wtf they are doing. Musk and his team have shown none of either. They have repeatedly talked about what they think they found that was later shown to be false. Instead of correcting course they double down (see the recent story of 8B vs 8M or Musk saying 10s of millions of dead people getting social security, there are many more that come out daily). They have also fought against efforts to increase transparency into what they are doing through a number of ways, either taking down datasets that could be cross checked or moving DOGE under the records act to avoid FOIA until 2032.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/upshot/doge-contracts-mus...

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/musk-misreads-social-securit...

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/trump-musk-do...

    • onemoresoop 3 days ago

      They’re trolling and what they want to do is poison the conversation we’re all having. Elon Musk is a troll too, why do you think they’d be any different? These people don’t read books (aside from a few scriptures they follow), they read memes instead. This is horrifying and but could also be their undoing.

  • refurb 3 days ago

    The issue lies in a number of areas:

    1. Politicians are watching their favorite pork barreling disappear day by day

    2. Since Trump was elected President the waste identified is going to be what Trump thinks is waste

    3. The job of the Democrats is to get elected, and you don’t get elected by sitting by as your opponent keeps doing things many voters are supporting, you try and stop it

    Because government waste is high on the list of priorities of many voters and DOGE seems to have only improved Trump’s approval rating, the Democrats can’t come out and say “stop cutting government waste”!

    So instead they try to politically attack DOGE by saying many of them are young (so are the soldiers we send overseas to fight wars), they are unelected (so are all government workers), they aren’t allowed to do this (to be determined by courts) and they are cutting the wrong things (the voters will decide this in the end).

    So if you like what DOGE is doing, sit back and buckle up because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.