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Comment by xorcist | Hacker News Reader

I have taken part in audits for several organizations over the years, and I can assure you that's not how audits are done at all.

In fact, should the auditor find there is a way for them to access sensitive data without it being logged, they will flag it immediately. That would be the case even under simple financial regulation.

There is absolutely the risk that the people you audit will lie to you or present you with false data. In practice that's not common, because they stand to at the very least lose their jobs. It could also be illegal. Not worth it.

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A normal audit, sure. This isn’t that. This is the prison guards flipping the mattress looking for contraband.

All of the public complaining is by staff that don’t understand their new position in the pecking order.

There is a King in charge and he cares not for the wailing of the petty nobles.

>This is the prison guards flipping the mattress looking for contraband.

No its not. These prison searches in fact do tend to find knives and what not and do in fact have some role in managing prison violence.

This is not about anything like that at all.

It’s an analogy about established civilised audit procedure versus whatever DOGE is doing, which is… not that.

It’s not about literal shivs.

Speaking of finding things under the mattress, they did find corruption and waste, which they feel justifies their approach.

In my opinion the tiny amount of “waste” they uncovered is arguably not worth the damage and risk done, but that’s my opinion, not theirs.

Again: the damage and humiliation is part of their agenda. They feel that departments are “disloyal” to the King… err… President and hence ill treatment is not only justified but warranted.

To what extent has those findings been verified? I know the was a lot of noise about things that turned out to be mostly imaginary.

> Speaking of finding things under the mattress, they did find corruption and waste, which they feel justifies their approach.

As far as I know, they did not found much. Every time their claims were checked, it was hot air. We do not have to lie on their behalf to appear reasonable.

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