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Comment by JCattheATM | Hacker News Reader

The DOGE team included several convicted teenage hackers, one known as 'big balls', messing around in government systems and copying data to random laptops.

Fantastic.

I'll be interested to browse this sensitive data at some point when it inevitably becomes public in the next few years as a result of this kakistocracy.

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No this is the DOGE team that was demanding that none of their access be logged while also requesting access with no limits from any device at any time.

All jokes aside I’m confused why some people are responding to valid criticisms of this team by saying that we only care because they’re young.

Because they don't have valid defenses or counter-arguments.

Not only were the kids, and they were kids, they were also convicted criminals.

I don't know anyone who has worked with young 20 somethings and thought that they should have unrestricted access to sensitive data. This is not a comment on these people specifically, it's a comment on all people of that age. I include myself in that group. Under no circumstances should I have been allowed that kind of access at 22.

Right, but that's a comment on yourself, even if you meant that for everyone else. Society absolutely trusts 20 somethings for sensitive data all the time.

Don't give me the bullshit about "this situation". Go to your nearest hospital and notices a sea of young nurses handling you and your family's medical data on a clipboard, paper, and a very poorly secured 20 year old workstation.

You are inconsistent, and you will continue to be inconsistent. In fact, your bank account info is known by the teller who has similar qualifications, your purchases and address is known by the customer service representative hired straight out of high school or in a call center in Egypt, and so much more.

This talking point is entirely a political cudgel that only makes sense to the kind of folk that do not think past their favorite politician's tweets. On that fact, wanna know who's been managing your letters/calls that you've been sending your politician? These ones know your phone number, and any modern filter will be looking for your address.

Generically, the social security tech arm probably hires 20 somethings that have a way to access that data as well.

> Go to your nearest hospital and notices a sea of young nurses handling you and your family's medical data on a clipboard, paper, and a very poorly secured 20 year old workstation.

If you ignore the core difference - scale - you won't be able to see the difference. Young nurse won't be able to leak all data on all people even if those local papers and workstation are left on the sidewalk for anyone to see

But what’s different is the lack of security review, clearance, oversight, monitoring, and review. It’s actually less about age and more about accountability and oversight of access, with transparency to all use and access to every oversight function now and in the future. The fact they’re young correlates well with poor judgement, but that’s irrelevant. Everyone can demonstrate poor judgement, or malicious action. The demand their activity be unrecorded and unreviewable creates the perception of malicious intent and the fact of their youth makes their judgement impeachable without review.

I did have it (early email system).

I abused that access, and almost got fired.

Taught me a big lesson.

Snowdon, in his biography, recalls working with other 20-somethings in his work at the NSA. They abused their access egregiously. They were looking at people’s nudes and stuff.

NSA was, and probably still is recruiting kids right out of college.

I bet you also think men in their 80s shouldn’t run the country

They certainly haven’t done a great job of it.

I had access to nuclear emergency / war operations information and systems at 16-18. But it was far from unrestricted. I was working through a school program on a hazardous release modeling software system and needed access and everything was logged and reviewed. As it should be anywhere; and all my access to sensitive data over the following 30 years also was highly surveilled and I never had a problem with it because it’s sensitive data. This protects not just everyone else but me as well - I can demonstrate what I did with it was justified. It’s not about age it’s about accountability and judgement and these guys show neither.

That sounds interesting, I can't imagine such a thing being allowed. Can you tell us more about the program and what it involved?

It was some program between the federal programs in town and the school that provided for essentially internships. After mine was over I was offered a part time job. I had to go through a security clearance but being a kid I didn’t have much history to research. It’s not like I had a top secret clearance or anything, just enough for building access and basic non-prod development.

No, the joke is your naive statement. Unless you've been under a rock the last ten or so years, you'd understand how incredibly stupid the whole DOGE debacle is.

All the collected info will soon either be used against us or sold to the highest bidder. (No, that's not paranoia, that's how the current administration acts.)

It’s all fun and games until someone misreads the tone of your post on HN :(

Poor writing skills can be improved with practice. Besides, how will you know you suck at communicating, unless somebody tells you?

Same goes for context and understanding, no? ;)

You are the one in error here. You apparently skipped over the word 'valid'.

It's even worse than that. Right after they did this, intrusion attempts were made from Russia using their new credentials.

It is public knowledge that they were compromised and... just... nobody cared?

> The DOGE team included the teenage hackers

It's amusing to me how so many people want to believe technical workers within the government are apparently all crusty, old, 50-something's instead of young "kids" in their twenties and thirties.

NSA, every branch of the military, and more are bursting at the seams with twenty-somethings that have access to some of the most sensitive information on the planet... yet nobody bats an eye.

Then we can consider the technical staff at places such as Experian, Capital One, and more... they're all fairly young too.

This has turned into quite the political narrative... "twenty-somethings have access to your data - be afraid, very afraid!"

There's a big difference in consequences. Military, copy wrong data to random laptop -> court martial.

Are you suggesting there are no consequences for government employees who willfully steal and/or leak confidential data?

The Espionage Act of 1917, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and Economic Espionage Act, among others, beg to differ.

with this administration, nobody is suggesting that at all. there is no doubt there are no consequences if you're taking orders directly from the supreme leader or his immediate staff. that's a certainty.

Wait, which administration are you talking about?

The one with a convicted criminal at the head of it who's been having a ball abusing his office because of an "immunity" that the Supreme Court invented specifically for him.

Prosecuting crimes under those acts requires an AG who's qualified and isn't kowtowing to a President more than willing to pardon traitors and a judiciary that isn't blindly following a conservative agenda.

We are fucked without even the benefit of lube.

> Are you suggesting there are no consequences for government employees who willfully steal and/or leak confidential data?

Depends on who your friends in government are.

> The Espionage Act of 1917, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and Economic Espionage Act, among others, beg to differ.

Assaulting police officers and trying to overthrow the government is also illegal. People have been convicted of it. And yet if you know the right people you won't suffer any consequences:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_Sta...

Wow, and here I thought it's because the guy calls himself "Big Balls" and has a career in .. Discord crypto scams? You know, hacker as in "criminal", just too stupid to appear on Brian Krebs.

No, it was just the age apparently.

Are you alleging the government did not conduct the normal and required background checks/investigations for security clearances in Coristine's case?

Am I talking to GPT? Is your knowledge cutoff 2 years ago? Invoke the web tool, do the research. Bizarre redirect into statute reading, tremendously boring.

I’m thinking this is just one of those that’s become emotionally invested in defending a certain group for some reason and he’s going to make an argument against anything he perceives as a slight towards them.

> one of those that’s become emotionally invested in defending a certain group for some reason

Sunk cost fallacy is a hell of a thing. It's why Q-Anon was able to grow.

The current government certainly hasn't shown much reverence for following established protocols.

I'm not sure what what op meant. At least two people there were teenage hackers, but not in a positive sense. They were part of crime organisations.

But even concentrating on the age part - people in their 20s are working NSA and others. They're extremely unlikely to have access to the most sensitive information unsupervised since they're not senior enough. And definitely don't have a Yolo level decision making responsibilities. The restrictions, reporting, clearances and rules following in some of those places are unlike anything Doge ever did.

Teenagers, as you say, are entrusted by the government with weapons that can destroy and cause untold amount of damage on personnel and property and nobody has complained about that. There even 17-year-olds with such responsibility. Also, plenty of people in their early 20s either have access to sensitive data or have access to code accessing such data.

You say entrusted like it's some great honor. Teenagers are _used_ in wars because they are easy to manipulate, indoctrinate and control.

> weapons that can destroy and cause untold amount of damage on personnel and property and nobody has complained about that.

Yeah... No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_against_the_V...

"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" was about teens being sent out as well.

> It's amusing to me how so many people want to believe technical workers within the government are apparently all crusty, old, 50-something's instead of young "kids" in their twenties and thirties.

The word I used was 'teenage'.

These NEW 20 year olds are scary!

The whole 'big balls' thing is a silly ad-hominem that weakens your argument.

I've worked with payment processing and some of the guys I saw makes 'big balls' look like an experienced and reliable custodian. Not to mention the high turnover, bargain priced overseas software outsourcing sweatshops.

I don’t know that that makes the argument for them having access to this data any better.

> The whole 'big balls' thing is a silly ad-hominem that weakens your argument.

It's not an ad-hom, it's a metric to gauge the maturity of the teenager granted such high level access and responsibility.

BB is a script kiddie. How would you know how good his DOGE performance is to make a valid comparison.

"Ad-hominem" translates as "to the person" and means an argument that attacks the person they're arguing against rather than actually addressing the topic being discussed.

Here, the topic is a person. It's not an ad-hominem to describe facts about a person when your argument is explicitly about that person.

You're claiming that it's a logical fallacy to consider the conduct of people running an organization in order to evaluate its trustworthiness. That's absurd. Next time, take context into account when copy-pasting other people's arguments.

The US IC uses convicted hackers all the time. I was shocked when I learned that certain felons can still get a TS clearance, as long as they stay clean.

Source?

Personal experience. Sorry, I cannot provide anything else. Believe me or don't believe me. I had clearances for over 40 years, now I'm retired.

This is a great way to arrest someone when you need to get rid of them. When they work for you, you turn a blind eye and let them do what they want.

When you want to get rid of them, because they for example are disloyal, you start an investigation and arrest them for corruption or treason.

Basically how Russia and China work right?

Pretty much out of the dictators handbook.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but we prove time-and-time-again that the GOP proudly elects puppets and lets them do whatever they want, and they barely care about governing, as long as they get the tax breaks in for the rich ASAP.

So do faang.

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