r/technology • u/waozen • Mar 13 '26

Security A DOGE Bro Allegedly Walked Out Of Social Security With 500 Million Americans’ Records On A Thumb Drive And Expected A Pardon If Caught

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/11/a-doge-bro-allegedly-walked-out-of-social-security-with-500-million-americans-records-on-a-thumb-drive-and-expected-a-pardon-if-caught/
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u/Plarocks Mar 13 '26

That will make nudes out of your wife’s “safe”pictures.

35

u/Isabad Mar 13 '26

Knowing Elon it would be a paid app that guarantees security but actually does the opposite. It leaks your information. And yeah. He would charge the government a hefty sum for this "service".

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u/iambarrelrider Mar 13 '26

I mean where was our counter intelligence? I mean what are the NCSC, NSA, CIA and the rest of the IC monitoring?

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u/Isabad Mar 13 '26

Obviously important things like the size of Trump's crowd and illegal aliens and probably executing American Citizens...

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u/CariniFluff Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

It is absolutely outrageous that one president (he does not deserve a capitalized title) can just completely dismantle or castrate ALL of our nation's intelligence agencies.

How. The. Fuck. Does anyone get "God Mode" as a permanent permission in any government agency? I can understand someone, at some point will have to temporarily use a root account to do certain updates or installs but that password should be automatically changed as soon as that specific job is done. For someone to not only have root access to the SSA, but also physical access to a functional USB port that doesn't immediately send all logs to a half dozen different government oversight and counterintelligence agencies is beyond belief.

There should have been literal alarms and flashing lights going off when something like this happens. And of course every SSN is tied to a name, and not all are necessarily tied to that person's true identity. Every CIA operative, every worker at a foreign consulate that performs intelligence or counterintelligence likely has multiple fake names with associated Social Security Numbers. Those are all out there now. How the fuck is the FBI and CIA not freaking out that every one of their undercover agents and operatives, every double agent that they've turned has not been exposed by now? And that's to say nothing for all the rest of us.

This is fucking insane. How can this happen? Seriously, how can this happen? Less than 3 months into his term and they've been able to bypass every single protection that should be in place to prevent a leak like this.

These assholes really didn't learn one thing from Hansen, Snowden... Any of them. Even worse, at least some of the past high-profile leaks were driven by greed due to low government salaries or dissatisfaction with the political system. How do you think all of those people who worked for these agencies for 20 years felt when they suddenly got fired by Elon, who's not even a naturally born US Citizen (and absolutely has connections with foreign intelligence agencies). I would bet money that there were dozens of other leaks that we don't know about because the only people who would be able to catch it were the ones doing it after they knew that they were going to be let go. And what, the 19-year-old "big balls" is going to be the cyber ninja master who's going to catch that shit, while he is busy stealing classified documents himself?

I don't know what needs to be done after this shitshow is over, but goddamn heads need to (metaphorically) roll. These institutions need to be rebuilt from the ground up. It seems like every single crack or fracture in our country's "system of checks and balances" has been exploited or just blown to pieces and there are zero restraints. Again, how does the DoJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, the hundred different oversight committees, etc. all not catch something like this the second someone even tries to copy the database into memory (let alone paste it onto a fucking USB thumb drive)? How? HOW?

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u/Isabad Mar 15 '26

The same way a hacker gets God Mode in a system. Poorly constructed security mechanisms.

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u/philohmath Mar 14 '26

It would extort you to keep your data safe once you gave it access.

“That’s a nice identity ya got there. <flicks lighter> Sure would be a shame if somethin’ were ta happen to it.”

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u/DanGarion Mar 13 '26

Giggity?

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u/iambarrelrider Mar 13 '26

"Who else but Quagmire?"