My deep suspicion, given some of the players involved in DOGE, is that most of this information is being exfiltrated for the purposes of training AI models. They'll likely be used for social and political manipulation of groups and possibly even individuals. There's a big market for "pre-crime" solutions which will also rely heavily on this type of data and are already being deployed by various state-level law enforcement agencies.
The coming of the "digital caste" society powered by "social credit" scores seems to be the end game. This is a battle of the rich and powerful against the average citizen and they want to reduce all of us back into fiefdom. We can no longer trust a large federal or even state government with these tools.
d--b · 1h ago
Perhaps it is time that the US stops relying on SSNs being “secret”…
XorNot · 1h ago
ED25519 keys being short and quick to generate makes this state of affairs infuriating whenever it turns up - SSNs, credit card numbers etc.
0xy · 45m ago
Copied from one secure S3 bucket to another secure S3 bucket, both inaccessible from the internet, both on SSA infrastructure.
What exactly is the problem?
afavour · 5m ago
> However, according to the complaint, the copied data had far fewer security measures in place to protect it than the SSA's standard protocols typically require.
> According to Andrea Meza, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project who represents Borges, the cloud environment appeared to be set up for DOGE-affiliated Social Security staffers, but it "lacks independent security, monitoring and oversight." She said Borges "has serious concerns about the vulnerability it causes for nearly every American's data."
Not all applications of "secure" are equal.
saagarjha · 7m ago
There are processes for copying data around. The person who works the front desk at Google doesn't have access to all of Gmail, for example.
anonymousiam · 25m ago
Wrong political party involved in doing it?
camillomiller · 1h ago
Edward "Big Balls" Coristine is a DOGE employee who now works for social security, just in case you were wondering who that might be.
How anyone thinks a 19-year old right wing scoundrel has any place in any organization is beyond any comprehension.
freen · 1h ago
In order to make a government “small enough to down in a bathtub” you need to convince the general public that it is corrupt and incompetent, which has been the GOP play all along.
If your core argument about why you should govern is that government is the problem, is it any surprise that you sabotage any attempt at good governance?
Effective government is an existential risk for the GOP.
jimkleiber · 1h ago
Hard to make a lot of money when the government provides good services for free.
freen · 1h ago
Hard to have effectively indentured servitude if there’s a social safety net.
Remember even Hayek advocated for universal, government funded healthcare! Ayn Rand was on social security!
roenxi · 30m ago
I doubt you could source a quote for the Hayek point, but more interestingly Rand's taking social security doesn't sound like any sort of contradiction with her views or an extreme anti-welfare position. Just because a policy is a terrible idea doesn't mean people shouldn't take advantage of it while it is in force.
As a hypothetical, if the government took everyone's houses away and lotteried them back out out I'd say that was a terrible policy. I'd still be happy enough to move in to somewhere if I won a house though, because although the policy is appalling I'd rather be an owner than a renter and there aren't paths to owning.
Ditto, Ayn would probably have preferred that she wasn't taxed in the first place, but if they're going to give some of the money back she'd be stupid not to take it and there is no moral problem for her while taxes >= welfare receipts.
n4r9 · 49s ago
In "The Road to Serfdom":
> There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom. .... There can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody. ... Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individual in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.
richrichardsson · 14m ago
> Rand's taking social security doesn't sound like any sort of contradiction with her views or an extreme anti-welfare position. Just because a policy is a terrible idea doesn't mean people shouldn't take advantage of it while it is in force.
Assuming that integrity and hypocrisy don't play any part in judging a person.
roenxi · 8m ago
I don't recall the details of Ayn's moral arguments because they aren't of great interest to me, but there just isn't a fundamental inconsistency between campaigning against welfare and accepting welfare. There isn't any hypocrisy in pointing out that something creates horrible incentives, then doing what the incentives suggest. If anything it is a great show of consistency in belief.
The alternative position would be kinda crazy. It'd be pretty close to "The government has injured me and therefore I will make myself even worse off for no reason or gain to anyone!"
The coming of the "digital caste" society powered by "social credit" scores seems to be the end game. This is a battle of the rich and powerful against the average citizen and they want to reduce all of us back into fiefdom. We can no longer trust a large federal or even state government with these tools.
What exactly is the problem?
> According to Andrea Meza, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project who represents Borges, the cloud environment appeared to be set up for DOGE-affiliated Social Security staffers, but it "lacks independent security, monitoring and oversight." She said Borges "has serious concerns about the vulnerability it causes for nearly every American's data."
Not all applications of "secure" are equal.
If your core argument about why you should govern is that government is the problem, is it any surprise that you sabotage any attempt at good governance?
Effective government is an existential risk for the GOP.
Remember even Hayek advocated for universal, government funded healthcare! Ayn Rand was on social security!
As a hypothetical, if the government took everyone's houses away and lotteried them back out out I'd say that was a terrible policy. I'd still be happy enough to move in to somewhere if I won a house though, because although the policy is appalling I'd rather be an owner than a renter and there aren't paths to owning.
Ditto, Ayn would probably have preferred that she wasn't taxed in the first place, but if they're going to give some of the money back she'd be stupid not to take it and there is no moral problem for her while taxes >= welfare receipts.
> There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom. .... There can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody. ... Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individual in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.
Assuming that integrity and hypocrisy don't play any part in judging a person.
The alternative position would be kinda crazy. It'd be pretty close to "The government has injured me and therefore I will make myself even worse off for no reason or gain to anyone!"