Post Aqp0t2feUAzXwUBAS8 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
(DIR) More posts by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
(DIR) Post #Aqp0sw7Oqc1ncW6jEO by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:20:34Z
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1/ Here's my take on what's happening with DOGE. I've got fed experience through contracting with Health & Human Safety, Head Start, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and DOD. I get brought in when people need to get shit done. Other people here have way more experience than me.https://dan.mastohon.com/@danhon/113953007466779969
(DIR) Post #Aqp0sxWbcNmhyyuN9s by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:21:13Z
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2/ (Meanwhile, check out the reporting at https://wired.com and https://404media.co, it's good and you can tell they've got good sources.)It's really bad! Here's the thing about tech in general, and tech in gov specifically. It's always about people, not the technology.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0syihAv37glZXdo by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:23:21Z
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3/ *The most important thing* to realize here is that technology is just a tool and it's used at the direction of people to accomplish their goals. The second most important thing is that *things change when they are deemed important enough*. COVID and unemployment insurance is a good example.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0szhfWDp2js6EgC by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:23:32Z
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4/ When COVID hit, a whole bunch of government technology became critical and politically sensitive. Just the same way the launch of the Affordable Care Act website was botched. In both cases, "we" *knew* what to do, how to figure it out, and and how to do it.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t0ROmCOz1hUkxU by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:25:24Z
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5/ Unemployment Insurance (UI) systems needed to be modernized for lots of reasons before COVID hit. But the lesson of COVID-19 is that modernizing, upgrading, and making government services simpler, clearer, faster *could have happened at any time* if it was deemed important enough.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t1XSh8qWQnL732 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:27:54Z
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6/ I give you all this setup because like I said, the most important thing to realize is that the combination of Musk and the President and the administration's core have made what they want to achieve *very, very, very important*.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t2BAJWbaPvuovw by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:30:03Z
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7/ What's happening is the combination of:i) People at the highest level of leadership with clear prioritiesii) People who _don't care about the consequences_iii) A bureaucratic model of deferenceAnd I think at the lowest level, some of the actual tech.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t2feUAzXwUBAS8 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:36:55Z
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8/ In normal times, it is very very very hard to make a change to government technology. This is mainly because there are rules to stop you and people who will enforce those rules. It is much less so because of the underlying technology.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t3L7zyAW17aI6K by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:37:07Z
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9/ Some of the rules stopping you from changing government technology (from the copy on a webpage to changing how rebates are calculated) are reasonable and make sense.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t3t9xROHifVT96 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:37:22Z
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10/ But many of the rules are unreasonable. They are absolutely too conservative in favor of reducing risk. Sometimes this is described as "doing nothing is the least riskiest option"* * It's wrong, because the current position is frequently risky itself.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t4Tflgb7Xuad3g by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:37:35Z
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11/ Across government, most of the people who enforce & make these rules are unqualified and inexperienced. In a safe environment, they will admit that. Most of our knowledge has been hollowed out to the private sector. On purpose.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t5QAGDNyTJxLEG by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:43:25Z
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12/ One reason why rules make it so difficult to change government technology is because it's brittle. It *is* reliable, but until the technology is capable of rolling back a change, making changes absolutely comes with risk.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t6AbTYX4nLgQc4 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:43:36Z
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13/ Here's a reason why there are rules that make it hard to make changes to government technology:A system in California deals with submitting federal Medicaid reimbursement. When I worked with that system, it dealt with so much that if it broke for one day, *California would be insolvent*
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t6f5eCv2Jtwm8G by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:47:24Z
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14/ But the only effective, practical thing stopping changes is because there is a rule and you would get in trouble for breaking the rule. The person running DOGE and this administration don't care about getting in trouble for breaking those rules. *There is nothing to stop them*
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t7QwmHCSiKKzj6 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:47:33Z
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15/ There is a thing in federal government called an ATO, an Authority to Operate: digital.gov/resources/an...You are not supposed to, uh, operate a software system without obtaining an ATO. Normally this is really hard! (In many cases it shouldn't be)
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t80OeTYYUGvIyu by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:51:56Z
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16/ The DOGE team are absolutely behaving in a way that suggests they don't give a shit about ATOs. What's terrifying is that there is nobody stopping them. Which is why I said this comes down to *people making decisions* and *whether those people care about consequences*.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t8VEnoE61vLw3M by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:52:07Z
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17/ What's happening *is just like* a corny Bond supervillain plot. Get control of the computer and information systems and you can do *a lot*. You *can* stop payments. You *can* just turn things off. You *can* just break them, which practically can be the same as turning things off.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t9CUD0oyC3aTSq by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:55:44Z
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18/ "But Dan, what about security measures like, I don't know, some sort of 2FA or a PIV card, or multiple signoffs before deploying?"1) "You're fired unless you give me that 2FA code"2) "You're fired unless you give me your PIV"3) "You're fired unless you approve this deployment"
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t9kABnl9sVLMxM by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:56:28Z
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19/ In computer security, there's a class of problem called The Evil Housekeeper Problem*. Basically: once someone has physical access to a system, you are effectively screwed.* Used to be The Evil Maid Problem, but we're making DEI progress
(DIR) Post #Aqp0tAHUBuPlXqvytc by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:58:20Z
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20/ The Evil Housekeeper Problem is why the physical presence of DOGE is terrifying. Yes, "the cloud", but there's still on-premises technology. And it's easier to coerce people when you are standing next to them, threatening them.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0tAre1TL1LzqrFw by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T22:00:15Z
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21/ All the rules and measures I talk about above are put in place because you don't want something to break.Musk, Trump and the rest of the administration *want* to break things. Accelerationists are in the executive branch. Leadership like Secretaries and Directors *want to break things*
(DIR) Post #Aqp0tBX7XGVzQdFyu8 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T22:08:15Z
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22/ So I want you to understand how easy it is to break things or turn things off. i) government technology is brittleii) coercion is easy ("you're fired", "we will stop paying you", "we will tear up the contract")Musk *just stops paying for things he doesn't want to pay for*.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0tCLoUn43xqySv2 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T22:08:28Z
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23/ Like, "Musk doesn't pay for things" isn't up for debate. There's ample evidence. "Trump doesn't pay for things" isn't up for debate either. These are both facts. *They do whatever they want*
(DIR) Post #Aqp0tCs4YqrvZu4ECW by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T22:08:44Z
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24/ If you're, say, a major government contractor like Deloitte, or a consultancy that runs the system for tracking migrant unaccompanied minors for DHHS and the DHHS secretary or Musk says "we will not pay for this" and instructs the bureaucracy to do so, then that contractor won't get paid.
(DIR) Post #Aqp0tDLqm8gj4G00cC by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T22:09:25Z
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25/ So now you're a government contractor with a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and a whole bunch of people on staff working on it. Do you just... keep going? Knowing you won't get paid? Do you tell your staff to stop working? What if they've been told to stop already anyway?
(DIR) Post #Aqp0tESyd7z0WeLDMW by GummyNerds@noauthority.social
2025-02-05T22:11:45Z
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@danhon You go to the rope store, buy rope, then go and hang yourself. And the world is a better place.