Posts by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
(DIR) Post #Aqp0t2feUAzXwUBAS8 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-05T21:36:55Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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
0 likes, 0 repeats
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 #Ar3pkyIQRcljhPjwVE by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-12T17:10:16Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
wait so is hacking the planet good or bad now
(DIR) Post #Ar3pl5nsX55UyzVf04 by danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2025-02-12T21:23:39Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
ftr puppygirl hacker polycule hacking the planet is good