[HN Gopher] Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensit...
___________________________________________________________________
Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensitive NLRB data
Author : rbanffy
Score : 645 points
Date : 2025-04-15 10:55 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| soco wrote:
| I'm not american so can somebody please explain me, how is
| deleting logs and every trace of your actions helping with
| government efficiency?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| To more efficiently rout trouble-makers and unions.
| croes wrote:
| How is firing people helping government efficiency?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Yes, how?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Well you have to put context around _what_ is being made more
| efficient.
|
| Reducing headcount reduces labor costs and can be a form of
| financial efficiency. Reducing headcount also usually reduces
| the sheer number of people involved in any project, much like
| a small startup can move drastically quicker than a large,
| established org.
|
| That said, there goal here doesn't seem to be clear as to
| what is being made efficient and they definitely aren't
| reducing the budget or size of government (outside of literal
| headcount, most people complain instead of red tape and
| regulations).
| lesuorac wrote:
| Log storage is expensive.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| It's not the storage, but processing with NR and DataDog is
| what's expensive. That's why the efficiency team asked to not
| have their actions logged in the first place.
| phanimahesh wrote:
| I can honestly not tell if this comment was intended to be
| taken seriously, or if it was tongue in cheek.
| const_cast wrote:
| I really want to believe it's tongue in cheek because the
| thought of asking not to be audited in order to save some
| compute on Splunk queries or whatever is very funny to
| me.
| int_19h wrote:
| When in doubt, check the comment history.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Nothing they are doing is related to government efficiency. You
| can't really put too much faith in names.
| XorNot wrote:
| The basic rule of government naming: the more of GOOD THING
| in the name, the less of that it will be.
| viraptor wrote:
| That generalises to a lot of naming. Papers like Fakt or
| Pravda, country DPKR, political parties that mention law,
| justice and order, etc.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I always particularly liked the Committee of Public
| Safety, for this (they're the ones who did the Reign of
| Terror, which doesn't seem _particularly_ public-safety-
| oriented.)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| V << Pravde >> net izvestii, a v << Izvestiiakh >> net
| pravdy
| pchristensen wrote:
| Don't forget Truth Social
| FireBeyond wrote:
| This quote (from Lord of War) really encapsulates a lot of
| what you say:
|
| > Yuri Orlov: [Narrating] Every faction in Africa calls
| themselves by these noble names - Liberation this,
| Patriotic that, the Democratic Republic of something-or-
| other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually
| are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch
| of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur
| when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters.
| delusional wrote:
| That way they can save some money litigating Elon and his
| goons. It's not like that litigation would get anywhere anyway,
| so better to save the public the waste /s
| alistairSH wrote:
| Nothing about DOGE or the Trump administration is about
| efficiency. It's just a label they use to con gullible voters.
|
| Their real goal is more likely a combination of grift and
| settling grudges.
|
| Edit - typos
| dandanua wrote:
| The next administration won't be able to spend time and money
| investigating crimes of the current one /s
| _heimdall wrote:
| In the same way that finding waste while increasing the federal
| budget isn't efficiency.
|
| Technically, maybe you can squint and find small pieces that
| are more efficient but in the grand scheme of things they goal
| doesn't seem to be a smaller government.
| AIPedant wrote:
| Even by the standards of this administration...... yikes:
| Meanwhile, his attempts to raise concerns internally within the
| NLRB preceded someone "physically taping a threatening note" to
| his door that included sensitive personal information and
| overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken
| with a drone, according to a cover letter attached to his
| disclosure filed by his attorney, Andrew Bakaj of the nonprofit
| Whistleblower Aid.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| This is exactly what I expect from this administration. Mob
| tactics. Take the silver or get the lead.
| 404mm wrote:
| I'd not want to be a whistleblower during this presidency.
| Whistleblowers tend to have really bad luck crossing the
| street on a good day.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| That's what they want. Now is when we need whistleblowers
| the most so they want to put the fear into them.
| the_doctah wrote:
| Any Proof? Or is this more "the truth is inconvenient" NPR
| bullshit?
| acdha wrote:
| This part is really damning: a real efficiency audit might need a
| lot of access to look for signs of hidden activity, but they'd
| never need to hide traces of what they did:
|
| > Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal
| communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their
| activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try
| to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools
| and manually deleting records of their access -- evasive behavior
| that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to
| what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
|
| The subsequent message about Russian activity could be a
| coincidence-Internet background noise-but given how these are not
| very technically skilled and are moving very fast in systems they
| don't understand, I'd be completely unsurprised to learn that
| they unintentionally left something exposed or that one of them
| has been compromised.
| avs733 wrote:
| >A real efficiency audit might need a lot of access to look for
| signs of hidden activity, but they'd never need to hide traces
| of what they did
|
| In fact I would imagine they would do _exactly the opposite_
| because they would look at the mere ability to hide what they
| did as an audit finding.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| > criminal or state-sponsored hackers
|
| It looks to be both
| tjpnz wrote:
| Everything's going to have to be replaced and it's going to be
| hugely expensive. But that's not going to happen until at least
| 2029 - plenty of time for bad actors to get settled in and
| cause real damage.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _This part is really damning: a real efficiency audit_
|
| There were already people auditing departments, but they got
| fired early on:
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_general#United_State...
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_dismissals_of_inspectors_...
|
| There's even an entire agency devoted to auditing:
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Offi...
|
| Trying to find efficiency by bringing in the private sector is
| not a new thing:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Commission
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownlow_Committee
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Commission
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinv...
| actionfromafar wrote:
| But bringing in the _mob_ sector? Is that new?
| asciii wrote:
| We let the word PayPal Mafia get to their head
| rsynnott wrote:
| Not entirely, though under rather different circumstances:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Underworld
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _But bringing in the_ mob _sector? Is that new?_
|
| No. But getting rid of cronyism/nepotism did happen at one
| point:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_service_reform_in_the
| _Un...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system
| Applejinx wrote:
| Compromised implies they're not the Russian team to start with.
| I'd be looking for one of them to lose nerve and betray that
| ALL of them are the Russian team.
| z3c0 wrote:
| The use of DNS tunneling and skirting logs makes my head spin.
| Even if justification of exfiltrating 10GB of sensitive data
| could be made, there's widely available means of doing so that
| aren't the methods of state-sponsored hackers and the like.
| freejazz wrote:
| It also contradicts the idea that they are acting
| transparently.
| pnutjam wrote:
| This checks out because all those DOGE hires appear to be
| hackers, and they are now state sponsored. Most of them could
| never pass a basic background check, much less a TS or even
| public trust from one of the more invasive Federal agencies.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| cite?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/doge-staffer-big-balls-
| prov...
|
| > The best-known member of Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service team
| of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang
| that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and
| cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records
| reviewed by Reuters.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Some context as I understand it is DOGE employees are all
| temporary gov't employees whose employment expires (in June?).
| Assuming they follow the law there (big If), then they scramble
| around these agencies with tremendous urgency trying to please
| Elon (or the powers that be?).
|
| And they absolutely should be resisted with this deadline in
| mind...
| tootie wrote:
| They are using heavy-handed tactics. Per this article, the
| whistleblower was threatened. At the SSA, a 26-year veteran was
| dragged out of the building. Similar story at the IRS. DOGE has
| the backing of US Marshalls and the president. They can resist,
| but they'll just end up locked out.
| ck2 wrote:
| That backdoor code is going to lurk for decades.
|
| Not only will Musk be able to tap into it for years but foreign
| governments.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| This is the real problem, and the reason we never should have
| allowed access to sensitive government and societal data in
| this fashion.
| the_doctah wrote:
| Pure ridiculous conjecture.
| grandempire wrote:
| > particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data
| leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included
| sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and
| corporate secrets
|
| This entire article appears to be speculation about data they MAY
| have taken with no evidence besides large file size that they are
| misusing something.
|
| The discussion with the "whistle blower" and other experts is
| only about how serious it would be IF they misused it.
|
| Am I reading it wrong?
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Someone exfiltrated sensitive data. That isn't in question. The
| only question is who did it and why. As far as DOGE's
| involvement, there is no proof but there is plenty of evidence.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| There is evidence DOGE went out of its way to illegally conceal
| what it was doing. That, alone, is enough to put these kids in
| jail one day.
| intermerda wrote:
| > Am I reading it wrong?
|
| Based on your comments, you're not reading the article at all.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Yes. You claim:
|
| "This entire article appears to be speculation about data they
| MAY have taken with no evidence besides large file size that
| they are misusing something ...[and] is only about how serious
| it would be IF they misused it."
|
| This paragraph makes it clear it's not just about misusing data
| and large file sizes.
|
| > Those forensic digital records are important for record-
| keeping requirements and they allow for troubleshooting, but
| they also allow experts to investigate potential breaches,
| sometimes even tracing the attacker's path back to the
| vulnerability that let them inside a network.
|
| Let's be clear:
|
| > Those engineers were also concerned by DOGE staffers'
| insistence that their activities not be logged, allowing them
| to probe the NLRB's systems and discover information about
| potential security flaws or vulnerabilities without being
| detected.
|
| Neither of these have to do with "large file size" or misusing
| data.
|
| "Am I reading it wrong?"
|
| Yes. Now, before you go moving goal posts, you made claims, and
| I've debunked those claims with quotes you said you needed.
| Because clearly the article is ALSO talking about these other
| things as problematic as well, so it's not "the entire
| article". (Also, the "entire article appears"? Appears? Just
| read it, it talks about numerous things, and is very clear on
| the different elements it's talking about.)
|
| This isn't the only stuff mentioned, so be careful about
| claiming "oh, I just missed that" or some such because there
| are other things that can be referenced, such as the massive
| amount of text spent on the whistleblower issues and the
| threats made to them.
|
| And before you talk about this just being "speculation," that's
| why we have the process we have, so people can make claims that
| can then be investigated. And that's what's being stopped.
|
| Finally, "no evidence besides large file size" is also not
| true.
|
| "Am I reading it wrong?"
|
| As someone said, it's more likely you didn't even read it.
| arunabha wrote:
| I am genuinely curious as to what your point is. Not saying
| it's wrong, but a succinct summary might be useful.
| Sonnigeszeug wrote:
| There were already news from weeks ago how they started to put
| servers on the internet with access to systems, which should
| not have access to/from the internet for security reasons.
|
| This is just on top of all the other things. happened.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Am I reading it wrong?
|
| Yes
| grandempire wrote:
| > The small, independent federal agency
|
| I still don't think this notion holds up. Which branch are they
| under, who do they report to?
|
| > after they started detecting suspicious log-in attempts from an
| IP address in Russia
|
| Why would real Russian hackers not do anything to obscure their
| ip? Also if you have ever run a public server you have gotten
| such requests from Russia.
|
| This appears to be in the article to mislead technical readers
| and prey on russia anxiety.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > > _The small, independent federal agency_
|
| > _I still don't think this notion holds up._
|
| What notion doesn't hold up? That a federal agency can be small
| & independent?
|
| > _Which branch are they under, who do they report to?_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board
|
| > The NLRB is governed by a five-person board and a general
| counsel, all of whom are appointed by the president with the
| consent of the Senate. Board members are appointed for five-
| year terms and the general counsel is appointed for a four-year
| term. The general counsel acts as a prosecutor and the board
| acts as an appellate quasi-judicial body from decisions of 36
| administrative law judges, as of November 2023.[4] The NLRB is
| headquartered at 1015 Half St. SE, Washington, D.C., and it has
| over 30 regional, sub-regional, and residential offices
| throughout the United States.
|
| > _Why would real Russian hackers not do anything to obscure
| their ip?_
|
| Why would the fox bother hiding the hole someone dug for it
| under the henhouse?
| grandempire wrote:
| > That a federal agency can be small & independent?
|
| Yes. They are either in the legislative, executive, or
| judicial branch.
|
| And before you send more Wikipedia links, be aware there is a
| long history and chain of Supreme Court cases about this
| question.
|
| > Why would the fox bother hiding the hole someone dug for it
| under the henhouse?
|
| Still spreading the Russian asset conspiracy theory? Why
| wouldn't they want to hide their crimes from future enemies?
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Yes. And the current precedent is very clear that these
| independent agencies are constitutional.
|
| The current court has not, yet, overturned that precedent.
| There is lots of reason to believe they will, in an
| extremely contentious ruling. But for now they haven't.
|
| We are going to find out one way or another though because
| this admin is pushing hard up against the question.
|
| Of course it's also pushing hard up on the question of if
| the courts can constrain it at all so the grade school
| understanding of separation of powers is real.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| > Yes. They are either in the legislative, executive, or
| judicial branch.
|
| That's not what independent means here.
|
| Most independent agencies are part of the executive branch
| (some are part of the legislative and judiciary but they
| are the exception).
|
| They are independent because congress gave the president
| limited power in their ability to dismiss the agency head
| and its members. These agencies have some regulatory
| authority which Congress has vested them on purpose.
|
| You might argue under the unitary executive theory of law
| that these agencies are actually under the control of the
| president and the current Supreme Court (for what it's
| worth) might even agree with you.
|
| I might argue that it's a complete travestissement of the
| constitution spirit and intent pushed forward by people who
| wish to dismantle the American republic and replace it by
| an authoritarian regime. But that's on me.
| grandempire wrote:
| Indeed the meaning of independent is more limited. But
| what wants to be implied by the media and posters here -
| the reason why the article leads with this, is to suggest
| these are groups that cannot be commanded by the
| president and his staff.
|
| My only claim is that is false and misleading.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _Still spreading the Russian asset conspiracy theory?_
|
| If something smells like shit everywhere you go, it's not a
| conspiracy to suggest checking the bottom of your shoe.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Its also worth noting that the NLRB has a proposed budget of
| $320M for the the 2025 fiscal year and a total of around
| 1,300 employees [1].
|
| I'm a strong proponent of small government and don't know
| enough about the NLRB to say if I would find them useful, but
| that is well within the range of a small federal department
| today.
|
| [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/page
| s/n...
| const_cast wrote:
| NLRB is a very important agency that I have known others to
| personally utilize because abuses of labor laws in the
| private sector, particularly poorly paid labor, is fairly
| common. These workers may face unfair treatment or wage
| theft, and the reason companies do it is because workers
| have very few genuine avenues of recourse. The NLRB is one
| of those few avenues of recourse.
| AIPedant wrote:
| The NLRB is one of many independent agencies of the executive
| branch created by Congrees, and they don't report to anyone
| except for their own boards. The president and Congress have
| influence over the boards but no direct control over the
| agency. The idea that the president can just ignore these laws
| because of a "unitary executive" theory is authoritarian
| bullshit.
|
| And the concern probably isn't Russian hackers, it's American
| hackers spoofing their IP address. Also you are ignoring that
| DOGE made the server public when it wasn't supposed to be.
| grandempire wrote:
| > The idea that the president can just ignore these laws
| because of a "unitary executive" theory is authoritarian
| bullshit.
|
| The question of whether the president is violating congresses
| power by downsizing or neutering an agency they have created
| is something democrats should pursue.
|
| But no - there are no people outside the org chart. That's
| just dysfunctional, no man can serve two masters, etc.
|
| If it were true than congress can create agencies for
| themselves with more power than is granted them in the
| constitution.
| AIPedant wrote:
| This is still authoritarian bullshit. Your argument is that
| you think independent agencies are a bad idea, and
| therefore it's a-okay for Trump to simply ignore 80 years
| of law and Supreme Court rulings.
|
| More generally, nobody in the executive branch serves any
| master. They serve the law and are legally obligated to
| refuse and report illegal orders. The idea that they serve
| Master Donald Trump (or Vizier Elon Musk), and that illegal
| orders must be enforced because it is Trump's will, is
| precisely why Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegally deported
| and why Trump is musing about doing the same thing to US
| citizens.
| grandempire wrote:
| I think a lot of Supreme Court cases will come out of
| this administration, I just don't think the sovereignty
| of independent federal agencies is going to be one of
| them.
|
| I guess we will wait and see.
| etchalon wrote:
| The Congress can make laws. That's like ... their whole
| thing.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| "Whistleblower details how executive branch looked at executive
| branch's data."
| Sonnigeszeug wrote:
| I fixed it for you: "Whistleblower details how a temporary
| group of very young people, who would never get access to
| sensitive data, are disabling/hiding what they are doing with
| highliy sensitive data of an executive, potentially
| circumventing safety mechanism in place to protect the data of
| all americans".
|
| Btw. there is NO reason why they couldn't do all of that in a
| sincere way. Trump was voted in for 4 years.
| janice1999 wrote:
| ... very young people, of which at least one is affiliated
| with cyber criminals (and also happens to be the grandson of
| a KGB spy).
|
| https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-
| team-...
| outer_web wrote:
| The "looking at" process is still subject to federal law.
| ajross wrote:
| I've said this repeatedly, but write this down: before this
| administration is out we are going to have a major (probably
| multiple) scandal where DOGE staffers get caught with some kind
| of horrifying self-enrichment scam based on the data they're
| hoovering. It could be simple insider trading, it could be
| selling the data to a FBI sting, it might take lots of forms. But
| it's going to happen.
|
| These are a bunch of 20-something tech bro ego cases convinced of
| their crusade to remake government along libertarian axes they
| learned from Reddit/4chan/HN. These are simply not people
| motivated out of a genuine desire to improve the public good. And
| they've been given essentially unsupervised access to some
| outrageously tempting levers.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Doesn't matter if they're good people or not "given essentially
| unsupervised access to some outrageously tempting levers" that
| scandal WILL happen eventually.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I think it's worse than that as the DOGE staffers are
| presumably picked according to Musk's preferences and he's not
| going to be looking for generous, well adjusted do-gooders, but
| selfish, arrogant, greedy racists. Presumably, they're also
| going to be targetted by other countries intelligence services
| with a mind to getting hold of the same data.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| Personal enrichment? There's already an enormous amount of
| evidence here to indicate that DOGE is working on behalf of a
| foreign nation state. It is seeming more and more likely that
| members of the DOGE team are simply secret agents for a foreign
| military.
|
| > Within minutes after DOGE accessed the NLRB's systems,
| someone with an IP address in Russia started trying to log in,
| according to Berulis' disclosure. The attempts were "near real-
| time," according to the disclosure. Those attempts were
| blocked, but they were especially alarming. Whoever was
| attempting to log in was using one of the newly created DOGE
| accounts -- and the person had the correct username and
| password, according to Berulis.
| tlogan wrote:
| The unfortunate reality is that a half of the US population sees
| the NLRB as a burden on small businesses--primarily because its
| policies shift frequently, making compliance costly and complex
| for those without deep legal resources. [1]
|
| And the same half of the population do not trust anything what
| npr.org says.
|
| Understanding the above dynamic is key to grasping the current
| state of discourse in the U.S.
|
| [1]
| https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Docum...
| axus wrote:
| Some may claim that NPR is retaliating for getting defunded for
| the next 2 years.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| An odd claim, since NPR getting defunded is itself a
| retaliation from the current administration for not reporting
| positively enough about Trump.
| axus wrote:
| Oh yeah I'm predicting a claim will be made I disagree
| with. But I can imagine the mental gymnastics, post a
| prediction and watch for the outcome.
|
| Usually there's a shakedown, did Trump ever make NPR an
| offer they "couldn't" refuse?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Similar to the one he made to Harvard? Do they even have
| to make such a thing explicitly these days? I would just
| assume they won't fund anything that's critical to the
| current government.
| tyrrvk wrote:
| This coupled with the hot mike incident yesterday where Trump was
| saying how El Salvador needed to build more mega prisons for the
| "home grown..terrorists" is beyond concerning. Sure sounds like
| DOGE is compiling lists of 'less desirable s' that will soon be
| swept off the streets in unmarked vans. America has turned fully
| fascist.
| arunabha wrote:
| I am not sure how it's possible to defend the kind of stuff DOGE
| is doing anymore. Even the veneer of looking for efficiency is
| gone. There have only been claims of 'fraud' with no real
| evidence backing up the claimed scale of fraud.
|
| At this point it simply looks like DOGE is yet another attempt to
| use a popular trope (Govt fraud and waste) to push through
| changes specifically designed to give unchecked power to one
| individual.
|
| This much concentrated, unchecked power opens up vast
| opportunities for fraud and corruption and there are pretty much
| no instances in history where it turned out be to a good thing in
| retrospect.
|
| Also, very surprised this story made it to the front page.
| Typically, stuff like this gets flagged off the front page within
| minutes.
| GolDDranks wrote:
| > Typically, stuff like this gets flagged off the front page
| within minutes.
|
| Why would that be, because it's too "political" for tech news?
| Or are there actual DOGE sympathies within the HN population?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _Or are there actual DOGE sympathies within the HN
| population?_
|
| I wouldn't mind that so much, except they're minimally-active
| in the comment section and instead use flagging. At least
| defend your beliefs.
|
| Switching to https://news.ycombinator.com/active (/active)
| with showdead is a better HN experience, nowadays.
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| > I wouldn't mind that so much, except they're minimally-
| active in the comment section and instead use flagging. At
| least defend your beliefs.
|
| From what I see, even good comments with facts and sources
| that go against the prevalent narrative are either
| downvoted or flagged a good chunk of the time, which
| discourages people from commenting(as it's meant to be)
| because of lack of visibility. It can also make the
| commenters unable to post comments for hours because HN's
| rate limiter kicks in, so they are effectively silenced.
|
| Also, many times they're attacked personally and _those_
| comments violating HN 's etiquette are not downvoted or
| flagged. Not to mention very low quality Redditesque are
| also not downvoted or flagged, but are upvoted, which
| lowers the quality of HN as a whole.
| outer_web wrote:
| "People don't like my opinions therefore I am going to
| sabotage the discussion from obscurity."
| kayge wrote:
| The /active page is helpful, thanks! I also just recently
| realized that the 'hckr news'[0] interface doesn't hide or
| remove flagged stories if you're using the Top 10/20/50
| view options, so if something is getting discussed/upvoted
| it will be there.
|
| [0]https://hckrnews.com/
| hintymad wrote:
| I used to discuss my different views and presented data or
| facts that I gathered The facts, of course, could be wrong,
| as I have limited faulty to verify everything. Yet, instead
| of pointing out what I said was wrong, I got angry posts
| attacking my motives and my posts were flagged. So, now I
| know the game, and for such politically charged posts, I
| know what I can do easily: flag it away.
| outer_web wrote:
| You flag posts with politics because you don't like
| having been flagged?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| 110%, people can be braindead assholes in their replies,
| and fail to substantially engage with comments.
|
| Or just drive-by up/down according to if they agree with
| you or not.
|
| Sorry that was your experience, and hopefully we can all
| be less... that... together.
| throwworhtthrow wrote:
| It's true that HN has shown itself _mostly_ incapable of
| having a useful discussion on topics that involve the
| current US president. (But sometimes a useful thread of
| conversation emerges!) Users that are frustrated by a
| flagged topic will retaliate by flagging comments they
| disagree with. And vice versa.
|
| I think retaliating like this just makes HN worse. If you
| stop flagging perfectly good stories, HN will be a
| marginally nicer place for discussion. I'll say the same
| to anyone here who admits to blanket flagging of
| comments.
|
| Please keep trying to discuss your views. Sometimes
| they'll get smacked down unfairly, but other times
| they'll stick around. The more you try, the more they'll
| stick, and hopefully it can shift the tone of discussion
| here.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I don't need to defend it. I flag this stuff because I
| don't care. I'm not American and I'm tired of seeing
| American politics on this site. It's not what I come here
| for.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Sahil Lavingia founder of Gumroad is DOGE. Joe Gebbia co-
| founder of Airbnb is DOGE. Not sympathetic to, they are DOGE.
| Those are just the ones I know off the top of my head from
| listening to basic reporting. The All In podcast is super
| pro-Trump/DOGE, with Sacks being the Trump regime's crypto
| czar (bringing that cohort on board). Peter Thiel. Musk.
| That's a lot of pro-DOGE headspace in HN related circles. A
| lot of people that HN related circles look up to and aspire
| to emulate. A lot of people that HN circles network with/have
| perverse incentives to support.
|
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when
| his salary depends on his not understanding it."
| GolDDranks wrote:
| That's chilling. I always thought HN as a kinda level-
| headed corner of the internet.
| rozap wrote:
| Easy to think that until you start viewing /active and
| see all the stuff that's flagged and doesn't appear on
| the front page. Any article, even those explicitly about
| tech, science and academia are flagged if they have even
| the gentlest suggestion that this administration is
| flawed.
| deckard1 wrote:
| It pretends to be. But in reality it's always been a VC
| honey pot.
|
| I've stopped commenting here. I've made it a personal
| rule to only speak out against this tyranny and never
| talk about tech fluff, which is 100% of the front page of
| HN. I don't give two solid fucks about SQLite when the US
| government is throwing people in death camps in El
| Salvador.
|
| This site is straight tech bro fascism. People are
| finally realizing that Elon isn't the guy his PR team
| created. He's not Tony Stark.
| archagon wrote:
| I wish there was a similarly active community for hackers
| in the traditional sense.
| archagon wrote:
| The name is ironic given that the site was founded by a
| venture capitalist.
|
| Founders are (generally) not hackers and not your
| friends. They are money men and will always follow the
| money.
| i80and wrote:
| Been here since '09.
|
| There are worse places on the internet, but HN's role
| first and foremost is to serve as advertising and a job
| board for YC. There's a structural bent away from
| anything that might be seen as harmful to that core
| purpose.
|
| It's unfortunate.
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's always been a right wing / libertarian contingent
| here. These days I recognize most of the top 20 or so
| usual suspects. Says nothing about how many flags
| happening though.
| int_19h wrote:
| I don't think it's that simple. If you look at the
| comments here, and in general on political stories, it's
| the comments defending DOGE and Trump that tend to be
| downvoted.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| i would love for this to be true but it's hosted by a
| venture capital firm. hard to ignore possible conflicts
| of interest since tech/VC culture is so intertwined with
| american rightwing politics.
| malachismith wrote:
| I haven't commented here in years.
|
| I watched the steady decline as the bros slowly took
| over. I tried commenting, only to be flagged and
| downvoted. I tried sharing articles, only to have them
| flagged. Starting with Gamergate, and then accelerating
| with Musk's purchase of Twitter, and metastasizing into
| its current form when leaders in the community
| (Andreesen, Thiel, Sacks, Rabois, Calcanis, Horowitz,
| Palihapitiya, Maguire, Zuckerberg, Altman, etc) decided
| that fascism was worth protecting their crypto deals. And
| it's time to accept that this is the reality of Hacker
| News today (and it's time to forget what it once was).
|
| This is quite literally one of the most significant
| cybersecurity fails of all time.
|
| And yet, right now, it's not on the Hacker News home
| page. But an article about how many supernova explode per
| year is. An article about how to "win an argument" with a
| toddler or similar set-in-stone-thinker is. The number
| one submission is about a "back-of-a-napkin"
| probabalistic calculator.
|
| So let's just say it like it is...
|
| If you're going to be forgiving, you can say that Hacker
| News is consistently gamed by the bros who have taken
| over the tech industry. If you're in a less forgiving
| mood, you can say that Hacker News is the Politburo for
| the bros of the Venture community.
|
| "Oh... it's hard with an algorithm!!!" Total BS. Hacker
| News is making a choice. Hacker News made a choice a long
| time ago. Hacker News continues to make the same choice.
|
| For what it's worth, I also made a choice and walked away
| from this place. You all can do the same.
| leotravis10 wrote:
| It's censorship plain and simple.
|
| And the admins/mods are still refusing to admit it.
| zzleeper wrote:
| You really don't need many users to flag a post. Get five
| users constantly flagging anything that makes Trump look
| bad (and a complicit mod that doesn't undo this) and that's
| all you need.
| pjc50 wrote:
| _sigh_ it 's just how any site with algorithmic ranking
| works: some things are going to get down voted. Politics is
| one of them, for a bunch of reasons articulated in this
| thread. Complaining about censorship is not going to make
| any difference.
|
| Things have stabilized on roughly one thread on the evils
| of Republicans per day. Unfortunately they're managing a
| lot more evil per day than that.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| It's flagged now - pretty embarrassing for a site called
| "hacker" news
| leotravis10 wrote:
| Yep, it's blatant censorship and the admins/mods are still
| refusing to admit it.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I don't know if there's anything to admit from their public
| stance on this kind of stuff, and I'm certainly not wanting
| this account to receive retaliation for whatever I post
| regarding this - they've mentioned that they do get swarms
| of downvoting groups on particular topics and have taken
| steps to un-flag things that fall victim to it. I'm not
| sure what that mechanism is, or if they've seen it, or
| maybe it's auto-flagging off certain keywords - giving
| massive benefit of the doubt as possible. Regardless though
| I've seen this trend on similar news, I think a lot of my
| favorites contain flagged submissions that are highly
| relevant for a site like this.
|
| Particularly the argument "these types of posts don't
| warrant good discussion and turn into flame wars" or
| generate too many comments per up-votes, a signal for bad
| thread quality - this has really none of that. If this
| remains flagged after a time it is a statement.
|
| If this story is true, this is potentially the biggest
| breach of all time. It's tremendously relevant and that's
| why I'm annoyed.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| seems like it was unflagged. This story is horrifying,
| thank you.
| buttercraft wrote:
| Who, exactly, is being censored?
| bilekas wrote:
| This isn't really a shock to me, but what's more frustrating I
| guess is that absolutely nothing will come of this. I have zero
| confidence any of this will even be cleaned up, just the same
| ranting about "fake news".
|
| Really feels like the fox is already in the coop.
| campuscodi wrote:
| DOGE staff are just behaving like a foreign cyber-espionage group
| at this point
| consumer451 wrote:
| It is hilarious what does, and does not, get flagged on this
| website in 2025.
|
| The other day on /active, there was a story about a French
| politician being banned from running for office, due to being
| convicted of outright fraud for the second time. Absolutely
| nothing to do with technology or business, nothing to do with the
| USA. Pure politics in a foreign country. _Not flagged._
|
| There was a story directly below which involved the USA,
| technology and business, but had an uncomfortable narrative for
| some users. _Flagged._
|
| As someone who still likes this site a lot, this just makes me
| laugh at this point. I don't know how else to react.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| Because, naturally, people on here want to harm you. We can't
| say it out loud, but that's where the U.S. climate is right
| now. HN is not immune from it, and is likely more susceptible
| to it given the demographic. They flag to keep people from
| saying it.
| leotravis10 wrote:
| Indeed, I'm sure there's a LOT of people, especially in the
| HN space are pro-fascist.
| belter wrote:
| "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are
| compatible." - Peter Thiel
|
| "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it."
| - Elon Musk
|
| "Our present society has been subjected to a mass
| demoralization campaign for six decades - against
| technology and against life - under varying names like
| "existential risk", "sustainability", "ESG", "Sustainable
| Development Goals", "social responsibility", "stakeholder
| capitalism", "Precautionary Principle", "trust and safety",
| "tech ethics", "risk management", "de-growth", "the limits
| of growth"." - Marc Andreessen
|
| "Democracy is to power as a lottery is to money. It is a
| social mechanism that allows a large number of hominids to
| feel as if their individual views affect the world, even
| when the chance of such an effect is negligible."
| - Curtis Yarvin
| consumer451 wrote:
| Follow-up: I should add that in 2025, deleting stories with a
| tinge of US politics is highly detrimental to the HN user
| base's understanding of what is happening in the business
| _world._
|
| Case in-point: a US-based family member employed at a FAANG
| just told me that his Canadian coworkers now reset their phones
| prior to entering the USA, then restore from backup. This is
| somewhat similar to what happens when they go to China.
|
| This is terrible for business. This kind of information should
| not be ignored.
| Alupis wrote:
| That's been the advice for _any_ border crossing, regardless
| of country, since laptops and smart phones were invented.
|
| > This is terrible for business. This kind of information
| should not be ignored.
|
| What shouldn't be ignored? Some small subset of foreign
| workers decided to take security seriously?
| consumer451 wrote:
| > What shouldn't be ignored? Some small subset of foreign
| workers decided to take security seriously?
|
| That FAANG employed Canadians are suddenly taking these
| precautions when entering the USA, as standard practice,
| when coming to a meeting. Nobody can gaslight me into
| believing that this is a not a new thing.
| Alupis wrote:
| I still don't understand your point.
|
| Some people, who happen to be employed at a FAANG corp,
| have recently decided to protect their smart device
| during a border crossing, and this is cause for alarm?
|
| What exactly is on their smart device they are afraid CBP
| might be interested in? Why did they not protect their
| device before? Why now? Are there occurrences of FAANG
| employees having their devices taken during border
| crossings? For what purpose?
|
| Unless you have something definitive, this sounds like
| some alarmist individuals deciding to take their own
| personal security to the level that was already
| recommended of them.
| consumer451 wrote:
| The trust signals being sent out by the USA are currently
| making everyone outside the USA "alarmist."
|
| As an example, as a European, price a round trip ticket
| from Prague to Seattle, for around 2 weeks from now. The
| price is currently <60% of normal. It's ~$420.
|
| These are the facts on the ground.
| Alupis wrote:
| What does a ticket price have to do with wiping your
| phone at a border?
|
| I did some fact checking on your ticket prices - you are
| quoting ultra-budget carriers that are normally in that
| price range. Normal tickets are $1200+, as you would
| expect.
|
| There's plenty going on right now that you don't need to
| make stuff up to back up your narrative. Use something
| real...
| daveguy wrote:
| > Some people, who happen to be employed at a FAANG corp,
| have recently decided to protect their smart device
| during a border crossing, and this is cause for alarm?
|
| Of course this is fucking cause for alarm. You are either
| cluelessly naive, or gaslighting.
| j-bos wrote:
| So I've had this in mind for ages, but my coworkers have
| only just realized it and started implementing it. Thus for
| most people, it's *new*s.
| Alupis wrote:
| The question is why was this prompted by DOGE? What DOGE
| action has caused a Canadian citizen employed by a US
| company to suddenly feel the need to protect their smart
| device?
|
| That is... other than sensationalism, which appears to be
| the story here.
| Centigonal wrote:
| consumer451 is providing an example of a business story
| that is tied to understanding US politics. The example is
| only tangentially related to the OP.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Yes, indeed. Thank you for connecting my loosely strewn
| dots in this thread.
| int_19h wrote:
| I can assure you that it has not been the standard
| corporate advice when I had to regularly travel from Canada
| to US for business meetings on a regular basis 15 years ago
| while working at a big tech company. Nor do I recall anyone
| else who was traveling doing that on their own. If it is
| the standard procedure now, then yes, that is definitely a
| reason to be concerned.
| dang wrote:
| These stories aren't being deleted--there was quite a large
| thread (in fact maybe two large threads?) about precisely
| that, within the last couple weeks. I'll see if I can dig up
| the links, or maybe someone else remembers?
|
| The problem isn't that the major stories are deleted; it's
| that even if a story spends hours on the front page, the set
| of users who actually see it still has measure zero [1]. Then
| inevitably a few of the rest assume that they didn't see it
| because it was sinisterly suppressed, whether by mods or user
| flags.
|
| Where this ends up getting us is the 'nobody goes there
| anymore it's too crowded' theory of HN threads! [2] It's
| always been like this--it's baked into the fundamentals of
| how HN works (the limited frontpage space, the dynamics of
| the internet, the fact that most people don't use HN Search).
| It's just showing up more intensely these days because the
| times are more intense and we've been in a tsunami phase for
| a few months now.
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| que...
|
| [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| que...
|
| ---
|
| _EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying
| fears_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43680556 -
| April 2025 (46 comments)
|
| _How to lock down your phone if you 're traveling to the
| U.S._ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43630624 - April
| 2025 (338 comments)
|
| _Cell Phone OPSEC for Border Crossings_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43555597 - April 2025
| (36 comments)
|
| _How to protect your phone and data privacy at the US
| border_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43480730 -
| March 2025 (98 comments)
|
| _Is it safe to travel to the United States with your phone?_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43452474 - March 2025
| (164 comments)
|
| _EFF Border Search Pocket Guide_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43441895 - March 2025
| (32 comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Are you afraid to travel to US to tech
| conferences?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422350
| - March 2025 (198 comments)
| consumer451 wrote:
| I meant "deleted" from by being flagged, which is a
| deletion from the lurkers. And yes.. absolutely I have seen
| some of these stories get through the gauntlet.
|
| I am really not complaining about moderation, just
| attempting to appeal to the users who I have assumed are
| doing the flagging, in general.
| pvg wrote:
| [delayed]
| jmyeet wrote:
| Welcome to the Internet.
|
| Many forums (including this one) have bans on "politics" or
| topics that are "inflammatory". 95% of the time what
| constitutes either is simply "things I disagree with".
|
| For US politics in particular, as much as the right-wing cries
| about being censored, social media in particular bends over
| backwards not to silence such views whereas anything critical
| of those right-wing positions gets flagged or downranked as
| being "political" (eg [1]).
|
| Typically this process isn't direct. ML systems will find
| certain features in submissions that get them marked as
| "inflammatory" or "low quality" but only on one end of the
| spectrum. For sites such as HN, reddit and Tiktok, right-wing
| views have successfully weaponized user safety systems by
| brigading posts and flagging them. That might then go to a
| human to review and their own biases come into play.
|
| As for France vs the US, I'm sorry but France is irrelevant. As
| we've seen in the last 2 weeks, what the US does impacts the
| entire world. All the big social media sites are American
| (barring Tiktok) so American politics impacts what can and
| can't be said on those platforms.
|
| Twitter has become 4chan, a hotbed for neo-Nazis, racists and
| homephobes.
|
| And which French politican are we talking about? Marine Le Pen?
| If so, the relevance is the rise of fascism in Europe between
| National Front in France, Reform in the UK, AfD in Germany and,
| of course, Hungary.
|
| [1]: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/leaked-data-israeli-
| censorshi...
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I mean, there were Tesla earnings calls this year flagged,
| which would be front page news even a year ago. Tech earnings
| calls are almost never flagged otherwise.
|
| I'm mostly convinced a lot of stuff is flagged and the mods
| work overtime to pick and choose what to unflag. On what
| metric? No clue, if I'm being honest.
| consumer451 wrote:
| This is a fair take from my POV. I am very happy not to be
| modding any forum these days.
|
| edit: and to be clear, I was not originally critiquing the
| modding here.
| taeric wrote:
| Honestly looks like a fairly heavy handed bot. Is very close
| to the "if it has trans" decisions we know they did in the
| search for things to cancel.
| linkregister wrote:
| Several users have stated in political threads that they
| spend the day flagging political stories. I don't think
| there's any reason to believe a bot is doing it.
| regularjack wrote:
| I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conspiracy theory territory,
| it could just be that people get tired of reading the same
| bullshit everyday.
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| HN has turned into Reddit
| js2 wrote:
| "Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into
| Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| There's always a ton of randomness with these things. People
| tend to underestimate how that affects nearly every aspect of
| HN. That is, they misinterpret a random outcome as some sort of
| meaningful thing and then attribute a meaning to it.
|
| If you assume that rhyme or reason is involved, then of course
| the results seem bizarrely inconsistent and the only models
| that fit will be Rube Goldberg ones. Simply understand that
| randomness plays the largest role, and the mystery goes away.
| (But I know that's less internet fun.)
|
| In terms of all these political stories getting flagged: it's a
| simple consequence of there being a huge influx of intense
| political stories while HN's capacity remains "30 slots on the
| frontpage" (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix
| =true&que...). If these stories mostly didn't get flagged or
| otherwise moderator, HN would turn overnight into a current
| affairs site, which it is not and never has been.
|
| That still leaves room for _some_ stories with political
| overlap, though not nearly as many as the politically
| passionate would prefer. Btw, this is a special case of a more
| general principle: there are not nearly as many stories on
| _any_ topic X as the X-passionate would desire. The front page,
| in that sense, satisfies no one!
|
| But back to the politics thing--here are some links to past
| explanations about how we deal with that:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978389 has a good list
| of more.
|
| For those who are up for a more complex explanation, this is
| really how I think about this problem:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306. The basic idea
| is to avoid predictable sequences: https://hn.algolia.com/?date
| Range=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
| consumer451 wrote:
| Thanks Dan, I never mean to point fingers at moderation here.
| I always assume it's users. Not sure if that's the correct
| assumption, but it's one I stick with.
| dang wrote:
| Oops, I hear you! Well, maybe the explanation is helpful to
| others who are worrying about the moderation side.
|
| But of course there's no rhyme or reason to "users" either,
| since that's really just a statistical cloud (https://hn.al
| golia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
|
| (Also, if anyone is weary of my inveterate self-linking:
| sorry, I am too. It's just somehow the only semi-efficient
| way I've found to give enough background information on
| various points of HN.)
| JohnMakin wrote:
| This seems important and incredibly relevant on a site called
| hackernews. It's credible and from a credible source. Why are we
| flagging it?
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| It could make the current US administration look bad.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| The "young and inexperienced" staffers narrative is very
| convenient to perform target operations on (specially) sensitive
| data.
| vaxman wrote:
| They didn't use StarLink?! ROFLMAO
|
| I hope he doesn't think Trump is his boy and will keep DOJ off
| his back. The problem is that the institutional funds and market
| makers will not support this level of Watergate/Enron/WorldCom-
| like risk and Trump isn't going to become entangled in that
| (since it means the corporate death penalty as far as public
| equity and access to bank capital is concerned).
|
| BUT the Report is from a super controversial NGO that has long
| been targeted by Republicans and may soon be DOGEd, so it could
| be filled with speculation, half-truths, innuendo and lies.
|
| Still...They didn't use StarLink?! I mean, is that not the
| greatest evidence you could ever hope for of an obvious NSA
| backdoor in StarLink? They were willing to risk obscure premises-
| based (bandwidth) monitoring over holding a mini-dish out the
| window for a few seconds..Too much! I feel like I owe someone $20
| for a ticket.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| And what is NxGenBdoorExtract?
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I think we should be trying to understand what NxGenBdoorExtract
| is. NxGen is a system for NLRB. Bdoor is pretty evocative of a
| back door. He took he git offline or made it private. I can't
| find it on archive.org.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-15 23:01 UTC)