[HN Gopher] Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensit...
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Whistleblower details how DOGE may have taken sensitive NLRB data
Author : rbanffy
Score : 996 points
Date : 2025-04-15 10:55 UTC (1 days 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
| sham1 wrote:
| > V << Pravde >> net izvestii, a v << Izvestiiakh >> net
| pravdy
|
| For the sake of context, this is an old Soviet-era joke,
| that translates to about the following:
|
| > In "Pravda" (The Truth, CPSU's newspaper) there are no
| news. In "Izvestiya" (The News, national newspaper of the
| USSR, under the control of the Supreme Soviet) there is
| no truth.
| 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.
| 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.
| codedokode wrote:
| "DNS tunneling" (abnormal number of DNS requests) actually
| might be caused by a software that doesn't use DNS cache. I
| was once banned by 8.8.8.8 (Google's DNS server) for sending
| too many requests because youtube-dl was making a DNS request
| for each tiny segment of a video (and there were thousands of
| them).
|
| Well, maybe one shouldn't be using Google DNS server when
| violating ToU to download Google's video.
| freejazz wrote:
| It also contradicts the idea that they are acting
| transparently.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The subsequent message about Russian activity could be a
| coincidence-Internet background noise
|
| These weren't random login attempts. It says the Russian login
| attempts had the correct login credentials of newly created
| accounts.
|
| If the article is correct, the accounts were created and then
| shortly afterward the correct credentials were used to attempt
| a login from a Russian source.
|
| That's a huge issue if true. Could be that someone's laptop is
| compromised.
| acdha wrote:
| It certainly needs a full investigation but I don't want to
| presume the results. It wouldn't be the first time some tool
| reported a wildly incorrect location for an IP address and
| the focus should be on DOGE breaking a number of federal laws
| and doing things which no legitimate auditor ever needs to
| do.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The login attempt was made by someone 115 years old,
| receiving social security payments and living in Russia.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| Is it really a compromise if the opps (or should I say:
| "opps") are deliberately welcomed in with open arms? Granting
| Russians access here wouldn't even crack the top 10 gifts
| this administration has given to Putin in the last month.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Then not "opps", but instead "ooops".
| egypturnash wrote:
| > Could be that someone is compromised.
|
| ftfy
| jmcgough wrote:
| > That's a huge issue if true. Could be that someone's laptop
| is compromised.
|
| Or perhaps someone got invited to the wrong group chat again.
| Wololooo wrote:
| No need to have your laptop compromised if your just hand
| over the information...
| chrisweekly wrote:
| "Interviewed by NPR" -- ok we can stop right there. Remember,
| they're dangerous enemies of the state, along with PBS and Fred
| Rogers.
| acdha wrote:
| Sarcasm isn't appropriate for something this serious.
| mindslight wrote:
| Sarcasm isn't the problem per se. But it's very important
| to remember Poe's law, and to avoid adding to the noise. If
| what you're going to say is just a parody of something a
| Kool-aid drinking anti-American destructionist might say,
| there's no need.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Sorry, I'm sure you're both right. I'm just having a very
| hard time figuring out how to respond to the awful /
| obscene / insane / absurd nightmare unfolding in this
| country I love. It's destroying things I care deeply
| about. My sarcasm was probably the wrong response. I wish
| I could better approximate the heartfelt, erudite,
| conflicted brilliance of pieces like this:
|
| https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/twilight-of-the-
| edgelords
|
| At least I can share it. And wait. And hope.
| Nevermark wrote:
| I am learning whole new levels of not "caring".
|
| By which I mean, stoicism is really becoming a survival
| stance for me. And I recommend it for others.
|
| Some people will retreat from the news, but that's not
| me.
|
| What is happening is going to cause a great deal of
| lasting mental hardships, as well as the practical
| damage.
|
| Second tack: remember we are still in history. History
| has always been crazy, with only short periods of less
| crazy.
|
| A third tack is considering how to support other people,
| instead of needing support.
|
| Best to find a way to reliably maintain internal peace
| and health right now. Things are unlikely to stabilize
| soon, without a miracle. Or eventually bounce back. But
| that could take a long time. And this could just be the
| preamble for much worse disasters. Gulp.
|
| At least, this is how I am prepping myself! Scary times.
| exceptione wrote:
| If there is one lesson you should take to heart, it is
| this: the later you act, the more impossible it will
| become.
|
| Right now, at this moment, society has a small window of
| opportunity.
|
| People cannot get rid of autocracy by themselves, they
| have become controlled resources. It took millions of
| free people to get rid of the Nazi's. Act
| now.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Act how?
| exceptione wrote:
| Bottom up.
|
| Have conversations with your friends, the grocery store
| owner.
|
| Join grassroots organizations, or start a local one. Keep
| people accountable. Your local politician bends over
| because he is afraid of consequences. Now give people no
| way out but do the right thing. When people are
| transported to concentration camps, than such is not an
| act of God, but people doing unconstitutional things
| while not being held accountable.
|
| Fascism is not Hitler. It is collective, sociological
| behavior. Trump is a nuisance. The problem is a society
| engineered to give consent to the .1%, the Dark Mirror
| tech bro's, the christian cultists.
| bjoli wrote:
| I think it is. These people need to know we find them
| ridiculous. We should not, however, understate the danger
| of what they are doing.
| acdha wrote:
| The problem is that a comment like the one I replied to
| reads like support. Echoing that thinking is not the same
| as rejecting it.
| jmyeet wrote:
| So NLRB handles confidential complaints. The complainant's
| idenity might be kept confidential. Exact details may be kept
| confidential.
|
| Why aren't we to believe that this is Elon Musk going after
| anyone filing a complaint to the NLRB (from X, Twitter or
| SpaceX) or, worse yet (from Elon's POV), anyone potentially
| organizing any unionization effort?
|
| There's absolutely no reason DOGE should have access to this
| information. There's absolutely no reason their activity, such
| as what information they accessed, should be hidden.
| 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.
| BurnGpuBurn wrote:
| > Reuters could not independently verify EGodly's boasts of
| cybercriminal activity
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| It is worth pointing out that many of these people are probably
| violating Federal and possibly even some state laws. Violations
| of Federal laws can be pardoned, if the President is so
| inclined. State laws can't. No prosecution will occur during
| this administration, but this administration will not last
| forever.
| _hyn3 wrote:
| Those darn hackers. They probably hang out and get their
| news... someplace.
| 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.
| _hyn3 wrote:
| If the CEO of your company empowers a team to audit your
| work, would you 'resist'?
|
| And this Chief Executive was elected by the majority of the
| country, specifically to take these actions that he'd clearly
| stated he would take.
|
| The resistance is _actually_ the violation of federal law. It
| 's no different from contempt of court; within the
| President's domain, he has a huge amount of power. The
| President can also modify existing policy (regulations) at
| any time and literally make new laws (Executive Orders have
| the force of law) as long as they don't conflict with current
| law, as well as overturning previous President's Executive
| Orders.
|
| Of course, then the shoe will be on the other food someday,
| too, just as it was when Biden took over from Trump and then
| they switched places again.
|
| As President Obama said, "I've got a pen, and I've got a
| phone."
|
| https://www.npr.org/2014/01/20/263766043/wielding-a-pen-
| and-...
| pizza wrote:
| What would you do if your CEO tells you to do something
| illegal? What would you do if your CEO then tells you to
| intimidate people who refuse to carry out the illegal
| requests by _tailing them and then taping the surveillance
| footage to their door as a threat_?
| acdha wrote:
| > If the CEO of your company empowers a team to audit your
| work, would you 'resist'?
|
| If he ordered you to break the law or professional
| standards, would you obey? This is not hypothetical for
| many people: if you're a lawyer, professional engineer,
| healthcare professional, work in HR, etc. it is not at all
| uncommon to suggest legal ways to accomplish a goal.
|
| According to the article, that's exactly what happened
| here: they have various federal laws and regulations
| covering their work, but as at other agencies, DOGE decided
| they don't need to follow those. This confirms that their
| stated purpose is not their true motivation but it remains
| to be seen whether there will be any consequences.
| jjav wrote:
| > The resistance is actually the violation of federal law.
|
| Your misunderstanding seems to be to think that the word of
| the president is the law, like in a dictatorship. In the US
| system of separation of powers, that's not how it is
| supposed to work.
| distortionfield wrote:
| The president is currently ignoring a Supreme Court
| order, not explaining why they're ignoring it, and even
| if they tried to charge him, last year the Supreme Court
| ruled that he has immunity from everything anyway. So
| where exactly is it different from a dictatorship now?
| the_other wrote:
| (Non-US here)
|
| As I understood it, this "immunity" is granted for POTUS
| doing things in the course of their responsibility as
| POTUS. Could it be argued that breaking laws & orders
| which bind the activity of POTUS is _inherently not_ the
| work someone in that role?
| jasonjayr wrote:
| The CEO of the company is bound by laws and rules that the
| same country enacted. We the people are the board. The CEO
| answers to the board.
|
| There are procedures to do the things that he said he
| wanted to do, because we are well aware of how an unchecked
| executive can destroy our government by doing what they
| want however they want.
|
| Allow me to illustrate Exhibit A, unfolding now.
| jayd16 wrote:
| If the CEO brought in their friends as temps to screw
| around? Which they were only allowed to do until the next
| board meeting when they will very likely not be approved?
| Yeah, I'd probably resist any royal fuck ups until then.
| iamdbtoo wrote:
| > And this Chief Executive was elected by the majority of
| the country
|
| No, he was not. He was elected by ~30% of the possible
| voters in this country because most people chose no one and
| stayed home.
| tootie wrote:
| President isn't CEO. Laws and budgets are set by Congress.
| EOs do not have the force of law and many have been
| invalidated by courts.
| _hyn3 wrote:
| > President isn't CEO
|
| The President is literally the Chief Executive officer in
| the United States.
|
| https://people.howstuffworks.com/president4.htm
|
| > Laws and budgets are set by Congress
|
| That's correct, under Article 1, but the President does
| not have to spend every dime that was allocated.
|
| > EOs do not have the force of law
|
| "Both executive orders and proclamations have the force
| of law, much like regulations issued by federal agencies"
|
| https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/publi
| cat...
|
| You seem to underestimate the power that is vested in the
| office of the President as the Chief Executive.
|
| > have been invalidated by courts
|
| As have many, many legislatively-passed laws; this is
| simply checks-and-balances and allows the judiciary to
| act on other laws (which originate from Congress) and
| regulations (which originate from the Executive Branch).
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >And this Chief Executive was elected by the majority of
| the country,
|
| Except said "chief executive" was not elected by "a
| majority of the country."
|
| He wasn't even elected by a majority of those who voted
| (~35-40% of the population), but rather a _plurality_ of
| those who voted (~20% of the population).
|
| Note that I am not claiming that there was anything
| nefarious (I have no evidence to support making such a
| claim), just that those who voted for that person represent
| only ~20% of the US population, not a "majority of the
| country."
| 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.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| What law would they have broken?
| 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:
| Good comment.
| grandempire wrote:
| My original comment here has not been flagged - but all my
| responses to other comments have. This is distorting the
| conversation. There is only one DOGE narrative allowed on this
| site.
| DustinBrett wrote:
| Indeed and sad, it's becoming like Reddit. There is no
| discourse going on here or nearly anywhere. Sadly on X it's
| the opposite but equally one sided.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Agreed entirely. The comments in this article read exactly
| like Reddit, the tone, the downvoting, etc. and I agree
| about your comments on X being a sort of rightwing mirror
| of that, too. Super disappointed in Hackernews.
| 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.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| or even worse, they're compromised in some fashion and don't
| know it
| ajross wrote:
| FWIW, that's getting too far out on the spy novel spectrum.
| Yes, they could be compromised. But to my point above, if
| they're indeed working for Putin or Xi or whoever, it's
| _FAR_ more likely (given the demographic) that it 's just
| because they took a fat bribe.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Not saying they're compromised by foreign agents,
| although, I wouldnt put that out of the realm of
| possibility - but that either they and/or theyre
| tooling/setup is pwned
|
| this is exactly what you save a zero day for, and
| something gives me the vibe about some of these guys that
| they dont take opsec very seriously, probably would not
| even need one
| pjc50 wrote:
| > horrifying self-enrichment scam based on the data they're
| hoovering.
|
| Did you miss the presidential cryptocurrency?
|
| DOGE guys will probably end up wiring money directly to their
| own bank account, proudly brandish the receipts on national
| television, and no Republicans will make a move against them.
| 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.
| nilamo wrote:
| "Defunded" NPR gets less than 2% of their income from the
| government. Defunding them isn't as big of a deal as claims
| appear.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I wish that were true. But 2% number is essentially
| disinformation. NPR gets a large portion of its budget from
| affiliate stations, which are funded by the 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.
| bedane wrote:
| [flagged]
| exe34 wrote:
| most of this stuff is getting flagged within minutes.
| dang wrote:
| hn staff turned off the flags on this story as soon as we
| found out about it, restoring it to HN's front page.
| 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."
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| A good chunk of the time, it's sourced and documented
| _facts_ that are flagged and downvoted, to reduce
| visibility.
| outer_web wrote:
| I stand corrected. Please flag anything you disagree
| with.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Are you sure? There can be absolutely be voting and
| flagging biases, but the majority if the time it happens
| it is due to issues of tone for comments that are picking
| fights rather then prompting interesting discourse. When
| you get flagged or down voted, the most productive
| response is to look at how you were presenting your
| information or opinion and if there was a way to do so
| that would be more inclined to produce a productive
| conversation. Even when it's borderline, there's usually
| something you could have changed that wouldn't have drawn
| as much partisan ire and it is valuable to consider this,
| as partisan ire turns off brains.
| 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?
| hintymad wrote:
| The Iron Rule, right? The benefit of the Iron Rule is
| that those who break rules face consequences, preventing
| them from escalating their behavior. So you cancel me, I
| cancel you, only harder. You play law fare, I do the same
| to you, only more legally but in a harsher way. Hada yada
| yada. It's the only way to keep the society civil,
| eventually.
| outer_web wrote:
| You post something and based on its content you assume
| someone from an ideological group flagged it. And for
| that reason you flag and opinion of someone you assume is
| from that group?
|
| What a way to live.
| hintymad wrote:
| Actually, good point. Thanks for pointing that out.
| blargey wrote:
| I can't fathom the thought process that claims the goal
| is "preventing escalation" and immediately decides the
| only method is escalation.
| 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.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It seems to me like people were mostly receptive to your
| facts and data. You got angry posts attacking your
| motives when you wrote angry posts such as this:
|
| > Yeah, we elected Trump to fuck up the ball of worms
| that your left cherished so much, and Trump is following
| through.
|
| Perhaps you ought to look in the mirror.
| hintymad wrote:
| Interestingly, that one was not flagged. The ones that
| gave simple data points were. That said, was that comment
| angry? I was happy because I finally saw a president
| deliver his campaign promises. Or maybe I was angry but
| angry as a liberal: we are supposed to keep government in
| check, yet when doge found out so much potential issues
| of the government and ngos, the first reaction of the
| left was to attack the motives of doge and to protect the
| institution? Where was the liberalism?
| 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.
| lygaret wrote:
| I very much enjoy https://lobste.rs
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| I think that Tony Stark legend is dead for a while. The
| few remaining believers are running on copium.
| 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.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| It's funny that even on hacker news wiki there is a
| proclamation from Paul Graham that they do not help
| feature stories of their startups from YC. If that
| wouldn't be a quote from from 2013 I would call it an
| straight up lie.
| dang wrote:
| It's explained in the FAQ
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) how, and why,
| we do that (see "What's the relationship between YC and
| HN?")
|
| It's important that HN give things back to YC in exchange
| for funding it. Otherwise the lack of balance would
| eventually make the site, and thus the community,
| unsustainable. For all of us who care about HN, this is
| the way to ensure its long-term survival. But there's no
| reason not to be transparent about what those things are,
| which is what the FAQ does.
|
| For example, there's a startup launch on the front page
| right now which our software placed there this morning:
|
| _Launch HN: mrge.io (YC X25) - Cursor for code review_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43692476 - April
| 2025 (89 comments)
|
| One nice thing about startup launch threads is that, to
| judge by the comments and upvotes they receive, the
| community often (though not always!) finds them
| interesting. They fall off the front page more quickly if
| they're not resonating.
| 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 Pravda 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.
| i80and wrote:
| You joined in 2011.
|
| Let me assure you: the trash can bully vibes were default
| here far before you were.
|
| HN is fine for what it is, but it's never ever been
| _good_.
| 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.
| bmacho wrote:
| > Or are there actual DOGE sympathies within the HN
| population?
|
| AFAIK a small number of them is enough to hide stuff from the
| front page. I don't know why is this the case, honestly I
| don't see any benefit over full time-moderators hiding
| problematic stuff, only negatives. Like why should a small
| political group be able to distort the news on the front
| page?
| rbanffy wrote:
| > too "political" for tech news?
|
| Politics are everywhere. It's how we negotiate consensus and
| make collective decisions. From what a government should do
| down to what features will be worked on this sprint and where
| are we having lunch today.
|
| Tech being apolitical is an illusion, and a very dangerous
| one.
| 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?
| dang wrote:
| The admins/mods turned off the flags on this story as soon
| as we found out about it, restoring it to HN's front page.
| SamLL wrote:
| Are there any structural or systematic changes that
| should be made to how the site works right now, so that
| remedies such as this do not need to be hand performed
| one-offs?
| dang wrote:
| Maybe? I'm wary of technical solutions to non-technical
| problems. The base problem here seems non-technical to me
| --it's the combination of:
|
| 1. there's a tsunami of intense (and important) political
| stories right now
|
| 2. HN has 30 slots on its frontpage
|
| 3. HN is not a current affairs site
|
| In other words, the fundamentals themselves are twisted
| in a knot. I don't see how one gets around that.
| bmacho wrote:
| I think you are describing a different, hypothetical
| problem?
|
| The current problem is that news that are critic of the
| current administration are suppressed.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43462783 (U.S.
| national-security leaders included me in a group chat)
| was off the front page for like ~24 hours?
|
| You are describing the problem that there are too many
| actual politic related news on the front page. That is
| not a problem right now.
| dang wrote:
| That's an inaccurate perception. HN has had a very high
| number of political threads on the front page in recent
| months, and most (nearly all, in fact) are critical of
| the current administration. The thread you linked to
| spent 15 hours on HN's front page.
|
| If you find that hard to believe, see these lists:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43227619
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43168527
|
| They are a couple months old now, but the point hasn't
| changed: literally the most-discussed-by-far topic on
| Hacker News is perceived as totally-suppressed-and-
| silenced by the audience that wants more of this
| material. I call this the "nobody goes there anymore,
| it's too crowded" theory of HN threads (https://hn.algoli
| a.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
|
| Meanwhile, the audience that wants less of this material
| perceives the site as being completely-overrun-by-
| politics.
|
| Both of these perceptions are wrong. Both are inevitable
| consequences of the fundamentals I listed in the GP
| comment. And both are special cases of a general
| phenomenon: for anyone passionate about topic X, the HN
| front page never contains enough X.
|
| The most passionate users, however, don't express their
| preference as "I would prefer more X on HN". They express
| it as: "It's unbelievable how X is completely and utterly
| suppressed and censored on HN".
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| Anyone who knew anything about the public sector knew there
| were already efficiency initiatives. USDS(which became DOGE)
| was this, and they were doing a great job. If you care about
| efficiency this is what you would support, not taking an axe to
| everything and having a near-singular focus on lower headcount.
| 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.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| That the intrusion came over Starlink from Russia with valid
| login credentials would be unbelievable in a tale from
| speculative fiction. Reality Winner looks like a hero compared
| to these clowns.
| 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.
| 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...
|
| ---
|
| Edit: I found these ones. Admittedly most weren't on the
| frontpage for all that long:
|
| _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:
| They're probably doing some of the flagging because they
| disagree (I think correctly) with a characterization of
| HN in which HN can be "highly detrimental to the HN user
| base's understanding of what is happening". HN has newsy
| stuff but its purpose is not really news - there are much
| better sites for that. The 'News' in 'Hacker News' is
| more like the 'News' in Huey Lewis & The News.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| The problem is capture. How many platforms for news and
| discussing news are not completely captured by people
| with an agenda of personal power?
|
| You are funding and dang is running a forum for curiosity
| while the basis for curiosity is under attack.
|
| Your dilemma is to support free inquiry and a platform
| for curiosity resulting in you being an enemy of the
| administration or to obey their wishes in order to
| protect yourself and your assets. What happens when
| everyone in every position of power rationally protects
| themselves in the short term by selling out their values
| in the long term, when they bury their head in the sand
| and stay in denial, or they run away to another safer
| country?
|
| How many of your peers have any form of integrity? How
| many of them wouldn't sell out their mother for a dollar?
| How many of them fund and participate in building a world
| anyone would want to live in instead of a world where
| they are the supreme rulers of the ruins. Concentration
| camps were built by business men excited by cheap labor.
|
| You cannot have curiosity without solidarity against
| forces that would submit reason to power. You cannot have
| curiosity without a consent based society. Curiosity
| fundamentally challenges power, because it elevates
| reason above authority. Curiosity presumes that reason is
| the ultimate form of legitimacy.
|
| Hacker news has a goal of staving off Eternal September,
| when new students, people uninitiated to academic rigor
| or professional social conventions, would flood Usenet
| every September when they received credentials from their
| academic institutions. Those very same universities which
| helped build the type of culture you hold in high regard
| are under direct attack.
|
| Curious environments won't survive neutrality. Curious
| environments won't survive lack of solidarity with other
| institutions that inspire curiosity. Systems, like
| authoritarianism, that demand obedience rather than
| reason are the default, and they require active
| maintenance to prevent. Neutrality under these conditions
| is neglect of curiosity.
| pvg wrote:
| _You are funding_
|
| You've got me confused with someone else cause I ain't
| funding anything beside my burrito habit.
|
| As to the rest of this stuff... I don't find it terribly
| persuasive, personally. We do all have all sorts of moral
| responsibilities, individual and collective ones and it
| behooves us to meet them. We do not have a responsibility
| to turn every single facet and corner of our lives into
| some instrument of political power and expression - those
| are important individual (and group) choices and there's
| a name for disregarding them and imposing them on others
| - totalitarianism.
| 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.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I have been calling them "The Guardians of New."
|
| But maybe the far more appropriate term has been there
| all along:
|
| > The Knights Who Say "Ni!"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIV4poUZAQo
| taeric wrote:
| Fair. It doesn't have to be a bot to look like one. Is
| certainly a hive mind behavior that is not any less heavy
| handed than "see a word, click flag button."
| 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.
| 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.)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Not sure if that's the correct assumption, but it's one I
| stick with.
|
| Now that dang has confirmed it's incorrect, maybe stop
| sticking with it.
| 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?
| asveikau wrote:
| JD Vance is a poster boy for Y Combinator adjacent fascists.
| Marc Andreessen, when he is not cheering on opiate overdoses in
| his hometown and praising the British Raj, loves what's going
| on. We need to accept that Silicon Valley has major culpability
| here. After all, how much do you see on HN that you should
| ignore the law because it's better to ask forgiveness than
| permission?
| remarkEon wrote:
| "Fascism" today just means "right wing politician I do not
| like" or "conservative who is successful at pushing back the
| left".
|
| Plenty of people here can have a problem with this
| administration and Vance himself, or not, without those who
| disagree pretending that we're a week away from goose
| stepping down 5th Avenue in NYC.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| There's lots of fascism before the goose stepping but in
| the past week the President confirmed he'd like to send US
| citizens to a foreign gulag, he continues to ignore a
| Supreme Court ruling to bring home a previously and
| illegally deported man, he threatened Harvard that he'd
| strip their nonprofit status since they resisted his inane
| demands for conservative-DEI, he initiated several
| investigations using the state security apparatus of former
| government employees he deemed enemies and the richest man
| in the world (who donated 9 figures to get the President
| elected) continues to illegally impound funding from across
| the government including every organization that regulates
| the companies he runs. Oh and they're planning a $100M
| military parade for the president's birthday. Things aren't
| great!
| autoexec wrote:
| Considering the amount of nazi salutes being thrown
| around I wouldn't be surprised to see goose stepping at
| the parade.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The Abrego Garcia case is one of those critical lines of
| actual fascism: Pinochet-style disappearances. Not really
| connected to DOGE though, they're the administrative wing
| of fascism.
| asveikau wrote:
| Plainclothes officers are hijacking people on the street
| without showing any credentials, then sending them to
| Salvadorean gulags without any court hearing.
|
| Your lack of paying attention to this or lack of
| understanding how bad that is is not a problem in the rest
| of us.
|
| Before you give me this nonsense of "they are criminals",
| number one this is still an inhumane way to treat convicted
| people, and number two they have not been convicted of
| anything, number three there have been tons of reports of
| the accusations made against these people being total BS.
|
| Earlier this week, Trump was on microphone telling El
| Salvador's president that he wants him to build five more
| gulags and that we will send American citizens there.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| The "young and inexperienced" staffers narrative is very
| convenient to perform target operations on (specially) sensitive
| data.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| *targeted
| 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.
| snypher wrote:
| Or who has access to DogeSA_2d5c3e0446f9@nlrb.microsoft.com?
|
| https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/demo...
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| On the other hand, there are two things about that screenshot
| of the repo which is a little weird. First, the timestamp of
| that repo is cutoff, but, the items seem to be in reverse
| chronological order, which would put that repo sometime in
| 2021-ish, or before.
|
| The owner could, of course, just make it public again, or put
| it back up, and end all the speculation.
| anthonygarcia21 wrote:
| I'm intrigued by the "Mission 2" notation. That suggests,
| perhaps, that DOGE has a "Mission 1" (its public, ostensible
| purpose) and a hidden "Mission 2" known only to Musk and his
| minions.
| e2le wrote:
| archive.today has a snapshot taken on 28 Feb 2025, although it
| doesn't show any repository with that name.
|
| https://archive.ph/fUa5Q
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| This confuses me greatly. Comparing your link, I can find the
| repos in that screenshot in the archive snapshot, but as you
| say, the NxGenBdoorExtract repo is not there, and the repo
| where it would be is a tinder-react-native clone (updated Sep
| 20 2020)...
|
| I'm trying to think through this:
|
| 1. if the screenshot is not doctored, then the implied
| ordering of last updated would have had it last updated
| before January 20, 2021; which would mean it has nothing to
| do with what is alleged in the article.
|
| 2. But in the archive.ph snapshot from 2/28/25 doesn't have
| it at all anywhere.
|
| 3. Archive.org's 3/21/25 snapshot shows the same thing as
| archive.ph
|
| 4. The article states that after this tweet
| (https://x.com/SollenbergerRC/status/1895609294810464390)
| dated 2/28/25 (the date of the archive.ph 2/28/25 snapshot),
| Berulis noticed NxGenBdoorExtract in the repo: "After
| journalist Roger Sollenberger started posting on X about the
| account, Berulis noticed something Wick was working on: a
| project, or repository, titled "NxGenBdoorExtract." Wick made
| it private before Berulis could investigate further, he told
| NPR.
|
| Of course, if it really only was public for a very brief
| moment then it might not be in the snapshot, and the article
| isn't clear exactly how long after that tweet that Berulis
| supposedly discovered this.
|
| All I can say is this: I can't figure out for the life of me
| what all this adds up to.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Welcome to Elon Musks America
| theteapot wrote:
| > ... DOGE employees demanded the highest level of access ...
| When an IT staffer suggested a streamlined process to activate
| those accounts in a way that would let their activities be
| tracked, in accordance with NLRB security policies, the IT
| staffers were told to stay out of DOGE's way, the disclosure
| continues.
|
| But did they actually "turn off logging"?? How do you even do
| that? Anyone know what access control system they are talking
| about?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It sounds to me like there's some application-level logging on
| this NxGen system, and DOGE obtained permissions to read the
| underlying storage without going through the application. But
| the article does also say later on that there are specific
| controls and monitoring systems Berulis did find turned off.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| (Non-American here.) If they weren't already, it seems like
| private businesses, security researchers, and I suppose the
| general public, should start treating US government agencies as
| privacy and security threats, just like you'd treat any other
| phisher, scammer, etc.
|
| If government agencies are compromised - via software backdoors
| or any other mechanism - any data and systems they can access
| should be considered compromised too.
| exceptione wrote:
| Neoliberalism -> Corporatism -> Fascism/Autocracy
|
| You are a Human Resource to be commercialized. Ad tech =>
| Private Intelligence.
|
| One is not a person. One has no rights. Unless one can free
| themself and their loved ones of neoliberal brainwashing.
| garte wrote:
| this sounds exactly like that's the goal behind all this.
| MysticOracle wrote:
| The whistleblower and his lawyer gave interviews on CNN & MSNBC:
|
| CNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsqgXfrSksI
| tehjoker wrote:
| Makes sense, this is a lawless reactionary attack on the
| republic. Their purpose is to put capital ever more firmly in
| charge. That means attacking workers.
| billy99k wrote:
| I will need to see the logs and all of the data to believe this.
| This was the standard when there were claims of election fraud
| during the 2020 election.
|
| The difference is that the security community then wouldn't even
| listen to actual hard-evidence, and this is seemingly believed
| with nothing more than a whistleblower stating it as fact.
| crowselect wrote:
| The security community didn't ignore hard evidence - the "hard
| evidence" didn't stand up to basic scrutiny.
|
| These claims may well be false, but they deserve scrutiny, and
| waving them away while perpetuating a much repeated lie isn't
| helping anyone except criminals and corruption.
|
| Bottom line: this deserves investigation.
| jokoon wrote:
| It's likely that this team was infiltrated by adversary countries
| autoexec wrote:
| I'd always assumed that we had three letter agencies whose
| entire job was to keep this sort of thing from happening, but
| it seems that none of them are concerned about protecting our
| government's secrets or even our democracy. What good is the
| panopticon if the watchers are asleep on the job?
| jokoon wrote:
| Those agency can do their security work as long as there are
| laws and mandates about that.
|
| But those agencies cannot do anything if an elected/named
| official decides to work for an adversary, since those
| agencies are under command of the elected/name official.
|
| That's why democracy is beyond the scope of those agencies.
|
| Those agencies are "fences" to protect a teenager from doing
| mistakes. But it cannot protect the teenager from setting
| himself on fire.
|
| In my view, democracy was always vulnerable if the people or
| elected official can be convinced of whatever.
| IOT_Apprentice wrote:
| They've all been either fired or out in a leash as musk
| collects all the PII and secrets in every agency & department
| and feeds it into a private subnet of his AI. His minions are
| certainly doing that.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The template here is not Nazi Germany but Pinochet. The CIA
| have backed right-wing authoritarianism everywhere else in
| the Americas, why not in America itself?
|
| "Supporting democracy" in Latin America always meant anti-
| communism, even to the extent of ending free elections.
| g42gregory wrote:
| Here is the thing that blows my mind: why is there an implicit
| assumption that this article is an honest reporting and not a
| propaganda piece? Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it is.
| What I am saying is that, at the very least, this question should
| always be asked first about any reporting.
| Llamamoe wrote:
| Because this would be very in line with how DOGE has conducted
| itself so far.
| drooopy wrote:
| If there are elections again in the future and more sane,
| qualified people take office, the Justice Department will have
| its hands full for decades.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Sounds like they need to file a CVE.. oh wait.
| therealpygon wrote:
| What is that saying they like to say all the time? "If you aren't
| doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to fear." Certainly
| seems like they are afraid of people seeing what they are doing
| for "not doing anything wrong".
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