Democrats demand to know WTF is up with that DOGE server on OPM's network Who bought it, who installed it, and what's happening with the data on it. Answers for these key questions, and others, regarding the DOGE server rapidly added to the US government's Office of Personnel Management network, have been demanded from the acting head of the OPM by Democrats. The machine in question was put in …
Da! The ФСБ's (thank you Flocke K.) Project Lakhta 2024 is smash hit so far, thanks to performance bananarama republican tools, and successful election ultimate Manchurian Candidate solo artist. Efforts swimmingly apace to terminate all those who investigated like corrupt FBI and incompetent Treasury that just didn't know when to give up on its own. The unfair Department of Justice next. Elon OPM server give us full access, we soon be unstoppable, especially with CIOs loyal talented Orange band gangstah-playaz!
You thought we want turn US into banana republic? Pfwah, we make it vassal state run for us by Florida's Great Julep Orange Despot, be'atch! He give you couple crumbs doggycoins for special treat when we're done shoveling gold bullions out of way ... da!? </interpretive dance>
Especially as it seems they plugged in an open email relay which now appears to be spamming employees.
@Casca
"fixing by burning it to the ground. Good plan..."
You say that as USAID's questionable funding choices are being put on display for all to see? After watching the countries security services act as a weapon against the people and trying to decide who should be the President? How is any of that justifiable and the deep roots of corruption cant just be weeded out. Its now built in. The US spends far more than it can afford and has been running on emergency funding measures for years. Any attempt to change is heavily resisted.
"Not that you will say anything against yor dear leader or his first lady"
Who? I live in the UK. Also I know you are delusionally extremist left that Kim Jong probably looks like Reagan but you might have missed my posts against Trumps tariffs.
Oh, are they?
You're a gormless idiot. You believe anything the Hair Fuhrer and Muskrat claim without actually seeing the proof.
Even if they are telling the absolute truth? This is never, ever, ever ever ever the way to fix it. Never.
You identify issues. You develop a plan to fix them, you put the plan into motion and evaluate it.
This is just burning things to the ground and claiming they were bad people, and you're lapping it up like it was ambrosia.
Feckless fool.
@DryBones
"You're a gormless idiot. You believe anything the Hair Fuhrer and Muskrat claim without actually seeing the proof."
No - https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2023/03/ecohealth-alliance-statement-correcting-inaccuracies-in-cbs-news-reporting
"Even if they are telling the absolute truth? This is never, ever, ever ever ever the way to fix it. Never."
Actually yes it is. In a small infraction with a few little problems you can cut out the issue. If it is a monolith bureaucracy, especially if it is deeply infected, it needs to be burned to the ground and rebuild with its core duty as its foundation.
"You identify issues. You develop a plan to fix them, you put the plan into motion and evaluate it."
And then bureaucrats and the usual twits will challenge and stop every little thing you try to do until 4 years are gone and then idiots cry nothing was done. This isnt some little problem you mess about with, this is absurd amounts of money being thrown all over the place when the US spending is already incontinent. In such a case instead of messing about you actually have to deal with the problem.
"This is just burning things to the ground and claiming they were bad people, and you're lapping it up like it was ambrosia."
You seem to be protecting the extreme spending of the American government in the name of the people to those lapping up on the gravy train and thinking you have a point.
"Feckless fool."
I think so but I will entertain you for a little longer.
> You identify issues. You develop a plan to fix them, you put the plan into motion and evaluate it.
That’s what Trump did. He identified the issues: I hate the constitution, the administration and anyone who opposes me.
And he had a plan. Claiming that he didn’t read project 2025 is his bigly honest way of saying that that was his plan.
@Jimmy2Cows
"It's almost like you missed Ace2's point and made a knee-jerk reaction to the words "Hillary's email"."
Nope. I notice he points out the hypocrisy of one group only for me to point out the same of the other. At no point am I defending either side.
I think you missed the point of my comment and knee-jerk reacted on your own bias.
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The White House said yesterday that Trump signed an executive order into law which is not constitutionally allowed. If it happens anyway then the US has gone from a democratic republic to being ruled by royal decree in less than three weeks.
And of course the Democrats aren't up to the job, their main complaint would be that Trump didn't dot i's and cross t's.
So this is saying that there are many "democratic" employees working in key positions.
Shouldn't these people just be American citizens working for the American people...
This really does show that that the swamp needs drained.
Divise politics need to stop.
What is this thing about voters "registering" for a party. Is this obligatory? I suppose it would be a Good Thing if it was a means of singling out a government employee for closer scrutiny if they were overtly a member of a political party to avert partisan activity but the opposite seems to be the case.
>> Can you register for both/all parties to take part in all primaries?
It depends. There are open primaries, closed primaries, semi-closed primaries, and top two primaries.
No, you cannot register as both a Republican and democrat at the same time. You have to choice one or the other and then you're only allowed to participate in that party's primary. If your registered as an Independent (neither Republican or democrat) then generally you cannot participate in a state's political party primaries but some states make exceptions to that.
Not in Massachueetts. You can register or remain "Unenrolled", registered get the (primary) ballot for their party, unenrolled get to choose any ballot. You used to get automatically registered for the party whose ballot you chose (and could "unenroll" immediately after voting), but that is no longer the case - you now remain unenrolled after voting.
Source: MA unenrolled voter.
In the European precedent, when the party got into power in March 1933 a lot of people suddenly found it advantageous to join - they were known as March Violets, because they suddenly popped up in spring.
There was even a black market in low number party memberships.
Ah, so it's a little like the UK system in some respects. Here, the party leader of the winning party gets to be the Prime Minister, but that party leader is chosen by vote consisting solely of the party members, end of process (and members pay a membership to fee to join). The US appears to, depending on State, only allow those registered voters to vote for their potential future President and then further down the line when down to only two candidates, limits it to party members only in the Grand Final. Am I close? (Although technically, US parties don't seem to have a party leader as such, at least until the primaries are over, so 2-3 years with what seems like a committee of grandees running the show for the party not in power.
Except being America it's a lot more Machiavellian than even the Labour party procedure and a lot more corrupt than even the Tories could arrange.
It's not one-member one-vote, you vote for delegates from each area but then there are super-delegates, and different states have different rules about who can vote and there are block votes (sort-of) and back-room deals for candidates to drop out in return for cabinet posts. Plus all the nefarious briefings and leaks to keep out undesirable candidates .
Since nobody normal takes any notice of this, it's important to get your name on the news cycle early. So whoever wins the first state wins. So there is a big fight to be the first state on the tour since the candidates all have to make promises about whatever local industry your state relies on.
So this is saying that there are many "democratic" employees working in key positions.
There are indeed. Small-d democratic civil servants who will neutrally carry out lawful policies and instructions - but will look askance when told "give this guy everything. No, he hasn't got security clearance, and you have no idea where he's going to wander off to after you download gigs of PII onto his personal drive" in contravention of every written policy and... the law.
If you think they're somehow wrong for... doing their job and complying with data protection policies and... y'know... laws then that says more about you than it does about them. Checks and balances exist for a reason - the President isn't supposed to be a dictator. It is not partisan for a civil servant to say "Actually, you can't do that, it requires congressional approval".
Just because the President is in a position to change laws doesn't mean he gets to ignore them - he should change them to suit (and if that involves the approval of the legislature, then that's what he must do - democracy in action!).
Divise politics need to stop.
It does. You can start by not describing civil servants as "a swamp" for not rolling over and giving the Executive branch unfettered power to ignore the checks placed upon it by the legislative and judicial branches.
Brexit wasn’t a success but because of sabotage… but because it was a pretty stupid idea and much of the issues highlighted came to pass - checks on goods for example and businesses like Honda unsticks-ing.
Same as unlawfully destroying your Statutory Government Institutions - you largely don’t/refuse to understand on an arbitrary/ideology/I don’t like it basis - on a if it breaks will do something about it reactionary method.
"So they oppose the President ?"
YES!
In fact, when the situation demands it ::ahem::, they are REQUIRED to oppose the whims of whoever is sitting in the Oval Office.
Those situations include when the existing Convicted Criminal in Chief intends to make the lives of their constituents miserable. In theory, the House and Senate work for the people who put them into power, not the Krazy Klown Kourt of the executive branch. Read the fucking Constitution!
Those situations include when the existing Convicted Criminal in Chief intends to make the lives of their constituents miserable.
Unfortunately most public servants don't get to make a values call on whether a policy is good or bad for the country, only whether they're lawful - e.g. "sorry, the Executive needs the authority of Congress to do this". Despite the fact that the professional civil servants are usually better qualified to judge the overall merits of a policy than the one-term politician demanding them.
If a policy is lawful but unpalatable, their options are grit their teeth or resign. Or perform passive sabotage to restrict the blast radius until the numpty in charge is replaced.
Of course, trying to make the lives of constituents miserable tends to overlap a lot with prospective dictators trying to bypass the Constitution/Statute law.
about any law he and his interns might break. He knows that the doofus in the White House will give him and anyone doing the dirty work for him pardens immediately he asks for them
We are watching the once great nation, formerly called the United States of America, now called Trumpistan disintegrate before our eyes. Make no mistake people what is happening on the other side of the pond, will hit all of us.
It is not just a case of boycotting Tesla or anything made in the USA (we actually get very little of that because of the crap they put into their food (GMO and Hormone laden meat) but the world financial centre is NYC.
All it needs is for a few major companies to 1) go TITSUP because of debts owed by Uncle Sam not being paid OR 2) deciding NOT to trade with the USA and move their HQ out of NYC for the impact to be felt here. There are lots of other reasons but a lack of coffee (Columbian not American beans) is hampering my brain activity at the moment.
Don't spend any money on non-essential items. Your job/income will probably be at risk once the worldwide depression kicks in. It will take years after Trump leaves the WH (if he ever does) to fix the world economic system.
This is what happens when you give interns access to the US Treasury payments system. We will all feel the effect in 2-3 months.
>Err... Trumpton might be more fitting.
"Unemployment's rising in the Chigley end of town
And it's spreading like pneumonia
Doesn't look like going down
There's trouble at the fire station, someone's had the sack
And the lads are going to launch a scheme to get rid of Captain Flack
Tell PC McGarry to get himself a mate
And arm themselves with CS gas
They're gonna be out late
We've had "Can't conformism" since 1966
And now subversion's in the air in the shape of flying bricks, shh
Someone get a message through to Captain Snort
That they'd better start assembling the boys from the fort
And keep Mrs Honeyman right out of sight
'Cause there's gonna be a riot down in Trumpton tonight
All this aristocracy has really got to stop
We can overthrow the surgery and kidnap Dr Mopp
And Chippy Minton's Socialists could storm the Market Square
And make plans to assassinate our autocratic Mayor
Windy Militant leads his Basque-like corn grinders to war
With windmill sails and bombs with nails, they smash the town hall door
But Snorty and his boys arrive with one big erstwhile crew
Whereupon they bring about a military coup
Someone get a message through to Captain Snort
That they'd better start assembling the boys from the fort
And keep Mrs Honeyman right out of sight
'Cause there's gonna be a riot down in Trumpton tonight
Oh, someone get a message through to Captain Snort
That they'd better start assembling the boys from the fort
And keep Mrs Honeyman right out of sight
'Cause there's gonna be a riot down in Trumpton tonight"
- Half Man Half Biscuit "The Trumpton Riots"
"With the commander in chief's blessing, the server was used to send mass emails from hr@opm.gov asking federal employees to confirm they had received test messages, and then repeatedly offering nearly all of them a severance deal"
Why the fuck do they need to install a new server to send emails to all employees ? The OPM has already all it needs for this ! Or the interns didn't get the right access ? This is fishy and really dangerous.
"These queries are pertinent because the OPM was cyber-ransacked in 2014, quite likely by China, and had more than 21 million records of government workers including security clearance details and fingerprint data stolen."
They'd be anyway pertinent even if the 2014 event never happened ! Even more now. I bet the chinese are finding the 2014 dataset a bit obsolete and would be very interested to refresh it to 2025.
Elon is pretty tech savvy and his team of young hackers probably understand security better than most people. It's a fair bet they're using well designed Linux systems (with AI etc.) to do their thing. I would not worry about China nor Russia back-dooring the DOGE machines. THEY quite possibly back-doored the US GOVERNMENT machines to GAIN ACCESS!!!
Some time in the next year or so, along with layoffs and department closures, expect a REAL I.T. overhaul in the US Gummint. And we KNOW Elon likes open source, so I would not be surprised at seeing Linux throughout! Or, maybe NetBSD or FreeBSD. ANYTHING besides Windows servers and workstations, right?
"Elon is pretty tech savvy"
I have never seen proof of this statement, bob. You have never seen proof of it, either. Near as I can tell, Elon is a technical dunce.
"THEY quite possibly back-doored the US GOVERNMENT machines to GAIN ACCESS!!!"
And considering neither Elon, nor his crew of brats, are officially employed by the US Government (unless you can show me where Congress allocated the funds), nor do they have the necessary clearances to access that data, Shirley even you, bob, can understand why these Trump-approved things that Elon is doing is both illegal, and unconstitutional ... and very, very, very bad for the country.
But that would mean that you'd have to agree that Trump is un-American, and quite possibly anti-America, and you're not quite ready for that yet. Wait until he pulls medicaid/medicare and your (coming) Social Security payments. You know, the things you've been paying into your entire working life?
"Wait until he pulls medicaid/medicare and your (coming) Social Security payments.....you've been paying into your entire working life."
Why feel left out ? We have this potentially on the right side of the pond.
Our latest "government by rumour"[1] has it that the "State Earnings Related Pension", into which we have been paying all our working lives, and encouraged ("nagged") to make top-up payments for missed or under-payment years, will possibly move to being means-tested. The excuse is that the state pension was always a "benefit" not an "entitlement". (So why the encouragement to pay voluntary taxes ? )
[1] Plausible deniability by those in power: more "let's see how loud they howl before we go ahead". Brought to a new level of performance by one Mr Blair and his "kitchen cabinets" from 1997, but seemingly being "refined" by the current incumbents.
I've been in a meeting with him.
I don't think he has any concept of detail. He's more of an outrageous caricature of a bad manager.
He will not accept reasons why one of his ideas will not work.
He demands that his engineers will do things - even after he has been told it is physically impossible.
He treats outside experts with even more disdain that his employees. (That's why I was in the meeting - as an outside expert.)
His employees warned me before the meeting not to argue back or he would get you fired. ("Even if your management back you up, he has ways!")
After the meeting his employees rang me and we discussed what could actually be done, if we just used his demands as a 'direction of travel'.
Very anonymous as his DOGE team has probably riffled through my personal data looking for dirt to be later used against me.
" THEY quite possibly back-doored the US GOVERNMENT machines to GAIN ACCESS!!!"
Wow, you're impressed that Elmo and his gang of tech bros might have broken laws to skirt round other laws governing the use and security of private data?
Tell me oh wise Bob, what happens to that server when they're done, does it get left there as a permanent back door for Elmo's Gestapo to retain access or will it be sent to a secure storage facility in a Florida man's bathroom?
Elon is pretty tech savvy
What? One of us must have gone down the wrong leg of the trousers of time.
I have dealt with reasonably knowledgeable IT staff that I couldn't really trust to set up a mail server (even just a relay or MXer) and certainly not to do so securely or resiliently.
If the likes of DOGe boy came near any of my systems the lack of an open window would present only a minor impediment.
The current scourge are not clever, not intelligent, not knowledgeable but are cunning as the proverbial shithouse rat and whose only talent is deception which sadly is dangerously potent with a population that wants to be deceived.
I would bet that Elon and his little troop of boy geniuses know absolutely nothing about the systems they are messing with and figure out just enough to cripple them.
It seems his plan is to first disable things, insert compliant management, then decide what to do, which appears to involve firing a lot of people. If he and Trump succeed in doing that, the USG is going to be broken for quite a while.
In my too many years of experience, those who thought themselves too clever to be hacked were invariably the easiest. They were too clever and too smug to check and validate. They also never took advice.
As for foreign actors, they probably haven’t exploited this yet, it’s too obviously bait. Maybe a Senegalese crew will do it.
>Why the fuck do they need to install a new server to send emails to all employees ? The OPM has already all it needs for this ! Or the interns didn't get the right access ? This is fishy and really dangerous.
Probably because the existing servers they were configured with logging, and security, and DLP rules, and retention policies, and the other pesky stuff that might get in your way or leave evidence behind.
"configured with logging, and security, and DLP rules, and retention policies"
A lot of federal employees have suddenly got very involved in DLP this month.
Democracy Loss Prevention that is.
But also hopefully traditional DLP. With all these websites going offline and NOAA/NASA datasets vanishing (in contravention of FOI and Open Data laws) I'd like to imagine there are a few René Carmille characters who have spent the last month smuggling tapes from work to their garage and are preserving terabytes of scientific data in the event that Elmo decides to hose the official repositories.
None of which opposes DOGE directly. But it does make rebuilding those systems and repositories much easier/actually possible in future.
@MiguelC
"Please tell me, which of the two former presidents refused to accept he lost and which did the democratic thing and gracefully handed power over?"
One rightly questioned the 2020 election (and since then there has been more reason to question it) and the other probably doesnt remember being president. Why?
@chuckamok
"Let's question 2016 and 2024. Some real dirty stuff unleashed and still festering."
Sure but I think 2016 was pretty well covered with the Russia hoax and such. The missing magic votes from Bidens 2020 vs 2024 is definitely worth questioning as with the lawfare effort and pre-emptive pardoning. There is lots worth looking into
You don't need to imagine. There are people like that... And it's not just federal employees doing this, but the Wayback Machine and countless scientists are desperately trying to preserve data and also frozen samples that are at risk of being lost.
It boggles the mind how much is at risk right now. It's like the modern equivalent of the Library of Alexandria being ransacked and burnt, just quite a few magnitudes bigger.
Dems or repubs, labour or tory, left or right...... makes no diff, power will be abused one way or another allbeit in different ways
decentralise power, a more loose coalition of states, then go and live where your values match
increase diversity bring back resiliance
haha, aint ever happening baby, why... money talks and its gravity is super strong :)
Imagine trying to run a nationwide business when you need to follow 50 different sets of laws depending on where the work is being done. That's why OSHA (for example) exists...to set a minimum national level of health and safety regulations. Imagine if the rules for aircraft changed when you flew over each state...that's why we have FAA.
But Elon likes to move fast and break things. Like, in this case, the US Government. A bit kore serious than a Tesla driving into a guardrail.
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"I got a ticket because my car didn't have a front license plate = allowed in Pasadena, but not 10 miles away."
The State Law in California says front and back plates are mandatory on all passenger vehicles. This is applicable on public roads everywhere in California, even Pasadena.
The Pasadena PD might choose to ignore the State Law, because it's just a fix-it-ticket and it costs more to process the paperwork than it generates in revenue. (A more extreme example ... here in Sonoma the local PD often ignore people running stop signs because the fine is so low it is negative cash-flow for the local cops to issue the ticket and then have to drive to Santa Rosa if the perp decides to fight the ticket in court. This is official policy, per the Chief of Police in an interview in the Sonoma Sun newspaper a couple years back.)
Note that the Los Angeles County Sheriff might still ticket you for this in downtown Pasadena, as might the CHP ... as might Pasadena PD, if mad enough, by adding it to the list of running a stop sign at 65MPH in a school zone with expired tags, no insurance, a revoked license, bald tires, a cracked windscreen and modified exhaust.
"Imagine trying to run a nationwide business when you need to follow 50 different sets of laws depending on where the work is being done."
I do just that. It's not really all that hard. There aren't really "50 sets of laws", rather it's a dozen or so variations on a few laws. Fuel tax comes to mind, as does the speedlimit on highways, as does taxes and fees on selling livestock and timber. Local unions can be a complete pain in the arse, and are often far worse than the local tax structure.
It's all pretty easy to keep track of. Just print out and fill in the appropriate forms and you're good. If you make a mistake (rare), at least you've made an effort and are rarely fined when you file a correction.
>Imagine trying to run a nationwide business when you need to follow 50 different sets of laws
It's much worse than that every 'city' (=postcode) has its on laws.
I got a ticket because my car didn't have a front license plate = allowed in Pasadena, but not 10 miles away.
We had a payload going to Houston for integration. Stuff flying into Houston airport could be cleared by a freight agent in Houston but the HW going be sea had to have a different agent because Houston's port is in Galveston and the Houston agent wasn't accredited in the different city.
Conversely, robust Lander in Germany have built robust public services for their citizens.
After reunification, Germany got very lairy of centralisation. Things like Policing are firmly devolved (aside from the Bundespolizei who have an extremely narrow remit for borders/airports and federal buildings). They want no repeat of the Stasi.
Shame the US states haven't emulated that.
Both the US and German Federal governments have a poor record on public infrastructure though - the difference between Germany's national railways and the S-Bahns/regional networks under the Lander is stark.
>Things like Policing are firmly devolved
Please tell me that means criminals can make a break for the county line, a'la Dukes of Hazard!
It's 106 miles (170km) to Bielefeld, we've got a full tank of benzine, half a charge on our vape, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses....
I watched a show about the end of the world recently, and it truly well spooked me.
Nostradamus only spoke of it once, in a letter meant for only his son. It spoke of climate change and famine, and disease, followed by economic upheaval, and a war not seen in three previous wars between two powers called the "east, and the west."
The mayans spoke of the end times coming from a man seen as a savior, and put in a position of great power. Their calendar predicted a new era and end times in 2012... when frumpy started his campaign.
We've always known this was coming. Make peace with your life, and reconcile your sins. the end times are upon us. Evil is all around us, and change is happening.
Though I did find 3p (this is true)
3d? Threepenny (thruppence) at face value worth 1¼p. Back in 2019 the Mint offered 120,000 George V 3d coins (=£1500?) for sale so I don't imagine the trey being a rare beast.
The only advantage to non cash payments has been amount shrapnel I don't now collect. I could never be bothered carting coins around so at one stage I had a plastic bucket full of 1¢ and 2¢ coins which I couldn't lift worked out more than $200 when the poor sod who inherited it took it to the bank.
It gets better. You can draw a line between all these cultures, and it's linear, including easter island, who dealt with eradication.
It begins with "hot rocks from the sky". In all version of end times, it all starts with "flaming rocks from the sky". Lately, we have discovered and are tracking several major asteroid and meteorite hits that are making the news.
They all go on to say, it progresses through climate change, famine, and eventually war. Some cultures say it's the beginning of a rebirth, some say it's the finality (decipher that as you will).
The thing is they all say the same thing, and you can actually draw a direct line to a specific date. Somewhere around 2090.
Am I missing something here?
You can't just dump a server on a network. You can. If you plan to hack your way around the network but it's no easy task. You have to open entry and exit points, bypass firewalls or get yourself added then you would have to attack multiple servers to get access to the multiple services. Besides a lot of this data will probably be on the cloud.
When we apply Occam's razor the answer is that someone at the OPM helped get them setup which means to answer all these questions that would be your first port of call. If rules and regulations have been broken then OPM is the one in for the bollocking first. If that was me at OPM who was asked to set it up I would be asking for an email from the president himself to authorise it before I went anywhere near it.
I'm no fan of Trump or the Musky manchild but this just seems like posturing till the facts become clear. I have a suspicion they just set up a mail server because I can't see them getting unlimited access that quick. No IT department is that efficient. It usually takes 2-3 weeks just to get access to basic systems with the correct permissions. I may be wrong of course but that what I think.
You are kind of missing the point.
The server was set up, likely because someone was told to do it, ignore the rules, get it done or get fired.
But the thing is, there ARE a ton of rules in government to make sure things are set up properly, with the correct security, privacy requirements, etc. Which have been ignored.
That's what's being discussed. Who broke the rules, why did they break the rules, and under whose orders did they break the rules? Because a badly rushed server is a massive security risk for the whole government.
The server was set up outside the rules, there's no info about why, how secure it is, who did the work, what it's purpose is, etc. Questions should definitely be asked...
You can't just decide to setup a server on a Government network. There are rules, and laws, which must be adhered to. The paper-trail can get pretty hairy, purposely, because they don't want it happening willy-nilly. It is meant to be a difficult thing to do.
It's up to them to prove that it was set up according to these rules and laws. If it wasn't, it was (and is) illegal, and the perps should be brought to justice.
but as I said in my post it's nearly if not impossible without the co-operation of the OPM IT team. I find it hard to believe years of process was just abandoned at the drop of a hat. I find it hard to believe all the different people involved would just blindly follow these orders. I find it very hard to believe it was done in 3 days.
Like I said. It's an email server and I doubt it's even an on-site box with access. The most likely option is they asked for an email to be set up to email federal employees and that's what they got. I'm supposed to believe that within 3 days they got some techies on site to gain access to all these systems through an email box. When I type it out loud I realise now how ridiculous it sounds.
Well they did manage to send those emails to all employees - which is said to be hard to do in the OPM system.
Bringing in their own server, connect one network interface to the database of all employees email adresses, use admin level acces to that system to get the adress list into your server, connect the other network interface to starlink and use that to send the emails is probably much faster and easier than using the existing OPM network with its built in safeguards.
When someone says they are from the government, has some armed goons there with them and says hand over the keys, you don't argue unless you are the boss.
But when the boss gets fired (this is exactly what happened in at least one case), nobody has your back, so you again, hand over the keys or else there will be consequences for you. Legality NEVER enters the picture until later.
I have no idea where you get this idea protocols were followed. This was straight up smash and grab.
THAT'S the WHOLE DAMN POINT OF THIS DEBACLE.
The server was set up outside the rules, there's no info about why, how secure it is, who did the work, what it's purpose is, etc. Questions should definitely be asked...
2 ethnet cards - one on an internal network, one on the external network. *Might* have got some firewalling enabled but, given it's probably a Windows box (Elon famously doesn't like linux or *BSD) that won't keep people out for long.
In the old country in the old days - worked on a site that had super-duper-secret stuff. And so had a super-duper-secret network alongside the regular network.
So every Windows PC had 2 ethernet cards, one for the super-duper-secret network and one for Facebook et-al.....
Rather like the logic of: castle has big door to protect it, if we make the entire wall out of big doors the castle is better protected.
Smells like a Democrat fishing trip, I would expect the OPM like most big companies, have an approved hardware spec for a specific server, maybe even for a specific job, with an approved core OS image, hardened to recognised security standard, signed off, then tweaked for its job, probably a VM for ease of deployment and so a timeline of a couple of weeks to go live isn't too hard.
Get over his win, it was democratic or is that only worth something a parties name. Am I happy Starmer won, no, but nothing I can be done about it unless his party remove him as PM/Leader or he resigns due to breaking the law, as maybe the case of the latest covid lockdown investigation.
>Smells like a Democrat fishing trip, I would expect the OPM like most big companies, have an approved hardware spec for a specific server, maybe even for a specific job, with an approved core OS image, hardened to recognised security standard, signed off, then tweaked for its job, probably a VM for ease of deployment and so a timeline of a couple of weeks to go live isn't too hard.
In most government departments, it would take at least a week to get change and budget approval for a new server. Ordering a new physical server would take months, and even a new VM would usually take weeks.
January 6th was an impromptu auto-coup attempt organised by halfwits and carried out by fools. It was too little, too late and it almost worked.
What you are seeing now is a self-coup that has been planned for four years and is being implemented by a skilled workforce. The steps being taken to stop it are certainly too little and probably too late now - let alone four years from now.
People mostly survived four years of Trump incompetence before and if that was all that is happening four more years of the same could be endured. This time the people closest to Trump are intelligent, loyal and have no intention of permitting a fair election ever happening again.
When the people tasked with enforcing them are part of the group breaking them.
What's the point in saying that Trump or DOGE broke the law? The Dems have no power to demand anything at the moment as they have no majorities. The Trump administration controls the Justice Dept, and stacked the courts with Trumpists (and will no doubt add more). Political appointees will increase also.
Combine that with the Supreme Court saying that the president has broad immunity for acts done as president, then the law simply doesn't apply to the government.
No amount of lawsuits or judges applying injunctions will make the blindest bit of difference. The system of checks and balances is broken when one man effectively controls all 3 branches of government.
The point is to do their best to highlight what is going on. It may be hopeless, but what's the alternative? Bend the knee and kiss the ring? Anyone in the US who stands up for truth and justice right now deserves more than a little respect.
Who will be the USA's Alexei Navalny?
Honestly, I think it'll play out differently in the USA to Russia. The USA won't need a Navalny as such. The general population will start hurting more and more, and then the more "rapid" section of society will act up. By rabid, I mean the gun toting bunch.
Trump and Musk think they can mimic Putin and rule by decree, but they seem to have forgotten just how well armed the country is.
I don't think violence is the answer, but I can see it happening at some point.
That seems expensive and may even spook the Bond Market (all praise the Bond Market)
Much easier to close everything except Fox news (good news, the chocolate ration has been increased from 30g to 20g), tighten up voter ID (we accept NRA or KKK membership cards), move some boundaries and fix the electoral college votes (California now has 1 vote, as does every golf course in Florida = fair and equal)
If you rule by executive-order you just need the presidency, you don't even need to win congress
By all reports, they descend on a department, and say "move over, we're in charge now, do what we say or else". I've seen similar things happen on a much smaller scale in companies, so know what the results are likely to be :
1. All proactive co-operation will cease from the experienced people who know how things actually work, therefore the kids will not receive good advice that could prevent them from doing the many stupid things they are bound to do.
2. It will be made widely known throughout the organisation that all the disasters that are about to happen are entirely the fault of the naive, reckless and arrogant kids who will have caused them.
3. Everybody will be in cover-your-ass mode, making sure that in the aftermath of said disasters, post mortems will see the blame fall entirely on the kids.
4. These kids are going to discover that when that happens, they are very easily disposable, their names have become public, and their future opportunities are very much diminished. "I worked for Elon!" is not going to be something people will want to boast about for too much longer.
I feel sorry for the poor IT staff in the middle of this. Expect the conversation to have been something along the lines of .............
We want an email server.
OK can you describe the reason for the server, the business rationale, timelines, stakeholders etc etc?
We want it now. Just do your job
What will the email server be used for?
To send emails to everyone in OPM
We can do that with our existing infrastructure all you need to do is fill in this form, ensure you have the appropriate approvals and sign offs and we will let you know how much, how long and how many resources it will take.
WE WANT AN EMAIL SERVER NOW!!!! JUST PUT IT IN!!!!!!
We can't do that without appropriate sign off and due diligence
We spoke to your boss and made him an offer he couldn't refuse, put it in or be fired
Can we have that in writing please?
NO!
Hopefully someone kept good notes, minutes, recording or emails of the requests because if they bowed to pressure it will be the IT staff who get shafted for "allowing" it to happen.
Sadly seen this too many times in my career up to and including "We know you told us it was a stupid idea but it's still your fault for not properly convincing us it was a stupid idea" I kid you not.
On reflection it might even be worse than that scenario,
We want to send emails to everyone
Sure fill out this form, jump through these hoops and voila you'll have it in 3 to 6 weeks
Followed by silence while someone on the Musk side says screw this, we will just put in our own server although even that would require assistance from the IT team so someone in IT is still getting shafted.
Much conjecture about what it takes to do new stuff inside the US Gov (which I have when I was a World Wide Lead Consultant for a US company that has had 7+ decades of involvement in US Gov computing).
Examples of work included:
- migrating apps and databases within the US Fed Reserve that handled $US 4 TRILLION PER DAY of transactions
- migrating databases within the US Army used to handle all procurement/deployment of everything from toilet paper to tanks
So stuff that was the life blood of these org.
Example of stuff I couldn't do/needed to do
- no bringing a laptop or cell phone onto the premises
- you start the onboarding process (gaining access etc) a month before you start to allow time for security checks
- when installing say the OS, database software or other software on a new server NOT ON A NETWORK yet, you are not allowed to do it... a fed IT person must do it even if they have never installed the software before (so you guide them)
- They will procure the software needed themselves from the vendor
- If you are using any software that hasn't been fed certified then add 2 months to your start date to allow them (via NDA) to review the source code
- you are not permitted to logon to the new system until it has been setup by a fed IT person after which you are given limited access (except in my case where I would have complete access to the target database cause that's the only way you can move a database)
- when you went to the toilet, a fed IT person would escort you to the toilet (and also when entering/leaving the building)
- outside phone calls were done from designated rooms (where I am sure someone was listening in)
- your provided work station had physically disabled USB port, no cd drive
- your provided work station could only see the systems that you had permission to see,network wise (over and above user logons)
Now I get Felon Musk and his band of Jerry Man had some dubious auth from the Orange Fuckwit but you don't rock into a fed IT office and just do stuff no matter who you are or how many times you have done similar work (as in my case) or whether you are a fed IT person from another department who might have the required clearance.
So bringing in their own server was the only expedient (and illegal) way to do what they needed to do.
And as we generally all agree... its coup.
Bluck
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