Via Erin Fogg / criminalerin
Feb 2, 2025, 3:55 PM
"Now, with alt text, to ensure everyone fully understands exactly what we're dealing with with the 19-yo Canadian calling himself Big Balls who, along with a few other nerds, seem to have had exclusive control over the United States Treasury Department since Friday"
Via Kevin M. Kruse
@KevinMKruse
Feb 2, 2025, 3:32 PM
"If a 19-year-old Canadian who calls himself Big Balls marches into your federal agency and demands access to your system, telling him to fuck right off should be the mildest reaction you have."
Via Jacqueline Sweet / jsweetli
Feb 2, 2025, 1:22 PM
"Contrary to some info I've seen, 19-yr-old Doge staffer "BigBalls" Edward Coristine did not delete his X account, it's just renamed and is private.
Wired reported that govt tech workers had to defend their work to the Neuralink intern in an Office Space-esque scene.
/ more for Canadians"
Via Jacqueline Sweet / jsweetli
Feb 2, 2025, 1:22 PM
"The teen's dad, originally from Canada, left his Wall Street job at Morgan Stanley to buy snack company LesserEvil, which now has $103 million revenue.
Edward Coristine, working for DOGE under Amanda Scales, displays a Canadian flag on his Instagram, but unclear if he has dual citizenship.
And ironically because of the DEI wars, Costco carries LesserEvil products in several states."
Via Jacqueline Sweet / jsweetli
Feb 1, 2025, 4:34 PM
"Yes totally cool that a 19-year-old who called his deleted LinkedIn "Big Balls," where he lists his experience working as a camp counselor can access the entire US federal payment system without anyone looking into his background, for instance, his Russian national close relatives or anything else."
Via Jacob Harris
@harrisj
Jan30 25 1125 PM
"Thanks to a name in Wired, I found Goodreads from 10 years ago for DOGE teen intern who is grilling govt technologists. Now I can tell him I too read Captain Underpants (to my son) when I’m being asked to justify my entire career in 30 seconds.
This is fine. It seems only people willing to endure 80 hours/week of volunteer work for DOGE project are apparently high school or college kids, desperate for an internship line on their resumes."
Via Craig Calcaterra / craigcalcaterra
Feb 2, 2025, 2:08 PM
"The men carrying out Musk's coup are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.
Make them famous. And, eventually, when possible, arrest them and charge them with multiple felonies."
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/
Via Eden Robins
@edenrobins@mastodon.social
Feb 2, 2025, 6:17 PM
"Here, I made you a postcard. Feel free to print it out and post around your town, send it to friends, whatever makes you happy."
Via Laura Barrón-López / lbarronlopez
Feb 3, 2025, 2:25 PM
"DOGE has requested and is being granted 'access to all SBA* systems,' per an email sent to Small Business Admin employees today. Edward Coristine, a DOGE official, held a call with SBA staff detailing level of access they wanted, including HR, contract and payment systems.'
[*Small Business Association]
Via Vicky ACAB
@VickyACAB
2/4/25 12:08PM
"After a long hard day of coup'ing the US govt, they retire to this room to refuel, recharge, and let it all hang out...computers they brought connect directly into government payment systems.
Last night it was confirmed they have read/write access to the code that manages all payment systems for US govt, $5 Trillion worth.
...no one in human history has had as much immediate direct access to world shaping power as ppl w/access to those computers do."
Via Josh Marshall
@joshtpm
Feb 4, 2025, 10:01 AM
"New Exclusive building on Wired's reporting: Musk operatives have already pushed live to production extensive code changes to the Treasury Department payment system which makes 95% of fed govs payments."
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musk-cronies-dive-into-treasury-dept-payments-code-base/
Via Corey Rayburn Yung @coreyrayburnyung
Feb 4, 2025, 12:30 PM
"There's clearly no QA process, live testing with mocks, technical support for bugs, etc. This is insane. It's the coding equivalent of hammering a complex, fragile machine until it does what you want."
Via Corey Rayburn Yung
@coreyrayburnyung
Feb 4, 2025, 12:43 PM
"This is a backdoor. Elon's coders are creating a backdoor into the US Treasury. This is incredibly dangerous both because of its intended use (by Elon and Trump) and the risk of other actors exploiting a major security vulnerability to cause a massive disruption to the US government."
Via Kim Kelly
@kimkelly
Feb 4, 2025, 5:02 PM
"Sources tell me that DOGE is setting its sights on the Department of Labor next. DOL workers have been ordered to give DOGE access to whatever they ask for—or risk termination.
'We’re supposed to stop everything we’re doing and do whatever the DOGE kids ask… It feels dirty and illegal.' "
Via Kim Kelly
‪@kimkelly‬
Feb 4, 2025, 5:21 PM
"Apparently there’s a 'kickoff' meeting between the DOGE people and Department of Labor management planned for tomorrow [2/5] at 4pm ET.
Unrelatedly, the Frances Perkins Building that houses the Dept of Labor is located at 200 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20210."
Via rahaeli / rahaeli
Feb 4, 2025, 9:48 PM
"Because this might be useful: here are the resources from the National Lawyers Guild (certified badasses) about protesting in DC.
Via rahaeli / rahaeli
Feb 4, 2025, 9:48 PM
"Here is their page on how to prepare for a protest, including how to request NLG legal observer support:"
Mother Bones
