Mastodawn

Kevin Beaumont Feb 4, 2025

A 25-year-old who's worked for Elon Musk companies now has direct control over a Treasury system disbursements from which amount to a fifth of the US economy. He has high-level admin privileges on a mainframe housing all the code. Access granted as debt ceiling crisis looms, officials in charge of the area have resigned in protest.

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-payment-system/

A 25-Year-Old With Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System

The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department. It’s also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk has admin privileges over the code that controls Social Security payments, tax returns, and more.

WIRED

Kevin Beaumont Feb 4, 2025

For those wondering, he didn’t apply for a job - he was installed by DOGE, similar to USAID takeover.

Trump signed an executive order allowing DOGE to effectively do whatever it wants, so now you have Elon running around installing people.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 6, 2025

A 19 year old has been given admin access to the core US treasury financial system by Elon Musk’s DOGE.

He goes by the name of “Mr. Big Balls” online, is on Russian forums, and has tried to purchase DDoS botnets.

Elon has said sharing this information is illegal, so please do not press the boost button.

https://www.wired.com/story/edward-coristine-tesla-sexy-path-networks-doge/

DOGE Teen Owns ‘Tesla.Sexy LLC’ and Worked at Startup That Has Hired Convicted Hackers

Experts question whether Edward Coristine, a DOGE staffer who has gone by “Big Balls” online, would pass the background check typically required for access to sensitive US government systems.

WIRED

Kevin Beaumont Feb 6, 2025

Treasury agrees to block additional DOGE staff from accessing sensitive payment systems https://therecord.media/treasury-agrees-block-doge-access

Treasury agrees to block additional DOGE staff from accessing sensitive payment systems

All but two Department of Government Efficiency staffers are temporarily stopped from accessing Treasury payment systems.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 7, 2025

One of the members of DOGE, 25 year old Marko Elez, has resigned after journalists reported on his X posts.

Examples: “I just want a eugenic immigration policy, is that too much to ask”, “I was a racist before it was cool”, “Normalize Indian hate”.

He had tried to delete the posts. Elon tried threatening those reporting on it with legal action.

Marko was one of the people given admin rights at the US Treasury.

https://www.tpr.org/2025-02-06/member-of-elon-musks-doge-team-resigns-after-racist-posts-resurface

Member of Elon Musk's DOGE team resigns after racist posts resurface

Marko Elez had recently been given special access by a federal judge to highly sensitive payment systems in the Department of Treasury.

TPR

Kevin Beaumont Feb 7, 2025

Journalists probably want to look through this guys tweets, too. https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://twitter.com/Gavin_Kliger (press the button for all content, Mastodon breaks the link).

Wayback Machine

Kevin Beaumont Feb 7, 2025

ProPublica is building a live list of those working for DOGE, since DOGE hasn’t actually disclosed this info and Elon keeps saying reporting it is illegal. Includes many InfoSec people. https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. ProPublica is attempting to document who is working with him and what they are doing.

ProPublica

Elon has decided to bring back the DOGE staffer who tweeted about being a racist, wanted to normalize Indian hate, and said he wants a eugenics immigration policy.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 7, 2025

Elon Musk's guide to handling his staff being directly racist.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 7, 2025

The US Treasury Department has put out a cyber threat intelligence briefing saying "Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even 'read only,' likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced." https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-bfs-doge-insider-threat/

A US Treasury Threat Intelligence Analysis Designates DOGE Staff as ‘Insider Threat’

An internal email reviewed by WIRED calls DOGE staff's access to federal payments systems “the single biggest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”

WIRED

Kevin Beaumont Feb 8, 2025

One of the people in DOGE and given access to US government systems now is from the Telegram group The Com - known in cyber circles for swatting, doxxing, MFA abuse etc.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-graduated-from-the-com/

Teen on Musk’s DOGE Team Graduated from ‘The Com’ – Krebs on Security

Kevin Beaumont Feb 8, 2025

Several of the people in DOGE are behind multiple cryptocurrency scams https://cryptadamus.substack.com/p/the-crypto-grifters-of-doge

The Crypto Grifters Of DOGE

How many crypto grifters does it take to screw up the machinery of state?

The Cryptocalypse Chronicles

Kevin Beaumont Feb 8, 2025

The tweets of the DOGE staff member who said he was a racist etc have been removed from archive.org after a takedown request.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 8, 2025

The employee who wrote the CTI assessment around DOGE has been fired https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-08/treasury-warned-of-insider-threat-risk-from-musk-s-doge-access

Kevin Beaumont Feb 8, 2025

A federal judge has ruled all DOGE Teenage Mutant Techbro Incels must stop accessing US Treasury data immediately, and destroy all copies they took. A case is running claiming Elon Musk broke federal law.

The ruling backs up the CTI assessment by the now fired US Treasury threat intel analyst. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjw4g2q62xqo

Judge blocks Musk team access to Treasury Department records

Nineteen state attorneys general sued the Trump administration after the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) was given access.

BBC News

Kevin Beaumont Feb 10, 2025

President Musk has tweeted that the judge is “corrupt” and called for him to be “impeached now” and the Vice President has said federal judges shouldn’t have legal power.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-judiciary-musk-separation-of-powers-balance-checks-069c169ea1ddf6eea76f502d544c4c16

Vance and Musk question the authority of the courts as Trump faces pushback

Top Trump administration officials are openly questioning the judiciary’s authority to serve as a check on executive power as the new president’s sweeping agenda faces growing pushback from the courts. Over the last 24 hours, officials ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance, have criticized a federal judge’s decision early Saturday that blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records that contain sensitive personal data such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans. They have also attacked the legitimacy of judicial oversight, a fundamental pillar of a Democratic system based on a separation of powers.

AP News

Kevin Beaumont Feb 10, 2025

If you start to see the US judiciary’s authority dismantled- they’re the final check on executive power - then you’re in the endgame to authoritarian rule.

It’s not there yet. But one to watch. The party of law and order may be the party who successfully disband it, it looks like they’re flirting with trying.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 12, 2025

Remember Marko Elez, who wrote the "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.", “Normalize Indian hate” etc tweets, got a job at DOGE, and got given “read only” access to US Treasury systems?

It turns out he was given read/write access in error and it only noticed a day later. There’s a forensics operation going with his former laptop now (he resigned) to see what he did with the access as he was unsupervised.

https://therecord.media/treasury-fully-aware-of-risks-posed-by-doge-access-to-database

Treasury was ‘fully aware of the risks’ posed by DOGE access to payment systems, court filing says

A Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee was accidentally given the ability to edit a sensitive Treasury payment database, but he never did so and the mistake was quickly corrected.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 12, 2025

Also, a US lawmaker has filed to try to impeach the judge who stopped access.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 13, 2025

Just for the record, JD Vance, the "kid" you are referring to here was 25 years old when he tweeted things like "Normalise Indian hate" last month.

Which you know.

Kevin Beaumont Feb 16, 2025

On Friday one of DOGE’s staff members published a blog about why they joined DOGE, citing the worst people imaginable of course. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/doge-elon-musk-ron-unz-holocaust-substack-post-sailer-vdare-trump/

DOGE worker says he was radicalized by reading writer who denied Holocaust

In a since-deleted Substack post, a member of Elon Musk's team praised an essay by Ron Unz—who has called the Holocaust potentially a "hoax" and said Trayvon Martin was "a violent young thug."

Mother Jones

Kevin Beaumont Feb 16, 2025

Of note - Elon hand picked a bunch of these people, and has been openly praising them on X (along with the US VP).

Kevin Beaumont Feb 17, 2025

Christopher Stanley, former Senior Director for Security Engineering at X and Principal Security Engineer at SpaceX, who now serves as a Musk aide at DOGE with a White House role.

"Also known as Unh0ly, enKrypt, or Reneg4d3—the former owner of Error33[.]net, a warez and hacking forum, and theC0re, a video game cheating community."

BlueSky thread:
https://bsky.app/profile/dogginglover.bsky.social/post/3lid446df4224

doge whisperer (@dogginglover.bsky.social)

Christopher Stanley, former Senior Director for Security Engineering at X and Principal Security Engineer at SpaceX, now serves as a Musk aide at DOGE with a White House role, and personally assisted in releasing January 6th prisoners.

Bluesky Social

Kevin Beaumont Feb 19, 2025

Mr. Big Balls, who hung around in doxxing and DDoS channels, has been reinstated to DOGE and has been given access to CISA.

Bssr4 (TЯ☭M₽ )Feb 20, 2025

gwire Feb 17, 2025

@GossiTheDog That “prominently featured word” part feels a bit misleading, as the site (as archived) looks to just be echoing back things visitors have typed.

Thoralf Will 🇺🇦🇹🇼Feb 17, 2025

@GossiTheDog In German we have a saying „Den Bock zum Gärtner machen“ which literally translates to „Turning the goat into the gardener“.

And I think that fits the description perfectly fine in that case.

@thoralf @GossiTheDog English version: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fox_in_the_henhouse#English

fox in the henhouse - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Wiktionary

Andreas Feb 17, 2025

@GossiTheDog Defending those scumbags is the last thing I'd do... But if running warez or hacking forums is a no-no, a lot of people in the security industry today might have a problem.

I remember #warez on efnet being quite busy in 1994 and you'll find a lot of those teenagers in respectable infosec positions today...

Eleanor Saitta Feb 18, 2025

@ixs
Yeah. I'm not gonna say this guy isn't scum, but I wouldn't say it on those grounds without knowing a lot more.
@GossiTheDog

Andreas Feb 18, 2025

@dymaxion @GossiTheDog The guy is running with the DOGE rats.

He’s 100% guaranteed to be absolute scum.

But he’s not scum because he’s been in warez circles. He’s scum because he’s progressing the facist cause.

Eleanor Saitta Feb 18, 2025

@ixs
Exactly
@GossiTheDog

Brian Clark Feb 17, 2025

@GossiTheDog they are young, idolize him and will do anything he asks them to do. They don’t have the life experience to know what consequences or long term damage may come of their actions.

Pontificator.OMF Feb 17, 2025

@GossiTheDog Thankfully, my biggest threat is people finding piles of my UFO things, abduction related things... mind you, if the climate went south on that topic, it'd be just as bad.
Not too beyond the pale to imagine a moment where: "You met aliens, you must die for the good of humanity" could be a thing.

@GossiTheDog Aligns with their mission statement, I guess.

Jonly Feb 13, 2025

@GossiTheDog he was just a little bittle baby

Alun Jones Feb 13, 2025

@GossiTheDog Maybe we shouldn't have a "kid" as one of the senior folks in the team that's going to rip up government.

↸ ⏚Feb 13, 2025

@GossiTheDog He just wants people to stop checking out his own previous statements about his boss.

samiamsam Feb 13, 2025

if elez means South Asian hate

vance's wife is South Asian and his children are biracial

*HEAD DESK*

at this point if Usha doesn't divorce him publicly and go for full custody then she is just as bad as him

Matt Hardy 3.11 for Workgroups Feb 14, 2025

@samiamsam @GossiTheDog I do agree that Elez seems like he deserves a whole lot of flak for saying something so stupid and hateful. He certainly shouldn't be in a job that requires clearance. However a little curious about how many steps this taint should spread if people don't react to him in a prescribed way. For example should Usha still destroy her marriage and remove her children from their father if the comments he publicly disagreed with but didn't publicly condemn only applied to other Asians?

Overdrawn at the Gravitas Bank Feb 15, 2025

@samiamsam @GossiTheDog

In the M.A.G.A. mind she's not Desi, she's rich and has power.

…as in the rant Tony Kushner gave to his version of Roy Cohn in "Angels in America":

https://www.sparknotes.com/drama/angels/quotes/page/2/

Billy O'Neal Feb 12, 2025

@GossiTheDog there are 538 of them, they can’t all be gems :(

Matthew Miller Feb 10, 2025

"Law and Order" was always a euphemism.

Eldritch kcarruthers Feb 10, 2025

@GossiTheDog it’s a done deal. That’s what the stacking of the courts presaged.

Advanced Persistent Teapot Feb 10, 2025

@GossiTheDog "law and order" was never the right description, that was just effective PR. "Party of control and enforcement" more like.

RootWyrm 🇺🇦

@GossiTheDog Kevin, we're already past there. I direct your attention to the blatantly partisan, openly bought and paid for Supreme Beef Gordita.

They are the penultimate court, the final word in ALL matters of the land. And they are nothing but a rubber stamp.

"But there's oth-" They're openly ignoring and defying every lower court that doesn't have their hand picked judges ruling the way they want, and have for years.

There is no judiciary authority left. Hasn't been for a long time.

No Gods , no Masters! RESIST Feb 10, 2025

@GossiTheDog Time for both of them to go away...

Bill Feb 8, 2025

Are you gonna tell then it woulda taken me 25 minutes to achieve persistent access to the underlying datastore that can't be removed without restoring from backup, or shall I?

Nico Erfurth Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog guess who is preparing the pardons already?

robert daniel pickard Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog i thought this was a good explainer of why trump cant just declare musk can have access

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/04/when-its-not-just-a-coup-but-a-cfaa-violation-too/

When It’s Not Just A Coup But A CFAA Violation Too

The hazard with landing upon a legal solution that seems too good to be true is that it often is. So as you read this post it is important to keep in mind that I may have overlooked something, and …

Techdirt

Juliet (Ryel), Rollerskating Elf 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 8, 2025

Teenage Mutant Ninja Incels

Randall Lee Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog So let's get the consequences going.

GeraintLlanfrancheta Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog we would need a Internet archive in the eu

VessOnSecurity Feb 8, 2025

@GeraintLlanfrancheta @GossiTheDog In the EU we have this pesky "right to be forgotten", so pretty much the same thing can happen here too.

Simon B Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog is archive.org.mirrored outside of USA? It really should be

@simon @GossiTheDog

No. But it is available for download via BitTorrent. If enough people work together to get everything downloaded, a decentralized copy can be created, that can be verified as authentic through the torrent seeds.

skull Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog it's pretty known that you can request takedown of archive.org records if you own that page.

you could probably find that tweet on https://archive.is (which afaik does not takedown content like archive.org does)

archive.is

archive.is allows you to create a copy of a webpage that will always be up even if the original link is down

meriksson Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog Rewrite history, wow.

Just wow.

chebra Feb 8, 2025

“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
― George Orwell, 1984

meriksson Feb 8, 2025

@chebra please make it fiction again, please.

Riley S. Faelan Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog #memoryhole

Simonoid Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog so I suppose the minitrue is starting to spin up any day now...
#uspol

Mike Feb 7, 2025

@GossiTheDog And we all know who's responsible, although he's been a bit uncharacteristically silent lately.

PG&E Delenda Est Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog well that team is getting fired.

Not doge. The threat intelligence team that snitched on doge.

Glenn Feb 8, 2025

@GossiTheDog Can you say "duh?"... I knew you could.

T2R Feb 7, 2025

@GossiTheDog "alternative facts"

@GossiTheDog how was it described again? "ambiguous gesture"

T2R Feb 7, 2025

@GossiTheDog Ban X/twitter everywhere and do not do business with any of it's advertisers.