Mastodawn

BrianKrebs Nov 20

I have quite a few projects I'm super excited to publish in the coming weeks. But honestly, the main thing that's consuming my brain cycles story-wise is a year-end piece about just how badly this administration has fscked our cybers in so many ways.

This won't be a polemical soliloquy. I intend to document all of the specific actions this administration has taken that appear to weaken, redirect, or fully castrate our cyber capabilities. Your assistance would be appreciated (and possibly noted).

BrianKrebs Nov 20

One aspect of this I can't stop thinking about is the example and precedent set by this administration when Musk took over and started joining all these federal databases that had previously been kept separate for about 100+ reasons over time.

Kind of secondary to those alarming developments was the fact that all of the safeguards we put in place to ensure Security 101 things like "need to know access" and auditability were just tossed out the window, and really haven't been observed by this administration since. It's as if the entirety of what they teach you in Security 101, 201, 301, etc, is just a suggestion.

Also, where THE FUCK did this data go? Who has it? How can anyone be sure who does? Is it still being used? How will it be used going forward?

To my mind, the biggest story of the year that hasn't been gotten yet is WTF happened with all this data? The assumption is that Musk and X have it, which may be true. But who else?

@briankrebs well... over the years, ive collected the leak dumps as i get them (the most recent one, i still need, if you have leads, nudge nudge) and im up to 4.1tb. i insert the data into orbital, phobos' ASM platform, so customers can see what emails from their orgs have been leaked.

unless i need to search for something, the data sits idle.

i wager its going to be very much the same. folks have it squirreled away 'for later'. privately.

and its gonna suck when they pull it out

I think about this at least once a day.

I have a theory. Elon has a copy. When Trump destroys everything and the government has to be started from the ground up, Elon will have the only copy of the database which he will then sell back to whomever inherits the dumpster fire that was the federal government.

or he'll just declare himself supreme ruler

PeaceNick🇨🇦Nov 21

@noondlyt
The only Supreme leader that I recognize.

@briankrebs

Gary Blosser Nov 20

@briankrebs I'm sure we will find out really quickly when the 2026 and 2028 elections hit 😬

Josh Griffiths Nov 20

@briankrebs Who doesn't have it by now?

Loren Kohnfelder Nov 20

@briankrebs 💯 to that - and it's very unlikely that it's properly secured. Any guess at what it'd sell for on the black market?

BrianKrebs Nov 20

@lmk Nowhere near what it would be worth for someone like Musk who has multiple ginormous machines to feed it into privately.

Loren Kohnfelder Nov 20

@briankrebs That's an excellent point ... and you have the rough plot of a dystopian sci-fi novel there. I'm not sure he controls all copies at this point, it sure would be tempting for a minion to squirrel away a copy on the side.

AndroidDreamer Nov 21

@lmk @briankrebs Who needs dystopia when there's reality 🫣

Daniel Lakeland Nov 21

@briankrebs
We gotta assume Putin. Musks DOGE people definitely transferred some of it to Russian IP addresses right? That was fairly widely reported around Feb, March

@dlakelan @briankrebs yes this!! The whistleblowers described this and then we all shrugged and here we are. 😩

Vickie Gray 🍁Nov 21

@briankrebs Right. And how and by whom is it now being used, shared, lost, exposed. Not only to compromise the US but also allies who had no control over it. Training AI, surveillance, military compromise, personal profit, industrial espionage, classified intel exploitation, secure networks infiltration, blackmail, extortion, employment farming, election interference, human trafficking…Can’t wait to read your analysis. The implications gave me vertigo at the time Musk was playing. Still do.

h4nd / UntouchedCupOfTea Nov 21

@briankrebs I assume we can figure that out by analysing changes in behavior of politicians who have discovered that the KGB hold kompromat on them. I wonder if we could x-ref that with emails etc from .ru?

Sterling Nov 21

@briankrebs
"but who else" indeed !
The question is not did it get out...but how far.
No doubt that "some" nefarious actors have it, but how far and wide it has gone.
Then there's the question of who is profiting?
Who has monetized it?

らりるれろ Nov 21

@briankrebs very surprised to see no mention of Palantir in the replies.

@p0intz3r0 @briankrebs https://newrepublic.com/post/191075/elon-musk-power-grab-server-federal-worker-data

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/musk-starlink-internet-white-house

Smells bad.

Elon Musk Installs Illegal Server to Seize All Federal Workers’ Data

Elon Musk’s DOGE henchmen are helping him make his most terrifying power grab yet.

The New Republic

MissConstrue Nov 21

@briankrebs I'd like to know where some of it disappeared to. I can't be the only one who has had decades of earnings disappear from a social security record. Decades. They have my jobs when I was still in school in the 80s....and then nothing. I'm old enough to claim soon, and it's gone. My entire working history and tax paying history is missing and nobody knows where it is.

Apparently, my only option is to file certified things with the IRS for each tax year missing, get all of those statements together and then try to get an appointment with the SSA. I haven't even started, because holy fuck...that's a lot of work.

It's like living in the movie Brazil.

ṫẎℭỚ◎ᾔ ṫ◎ℳ Nov 21

@briankrebs Did you see this news📰 ?

@briankrebs
I expect ICE and CBP are using it to cross reference for stalking people.

Going T. Maine Nov 27

@briankrebs DOGE just kinda melted out of the public and news consciousness, crushed by so many other Trump stories. We need a deep dive into its awfulness! But then I’ll hate reading it, like every other Trump story.