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Comment by grandempire

8 months ago

> 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?

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.

  • 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.

    • 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.

  • I came from a mobile app to the site just to see your flagged comments.

    I would say you were treated with far more respect than you deserve. If i didn't know any better, I would say you were paid to act this stupid.

    None of your arguments were in good faith, you constantly moved goal posts, and actively disregard every piece of eveidence that was presented.

    You can claim I am biased. I would agree with you. I am biased against this blatant display of imbecilty.

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.

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.

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.

  • [flagged]

    • The issue is we don't know what they took and they took steps to hide their tracks. This is whacked territory we are in. You can defend it but normally there are checks and controls in government for a reason. The fact that we are normalizing that certain very ideologically groups in government do not have checks and balances is pretty strange - based on nothing more than a "trust us, we are the good guys." This never works out in the end.

      3 replies →

    • > Then, Berulis started tracking sensitive data leaving the places it's meant to live, according to his official disclosure. First, he saw a chunk of data exiting the NxGen case management system's "nucleus," inside the NLRB system, Berulis explained. Then, he saw a large spike in outbound traffic leaving the network itself.

      > From what he could see, the data leaving, almost all text files, added up to around 10 gigabytes — or the equivalent of a full stack of encyclopedias if someone printed them, he explained. It's a sizable chunk of the total data in the NLRB system, though the agency itself hosts over 10 terabytes in historical data. It's unclear which files were copied and removed or whether they were consolidated and compressed, which could mean even more data was exfiltrated.

      > Berulis says someone appeared to be doing something called DNS tunneling to prevent the data exfiltration from being detected. He came to that conclusion, outlined in his disclosure, after he saw a traffic spike in DNS requests parallel to the data being exfiltrated, a spike 1,000 times the normal number of requests.

      > And Berulis noticed that an unknown user had exported a "user roster," a file with contact information for outside lawyers who have worked with the NLRB.

      And more if you actually read the article. About a third of it is about the data that was taken.

      8 replies →

> Am I reading it wrong?

Based on your comments, you're not reading the article at all.

  • [flagged]

    • Stop sealioning. Anyone can read the article. The evidence of suspicious behavior is clear and according to the article corroborated by a dozen experts.

      The fact that someone tried to intimidate the whisteblower by posting threatening and stalking messages on his door shows there is something not above board here.

      1 reply →