alt Hacker NewsDOGE has 'god mode' access to government data
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At my first gig, I had "god" level access to our production database.
All I learned is that nobody should have this level of access unless it is some sort of temporary break glass situation. It is extremely dangerous and even experienced engineers can cause irreparable data loss or some other bad outcome. In our case, some engineer accidentally sent around 10,000 invoices to customers that shouldn't have gotten them.
There are far better data access patterns. In the case of US gov data, I don't see why the DOGE team would need anything more than a read replica to query. It could even be obfuscated in some way to protect citizens' identities.
IMHO it's a bit of a shame that the productivity and efficiency gains that computing and cybernetics can bring to complex systems -- including government -- are always tainted and currently championed by anti-social elites that use them to break apart these collective machines.
Bureaucracies are a common good, and it should be in everyone's interest to apply state-of-the-art system engineering to make them as valuable as currently possible.
Perhaps the whole situation will finally convince the "I don't mind, I have nothing to hide" crowd about the need to scrutinize & limit as much as reasonably possible the personal data collection and retention by government and other entities. What good are rules, statutes, checks & balances, passwords and ACLs, if at some point someone you don't like or trust can just come in "as a root" and circumvent everything?
Another very negative long-term effect of all of this is how is the government going to recruit talent in the future? How many people, who have good prospects elsewhere, are going to work for a government agency -- usually a lower pay -- to put up with shit like this that doesn't even happen in industry? Would you? Sure there are sometimes mass layoffs that are handled pretty badly in industry, but not these Gestapo-like purge tactics that are clearly designed that way to instill fear and loyalty.
I find it wild that apparently there is no law onto which government workers can cling to refuse these requests. Is it all just based on conventions, goodwill and culture?
What should happen, and nobody is talking about this, is the USA is severely downgraded in its overall credit rating due to an unhinged and ongoing "fire, aim, ready" self-audit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...
Setting politics aside for a moment, I find it fascinating that an audit of this scale is taking place within the government. Has there ever been a historical precedent where an external agency thoroughly reviewed all departments, published its findings for the public, and then based decisions on that analysis?
Is it really possible to root out governmental fraud using this approach? Fraud and theft exist at every level of government, but if not through a drastic measure like this, what else can be done? Relying on the status quo, the courts, and current processes hasn’t yielded substantial results—if it had, corruption wouldn’t persist.
Still, I can appreciate the creativity here. Sometimes it takes an outsider to think differently.
That said, I’m not naive enough to assume this is done entirely in good faith. The prevailing opinion—both in this community and the media—seems largely negative; I’ve yet to see a single positive headline. Even so, I find it intriguing.
So here’s my question: if you were in charge of addressing this problem, how would you tackle it differently?
So how is this any different from all the random employees who might have access to this data as part of their jobs? I would understand if there was this sort of scrutiny over every federal employee but as it stands I never know who has access to my data and if they can be trusted.
> ‘GOD MODE’ ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT DATA
Isn't this title clickbait?
There's an implication this is access to all government data - but the article doesn't explicitly state that but would lead you to believe that.
Given that I highly doubt all government data is in a single data store ... this is probably more like - GOGE has access to all GSA contracts (just one department) ... which is way less sensationalized (and appropriate for a government agency looking review contracts for efficiency)
Note: I'm not taking a political stance on this.
Because there are bigger fish to fry, I think people don’t appreciate the sheer cost of the system rebuild that will be required for security reasons later.
There’s absolutely no telling what additional software has been installed alongside existing, or which systems have been modified that would require audit. Purging this will be an absolute fucking nightmare to the American taxpayer.
This may turn into one of the most significant IT incidents in world history.
They will have had to impose this too.
The systems were built as separate systems to avoid (in a systems designers most fevered nightmares) a scenario like this.
Federal level government is not a startup
Breaking things will destroy lives if not literally kill people
If it was this "easy" someone would have made a proposal years ago even if it was turned down
And Congress, not ANY President controls spending
We do not elect Kings in this country, there was an entire very brutal war to make it that way
This data is going to leak if it's not copied already into insecure sources and every foreign adversary is going to have it
Cannot be undone
And there should be investigations and prosecutions for this to prevent it ever happening again by ANY President
The President is the head of the executive branch. If _anyone_ in the executive branch has access to information, it feels like the presidents office should too.
Why is this hard to accept?
Is there any reason this data shouldn't be public for everyone to read?
"In the coming weeks, the team is expected to enter IT systems at the CDC and Federal Aviation Administration, and it already has done so at NASA"
If this isn't a glaring conflict of interest and corruption, I don't know what is.
European here, giving my two cents on how this looks from the other side of the Atlantic. Heh
In my country there are laws stopping agencies doing a simple SQL join between two databases, even within the same government agency. There is a separate agency that handles the requests when agencies want to join information.
I am not an expert in the matter. But my gut is telling me that our experiences with east Germany and Stasi left a scar.
It can quickly turn into a real nightmare, and there for there are check and balances to make it slow. It’s deliberate inefficiency.
Government should have access to its own data. Justice and Congress should have the same access for oversight. The only problem I see is personal data about non-government people is being exposed to the entire planet.
They should have developed good security practices first and maybe spent more than a week reviewing a plan, and not having a double standard about their own activities.
I actually believe the executive branch should actually control the executive branch.
If you think this data won’t be used to disenfranchise and target democratic voters and give the GOP perpetual rule, I have a bridge to sell you.
“Oh no! Big mistake we cancelled hundreds of thousands of people from voting just before the election! It just happens to be 99.9% Democrats in swing states who all happen to be marked as dead in all government systems!”
It will be similar to Cambridge Analytica - with all the US Government’s data on one side, this is a massive advantage for targeting even without direct cheating.
Hear me out. Elon wants ultimate control over people’s lives and choices. Why he would want this is a psychological question about which we can only speculate. This is a change from (at least in appearance) his previous libertarian leanings. Whatever the case, this is the plan:
1) Acquire god mode access to government systems and citizens information (contacting, grants, spending, taxes, SSI benefits, you name it).
2) Add features to the Treasury Department’s software to allow him to, with extremely high granularity, control what payments go out. Friends can be rewarded, enemies punished. At first it will take the form of government entities he doesn’t like (USAID, for example). Next will be government opposition in our federal system, mostly blue cities and states with whom he disagrees. Next will be large private entities with whom he disagrees or are business competitors. Finally, individuals opposing him or the government will be personally targeted (for example, by not paying SSI benefits or paying out tax returns, perhaps extended to family members of the opposition, etc). These individual sanctions could extend to large geographic area he dislikes (all of coastal California, for example). He’s putting in place the tools to accomplish this right now as we speak.
3) Fire all bureaucratic opposition elements who might prevent this. Dress it up as a government efficiency measure if you like.
4) Eventually they will pressure large (and maybe small, too) private financial institutions to take part in this scheme (they may have already succeeded, see Citibank and NYC federal funding for migrants).
He’s putting in place the tools for total control by controlling access to money and resources. I don’t exactly know what he plans to do with them but I don’t want to find out given constant interaction with racists and neo nazis on his site.
Is this the sort of data that could be useful in training LLMs or in terms of demographic data that would be valuable to advertisers?
The reality is that just because something has been “known for decades” doesn’t mean it has been addressed—especially in government bureaucracies, where inefficiency, inertia, and misaligned incentives often prevent meaningful reform. The persistence of outdated Social Security records, massive waste, and fraud is a perfect example of systemic dysfunction.
The president, as the chief executive, has broad authority to ensure that executive agencies function efficiently and effectively. While there are statutory and congressional constraints, the executive branch is ultimately responsible for implementing policies and running departments. If existing bureaucrats and Treasury officials have had access to this data for years but failed to act, then it is not only within the president’s prerogative but arguably his duty to bring in outside expertise—whether that be Musk or anyone else—to tackle waste and inefficiency.
Move fast and break things meets root kernel access to government.
What could go wrong?
Are they really just going to use this to train AI models, to build the 'GrokGovAI' models?
"Do I file my taxes this year or not? I had to sit and debate that."
good question
I hope they at least open the original documents to the American public, instead of posting on X. IMHO the public should have the rights to review and grill the officials about the spending.
Surely it's 'dog mode'
> “We’re operating believing our systems are completely bugged,” one person told us.
Doesn't everyone at work, any $WORK, do this? I do! I even type my thoughts "aloud" so to speak in order to help anyone viewing my sessions on replay.
> No good reason or case can be made for one person or entity to have this scope of access to this many government agencies containing this much sensitive information.
The president should obviously have this level of access.
Honestly when DOGE was first announced, I thought it will be a tiny department that does almost nothing and produces recommendations and PDFs that nobody reads. I didn't expect this.
I used to know Thomas during my first internship at Tesla. He's incredibly talented and a very kind, thoughtful guy. Keep up the goodwork Thomas, and ignore all these haters!
My two cents. God-mode privilege already existed before DOGE, someone else had (or still has) this privilege. Priority - How to limit power of such privilege in future.
I honestly have not a single idea why there wasn't this type of department before monitoring and auditing everything.
Imagine: if you dunk on Elon on Twitter now he could get mad and post your tax return in the replies
A huge problem with this is that from all accounts, these engineers going in don't seem to have any accountability. No one knows who is in charge and making the decisions (presumably Musk though official statements say he's not the DOGE administrator, but no one knows who is), they come into offices like an FBI raid demanding access but won't give reasons, say who is in charge, what they are doing, or even their names.[0] Its much worse than an FBI raid, and reminiscent of Gestapo tactics.
So even if DOGE is benign (and I don't think they are, but lets assume for a moment), if something goes wrong, who is to blame? Where is the transparency they are expecting of government agencies?
Would you trust an outside team like that, say some brash McKinsley team of "experts", to come in and do whatever they want with your systems? What company would allow that?
Also turns out that they're making up shit. $8 billion "saved" was actually $8 million because they didn't do their homework.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/doge-mu...
Which cloud provider is DOGE using?
They're only listed source is an employee of USAID.
I have no reason to believe anything in this article.
Well, it is a government agency tasked with audits. Why shouldn't it have root access?
i hope they try to use cjis data bc it's taken me 6 months to build a system that is technically compliant and it still doesn't fully pass. they definitely will fail the data security policy requirements.
Having access to the data scares me less than the utter ineptitude demonstrated in presenting “findings”. Findings in quotes because if I used that level of analytical rigour I’d be instantly fired, probably out of a cannon into the sun.
Putting aside the whole idea that Elon "bought" his way into this position, it's crazy this is the path that Trump is taking. He has a house and a senate that would likely happily cut all these programs, and it could be done legally and without all this mess. Why let Elon run roughshod over the government?
The goal is to reduce government spending by $2 Trillion in 4 years. If you want to see how this is going: https://polymarket.com/doge
Why is this a bad thing if their job is to audit budget and spending? The article also does not go into technical details on what this supposed god mode actually is.
If you want accountability someone needs to have root access. If you don't want accountability, you are a politician getting kickbacks through obfuscation.
What is the point of all of this? Reducing federal income taxes? It seems to me that these people are pushing a rope if that's the goal.
For example, USAID is 1% of federal spending, but buys the US a disproportionate amount of soft power and good will for that investment.
Also, why 20-year olds? You'd think a person as resourced as Musk would have access to more capable people. When I was 20 years old I didn't know a thing about the Federal government or all the ways it benefits Americans.
I don't see DOGE solving an actual problem, and even if it did, this is a horribly incompetent way to go about it.
The list of the frode and abuse
https://web.archive.org/web/20250220063358/https://www.theat...
https://archive.ph/Oa42l