alt Hacker NewsSo 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.
Replies
This is generally quite restricted. I personally had to undego a "Public trust" civilian security clearance (which is binding for life unlike the 75 years of TS-SCI).
Except in exceptionally poorly run or small organisations, random employees do not have access to everything; generally they need a reason to look at stuff, and there’s a paper trail indicating that they looked at it.
The fact that it crosses departmental boundaries. The fact that the employee has multiple businesses that could benefit from such data.
accountabilty and role-based permissions based on least-privilege.
None of that matters with what DOGE is doing. That should worry you.
I strongly suspect no single employee had access to all that data.
> So how is this any different from all the random employees who might have access to this data as part of their jobs?
Are you asking why it's any different a non-American billionaire who has multipole government contracts having access to your data any different than Joe Bob who was hired and vetted by those same people unlike the other guy?
There are considerable processes to make sure that happens, including proper background checks, seniority at the job, etc. You don't just hand some rando newbie the keys to the kingdom -- any company that did that would be laughed at.
Yeah I more concerned “God Mode” is a thing that exists. One would hope that these systems are heavily locked down but my experience maintaining legacy systems makes me think “God mode” is a thing you get because you have to run a quarterly report and it is too much of a hassle setting up the correct permissions.
It is not, it's the same there are just different people viewing your private information, probably more corrupt who banks all that money to themselves now instead of it going to whoever it was going to previously.
Usually you don’t have access to “everything”. It might even be illegal to cross reference certain data, e.g., the same person or department might not even be allowed to have access to two databases.
I don’t know if the cross reference is true for the US, but it is for other countries.