1/ Here's my take on what's happening with DOGE.
I've got fed experience through contracting with Health & Human Safety, Head Start, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and DOD. I get brought in when people need to get shit done. Other people here have way more experience than me.
https://dan.mastohon.com/@danhon/113953007466779969
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
2/ (Meanwhile, check out the reporting at https://wired.com and https://404media.co, it's good and you can tell they've got good sources.)
It's really bad!
Here's the thing about tech in general, and tech in gov specifically. It's always about people, not the technology.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
3/ The most important thing to realize here is that technology is just a tool and it's used at the direction of people to accomplish their goals.
The second most important thing is that things change when they are deemed important enough.
COVID and unemployment insurance is a good example.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
4/ When COVID hit, a whole bunch of government technology became critical and politically sensitive. Just the same way the launch of the Affordable Care Act website was botched.
In both cases, "we" knew what to do, how to figure it out, and and how to do it.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
5/ Unemployment Insurance (UI) systems needed to be modernized for lots of reasons before COVID hit.
But the lesson of COVID-19 is that modernizing, upgrading, and making government services simpler, clearer, faster could have happened at any time if it was deemed important enough.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
6/ I give you all this setup because like I said, the most important thing to realize is that the combination of Musk and the President and the administration's core have made what they want to achieve very, very, very important.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
7/ What's happening is the combination of:
i) People at the highest level of leadership with clear priorities
ii) People who don't care about the consequences
iii) A bureaucratic model of deference
And I think at the lowest level, some of the actual tech.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
8/ In normal times, it is very very very hard to make a change to government technology. This is mainly because there are rules to stop you and people who will enforce those rules. It is much less so because of the underlying technology.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
9/ Some of the rules stopping you from changing government technology (from the copy on a webpage to changing how rebates are calculated) are reasonable and make sense.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
10/ But many of the rules are unreasonable. They are absolutely too conservative in favor of reducing risk. Sometimes this is described as "doing nothing is the least riskiest option"*
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
11/ Across government, most of the people who enforce & make these rules are unqualified and inexperienced.
In a safe environment, they will admit that. Most of our knowledge has been hollowed out to the private sector. On purpose.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
12/ One reason why rules make it so difficult to change government technology is because it's brittle.
It is reliable, but until the technology is capable of rolling back a change, making changes absolutely comes with risk.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
13/ Here's a reason why there are rules that make it hard to make changes to government technology:
A system in California deals with submitting federal Medicaid reimbursement. When I worked with that system, it dealt with so much that if it broke for one day, California would be insolvent
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
14/ But the only effective, practical thing stopping changes is because there is a rule and you would get in trouble for breaking the rule.
The person running DOGE and this administration don't care about getting in trouble for breaking those rules.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
15/ There is a thing in federal government called an ATO, an Authority to Operate: digital.gov/resources/an...
You are not supposed to, uh, operate a software system without obtaining an ATO. Normally this is really hard! (In many cases it shouldn't be)
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
16/ The DOGE team are absolutely behaving in a way that suggests they don't give a shit about ATOs.
What's terrifying is that there is nobody stopping them.
Which is why I said this comes down to people making decisions and whether those people care about consequences.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
17/ What's happening is just like a corny Bond supervillain plot. Get control of the computer and information systems and you can do a lot.
You can stop payments. You can just turn things off. You can just break them, which practically can be the same as turning things off.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
18/ "But Dan, what about security measures like, I don't know, some sort of 2FA or a PIV card, or multiple signoffs before deploying?"
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
19/ In computer security, there's a class of problem called The Evil Housekeeper Problem*. Basically: once someone has physical access to a system, you are effectively screwed.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
20/ The Evil Housekeeper Problem is why the physical presence of DOGE is terrifying. Yes, "the cloud", but there's still on-premises technology.
And it's easier to coerce people when you are standing next to them, threatening them.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
21/ All the rules and measures I talk about above are put in place because you don't want something to break.
Musk, Trump and the rest of the administration want to break things. Accelerationists are in the executive branch. Leadership like Secretaries and Directors want to break things
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
22/ So I want you to understand how easy it is to break things or turn things off.
i) government technology is brittle
ii) coercion is easy ("you're fired", "we will stop paying you", "we will tear up the contract")
Musk just stops paying for things he doesn't want to pay for.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
23/ Like, "Musk doesn't pay for things" isn't up for debate. There's ample evidence. "Trump doesn't pay for things" isn't up for debate either. These are both facts.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
24/ If you're, say, a major government contractor like Deloitte, or a consultancy that runs the system for tracking migrant unaccompanied minors for DHHS and the DHHS secretary or Musk says "we will not pay for this" and instructs the bureaucracy to do so, then that contractor won't get paid.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
25/ So now you're a government contractor with a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and a whole bunch of people on staff working on it. Do you just... keep going? Knowing you won't get paid? Do you tell your staff to stop working? What if they've been told to stop already anyway?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
26/ I cannot imagine what it is like for the people in 18F and the US Digital Service right now and I don't hold them in judgment at all.
Like, I'm sure I know the person who was instructed to and made the commits on websites to scrub anything to do with DEI, likely under threat.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
27/ I don't pretend to know even a tenth of critical government systems, whether to do with regularly moving around stupendous amounts of money, or handling private information that can identify you.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
28/ What I know is what I said up top: tech does what you tell it to do. If there's no one to tell you to stop, and you don't care either way, all bets are off.
You have someone in charge who unplugs shit and doesn't care, and an administration on record that wants to break things.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
29/ The U.S. Digital Service is a good example of the deal with gov tech.
With political clout, USDS people were able to go in and change things "because the President wants it done". That's the lesson.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon youd definitely know better than me, but i get the distinct impression that one major MAJOR root cause of this is people in our position saying 'oh shit these systems are so old they're made of wood and still run on steam! you need a refresh and updates, badly!' and their response is something like 'get rekt, asshat, youre not on the gsa schedule and dont have 12 staff members to handle just the bureaucracy, we dont care about you'
or, insert your other favorite 'take a hike' quip
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from Viss@mastodon.social
@danhon like there have been people lined up around the block for decades to try and help, and that help was outright refused
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from Viss@mastodon.social
@Viss From my pov dealing with this has been a very tactical + political + leadership problem.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon @Viss
that help was refused, actively mocked, derided, persecuted.
and they did run amateur mail servers from the basement.
whilst obviously the people who are mainly responsible for the current situation are the group of people who have taken power, a great deal of the weakness that allowed this to happen is all self-inflicted.
a choice. not divine punishment.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from vruz@mstdn.social
@vruz @danhon thats exactly what im saying. people saw this shit coming ten miles away and the folks at the time actively refused the help
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from Viss@mastodon.social
@Viss @danhon
they not only refused the help.
refused, mocked, derided, persecuted.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from vruz@mstdn.social
@vruz @Viss @danhon If the systems were that fragile, wouldn't they have been hacked by now?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from slashdottir@mastodon.online
@slashdottir @vruz @danhon
have uh
have you not beeing paying attention?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from Viss@mastodon.social
@danhon that sucks. That is a shit position to be put in.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from evan@cosocial.ca
@danhon I can imagine what it's like for USDS people right now since I'm in it myself, and believe me it's not good. Feel free to AMA but I may not be able to answer because I have to be careful that what I say doesn't damage my colleagues.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jik@federate.social
@danhon I am actually wondering what will happen when Musk switches off payments to these big contractors like Deloitte, Raytheon, etc.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from MisuseCase@twit.social
@MisuseCase Lawsuits, I imagine. But he hasn't shown that he cares about those.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon apropos ... https://xkcd.com/538/
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from causticmsngo@mastodon.social
@causticmsngo Exactly this.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon I’ve been wondering what the odds are that those relatively inexperienced engineers are being spear-phished. Their contact info appears to have been leaked and I’d be shocked if they’re maintaining good separate between personal and government resources in this kind of rush.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from acdha@thepit.social
@acdha Which inexperienced engineers?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon the guys DOGE has been installing seem to be in their early 20s, and limited professional experience. I am skeptical that they’re not cutting corners on security in how they work if they’re doing things like testing in production.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from acdha@thepit.social
@danhon@dan.mastohon.com @acdha@thepit.social
Presumably the ones the evening news have been citing as "fresh out of college or even highschool".
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from ferricoxide@evil.social
@ferricoxide @acdha I imagine they're too busy to be phished, and also too self-important to bother listening to anyone else.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon @ferricoxide I’m just saying, if I was an intelligence agency I’d be wondering whether they’d open an attachment claiming to be evidence of some hidden DEI activity.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from acdha@thepit.social
@acdha @ferricoxide oh, yeah
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon
🥥 We WERE making DEI progress, Dan. Sorry.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jstatepost@mstdn.social
@danhon yeah, the part that was always unbelievable about Bond is the motivation to just break shit didn't seem like it would scale up to someone with that much power and yet here we are. Breaking things is so easy.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from kellan@fiasco.social
@danhon all well and good until there’s a brick to the face
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from bosh@infosec.exchange
@danhon
Can I have that in writing please?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from n_dimension@infosec.exchange
@n_dimension sure, after we put your name on this website.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon
You are really making it easy for my estate lawyers 😁
This is why the need for being in the unions has never gone away.
Fascists are always one, last election away from seizing power
[#]UnionStrong #Unions #fascists
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from n_dimension@infosec.exchange
@danhon so, I am not sure if trying to stop them is the same as stopping them, but it seems like some officials have tried:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/02/usaid-officials-put-on-leave-musk-doge
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from evan@cosocial.ca
@danhon My father worked in ACH processing at the federal reserve for the decade before he retired. Similarly there, you don’t make changes wily-nily because if the ACH calculations are wrong, it’s often billions of dollars and possible financial chaos.
These folks don’t seem like they care about those possibilities (and, in fact, might relish having that chaos happen)
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from mwyman@mastodon.social
@mwyman @danhon I'm pretty sure chaos is the point of the exercise.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jjdavis@infosec.exchange
@mwyman @danhon
I hope they'll relish having seniors with nothing to lose beat them senseless with canes.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from Nazani@universeodon.com
@danhon I think there’s also a general misunderstanding of how risk should work in govt. The vast majority of the federal budget is disbursements to entitlements that keep people alive. You want this system to change slowly because if you fuck it up you will kill lots of people
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from bckohan@fosstodon.org
@bckohan @danhon these guys absolutely want to kill lots of people.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from SallyStrange@eldritch.cafe
@SallyStrange @bckohan @danhon
The genocide is in the name.
"Accelerationists" are not accelerating Nirvana.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from n_dimension@infosec.exchange
@bckohan @danhon
When I was a UK civil servant - but most of my career in NGO sector - I realised that what looks like government inefficiency is actually a lot of internal coordination to avoid missteps. Because government department must never make mistakes, and there is so much scope for this to happen.
Other organizations are able to have a very different way of dealing with risk. There's a huge amount of waste in private sector btw.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from NovaNaturalist@mstdn.ca
@bckohan @danhon
Which matters only when you care if you kill lots of people.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from Okanogen@mastodon.social
@bckohan @danhon Although that view of the risks ignores the chance that the current system is killing lots of people already. Which it is. Change absolutely carries risk, but "no change" can cause plenty of harm by itself.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from johnpettigrew@wandering.shop
@johnpettigrew @bckohan yes, see https://dan.mastohon.com/@danhon/113953436005876229
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from danhon@dan.mastohon.com
@danhon @johnpettigrew 100% we're just talking past each other. By no means did I take "slowly" to mean "the status quo is correct". We just need to understand that the pace of change in gov't systems will always be slower than the pace of change in private systems and its dangerous and unreasonable to expect public/private parity along this axis. This is downstream of a lot of dumb reasons: politics/lack of market darwinism. And one good one which is the risk inherent to function and scale.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from bckohan@fosstodon.org This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
text/gemini