For those of you who have been obsessing about Musk and his creepy hacker "punks" having access to the Treasury

[yellow dahlia]

payment systems, since Friday....like me. Here is an update.

Norm Eisen was just on Lawrence O'Donnell. He was in court today trying to get injunctive relief to stop Musk and these creepy hacker "punks" from having access to the Treasury payment systems.

He and his organization, State Democracy Defenders Fund, brought the case with Public Citizen, and the unions.

Norm Eisen said that he believes the judge will issue a stay tomorrow, to stop their access to the Treasury. He then expects that there will be further legal action that will result in making it permanent.

The segment was quintessential Lawrence...again. He summarized how egregious it is that this has gone on. And then he introduced Norm Eisen to explain the court action.

When the "Last Word" segment is available, I will add it to this post. (Linked in Reply #10)

[Deuxcents]

1. I watched it. There's action going on we are not aware of but it's good to know

Because most of us were throwing our hands up saying..why isn’t anybody doing something?

[Lunabell]

17. That's what I keep telling the Democratic complainers on Bluesky!

Not all Democrats are being all kumbaya! There are so many who are actively doing shit! There are many who are aware of our situation and doing EVERYTHING in their power, short of the assassination of the nazis, in their power! They can't just go in and machine gun their way!

I know some of our Democrstic leaders are waaaay out of touch and namby pamby, but many have their ducks in a row to fight this kkkrap!

[RockRaven]

2. And yet the bell cannot be un-rung.

They had physical access to an otherwise inaccessible system. A stay will not undo whatever they did to it, if anything.

And it is difficult -- even as a high priority, which it will not be to anyone with authority for at least 4 years -- to be certain about the "if anything" part in the negative.

[dweller]

3. Forensic computer investigation

Could examine code and undo changes
But they need access too


✌🏻

[RockRaven]

4. And with TCF ultimately in charge of that Dept, there will be no such investigation.

Even if TCF were to have a falling out with Edolf and kick him to the curb, there still won't be any such investigation during his term. We have seen how pathological he is about denying that problems and threats exist if they could reflect upon him in the slightest (i.e. early Covid days), never mind ones which result from his affirmative actions -- such as empowering Edolf.

[FormerOstrich]

11. I agree...and I keep thinking it through a bit

I wonder what internal controls they have over the servers.

Do they maintain strict separation of duties over backups, admin, and physical access? Is the PII data encrypted? If they copied data onto hard drives to transport to off-site server the encryption keys should prevent access. These kids may be whiz kids but without some real life experience they may not understand some nuances of the security apparatus embedded in legacy systems and databases.

I think it possible they may not have had time to obtain as much as it seems they might have.

[MadameButterfly]

14. If they haven't cracked the codes yet

then this will save us

[yellow dahlia]

5. Absolutely. It means we never really get to breath a sigh of relief.

Kara Swisher says they would have to get in there with some "white hat" hackers, and figure out what they had done. Not sure if anyone can make that happen now. And hopefully they don't have the ability to do anything "nuclear".

[Alice B.]

6. Thank you -- and I watched it. It just didn't fully sink in.

I love Lawrence.
And I have been obsessing. It's awful.
Lawrence did touch on the "after the train has left the station" part that concerned me, too.
I'm delighted for any action fighting this, even if they all probably took/copied/transferred who-knows-what already.

[MadameButterfly]

15. The question is did they find the codes to actually mess with the money

and we don't know how much time they needed to do that.

I've read that they have only "read only" access--probably by people in the administration who want to minimize this, but if true:
They'll have read a lot of stuff but they might not have made off with any money yet.

[Arazi]

18. At least one of the hackers has administrative access

Which means the ability to rewrite code.

And by all accounts he was very busy doing that. The computer language of the Treasury is COBOL which is really really old so CS experts believe that may have stymied him since there’s no way he would know it.

Wired.com has been all over this story

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-payment-system/

[The Wandering Harper]

7. Thank Fucking Goodness

May It Be So

[spanone]

8. K&R

[Lucky Luciano]

9. ...and if they disregard with a "whaddya gonna do about it," then what?

[yellow dahlia]

12. That is a possibility.

A new Rubicon to be crossed, if that happens.

[H2O Man]

13. Solid question.

There is a quote attributed to president Andrew Jackson may have said in regard to the USSC decision in Worcester v. Georgia: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" While it is questionable if Jackson ever actually said that. But the quote defines his policy despite the court's ruling.

[MadameButterfly]

16. Well, some law enforcement body had the right to arrest

them for breaking an entering. It won't come from Trump, but we don't need Trump.

[Arazi]

19. They've been arriving at these departments with US Marshals and letters from DOJ

The DOJ letter purports to give them legal cover to rummage in these systems.

Along with the authorizations from the department Secretary (like the Treasury Secretary who handed control over to these goons), and they gain full access. By all reports the regular staff who maintain these systems are literally frogmarched out of the office by the marshals

[MadameButterfly]

20. That is really scary but if there is a court stay

that says they can't do it doesn't that change things? Do the police arrive to stop them and if so
do the Marshals insist and we have a pitched battle? Or a stand-off?

Of course down the line there is SCOTUS who tend to give Trump everything he wants, so it might be a matter of time--but it would help to have every court except SCOTUS say no to this and establish the illegality and danger of it before the American people.

Elon seems to be in a big hurry, i'm guessing they think they have to do this stuff fast before anyone can mount a defense.

[yellow dahlia]

10. Here is the segment on Lawrence.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-an-afraid-trump-sits-idly-by-as-musk-illegally-seizes-our-data-231247941589?fbclid=IwY2xjawIRJWNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHUs5mpK9HIAZw5fU5NRH7i7eEmJToP-K2Li94ZSN3AF2CHL36ZDubGG4yg_aem_guTlHk0M3XD_2GRpnHj93A

[FakeNoose]

21. K&R bookmarked - thanks!

I have Lawrence's show on my DVR but I haven't had time to watch it yet. (Wednesday nights are usually busy for me.)
These MF-ers need to be escorted off the premises as soon as possible. Hopefully today!