According to a protected disclosure filed with the Office of Special Counsel, Borges told the Government Accountability Project that DOGE officials working at Social Security created a “live copy” of the country’s Social Security records in a separate cloud environment that sidestepped usual security checks.

The group says those lapses put the Social Security information of more than 300 million Americans at risk.

  • dan69@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    lol I can confirm this, just gave my ssn to a reputable company’s hr system. And it says that info is already exists…

  • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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    5 hours ago

    What a perfect time to stop using social security numbers for specifically the thing they were not designed to be.

  • XLE@piefed.social
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    5 hours ago

    Borges alleges that a little-known federal tech team called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, copied the government’s master Social Security database into a cloud system that lacked normal oversight.

    I don’t know if I’d call them a little-known team (they’re infamous for basically fraud), but point taken.

    • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      The Trump administration is building a computer system so that States can ‘verify’ a person’s citizenship prior to allowing them to vote.

      This system has failed in many, many ways. That makes me think that they would use the SSN database and other intelligence sources in order to setup the system to fail at a much higher rate for everyone but likely MAGA voters.

        • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
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          18 minutes ago

          This is a conspiracy I can get behind!

          Oh yeah this part is 100% my personal inference:

          That makes me think that they would use the SSN database and other intelligence sources in order to setup the system to fail at a much higher rate for everyone but likely MAGA voters.

          It isn’t completely baseless, the DHS has created a tool called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. The push on the right is to make it so that everyone has to prove their citizenship in order to vote. So a system like this SAVE system is what they would want to put in place to make it easy to ‘verify citizenship’ at polling places.

          Having an electronic tool who’s underlying system is a complete black box and exclusively controlled by the executive branch which has been shown to incorrectly identify people’s citizenship status would allow a group acting in bad faith to surreptitiously introduce ‘errors’ that affect voters who have been identified (by the domestic spy network that is Google and Co.) as being likely opposition voters.

          I’m not saying that this is what IS happening. I’m saying that this system is exactly the kind of system that you would design if you were trying to do what I’m suggesting.

          Here’s a source about the system, because you shouldn’t just trust ‘people’ on the Internet:

          https://www.propublica.org/article/save-voter-citizenship-tool-mistakes-confusion

  • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    All U.S. Social Security numbers may need to be changed

    Yeah, sure, and winged monkeys may fly out of my ass. But I doubt it’ll happen.

    • ButteryMonkey@piefed.social
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      Yeah, honestly they have needed to be changed for years now, what with all the data breaches and stuff… Pretty sure everyone’s info was leaked ages ago. Nothing has been done because this is how the people in charge want it.

      • Telorand@reddthat.com
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        We’re the unwashed masses. Changing our social security numbers would mean considering us people worth more than a means of exploitation, and the ruling class couldn’t possibly burden themselves with the mere thought.

    • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      For sure. They were fine invalidating mine and everybody else’s Puerto Rican birth certificate but they’ll never put this sort of administrative burden in action.

  • guywithoutaname@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Regardless of whether or not they are breached, the social security numbering system needs to be changed because it is far from a secure number.

    • Dave.@aussie.zone
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      because it is far from a secure number.

      It is only the American obsession with using it as a unique identifier for everything in their lives that has caused this issue.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        It would be less expensive to simply trust everyone. Administering a numbering system and trying to prevent fraud costs more than the actual fraud it prevents, and does nothing to prevent the larger frauds.

        It’s like having a chain on the pen at the bank, with a security guard watching the chain, and three managers making aure the secuirty guard is watching the chain all day, but the cash drawers are open and the three managers simply help themselves to as much cash as they like.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I’m less upset that all SSNs might end up compromised and more upset that no one is going to get punished for it. If a career Federal Employee did this, they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

    But since it was Elon’s friends who did it, everyone in power will just shrug and say “who knew this would be such a big deal”…

    • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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      They would do it to punish out groups…

      They sure are making alot of lists lately.

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          If you make the barrier to entry high enough that only people with money can get issued new and secure ssn would be one way.

          The more devious thing would to just not allow folks on your “terrorist” list to be allowed new numbers. Now you would have a new way to justify filling your concentration camps.

          To be clear I don’t think currently anything like this is planned, this would just be the most fucked up way fascists could capitalize on their own fuck up. Also probably the only reason they would consider going through the hassle of a ssn restructuring.

    • runsmooth@kopitalk.net
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      A cynic in me suggests that this may be a move to push people off the system and disenfranchise them entirely, or the new rationale to create a second class of people who are forced to live with increased digital vulnerability while a new class of numbers can be generated with different privileges.

  • Akh@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Seems like an attempt to interfere with the elections by the administration

  • HuntressHimbo@lemmy.zip
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    Makes me want to scream. Social security as is sucks. Current regime would use its reconstruction to wreak unimaginable cruelty on everyone they can, but the current system needs to go. We need to build systems outside state control to fill every need that can be denied to people based on access to the social security system. 🙃😡💀

  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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    4 hours ago

    Soooo here is a general question about cybersecurity.

    Is it really important if there are no consequences to breeches?

    Same way big business see fines as a cost of doing business, I think we are getting to a time that breaches might become part of business as usual.

    I actually think that’s a good thing as a person who promotes self hosting. If the assumption becomes that your data is never safe in corporate hands, people might move away from having their entire lives on the cloud.

    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      To a degree, it already is business as usual for these firms (look at their underinvestment in IT infrastructure). The issue for the self-hosting community is that not enough of the population is technologically literate enough to understand the risks of using these platforms (insert any Meta/Bytedance/Microsoft/Amazon platform here), and the critical mass of users will remain perpetually vulnerable.

      With that being said, for those with the literacy required, self-hosting is a secure breath of fresh air.

  • tomiant@piefed.social
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    5 hours ago

    Aw shit, sorry, the department tasked with protecting citizens against cyber threats are all assigned to immigration enforcement duty. Have fun, byeee!

  • goatinspace@feddit.org
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    So they want to rewrite cobol in java testing with a clone of live db in a big tech cloud?🦧