Comment A Whistleblower Takes on DOGE (Score 1) 2
A Whistleblower Takes on DOGE
More comments from Daniel Berulis.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2025%2F04%2F27...
Comment ...following up my earlier submission... (Score 1) 2
Submission + - 50+ House Democrats demand answers after whistleblower report on DOGE (npr.org) 2
echo123 writes: Over fifty Democratic lawmakers have signed a letter demanding answers from senior U.S. government officials about a recent potential exposure of sensitive data about American workers.
The letter is addressed to the acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, William Cowen. The independent agency is in charge of investigating and adjudicating complaints about unfair labor practices and protecting U.S. workers' rights to form unions.
The lawmakers, who are part of the Congressional Labor Caucus, wrote the letter in light of news first reported by NPR, that a whistleblower inside the IT Department of the NLRB says DOGE may have removed sensitive labor data and exposed NLRB systems to being compromised.
"These revelations from the whistleblower report are highly concerning for a number of reasons," the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Cowen. "If true, these revelations describe a reckless approach to the handling of sensitive personal information of workers, which could leave these workers exposed to retaliation for engaging in legally protected union activity."
The letter refers to an official whistleblower disclosure made by Daniel Berulis, a cloud administrator in the IT department of the NLRB, who also spoke to NPR in multiple interviews.
In his disclosure, Berulis shared that he initially became concerned in March when members of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the agency and demanded high-level access to the systems without their activities being logged. Those fears escalated after he tracked a large chunk of data leaving the agency at the same time as many security controls and auditing tools were turned off, the disclosure continues.
Ultimately, Berulis became concerned that DOGE, which is effectively led by Trump adviser and billionaire CEO Elon Musk, could have accessed sensitive internal information about ongoing investigations into U.S. companies, witness affidavits and even corporate secrets. The alleged insecure practices and removal of data could also create vulnerabilities for criminal hackers or foreign adversaries to exploit, Berulis explained in his official disclosure.
The letter is addressed to the acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, William Cowen. The independent agency is in charge of investigating and adjudicating complaints about unfair labor practices and protecting U.S. workers' rights to form unions.
The lawmakers, who are part of the Congressional Labor Caucus, wrote the letter in light of news first reported by NPR, that a whistleblower inside the IT Department of the NLRB says DOGE may have removed sensitive labor data and exposed NLRB systems to being compromised.
"These revelations from the whistleblower report are highly concerning for a number of reasons," the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Cowen. "If true, these revelations describe a reckless approach to the handling of sensitive personal information of workers, which could leave these workers exposed to retaliation for engaging in legally protected union activity."
The letter refers to an official whistleblower disclosure made by Daniel Berulis, a cloud administrator in the IT department of the NLRB, who also spoke to NPR in multiple interviews.
In his disclosure, Berulis shared that he initially became concerned in March when members of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the agency and demanded high-level access to the systems without their activities being logged. Those fears escalated after he tracked a large chunk of data leaving the agency at the same time as many security controls and auditing tools were turned off, the disclosure continues.
Ultimately, Berulis became concerned that DOGE, which is effectively led by Trump adviser and billionaire CEO Elon Musk, could have accessed sensitive internal information about ongoing investigations into U.S. companies, witness affidavits and even corporate secrets. The alleged insecure practices and removal of data could also create vulnerabilities for criminal hackers or foreign adversaries to exploit, Berulis explained in his official disclosure.
Comment Re:nuclear power requirement (Score 1) 10
That's an interesting point. It likely was to curry favor with trump. They must have known back then that AI is going nowhere: that demand is nowhere nearly as big as they thought. Microsoft is doing exactly the same thing.
Three Mile Island nuclear plant to help power Microsoft's data-center needs
Sept. 20, 2024, 4:26 PM GMT+2
By Rob Wile
A unit of Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant will be restarted as part of a new energy-sharing agreement with Microsoft, which plans to use it to power the data centers it operates as part of its push into artificial intelligence.
In a joint release, Microsoft and Constellation Energy, Pennsylvania's main utility, said Three Mile Island Unit 1, a unit separate from the one that sparked the infamous shutdown nearly five decades ago, will be used to provide clean energy to the tech giant as the artificial intelligence arms race heats up.
the article continues
Comment nuclear power requirement (Score 2) 10
It will be nice when we have those million square foot Spirit Halloween stores in a few months.
I don't understand. It wasn't that long ago Amazon was pushing for nuclear power to meet its insatiable requirements. Given the waste, nuclear is a very long term commitment.
Does it matter that story posted just before the election?
In other news, Amazon was a sponsor of today's 147th White House Easter egg roll.
Comment PBS NewsHour (Score 1) 9
Comment That's how Reality Winner was caught (Score 1) 37
Watermarking is damn near ancient technology. They're not even using well-hidden watermarks. At a minimum they could require you to do an FFT or something to produce something readable.
It's amazing to me that any journalist would directly publish any leaked data. That's incredibly stupid. Even leaking the plain text is risky, as you can "watermark" any document by subtly re-ordering words and sentences, inserting typos, etc. which would tell you at least what office the document was leaked from. I'm tempted to blame the collapse of journalism as a profession, because they should have been told this at some point in their career.
The Intercept published the single page classified document Reality Winner leaked to them. Because of printer tracking dots and other evidence, the Feds were able to prove Ms. Winner leaked the classified document.
Its worth pointing out in 2018 Ms. Winner was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for an unauthorized release of government information to the media.
You know who stole boxes and boxes of highly classified documents and stored them in spare bathrooms and ballrooms at his club/house staffed with a great many foreign workers? The criminal got a sweetheart judge and his life seems pretty good, all things considered.
= = = = =
FWIW, AI can be moderately useful for removing watermarks.
Comment Re:This post went from red to blue very fast (Score 1) 9
I've seen that "starts high, drops through the rainbow to blue over a few hours" behavior with some of my posts as well. Maybe it's a "high karma early boost with a decay factor" bonus??? That's just a guess.
In any case, you are back to red now.
Just a wild guess through observation with no proof, but it seems possible certain accounts, (of which seem to be finite), worked to bury my submission initially, and since then it has slowly and legitimately worked its way back up to being legitimately popular and not firehose spam.
Comment ArsTechnica (Score 2) 9
Comment Re:This post went from red to blue very fast (Score 2) 9
What is this "red, green, blue" of which you speak?
--
Posted from my monochrome monitor
In order to see the current rating color of the slashdot submission, one must be using a desktop web browser. Slashdot's mobile display is not Responsive as are most websites in 2025. Slashdot renders two different ways.
Under the submission title and to the left of, "submitted by USERNAME" is a beaker icon that changes color, depending on the submissions rated popularity. Here's the HTML for the current red color*:
[span] class="icon-beaker pop1 " alt="Popularity" title="Filter Firehose to entries rated red or better" onclick="firehose_set_options('color', 'red')"[/span]
You might consider using something like stylus on FireFox if you're obsessive.
* Obviously the characters that make up the span tags are slightly wrong in order to post on slashdot.
Comment Re:This post went from red to blue very fast (Score 1) 9
Not long after my last post, my submission went green and stayed that way until I checked just now and its blue again. That's interesting, and worth noting.
Comment This post went from red to blue very fast (Score 1) 9
This firehose submission was modded from red to blue in about 40 minutes. To my surprise. ~echo123
Submission + - Whistleblower reports terrible things due to DOGE (youtube.com) 9
echo123 writes: NLRB employee Daniel Berulis reports on CNN that within 15 minutes of DOGE staff receiving new accounts with access to highly sensitive Department of Labor (DoL) data, someone within Russia logged in with the correct username and password over 20 times, but were rejected by location-related conditional access policies. Additionally a traffic spike of 10Gb of data exiting DoL was witnessed which is highly unusual activity at anytime.
Also, DOGE is using Starlink to exfiltrate data, and Starlink is known to be hacked by Russia.
He also reports this activity is not limited to the DoL, it has been witnessed across the government I.T. infrastructure, and that sensitive databases have recently been exposed to the open internet.
Daniel Berulis also received a clear message to stop looking. Part of the package he received included drone footage of him walking his dog.
Fast forward to 4min 15seconds if you're in a hurry.
= = =
Via Reuters
Also, DOGE is using Starlink to exfiltrate data, and Starlink is known to be hacked by Russia.
He also reports this activity is not limited to the DoL, it has been witnessed across the government I.T. infrastructure, and that sensitive databases have recently been exposed to the open internet.
Daniel Berulis also received a clear message to stop looking. Part of the package he received included drone footage of him walking his dog.
Fast forward to 4min 15seconds if you're in a hurry.
= = =
Via Reuters
Berulis alleged in the affidavit that there are attempted logins to NLRB systems from an IP address in Russia in the days after DOGE accessed the systems. He told Reuters Tuesday that the attempted logins apparently included correct username and password combinations but were rejected by location-related conditional access policies.
Berulis' affidavit said that an effort by him and his colleague to formally investigate and alert the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was disrupted by higher-ups without explanation.
As he and his colleagues prepared to pass information they'd gathered to CISA he received a threatening note taped to the door of his home with photographs of him walking in his neighborhood taken via drone, Andrew Bakaj, Whistleblower Aid's chief legal counsel, said in his submission to Cotton and Warner.
"Unlike any other time previously, there is this fear to speak out because of reprisal," Berulis told Reuters. "We're seeing data that is traditionally safeguarded with the highest standards in the United States government being taken and the people that do try to stop it from happening, the people that are saying no, they're being removed one by one."
via NPR
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is calling for an investigation into DOGE's access to the National Labor Relations Board following exclusive NPR reporting on sensitive data being removed from the agency.
Ranking Member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., sent a letter Tuesday to acting Inspector General at the Department of Labor Luiz Santos and Ruth Blevins, inspector general at the NLRB, expressing concern that DOGE "may be engaged in technological malfeasance and illegal activity."
"According to NPR and whistleblower disclosures obtained by Committee Democrats, individuals associated with DOGE have attempted to exfiltrate and alter data while also using high-level systems access to remove sensitive information—quite possibly including corporate secrets and details of union activities," Connolly wrote in a letter first shared with NPR. "I also understand that these individuals have attempted to conceal their activities, obstruct oversight, and shield themselves from accountability."
Comment Re:Just rewarding Apple for $500B investment in US (Score 1) 303
...only posting to undo accidental
Comment Re:I don't want Facebook. (Score 1) 54
My other beef is that public institutions exclusively use Facebook to post and retain information and data. City government, county government, public schools. I can't access some things because of the deep ties to Facebook.
This shits me to tears. Most of these organisations have proper IT staff and a real website, but instead they post shit to facebook where I need an account with zuckerberg to see it.
...or %$#@! Whatsapp!
Which really sucks because of how good Signal is.
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