Summary
Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) have been granted access to the U.S. Treasury’s federal payment system, raising concerns about security and misuse.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent approved the move after a top Treasury official was ousted for resisting.
Critics warn Musk could freeze payments to government programs or manipulate federal contracts.
The move coincides with DOGE’s takeover of the Office of Personnel Management.
Experts call it a dangerous power grab, as Musk holds no official government position.
So does everyone, thanks Equifax
It’s weird that SSNs are treated as some sort of secret number given they don’t have any security features. They were never supposed to be used the way they’re used today, but there’s no good alternative yet.
The US really needs a replacement, for example a national digital ID based on PKI (public key infrastructure) where you can generate new ID numbers based on a private key. Each bank, lender, employer, etc that needs it would get a unique ID that only works for them, and you could revoke access for just that one company if needed.
Kinda like how OAuth/OIDC login works, where you can log in to sites using your Google account, Apple account, self-hosted Authentik or Authelia, etc. but the site you’re logging in to never sees your password. If a site/app misbehaves, you revoke their access to the account, and everything else that uses the account can keep working.
I agree in principle, but try explaining that to your grandmother.
Here’s your ID. You can decide who gets to have it.
Easy. The average person isn’t going to care about the nerdy shit behind it, any more than they care how Facebook works behind the scenes.
They’ve been pushing against a national ID for decades so good luck convincing grandma it’s not the mark of the beast or something.
“why can’t you just use my SSN like that nice genius billionaire Elon Musk”
They’ve been pushing against a national ID
But the USA is already using a (very poor) national ID - the SSN.
“press this button on the app” is what that would boil down to.
Yeah, I tried to help my grandma with installing/using a video conference app… at the end of the day, I just call her (and yes, she still has a landline) :).
And also the same thing but for payments, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, etc.
We’re all giving away so much personal information every time we make a transaction, and we’ve all seen what these fuckers do with it.
The US really needs a replacement, for example a national digital ID based on PKI… you revoke their access to the account, and everything else that uses the account can keep working
There is already an open standard growing around exactly this concept, Web5 Distributed IDs (DID): https://dev.to/tbdevs/what-is-web5-233o
Disclosure: I worked on the implementation for an Open Banking company (does that need to be disclosed? <shrug> I’m including it lest someone think I’m a shill)
Huh, TIL. Very interesting, thanks for the link!
Yup. My credit has been frozen since that hack.
Everyone has my social security number. It’s one of the stupidest security fails of all time that nobody seems to want to fix. And now there is an entire “credit protection” industry so it will remain that way.
What happens when we file our taxes? Will we even get our refunds?
Would be funny if there was a mass movement and nobody paid their taxes.
Unfortunately, most people have their taxes withheld from their paychecks, and file their returns so they get a refund.
If people didn’t file returns, the IRS would end up with more money.
and file their returns so they get a refund.
which is unfortunate since it means you gave the government an interest-free loan during the year. It’s better to adjust withholding amounts to try and break even, or owe money (but not too much that you get hit with an underpayment penalty)
I kinda wish this were possible. I’ll pay my state, fuck the feds
Was just worrying about this with my spouse
Not mine. I live in a country that isn’t an absolute joke.
Must be nice
What’s it like? :(
If it’s the UK, the government probably has assigned you a National Insurance number.
Yes, but apartheid boy has nothing to do with the UK.
He should have nothing to do with the UK, but he’s still sticking his fingers in British pies by petitioning for Tommy Robinson’s release and promoting Reform UK.
Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (the shite) will stay where he belongs regardless, and Reform will never be anything but a gammon minority party.
I hope it stays that way, but they are already pressuring everyone to move further right. I’m worried that the gammons will vote them in
Give it time. He’s already working on throwing the German election to literal nazis. Just wait till your next election.
The next UK election won’t be until after the next US election, so I’m not sure he’s going to actually be able to.
He’ll be gone by the time our next election comes around. That’s presuming, of course, that America will wake up during this presidency.
I hope they have otherwise he’s not getting to get any employment.
We also have id codes but you can’t do anything with it except tell your dob. Its used as a username for aystems that need extra security like voting, taxes, medical system or banks and such
Keyword unfortunately being “absolute”
Just wait until dear old Nigel comes.
Starmer might be your Biden, a short but underwhelming break between far right incompetence (BoJo and Nigel).
And it’s only a matter of time until until he boasts about it by posting someone’s SN during an petty online argument.
To be fair the social security number is not exactly the most secure thing in the world. More than likely there’s a lot of people who have your social security number and you don’t have any clue that they do.
That being said, I don’t understand why he’s being allowed this kind of access. Even with the Orange douchebag’s blessing, there should be other people minding the store. Shouldn’t there?
there should be other people minding the store. Shouldn’t there?
There was until they were removed and yes man installed
Thanks to Verizon/TMobile/AT&T being the swiss cheese fort Knox, I’d be surprised if Felon Skum didn’t have it.
Companies have played fast and loose with our PII for so long that it’s at a point where we need something else to act as that value so it’s actually secret. But with this administration, that would end up being a wrist tattoo…
I already have a suspicion that he might already be leaking information out to third parties from Twitter (private messages, etc.), so…
Just to culture shock Americans: it’s not exactly the same but in Sweden our personal numbers are kept in the open. Even online. Searchable databases with names, phone numbers, addresses etc. It tells you if someone has a dog. It tells you if they have a car. Which car, even. Some tell you the income of the person you’re searching for. Sites even exist that could tell you if I’ve commited a crime. Some people think that’s unreasonable. Irresponsible even!
That said, as pertains to the article, the fact that he has that info seems pretty unreasonable and irresponsible.
At least in the past, you could use a person’s ssn to open credit cards, change utilities, and generally ruin someone’s life. Someone took out a credit card with my SSN when I was like 9 or 10 and it caused issues when I became an adult and tried to get a student loan for uni.
That is technically possible with our information too. It happens, but is bothersome. Taking out massive loans is possible too, with the right bank on the right day.
You’d need some way to verify the identity, but since such signatures are handled digitally through an app it’s just a good phishing call away really. You already have the phone number and the address if you have the personal identification number.
In the US, if you know someone’s address (which is trivially easy to find online) and their social security number, you can open credit cards online.
The number itself is considered secure, so knowledge of the number is assumed to be enough identity confirmation for most applications.Yeah, that is a problem of course. It’s not a very secure system.
That is technically possible with our information too. It happens, but is bothersome.
Ohh well in that case, I’m sure nobody would bother taking advantage of it for free money…
Oh, it totally happens. It’s not that I wanted to say that it’s too bothersome. Scammers will do what scammers do.
There’s actually been some talk about gangs running such business from Spain. Mostly scamming old people.
It’s not that we don’t have all that info and more available, it’s that we want you to pay a data broker for it.
Some of this data, like commited crimes, is usually behind such a barrier here too. Though it is possible, even if a bit more complex, to get that info by yourself directly from the courts.
My USA town will let you look up your taxes with just your last name and first initial. You can find out what real estate and car someone owns with that. Dog license seems to be in a different system.
My salary is public information because I’m a public employee.
Why is Facebook 2auth reset harder, than stealing someones identity in US?
Because the social security number has become the default way to uniquely identify an individual in the US despite the fact that it was never intended for that function.
I get that, I just can’t comprehend, how you can do anything with it. In my country we have similar thing. We have “Birth number” and it is on every contract we sign. But just knowing it does jack shit. (But yeah, we also have identity card, and that changes number every renewal/loss)
More context:
For online sign you would need atleast 2 identifications (for example Identity cars and passport). And usualy thay make you come anyway to prove you’re you.
It is bafeling to me, that some peaple in US have no means of identification.
For a long time, many companies treated the SSN as a sort of secure password that only the individual would know. Some companies still do. Others, like schools and the military, just treated it like what it is. A unique id number. If you know name, address and SSN, it’s possible to do a lot of different things that can create headaches for the person who was targeted. New credit cards, bank accounts, loans, transferred utilities, rental agreements.
Authentication and two-factor system have actual security features. Social security numbers have no security features at all. They were never designed to be used as a security token.
Elon Musk has to go.
Bruh who doesn’t at this point?
All of my data got breached multiple times going back to the dot-com bubble days, by Yahoo, the original 2015 OPM Beach and by two of the big credit bureaus for a start. If Musk has my social at this point it doesn’t matter.
Removed by mod
Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE)
Is that seriously what it’s called? Elon Musk is producing enough cringe to power all of human civilization. I have no idea if this is the worst timeline or not, but it’s certainly the most embarrassing.
Didn’t Elon get hacked and his SS number leaked?
No, I’m not about to go search for that, but I’m pretty sure that happened, with the 23andme data breach…
His Schutzstaffel number?
Was it eighty eight or neinty nein?
Why are we coming up with nonsense scare tactic arguments? He’s obviously just going to divert federal funds to himself via his companies.
He has no need for a bunch of shitters’ SSN when he would just open himself to the greatest class action in history because it would take about 100 million of us to make him any significant wealth.
