Summary

Federal employees have filed a class action lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to disconnect a server allegedly installed illegally at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by associates of Elon Musk.

The lawsuit claims the server, connected without required privacy assessments, risks exposing government employees’ data.

The server is linked to the Trump administration’s plan to downsize the federal workforce.

If the motion is granted, the administration’s “deferred resignation program” could be delayed.

  • MataVatnik
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    1 year ago

    Sue?! JUST FUCKING DO IT jesusfuckingchrist we are way beyond the point of asking.

    • dwemthy
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      1 year ago

      Just aks the server directly. Aks it right in the power cord and then aks the hard drive. Aks it over and over

    • capital_sniff
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      1 year ago

      I heard the DOGE crew threatened to call the US Marshals if they weren’t given access.

      • Limonene
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        1 year ago

        Make them do it. The US Marshals should have resisted also, as DOGE is illegal.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      You think they haven’t tried that? If it was that simple it wouldn’t have gotten plugged in in the first place.

      It’s monitored. You need to stop Musk and his lap dogs, who are backed by the DOJ and POTUS himself.

      Everyone that’s put up resistance has been walked out of the building and put on leave/fired.

      • pivot_root
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        1 year ago

        If you’re going to get fired anyway, you might as well throw it off the roof. A bit more effective of a delay than the 30 seconds it would take for someone to plug the power cable back in.

          • pivot_root
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            1 year ago

            Nothing. Destroying it just wastes more of their time comparatively.

            And it probably destroys Elmo’s precious data as a bonus. Something this haphazard efficiently installed wouldn’t have a well-tested backup procedure, let alone a backup policy to begin with.

          • breadsmasher
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            1 year ago

            Do PSUs in the USA have voltage switches? Just flick it on every server they install

            • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              Not usually. Could rip off the onboard speaker and snip off all the fan headers though, that’ll take a while to figure out.

              Edit; or a syringe of liquid metal sprayed in all over the board through a vent. Not hard to sabotage a computer physically tbh

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Pretty much. At some point stuff like this relies on everyone accepting it. The man in the high castle is a pretty good example of it actually. John didn’t grow up a nazi, doesn’t genuinely believe in it, but goes along with it so he can continue to provide for his family.

          In the end what difference does it make it you are just going along with it or if you believe it?

        • zqps@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          That’s exactly what they’re aiming to do.

          The one thing that usually prevents this is the need to prevent government dysfunction and the collapse of whole institutions, and neither Trump nor Musk give a fuck. It works in their favor and their supporters are happy to justify it.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        “oops I must have bumped the power cable while working on the server next to it, my bad”

        • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          5 min of downtime isn’t all that big a deal.

          I like your guys’ enthusiasm, but we need real solutions.

    • IamSparticles@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      What makes you think anyone that would be willing to do that has physical access? I don’t have access to the server room at the office I work in, and we don’t even keep any really important data there. It’s mostly just networking equipment. Anything really sensitive is kept on cloud-based resources that are housed at an off-site facility that is only physically accessible by the company that owns and runs it.

    • Bytemeister
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      1 year ago

      At least set it’s port in the switch to 10/100 half duplex.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Republicans do something blatantly illegal

    “Surely this time the law will do something about it. Let’s do nothing and wait for the courts to take care of this in a timely manner.”

    • DarkSpectrum
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      1 year ago

      And definitely don’t accidentally spill water on it, that would be a big oopsie

      • smeenz@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        Ah yes, be sure to be very careful with your hot cup of iron filings around that server.

    • NooBoY
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      1 year ago

      It was a bit of percussive maintenance, I swear.

  • x00z
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    1 year ago

    Suing requires laws. And we’re in lawless territory right now.

    • MataVatnik
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      1 year ago

      Right? Like I’m getting raped so I’m going to politely ask the rapist to please stop or ill call the police. What the ever loving fuck.

  • RagingRobot
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    1 year ago

    If he really did this that shit will be hacked so fast lol that’s not going to look good

    • ripcord
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      1 year ago

      Do you think he cares if he looks good?

      We’re way past shit like that mattering. It’s a straight up fascist power grab. He’s openly saying to ignore all laws and do whatever they want.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please
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      1 year ago

      It was already “hacked”, in the sense that it allowed anyone to bypass the government employees’ spam filters. All you have to do is spoof the sending address (which is laughably easy) and you can @everyone straight to 15000 federal employees’ inboxes.

  • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    They probably already have offsite backups of all kinds of shit. I know it needs to be shut down anyway, but damage is done.

    • AngryRobot
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      1 year ago

      What are the odds it’s a backdoor into the system for a foreign power?

  • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Just pour some fucking RC Cola or Mt dew on the damned thing. Either one would be fine, RC for sticky Dew for eating away at everything.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    I suppose that’s better than nothing, but our legal system looks quite like Swiss cheese these days. These lawsuits can go away on a whim.

  • mehdi_benadel@lemmy.balamb.fr
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    1 year ago

    I would’ve stomped on it like “oh dear, what I’ve done? I really can’t control my feet. Now the disk and cpu are in shambles”