Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system
98 comments
·February 4, 2025ActionHank
I think it's less about "25-year-old" and more about unvetted stranger with no clearance given unfettered read-write access to the money of a country apparently not run by a dictator, but elected officials(none of which were involved).
briffle
How is this possible with any auditing/compliance framework in place? Any basic framework that I have been part of, the developers can't have access to production, and we have to show rigorous testing processes are passed before we update production.
dragonwriter
> How is this possible with any auditing/compliance framework in place?
It is not, what happened is someone said “I have authority from the President which trumps your ‘frameworks’ and ‘processes’, and if you fight me on this you will be fired and then we’ll bring in your replacement with the same deal and repeat as necessary until there is compliance with our demands”.
disqard
Yes, it is not "turtles all the way down" (or code/processes/law).
The "base layer" has always been "men with guns".
If you fail to cooperate, an armed security guard will take your badge and escort you to the build exit.
If that security guard does not cooperate, another man with a gun can always be found.
ActionHank
Because they are being guided by the rigor of trust me bro.
RGamma
"I know how to code, therefore I know everything."
xster
Not commenting on this particular case, but on the general sentiment.
Aristotle did say in Politics IV that appointing public office by lottery, drawing from the real public, is more democratic (power to the people) than elections, which is an oligarchic exercise.
ActionHank
Makes sense.
I've always held the opinion that elected officials should have to use public health care, send their kids to public schools, and use public transport.
This would ensure that they would have to maintain these institutions and be able to face their constituents on the daily.
readthenotes1
"real public" at the time excluded women, slaves, and expats.
Insanity
Sure but those need to be understood within context.
Obviously OP is not saying it was unilaterally better and the idea being commented on is just public lottery vs election. You can lift out that idea and apply our current understanding of “public” and the point of OP still stands.
3hoss
how, exactly, is that relevant here?
ActionHank
Because the US democratically elected a would-be dictator who is now building out his oligarchy.
emsign
When Americans voted for crazy, did they expect anything less than crazy? I don't understand how you can be shocked.
kordlessagain
Interesting how you assume everyone with concerns must have voted for them. Maybe brush up on how voting percentages work - you'd be surprised how many Americans can be affected by election outcomes regardless of how they personally voted. Math is fun that way!
Funny how quickly we jump to 'you must have voted for them' these days. Maybe the real problem isn't who voted for who, but how we've all gotten so used to seeing each other as enemies instead of neighbors who sometimes disagree. Just a thought.
chatmasta
This assumption, that everyone upset about these actions voted for them, is only half the fallacy. The corollary and equally mistaken assumption is that people who voted for them are upset about the actions.
Plenty of people are happy about the actions because it’s exactly what they voted for – “promises made, promises kept.” This isn’t implementing some secret agenda without warning; it’s a fulfillment of a central campaign promise.
nicholasjarnold
Exactly. The results of the US Presidential Election in 2024 show us that slightly more than 1 in 5 Americans cast a ballot in favor of Donald Trump.
assumptions: The publicly-available vote count numbers are correct and the US has a total population of around 341 million people.
The view that our Republican party got a "conservative mandate" and "won by a landslide" is an interesting one when considered with the above facts. They won by a margin of ~1.6% of the votes cast. The victory looks like a large one only when viewed through the distorted lenses of our Electoral College system.
> Maybe the real problem isn't who voted for who, but how we've all gotten so used to seeing each other as enemies instead of neighbors who sometimes disagree. Just a thought.
Exactly. Divide and conquer. Historically it's been pretty effective.
scelerat
Lately I just cant get the thought out of my head that 69% of Americans either directly or tacitly approved Trump's agenda.
A big chunk of those people now voicing concerns did not vote to prevent the course we are now on because "both sides are the same," or variations of that demonstrable falsehood.
null
cozzyd
Yeah, but the alternative had a funny laugh.
bryanlarsen
Americans experienced 4 years of the crazy just being superficial. They expected more of the same, not 4 years of the crazy going everywhere.
In term 1 Trump cabinet and staffers were Bush veterans whereas this term they are Trump loyalists. I tried convincing people that this time would be very different, but I got shouted down.
astroid
I quite literally don't believe this. I fully believe he has 'read' access, but extraordinary claims require some evidence.
I just read the article and they go to great pains to make it -seem- like they have first party confirmation and not hearsay, but it was breaking my brain trying to determine with certainty.
I just asked copilot to review the article looking for 1st party witnesses, and it said there weren't any.
Then I asked it to summarize each 'witness' from the article, whether they are first party, and if not what degree of sepearatoin they have. This is what it said:
Sure, let's break down the key witnesses and their claims:
David Lebryk: Former acting Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. He resigned after resisting granting DOGE access to the Treasury data1. His claim is based on his direct experience and position within the Treasury Department, making him a first party witness.
Ron Wyden: The highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. He expressed concerns about the potential misuse of the data by DOGE1. Wyden is a second party witness, as he is commenting on the situation based on his oversight role but not direct involvement.
Anonymous AP Sources: Two people familiar with the situation spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. They claim that DOGE has gained access to sensitive Treasury data1. These sources are second party witnesses, as they have indirect knowledge of the situation.
X User (@rayinsideout): Revealed names of alleged DOGE employees who accessed the Treasury payment system. Musk accused this user of committing a crime by sharing private information2. This user is a third party witness, as they are relaying information they claim to have obtained from other sources.
Scott Bessent: Treasury Secretary who granted DOGE access to the data. His actions are central to the claims, but he hasn't made public statements about the specifics of the access3. Bessent is a first party witness due to his direct involvement in the decision.
So it sounds like all of this is based of David Lebryk's claims, and the media contorting themselves to make this a 'thing'.
I am willing to hear actual evidence, but this list doesn't sway me and this feels a lot like "things people want to believe" more than "things that happened".
Time will tell I guess.
astroid
Oh btw the "David Lebryk" is not even mentioned in the article, CoPilot added that as context.
So the articles quite literally has 0 first party witnesses. Yet they are super-duper-certain that this person has 'read-write' and is rewriting COBOL on the fly. Give me a break, this is worst than "Weekly World News" -- it may as well say:
"BatBoy Terrorizing Treasury Database! Picture on Page 5!"
philk10
If a 55 year old with no knowledge of the system was set loose I'd still be freaking out
uLogMicheal
If it's in COBOL you can probably count on one hand how many people have knowledge of the nuts and bolts of those systems and usually the new people talk to the old people.
readthenotes1
Hopefully by the time he got to be 55, the person with the access would be too cautious to do anything with it
imglorp
> the ability to change code for the purposes of rooting out fraudulent payments or analyzing disbursement flow
Or making and hiding fraudulent payments.
steanne
we're gonna have a shiny new sovereign wealth fund to loot!
cozzyd
Someone has to reimburse SpaceX for all the free labor in the treasury department!
nikisweeting
Why do people keep harping on the age. I don't care about how old they are, I know plenty of cracked teenagers. I care that they have no constitutional authority.
crooked-v
The age emphasizes the absurdist, incompetent slapdash nature of the whole thing. It's not a grizzled expert aiding a coup, it's some kid fucking around.
nikisweeting
Why is it absurd for a 25 year old to write system-critical code? That's not even that young for the field. I'd been coding for 12 years at that age!
yummybear
Do you think you, or anyone, have the capacity to understand changes you are making to a system developed over decades, that manages trillions and affects real lives, with only a few days worth of experience with the system?
patchymcnoodles
So was I, now I'm over 40 and boy oh boy can I tell you how I would definitely not trust myself at that age going into such critical systems.
mjburgess
It's not the quality of code in question, but of judgement.
sundaeofshock
I don’t care that the kid is writing code. I do care that the kid is an active participant in a coup against the US government.
cozzyd
If it's the person with the obviously named GitHub account (age seems plausibly matching), someone should tell Trump he's working on (well, at least cloned) a DeepSeek-related project. (The picture, now taken down but still available in caches, also matches the picture shown in various media, though I can't verify that the media has the right picture, so I won't link to the account).
Unsurprisingly, they have a YOLO badge.
edit: ok, based on Wired reporting, https://github.com/markoelez must be him...
brohee
I had to truncate the title a bit from:
'Go haywire': Onlookers freak out as 25-year-old set loose on Treasury computer system
zingababba
He should be using H1-Bs
throwaway984393
[dead]
Recent and related:
The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2691 comments)