Saturday, February 8, 2025

"Who Are These Guys?" Indeed

On Thursday, I asked of DOGE, "Who are these guys?", and yesterday, I began to get an answer: one of them is named Big Balls. The doxing campaign was immediate. Per Wired:

A young technologist known online as “Big Balls,” who works for Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has access to sensitive US government systems. But his professional and online history call into question whether he would pass the background check typically required to obtain security clearances, security experts tell WIRED.

Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old high school graduate, established at least five different companies in the last four years, with entities registered in Connecticut, Delaware, and the United Kingdom, most of which were not listed on his now-deleted LinkedIn profile. Coristine also briefly worked in 2022 at Path Network, a network monitoring firm known for hiring reformed blackhat hackers. Someone using a Telegram handle tied to Coristine also solicited a cyberattack-for-hire service later that year.

Per The New Republic:

Shocking: The 19-year old DOGE goon with a questionable rĂ©sumĂ© who goes by “big balls” online was fired from his last real gig for leaking company information online.

Bloomberg is reporting that Edward Coristine was fired from cybersecurity firm Path Network in 2022 for “leaking internal information to the competitors.” Now Coristine has access to the most sensitive internal information there is, the federal government’s, and he has no confirmed clearance that legitimizes that access.

Wait a moment. Isn't it guaranteed that if a deep-stater with all the right clearances has an interest in leaking classified info, especially if it will help the deep state, he'll leak it? But let's look at it from another direction. Mr Coristine can't be a dummy. He's got to know, given his own history and likely connections, that if he offends the wrong people, this is exactly what can happen to him. Big balls indeed.

At the same time, I sometimes worked in computer security in my tech career. It was generally understood, especially in the early days of the field as corporations began to recognize the risks of data breaches, that companies themselves and consulting firms would hire "white hat" hackers to penetrate their systems to demonstrate vulnerabilities -- and those early insights formed the basis of continuing strategies in the business.

But the sort of person who becomes a "white hat" hacker, let's face it, isn't necessarily an Eagle Scout. He probably started out as a "black hat" hacker and may even have a prison record to demonstrate his qualifications for the job. This is simply the sort of person who goes into that line of work. I would bet that Elon Musk himself has a strong internal sympathy for that sort of person as well. After all, he's a rule breaker, a norm shatterer, a risk taker. Just look at his "family" life.

So this is precisly the sort of person he would hire, and precisely the sort of person he did hire. And Musk being Musk, the calculated risk paid off. Beyond that, after a public debate on X, and with J D Vance's endorsement, Musk rehired Big Balls:

As the saying goes, not a bug but a feature. This somewhat fanciful "maybe it was this way" account nevertheless matches my own surmise:

In Treasury's basement, fluorescent lights hummed above four young coders. Their screens cast blue light across government-issue desks, illuminating energy drink cans and agency badges. As their algorithms crawled through decades of payment data, one number kept growing: $17 billion in redundant programs. And counting.

"We're in," Akash Bobba messaged the team. "All of it."

Edward Coristine's code had already mapped three subsystems. Luke Farritor's algorithms were tracing payment flows across agencies. Ethan Shaotran's analysis revealed patterns that career officials didn't even know existed. By dawn, they would understand more about Treasury's operations than people who had worked there for decades.

This wasn't a hack. This wasn't a breach. This was authorized disruption.

. . . "Pull this thread," a senior official warned, watching patterns emerge across DOGE's screens, "and the whole sweater unravels."

He wasn't wrong. But he misunderstood something crucial: That was exactly the point.

This wasn't just another transition. This wasn't just another reform effort. This was the start of something unprecedented: a revolution powered by preparation, presidential will, and technological precision.

. . . The secret wasn't just speed—it was precision. Instead of waiting for Senate confirmations, the transition team prioritized non-Senate-confirmed positions. While Democrats prepared for traditional confirmation battles over cabinet posts, an army of aligned personnel was already moving into place. Strategic positions were identified. Legal authorities were mapped. Support networks were established.

. . . This urgency drove innovation. When DOGE's young coders breached Treasury's payment systems, pre-positioned legal teams neutralized resistance within hours. When career officials tried revoking system access, they discovered DOGE's authority came from levels they couldn't challenge. When leaks surfaced, rapid-response units fed counter-narratives to alternative media almost instantly.

Musk must have already gamed out what would happen to Big Balls and had the response ready beforehand. And he and Trump clearly had the whole DOGE strategy worked out well before Inauguration Day. I can't wait for the next news cycle.

posted by test @ February 08, 2025   0 Comments

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