this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025

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572

A 25-Year-Old Is Writing Backdoors Into The Treasury’s $6 Trillion Payment System. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (www.techdirt.com)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

Holy shit lol

I'm more than a decade into my engineering career. Nobody pushes directly to prod on my team, not even me. Everyone gets reviewed and tested.

I read this and cackled in public. Because my god, however bad you think this is, it's way fucking worse. Idk what a reasonable reaction to this is but wow. Just wow. Fucking. Cooked.

Like member how everyone talked about graft in Russia resulting in funds meant for military maintenance being siphoned off the top instead of being used for what it was supposed to be used for? This is like that, except you don't even have to have any excuses or anything, the money just... Disappears.

Edit: Have you ever seen a check from the US Treasury bounce? These fuckers boutta be rubber.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago

We told people to stop giving Brawndo to crops and now the economy computer failed. Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I worked as a developer in electronic payments for 5 years and we had to go through a months long process to certify the code with the financial system. My bosses were paranoid of any changes I made (to a silly degree) and we had a silly amount of automated tests.

We were a small startup with an underpaid staff and I'm not sure if more than 1000 people used our software. What they're doing is completely reckless.

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[–] Nomecks 70 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Musk robs the treasury blind then Trump pardons him. Biggest heist ever.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

Fucker thinks hes Gus Gorman in Superman III and thinks salami slicing is his get rich quick scheme.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

US is fucked. Is this going to be a Reichstag Fire moment?

[–] [email protected] 40 points 6 days ago (1 children)

We are one rm -rf away from away from being absolutely fucked.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (2 children)

You didn’t say sudo, so it’ll be ok.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This 25-year-old always logs in as root

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I hate ittttt

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Simon says sudo.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

They're past that, honestly. The SCOTUS decision on the POTUS being above the law was that moment.

The POTUS has the same power that Hitler wielded after the Reichstag fire. Then they elected the worst person to have that power.

You know the person weighing Hitler down was warmonger president Paul Hindenburg. There's none of them in the US, and the only judiciary that could, won't stop him.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah but they still need some sort of excuse to declare an emergency, impose Marshall Law and round up all the Democrats and “DEI” workers. The functional collapse of the government would be very convenient for them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Fyi, it's martial law.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 6 days ago (2 children)

He also works 18 hours a day and sleeps on a cot in his office. That’s how you know his work is always flawless.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

And I'm sure early 20s adults that hang out with the muskrat are 100% drug free. Definitely not amphetamined or ketamined up or anything.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I've seen a ton of studies that have proven that the quality of your home life is directly related to your own production which could profit myself and even more so the company I work for, and I have to say, what about next quarters numbers?

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Pushing code directly to Prod in a payments system handling trillions of $ is going to end in an almighty bang...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

In their quest for ever moar, the capitalists sowed the seeds of their own destruction...

[–] ininewcrow 54 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Back door to US government on sale on the black market for the highest bid.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 6 days ago (4 children)

He will probably leak it on discord dedicated to some treasury game to win an argument against some 12 year old.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago

Highest bid?

These stupid fucks couldn't even imagine what this data is worth if they would wait minimum one year.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Honestly this could be the best thing possible if anonymous takes advantage and just... Deletes all data on the US dollar....

Short term, people would suffer. Long term, our children might get a future they currently don't have thanks to the capitalists.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Isn’t this the plot to Mr Robot?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

It's a common hacker dream since looooong before that. Bringing the score to zero.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Fight club also.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If they completely break the payments system, does that mean government employees stop getting paid?

Like no more federal government? No more ICE? No more military? No more FBI?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago

It means all of a sudden you have a lot of well armed and well connected people out of a job, while probably the US dollar becomes worthless as a currency. If you live in the US and havent though about owning a weapon, now would be the time to quickly get one. You never know when the currency becomes worthless and police will demand all your food reserves at gunpoint.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wasn't this the plot to one of the Die Hards. Except they just went in and did it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Wonder if the muskrat would be triggered by being called Hans Gruber. Or some variation...

How about... Hans Groomer.

Anybody else got one?

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I guess there are no checks and balances that apply?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Sorry, no. We'd need 60 votes in the Senate and a majority on the SCOTUS to stop this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Sorry, no, he meant there are no checks -as in bank checks- because all the balances -as in account balances- are now zero after all the money has now disappeared.

So, literally, no checks and balances.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 days ago

Technically, this is the executive branch working within itself.

Now, the check on executive stupidity to this extreme is impeachment, but that's never gonna happen with the Republican party in charge of both houses of Congress.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago

that will prove very lucrative to the industrious hacker in the third world.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 days ago

Holy fuck.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

Break out the Whiskey, we're done boys. It was a good run.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 days ago

I thought this was an onion article

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Gen-Z is rUiNiNg GoVeRnMeNt!!!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Heads up if you get a lot of tech news/discussion from HN they appear to be heavily censoring submissions along these lines.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

I think the worst thing that could happen is capitalism continuing to function as "normal".

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

Nice, clearly this guy did well in college, I'd totally hire him for all my financial and secure resource needs (/s)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Just wait until they allow bitcoin transfers over tor... Its a featured not a bug...

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

What happened in Albania was that a bunch of people, basically, stole most of the money in the country. It caused a civil war, sort of. Nobody ever got their money back either.

I would like to say it's more complicated than that, here, but I'm not sure that it is. My one consolation is that Musk and Trump have not the slightest idea what they're fucking with or what they're up against, if it really gets its dander up at them, but that's at minimum 40% wishful thinking on my part.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I would like to say it’s more complicated than that, here, but I’m not sure that it is.

The US has infinitely deep pockets, practically speaking. That produces a lot of fraud and embezzlement, but its not like you can just walk away with the real material assets of the country (particularly since so much has already all been carved up and privatized out).

What you can do is break down the flow of commerce passing through the federal government and send a bunch of contractors and federal staffers spiraling into bankruptcy. All those hospitals that rely on Medicare/Medicaid payments, all the MICs that the Pentagon has to pay to keep delivering goods and services, all the folks on SS getting a direct deposit... You could fuck up a lot just by stalling when those payments get processed.

It's more complicated, without a doubt. But that doesn't improve the situation. We already saw what happened when the private sector financial flow got snarled up in 2008. God only knows what's going to happen when Musk and Trump decide to start labeling half the Treasury's recipients "DEI".

Strap in, folks...

My one consolation is that Musk and Trump have not the slightest idea what they’re fucking with or what they’re up against

I think they've discovered, over the last twelve years, that nobody is guarding the hen house. You really can just send four schmucks with a basic understanding of Quickbooks into the US Treasury and have them start meddling with trillions of dollars in cash flow.

What they're "up against" is a paper tiger.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Yeah. American's wealth is not in the computers of the federal reserve. We have a continent's worth of resources; armies upon armies of smart, committed, talented people; education; strong businesses; technical knowledge of an incredible variety; and most importantly, we're still attractive enough (or were, as of last year) to be attracting the best and brightest of the world to come and add to the fire and keep it going. For as much as we've been fucking it up for the last fifty years, that all still remains true to a pretty large degree. Everything that happens in the treasury department draws off of that capital. Nothing that happens out in the world depends, at the root, on the computer that Musk now has access to.

But, it's also true that the financial world is a city in the clouds. Pop the bubble, and sometimes it takes quite a long time to rebuild and inflate back to its former size. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's a catastrophe in the making. I don't know, to be honest. But "strap in" sounds just about fucking right, it's not going to be simple or smooth.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (4 children)

it's not going to be simple

Sadly, while the myriad ways that this could play out from here are yet unknown, some things really are just flat that simple that we can guarantee them.

e.g. tell a child "you better do this before I count to 5! 1... 2... 3... 4... 4 and a half... 4 and a quarter... 4 and uh..." - do you see what we've lost? This was a test, in the same way that every single thing everywhere is always a test. The goalposts are now shifted: this much they can do - there is no use pretending that we will suddenly decide to halt their next set of actions, or the ones after that, or the ones after that, etc. "First they came for" is happening now, LIVE.

The ruling by the Supreme Court that a sitting President could do anything he ever wanted - including assassination of any American citizen anytime for any reason, iirc without much if anything in the way of oversight (although I never did get clarity on that point) - already ended our "democracy", months before the voting. Biden may not have chosen to use it, but the goalposts had already been shifted even then.

Even if we had elections again 4 years from now, and I see no reason that we would bother (for the same reason that Trump promised us that he had never so much as heard of Project 2025, during the election, except in this case he's outright said that we will not), the ratchet has already been sunk in, and the do-nothing Democrats will do... absolutely nothing about it. Man I sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist or even a subversive agent but... the facts and conclusions should stand or fall on their own merits regardless.

This is the new normal. You've seen the link I'm sure, but here it is again for easy reference: https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no. And the Democrats are silent, to save their own families from the death threats that they are literally and actually receiving (https://www.reddit.com/r/Connecticut/comments/1ieiom5/senator_chris_murphy_on_why_the_democrats_are/?share_id=Ce7meV-39mMJsjvxXgn9N).

Democracy has been on the decline now since before I was alive, so it's not exactly unexpected, just nerve wracking as we go through this transition. It's also simply a natural consequence: this is what the people want: to not have to make decisions anymore. We could have... well, in the past we could have done things, whereas instead, this is what we've done: nothing. And it is what we will continue to do, I predict, bc it's what we are good at, so long as the price of eggs and gas isn't too awfully high...

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