A surprisingly large amount of data one might think is classified is not at all. In this case all the examples listed are from freely available public data outside of the Twitter thing which seems to be just setting up the environment for some local tool. Here are the sites:
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datacatalog.worldbank.org
opendata.arcgis.com
mrdata.usgs.gov / www.usgs.gov
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Sharing things like this isn't very useful because it just causes further divides. People who think DOGE is not a big deal will use this to confirm that 'oh no the worst they could dig up is somebody posting publicly accessible data in public!' And those who do think it's a big deal will often just double down on stupid and insist this was leaking secret information, even when they probably know it wasn't. So you end up with people living in two different worlds, but only one of them is real.
Usually: actually a third world is real. As constructed in your narrative there is a difference in the deltas between the two worlds and the third (i.e. one is more real).
The problem is, compiling the list like he has, and being on the DOGE team, makes it all very, very suspicious. And it is sensitive data - even if it is open. Those are important infrastructure locations.
He said, ironically speaking with authority on something he had no idea about..
"classification by compilation" is literally part of the Security Classification Guide (SCG) and given as mandatory training to everyone with a clearance at least once a year. Individually unclassified pieces of information can absolutely become sensitive or even classified when aggregated. Read the SCG people, this is not rocket science.
(I am not saying that applies here to this data. Merely stating that none of you have any idea what you are talking about.)
Well, yeah, not from some rando, but that's not some rando, they are an employee of the government department that is trying to gut the government. That aside, the work product that is the result of an alaysis of open data can absolutely be sensitive - not because of the open data, rather because an adversary may be able to infer intent or plans from the tools, access patterns, or outputs of that analysis.
He is saying the malicious actor is doge itself, if I understood what is being said by the previous comment. Which is the idea behind which I posted the news here on hn
If by that you mean newsrooms are happy to publish stories full of the disingenuous sayings and doings of those who hope to benefit from polarization and chaos, I agree.
Not even data, html snippets with links to publicly available data.
Watch at the media turns this into “doge bros mapping top secret minerals” and “doge has access to all our DMs!”
For those who hate Trump but know what the you are looking at in the screenshots keep this one in mind. The media hates you and their goal is to sow division
While this is the lede there are other activities posted. If there were true transparency with nothing to hide Mr. Wick would not have taken the repos private but just ensured that that all avenues of harassment were disabled. More of concern to me is the potential for a focus on the union status - though with just the screenshots it is quite difficult to tell what is really going on.
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the author... finding the quickest and easiest way to stop harassment and backlash is what I would have done too. The author is a mere human, likely not equipped with the mental fortitude to deal with the magnitude of armchair bullies that are likely aimed at them.
As I said in anothercomment, using available data in itself can be seen with suspicion. With freely available data you can build a nuclear reactor (if very capable), or buy fertilizer and build a bomb. Chances are, fbi will knock at your door and ask what you're doing. The same way, an agency gathering lot of public available data regarding sensitive infrastructure can be assumed to misuse the data for shady purposes, given the agency isn't exactly one you can trust
I gather things like this all the time. I'm against DOGE as much as 90% of the US is, but collection of open data for curiosity and interest is really not a thing to focus on.
Point of contention - according to a recent YouGov[1] poll, 48% of respondents think DOGE should be kept or expanded, while only 37% think it should be reduced or eliminated. A far cry from 90% either direction. You may be subject to confirmation bias.
I don't really care about a single YouGov poll about what people think about a headline -- that's a shallow approach, misses quite a bit of context, and when used as a summary would rightly be called clickbait. Digging deeper and past propaganda, the activities of DOGE are deeply unpopular to the electorate wholesale, and my 90% claim is easily justified by a groundswell of current and long time understanding of the electorate:
- negative impact to the economy is deeply unpopular [0]
- lying about savings is deeply unpopular [1]
- threatening cuts to entitlement spending is deeply unpopular [2]
How you ask a question, what question you ask, and how you collect data will unduly influence any poll -- event with adjustments.[3] People aren't as fickle as headlines would otherwise lead you to believe.
My take on your oblique reference to "maybe [I] have confirmation bias" is that you are taking the headlines as fact and thus can dismiss anything that doesn't agree with your perspective. This may be mistaken on my part, but if you feel deep inside that it is not, then I encourage you to dig deeper.
However, i am let's say, at least dubious about the whys of an agency which is wreaking so much havoc need to collect data on us sensitive infrastructure. If you were dealing with drugs, and you told me you buy codeine based pharma products in bulk, i wouldn't think you caught a cold
There are companies that are making bucks selling satellite photos of russian army storage(s) so that it is possible to calculate how much of remaining tanks are in storage. While a single photo of a single storage wouldn't matter on its own, having a clear picture of every russian storage can give you an idea of how many tanks were refurbished and remain in stock
The government has whole departments of people whose job it is to be on top of this sort of thing.
Why is it suddenly part of the job description of a junior DOGE employee to build workforce org chart visualization tools and investigate strategic resource datasets? Isn’t that weird to have one brand new government employee doing self-taught random investigations of topics as complex as ‘government workforce management’ and ‘strategic resource analytics’?
> Why is it suddenly part of the job description of a junior DOGE employee to build workforce org chart visualization tools and investigate strategic resource datasets?
That is totally fine to focus on. My point was focusing on the code prior to DOGE existing showing collection of GIS data.
> Isn’t that weird to have one brand new government employee doing self-taught random investigations of topics as complex as ‘government workforce management’ and ‘strategic resource analytics’?
We're in total agreement on this particular point.
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datacatalog.worldbank.org
opendata.arcgis.com
mrdata.usgs.gov / www.usgs.gov
---
Sharing things like this isn't very useful because it just causes further divides. People who think DOGE is not a big deal will use this to confirm that 'oh no the worst they could dig up is somebody posting publicly accessible data in public!' And those who do think it's a big deal will often just double down on stupid and insist this was leaking secret information, even when they probably know it wasn't. So you end up with people living in two different worlds, but only one of them is real.