We Don’t Know What Musk’s Script Kiddies Are Doing

In no way do I want to minimize the danger and unconstitutionality of Elon Musk’s rampage through the government. It must be ended as soon as possible, and he and his script kiddies (thanks to commenters for reminding me of that designation) must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

We know that they are getting access to computer systems across the government. I stand by everything I said yesterday about that. Confirmed reporting says that they are downloading databases and writing code into the existing programs. But we don’t know more than that. Downloading the databases seems a logical extension of the datamining social media like X already do and can be extended to any number of bad scenarios.

The code-writing is more suspect. Kevin Drum suggests that they may be building a report-writing function to keep Musk informed of what money is going out. But he doesn’t know why. Much more malevolent scenarios can be imagined. and it’s pretty clear that accidental or deliberate introduction of openings for other hackers has occurred. But we don’t know which of those malevolent scenarios (there are no good ones) are being enacted. Musk has said he wants to break various agencies.

I’m writing this for analytical purposes, for myself as much as anyone else. It’s by no means a justification of what Musk is doing, and he must be stopped ASAP.