Summary
Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) have been granted access to the U.S. Treasury’s federal payment system, raising concerns about security and misuse.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent approved the move after a top Treasury official was ousted for resisting.
Critics warn Musk could freeze payments to government programs or manipulate federal contracts.
The move coincides with DOGE’s takeover of the Office of Personnel Management.
Experts call it a dangerous power grab, as Musk holds no official government position.
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Everyone has my social security number. It’s one of the stupidest security fails of all time that nobody seems to want to fix. And now there is an entire “credit protection” industry so it will remain that way.
What happens when we file our taxes? Will we even get our refunds?
Would be funny if there was a mass movement and nobody paid their taxes.
I kinda wish this were possible. I’ll pay my state, fuck the feds
Unfortunately, most people have their taxes withheld from their paychecks, and file their returns so they get a refund.
If people didn’t file returns, the IRS would end up with more money.
SSN is not a password and anyone who uses it like one doesn’t understand security because you can’t change it. It’s a user ID, like a finger print or email address.
“May or may not, but mostly may.”
It’s safe to say he has a lot more than that
All of my data got breached multiple times going back to the dot-com bubble days, by Yahoo, the original 2015 OPM Beach and by two of the big credit bureaus for a start. If Musk has my social at this point it doesn’t matter.
Not mine. I live in a country that isn’t an absolute joke.
Just wait until dear old Nigel comes.
Starmer might be your Biden, a short but underwhelming break between far right incompetence (BoJo and Nigel).
What’s it like? :(
Must be nice
If it’s the UK, the government probably has assigned you a National Insurance number.
We also have id codes but you can’t do anything with it except tell your dob. Its used as a username for aystems that need extra security like voting, taxes, medical system or banks and such
Yes, but apartheid boy has nothing to do with the UK.
He should have nothing to do with the UK, but he’s still sticking his fingers in British pies by petitioning for Tommy Robinson’s release and promoting Reform UK.
Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (the shite) will stay where he belongs regardless, and Reform will never be anything but a gammon minority party.
I hope it stays that way, but they are already pressuring everyone to move further right. I’m worried that the gammons will vote them in
Bruh who doesn’t at this point?
So does everyone, thanks Equifax
It’s weird that SSNs are treated as some sort of secret number given they don’t have any security features. They were never supposed to be used the way they’re used today, but there’s no good alternative yet.
The US really needs a replacement, for example a national digital ID based on PKI (public key infrastructure) where you can generate new ID numbers based on a private key. Each bank, lender, employer, etc that needs it would get a unique ID that only works for them, and you could revoke access for just that one company if needed.
Kinda like how OAuth/OIDC login works, where you can log in to sites using your Google account, Apple account, self-hosted Authentik or Authelia, etc. but the site you’re logging in to never sees your password. If a site/app misbehaves, you revoke their access to the account, and everything else that uses the account can keep working.
The US really needs a replacement, for example a national digital ID based on PKI… you revoke their access to the account, and everything else that uses the account can keep working
There is already an open standard growing around exactly this concept, Web5 Distributed IDs (DID): https://dev.to/tbdevs/what-is-web5-233o
Disclosure: I worked on the implementation for an Open Banking company (does that need to be disclosed? <shrug> I’m including it lest someone think I’m a shill)
I agree in principle, but try explaining that to your grandmother.
Here’s your ID. You can decide who gets to have it.
Easy. The average person isn’t going to care about the nerdy shit behind it, any more than they care how Facebook works behind the scenes.
They’ve been pushing against a national ID for decades so good luck convincing grandma it’s not the mark of the beast or something.
Elon Musk has to go.
Just to culture shock Americans: it’s not exactly the same but in Sweden our personal numbers are kept in the open. Even online. Searchable databases with names, phone numbers, addresses etc. It tells you if someone has a dog. It tells you if they have a car. Which car, even. Some tell you the income of the person you’re searching for. Sites even exist that could tell you if I’ve commited a crime. Some people think that’s unreasonable. Irresponsible even!
That said, as pertains to the article, the fact that he has that info seems pretty unreasonable and irresponsible.
At least in the past, you could use a person’s ssn to open credit cards, change utilities, and generally ruin someone’s life. Someone took out a credit card with my SSN when I was like 9 or 10 and it caused issues when I became an adult and tried to get a student loan for uni.
That is technically possible with our information too. It happens, but is bothersome. Taking out massive loans is possible too, with the right bank on the right day.
You’d need some way to verify the identity, but since such signatures are handled digitally through an app it’s just a good phishing call away really. You already have the phone number and the address if you have the personal identification number.
That is technically possible with our information too. It happens, but is bothersome.
Ohh well in that case, I’m sure nobody would bother taking advantage of it for free money…
Oh, it totally happens. It’s not that I wanted to say that it’s too bothersome. Scammers will do what scammers do.
There’s actually been some talk about gangs running such business from Spain. Mostly scamming old people.
It’s not that we don’t have all that info and more available, it’s that we want you to pay a data broker for it.
Some of this data, like commited crimes, is usually behind such a barrier here too. Though it is possible, even if a bit more complex, to get that info by yourself directly from the courts.
Not mine.
Didn’t Elon get hacked and his SS number leaked?
No, I’m not about to go search for that, but I’m pretty sure that happened, with the 23andme data breach…
His Schutzstaffel number?
Was it eighty eight or neinty nein?
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So cool. How do you come up with something that clever?
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Yes I’m bitter, and no my jokes aren’t funny but I don’t care.
Congratulations, you are ready to start a career in stand-up comedy!
(The former was why I quit doing standup, a lot of them never stop being bitter.)
Well, your in a topic thats clearly only about Americans, and you felt the need to yell “im not American this doesn’t affect me”, as if anyone cares.
No one cares if you’re not american. The topic doesn’t affect you by default.
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What indicates that it’s only about Americans
Aside from the headline, the very first sentence of the article.
The world’s richest man may now have access to the confidential personal information of every taxpayer in the United States
But we both know you’re just playing dumb and you obviously knew it from the headline, because you obviously didn’t bother to read the article.
And of course there’s the article summary in the body of the post that’s blatantly about the US.
c/news is generally for American news. c/worldnews is for everything else.
Yes, I know you don’t like that.
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Do someone about it instead of crying
See above, re: I know you don’t like that.
You have, as far as I can see it, three options: find your own server and make your own news community, accept that this is how it is and you have no way to change it even if you don’t like it, or whine about it.
You are choosing the third option for some reason. I’m not sure why.
We’re in a general news community on Lemmy.world.
You probably want !world@lemmy.world.
Back on Reddit, /r/news basically became about US news – I mean, it wasn’t a restriction to only be US, but it was just overwhelmed by US news – and so /r/worldnews was created in response, so that there was a subreddit that explicitly excluded US-specific news, so that it wouldn’t get flooded by it. !news@lemmy.world and !world@lemmy.world kinda parallels that relationship.
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If you think the US is going to annex Canada, you truly are a moron. I can only imagine the type of work you do. You can’t read, so that’s probably a problem for you first off.
I’m sure quite a few people have mine. SSN’s aren’t a secure thing at all. It should be updated.
You can get anyone’s SSN for $15 on the dark web. lol. The amount of leaks/hacks that have happened to all of the companies that require your SSN is insane.
You can get it on the clear web for about $20 completely legitimately. Background checks have been a thing forever and reveal basically everything.
Don’t they usually ask for your SSN before doing the background check? So they already have it?
Lmfao. There ya go. Even better.
