Not even surprised. DOGE had the US government fire a bunch of cyber security staff and they’re also no longer monitoring for cyber threats coming out of Russia. I have no doubt at all that we will find out at some point that Russia has had virtually unrestricted access to US government networks. This is all very intentional.
News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
Why are there no photos of big balls?
Trying googling for “photos of big balls” and get back to us.
There’ll be lots of “big balls” with the RFK Jr endorsed mumps epidemic.
A bonus?
Its impacts fertility. So, hopefully, the idiots don't reproduce, too much, or too often.
Why does it only affect one testicle??
I'm fairly certain no one else calls him 'Big Balls' - I think that's just what he calls himself. And I'm pretty certain that the only reason to have big balls is if you're not getting any.
Sure, why not?
I mean, "we" let an unvetted, unelected supposed "genius" run this operation called "doge", so of course, why wouldn't unvetted teenagers with no security clearance and no relevant experience (because, how the fuck could you have enough relevant experience as a fucking TEENAGER - fucking car rental places even know this much) be involved?
Why does everything have to be so fucking stupid? Is it really not enough that we have to watch the destruction of democracy happen before our eyes? Must it really be carried out by a group named after an early 2010s internet meme featuring a Shiba Inu with bad grammar? Do we really have to read serious reporting about the criminal connections of a 19-year-old government employee called "Big Balls?"
I just never imagined the fall of American democracy would be so... inane.
Yeah, it seems like the original Nazis tried to present themselves as some form of sophisticated aristocracy. They wouldn’t have had some kid from the Hitler Youth Boy Scouts called “Big Balls” reporting to Goebbels.
It’s all part of it.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
When you complain about Big Balls at DOGE, it makes you sound ridiculous, which makes it easier to dismiss your concerns.
Yeah it's so sad Elon actually believes the fictional stereotype of the young gifted super hacker. Fully self taught, uber smart and able to hack anything in seconds. And when they get caught they don't go to jail, the government hires them.
Except in real life those are just dumb fuck kids, calling themselves "Big Balls" and would never ever be hired by the government for IT related tasks. They only hire people with proper credentials, education and a clean sheet. You don't put criminals in sensitive positions for a reason.
In hindsight Idiocracy seems prophetic.
Idiocracy is an optimistic projection...Think 1984 but stupider. Ie, like Russia in the 90s.
One of my favorite documentaries.
It has to be this fucking stupid, because the weapon of choice against democracy is idiocracy.
Doesn’t the name just say it all?
In a June 2022 message, an executive of the firm in question, Path Network, said that Coristine had been terminated for leaking internal information to competitors. They added that this was unacceptable and noted that the company had zero tolerance for it.
A spokesperson for the cybersecurity firm also said on Thursday that Coristine's brief contract with the company was terminated after an internal investigation concluded. This was to look into the leaking of proprietary company information during the teen's tenure at the Arizona-based hosting and data-security firm, according to Yahoo News.
Weeks after his termination, Coristine wrote in a Discord post in 2022 that he had retained access to the cybersecurity firm's computers. The teen said he had the opportunity to wipe Path Network's customer-supporting servers if he wanted to, but he did not, saying he never exploited his access.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-graduated-from-the-com/
Wired reported this week that a 19-year-old working for Elon Musk‘s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was given access to sensitive US government systems even though his past association with cybercrime communities should have precluded him from gaining the necessary security clearances to do so. As today’s story explores, the DOGE teen is a former denizen of ‘The Com,’ an archipelago of Discord and Telegram chat channels that function as a kind of distributed cybercriminal social network for facilitating instant collaboration.
One does kind of get the feeling that perhaps Big Balls could have done with a bit more vetting.
EDIT:
Also, there's his grandfather:
https://www.jacobsilverman.com/p/prominent-doge-staffer-is-grandson
In 1980, KGB officer Valery Fedorovich Martynov was sent to the US to serve undercover at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. He was a Line X officer, part of a technical espionage division. Martynov had a wife and two young children, and they enjoyed traveling to cities on the eastern seaboard and enjoying life in what was one of the KGB’s most desirable postings.
What the 'trump salute' wasn't enough?
Idiocracy was way too optimistic about the future.
The president in Idiocracy was willing to listen to someone else… so yeah. Definitely way too optimistic.
Except we have the phrase "young people just know tech better than everyone else!" instead of: "Brawndo has what plants crave!" and we have the supposed "genius" (lol) fElon waving around a gigantic shiny chainsaw instead of Camacho's gun....
It's going to be more like Back to the Future 2 but Biff is Trump
I have to say, Trump's tactic of doing so many impeachable things so fast that nobody even tries to impeach him anymore is working stunningly well.
As if impeachment would do anything. He was impeached twice in his last presidency and it didn’t do shit.
When you pack the courts with Trump supporters there are no consequences.
We call it Three Stooges Syndrome
I don't know if anyone is trying but someone in Congress should keep a running list of impeachable offenses and keep filing the full list every week until they have enough votes from more moderate Republicans. Sooner or later he will piss off enough of Congress.
It worked once. Why not twice. Why stop when no one is stopping you?
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-atrocities-1-1-056
He will never have any consequences the Supreme Court has made sure of that.
I mean, it doesn’t help that literally everyone is cooperating. Not a single person has refused to leave their post, locked themselves in, thrown a punch, fought back, gotten arrested. Every federal worker “fired” has rolled over and taken it.
A bunch of DoJ lawyers quit rather than not prosecute Adams.
I'm sorry, what personal risk have you taken to stop Trump? You're demanding that ordinary people put their lives and careers on the line but have you done so yourself? Did I miss an article where you chained yourself to the Whitehouse fence or something?
Not my country, friend
You want to know what happens to people who fight back? Look at Vindman and Snowden and Manning (not saying the latter two did everything right, of course, but they put themselves on the line). Democrats did nothing for them. If no one fights for the people who fight back, why would they just throw everything away? No one wants to be a martyr. No one wants to be left out to dry.
We haven't fought for the people who fight for democracy. How surprising is the consequence, really?
Americans are pussies. They have been telling themselves that their right to bear arms is enough, so they never bothered to learn actual resistance.
Their schools never taught anything about fascism except "we kicked their asses and saved Europe!" so the general population just aren't capable of recognizing fascism on the rise.
Now that its here, they still think they can stop it by playing fair.
Pussies.
Implying that the "right to bear arms" crowd is the same as the "playing fair" crowd...?? Are you high or are you just that ignorant about US culture?
I think plenty of them recognize it, they just can't organize by themselves. The seeds of distrust have been planted long ago, now they're starting to give fruit.