The pair traveled to California after reportedly trying to pressure a top government official to open the water pump

Summary

DOGE staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang tried pressuring the Bureau of Reclamation to open a California water pump to aid Los Angeles during January’s wildfires, though the system couldn’t reach the city.

When denied, they flew there to do it themselves but failed due to maintenance and access restrictions.

Critics called DOGE a “slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

Trump later ordered dam releases, flooding farmland. Critics called DOGE’s actions reckless and uninformed.

    • tburkhol@lemmy.world
      575·
      11 hours ago

      Most of us, raised by Hollywood, imagine critical infrastructure has guards and ID checks. Keys. Guys with machine guns. The last 10 years, it’s pretty clear the major controls are just that no one tries. “I’m from DOGE” is going to be the penetration tester’s go-to social engineering hack for the next four years. Just walk in, press the Big Red Button, and leave.

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        37·
        11 hours ago

        This instance shows that it is, in fact, how that works, at least in part:

        Shang wasn’t an official federal employee yet, meaning he couldn’t access the pump.

        No credentials, no access. Most infrastructure like this has physical security like fencing, padlocks, steel doors, and so on. I don’t know if there’s a break-in alarm, but even if not, they’d still have to figure out how to access the pumps and turn them on. They’re probably computer-controlled, so you’d have to get access to the computer system. I’m sure you could override it on the PLC, or just plain hotwire it, but that takes a whole new set of skills.

        • RandAlThor@lemmy.ca
          3·
          4 hours ago

          “oh no. I’m a princeton grad. I’m rich. I work for Elon and Trump. I have authority over everyone here” kind of mentality.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          9 hours ago

          I would not be the least surprised if the sum total of the “l33t h4x0r skills” of these teenagers boils down to knowing the least bit about whatever the latest Javascript frontend framework is, combined with some LLM to help them with it…this is what happens when a whole lot of idiots think that being young == being tech-savvy.

          People hand the tech decisions over to complete morons with no understanding and so much Dunning-Kruger that they not only don’t know shit about something like PLCs, and may not have even heard of them, they’ll be too fucking arrogant to ask people that DO know, because, gosh, they might be OLD (i.e., > 30 years old) or something.

          • btaf45@lemmy.world
            9·
            7 hours ago

            “Move Fast and Break Things” for government translates to…

            Move fast to give billionaires gigantic tax cuts and break Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

        • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
          43·
          10 hours ago

          I’ve got some bad news for you…

          If it is locked, the key is usually nearby, and it’s usually the cheapest, least secure, possible lock to buy.

          • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
            7·
            9 hours ago

            While probably true, morons like these two would be unlikely to get past even those measures.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
        9·
        8 hours ago

        So to protect critical infrastructure, when someone says “I’m from DOGE,” the correct reply is “Off you fuck.”

        • YerLam@lemmy.world
          1·
          21 minutes ago

          “And I’m from SchruteBuckCoin, we are currently outperforming you in multiple metrics.”