DOGE Staff Had Questions About the 'Resign' Email. Their HR Chief Dodged Them | Hacker News Reader

DOGE Staff Had Questions About the 'Resign' Email. Their HR Chief Dodged Them

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66 pointsimpish920813 comments

> One employee expressed concerns that outside actors could send resignation emails on staffers’ behalf by spoofing their email addresses.

I'd be shocked if this wasn't happening. A hostile actor could throw the whole federal workforce into chaos with a one-liner script? Obviously that's something you'd do immediately.

They'd need to be able to send the emails from the same IP space they would normally come from. A hostile actor who can do that probably has better things to do with the same access.

What better thing can you do with that than to send three million federal employees and the institutions that depend on them into absolute chaos?

Even better, do it randomly to some significant fraction to throw critical groups into confusion. Imagine a third of all the air traffic controllers sending 'resign' right now. It'd shut down air travel in the whole country.

The brain trust behind this didn't think more than a tenth of a step ahead, to be generous. This of course assumes that the intent with these people isn't outright treason.

Would they though? If by same IP space you just mean US-based, maybe. But that's not really a huge hurdle is it?

I mean whatever IP space is registered as the legitimate sender of email from the domain of the victim's email address. Theoretically, it could be "anywhere in the US", but that's not the way I'd bet.

https://archive.ph/JCSH0

I guess when a Silicon Valley gatekeeper like Google does it, it's a totally normal activity and there's nothing to see here. If anyone deemed unsuitable to the gatekeepers do it, it's quickly flagged and hated.

Title is a little misleading, these aren't staff of the new made up DOGE agency but an existing agency (the US Digital Service) that predates the Trump administration and is now (apparently?) under the control of Elon Musk

To be clear, trump signed an EO renaming Digital Service to DOGE: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/29/nx-s1-5270893/doge-united-sta...

Trump renamed it to reuse the letters.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...

This is because the USDS was given broad executive authority by Congress during the Obama era as part of the healthcare.gov rollout.

To give DOGE actual teeth, they used this loophole to convert the USDS into DOGE.

Hats off to their lawyer, but also shows how executive authority has really overreached in the 2000s.

Honestly, this is brilliant ( in an evil way ) and I can't believe I missed it in my initial read.

Executive overreach has been the growing problem since at least the 80s.

The actual term "unitary executive" dates from then.

The problem is the government has gotten too big. Congress can't or won't rein it in. The President doesn't have the scope to do it either. So in effect, alot of power is giving to the various organizations, and under unitary executive power, the President devolves his authority to the various organizations. This leads to the growth of unaccountable bureaucracy. I know this sounds contradictory but it isn't. The bureaucracy reports to the President who under unitary executive theory is their only real boss. An absent boss if the best kind of boss.

The twinned parties like this because they can force through policies they really, really want when they hold the executive, but everything else sorts of just happens.

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