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Comment by brigandish | Hacker News Reader

I’m going to take a wild guess that the incoming negative comments will be from those who haven’t read the article, as it strikes me as quite the non-story.

His business provided a CDN to an (allegedly) criminal group for their a website. I can understand someone’s granny reading this and thinking it’s bad somehow, but this is HN, I’d expect people on these boards to known better.

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This is why federal jobs involve background checks and federal IT work is built around least-privilege. Before giving access to someone, they’d normally have provided a full disclosure of their past and things like this and his other ties to illegal activities would be investigated. That access when granted would have restrictions on what they get and how they do it (e.g. no personal devices, limited access to the specific data needed to perform their job, their activity is itself logged, other people oversee their work, etc.).

Because some employees of a campaign donor were granted access without following any of those rules, it’s a huge story because were heavily dependent on Musk’s personal judgement as the only real protection for federal data.

> his other ties to illegal activities

What illegal activities? The article mentions ties (we can ignore whether they are strong or weak) to people, not activities. Providing a CDN is not an illegal activity.

It can be depending on how much you know about criminal use of that service. Past reporting of him has covered a persona in a community which is popular with people engaged in illegal activities including what appears to be him soliciting DDoS services. Again, typically the kind of thing you’d investigate before giving access.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-...

I read that when it was on HN previously, and giving it a look again, I don't see any mention of how the CDN was used in criminal activity, nor how it could be used in criminal activity. Maybe you could point it out, seeing as you shared it.

Having read the article, Coristine does not come across as blameless. When you run a business, you shouldn't be gathering criminals as your clients.

He was hoping to get into the international banking game.

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