George Mari @GeorgeMari@qoto.org

Drop what you are doing and read this incredible story from Wired, if you can. After that, come back here.

https://www.wired.com/story/edward-coristine-tesla-sexy-path-networks-doge/

It mentions that a 19 y/o man who's assisting Musk's team and who has access to sensitive government systems is Edward Coristine. Wired said Coristine, who apparently goes by the nickname "Big Balls," runs a number of companies, including one called Tesla.Sexy LLC

"Tesla.Sexy controls dozens of web domains, including at least two Russian-registered domains. One of those domains, which is still active, offers a service called Helfie, which is an AI bot for Discord servers targeting the Russian market.While the operation of a Russian website would not violate US sanctions preventing Americans doing business with Russian companies, it could potentially be a factor in a security clearance review."

The really interesting part for me is Coristine's work history at a company called Path Networks, which Wired describes generously as a company "known for hiring reformed black-hat hackers."

"At Path Network, Coristine worked as a systems engineer from April to June of 2022, according to his now-deleted LinkedIn resume. Path has at times listed as employees Eric Taylor, also known as Cosmo the God, a well-known former cybercriminal and member of the hacker group UGNazis, as well as Matthew Flannery, an Australian convicted hacker whom police allege was a member of the hacker group LulzSec. It’s unclear whether Coristine worked at Path concurrently with those hackers, and WIRED found no evidence that either Coristine or other Path employees engaged in illegal activity while at the company."

The founder of Path is a young man named Marshal Webb. I wrote about Webb back in 2016, in a story about a DDoS defense company he co-founded called BackConnect LLC. Working with Doug Madory, we determined that BackConnect had a long history of hijacking Internet address space that it didn't own.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/ddos-mitigation-firm-has-history-of-hijacks/

Incidentally, less than 24 hours after that story ran, my site KrebsOnSecurity.com was hit with the biggest DDoS attack the Internet had ever seen at the time. That sustained attack kept my site offline for nearly 4 days.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/krebsonsecurity-hit-with-record-ddos/

Here's the real story behind why Coristine only worked at Path for a few months. He was fired after Webb accused him of making it known that one of Path's employees was Curtis Gervais, a serial swatter from Canada who was convicted of perpetrating dozens of swattings and bomb threats -- including at least two attempts on our home in 2014. [BTW the aforementioned Eric Taylor was convicted of a separate (successful) swatting against our home in 2013.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/canadian-man-gets-9-months-detention-for-serial-swattings-bomb-threats/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/02/men-who-sent-swat-team-heroin-to-my-home-sentenced/

In the screenshot here, we can see Webb replying to a message from Gervais stating that "Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors."

Wired cited experts saying it's unlikely Coristine could have passed a security clearance needed to view the sensitive government information he now has access to.

Want to learn more about Path? Check out the website https://pathtruths.com/

What you can do https://robertreich.substack.com/p/more-on-what-you-can-do?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Help me build a research software engineering (RSE) team dedicated to the humanities and social sciences! Two key roles based in Canberra, Australia, for #softwareengineers keen to make a difference:

Principal Research Software Engineer (RSE): https://jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/principal-research-software-engineer-canberra-act-act-australia

Senior Research Software Engineer (RSE): https://jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/senior-research-software-engineer-canberra-act-act-australia

#digitalhumanities #digitalsocialscience #rse

How Trump could be slowed, or even thwarted. Expect to see the phrase “arbitrary and capricious” in the near future. Homework: APA of 1946

https://substack.com/@gabefleisher/note/p-156501285?r=bd6vo&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

The REAL Waste That Elon's DOGE Should Cut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hVMghqarHY&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Incredible: Nearly 96% of new cars registered in Norway in January 2025 were all-electric. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250203-norway-nears-100-goal-of-all-electric-cars

The explanation is always surprisingly simple.

Trump's return raises critical questions for open source: Can our global tech collaborations survive increasing data sovereignty pressures?

The CLOUD Act exposed vulnerabilities, making transparency more crucial than ever.

#OpenSource #TechPolicy

https://nextcloud.com/blog/trumps-second-term-a-critical-turning-point-for-open-source-and-digital-sovereignty/

Might seem like small potatoes given that we're still dealing with a coup from an unelected billionaire, but we do what we can, right? This story from Nextgov caught my eye, because it points out that OPM didn't have the capability to send millions of emails to govt employees at the scale they did recently offering widespread buyouts.

"A lawsuit filed by unnamed federal employees in Washington, D.C. on Monday alleges that OPM violated the E-Government Act of 2002 by failing to conduct and publish required Privacy Impact Assessments before deploying the new email arrangement to collect the responses from government employees."

"Just days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, OPM did not have the capability to send a mass email of that scale, according to a person familiar with the matter. To send mass emails, the agency had used govDelivery, a cloud communications service provided by public sector IT company Granicus, a different person familiar said."

"The govDelivery contract had restrictions on the volume of emails available to send without incurring added costs, and the agency would not have been able to reach 2.3 million people, the approximate number of all civilian federal employees, the second person added. Both people were granted anonymity to be candid about the sensitive nature of OPM’s email policies."

https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/01/opms-new-email-system-sparks-questions-about-cyber-compliance/402555/

I had a look at the DNS records for opm.gov and I can't recall ever seeing a TXT record as verbose as this. It includes a large number of network blocks, and references the domain myemma.com as allowed to send email.

Myemma is an email marketing company, which in turn is run by a Nashville, TN company called Marigold.

https://meetmarigold.com/services-agreement/

It also includes Salesforce and the education technology company Leepfrog.

Here is the full TXT record, for posterity:

opm.gov
TXT
"MS=ms15252846"
"MS=ms35255137"
"tbcd7kxrzkw9py7sh6kksn5zfs19l4sy"
"miro-verification=20a9378d17adc5ca3…
9d6221caf668c258d0f7e5b"
"ms-domain-verification=9d72a4cb-
d7c8-4d15-baf9-7f5d507e2972"
"ms-domain-verification=e38d1b0f-
60ce-46ad-a462-c89c61cfe55a"
"7axh6RhNhWWjGH/6UD54HHrA3x0tNqHi2MG…
EN6MM/dyqbLwZqEnDkW+RndcBz2grhSSLNJ9…
qRSBXZxnUG96VWA=="
"v=spf1 ip4:205.131.184.50/32 ip4:
205.131.184.51/32 ip4:205.131.177.
50/32 ip4:205.131.177.151/32 ip4:
205.131.184.52/32 ip4:205.131.177.
152/32 ip4:205.131.184.125/32 "
"ip4:205.131.184.126/32 ip4:205.
131.177.125/32 ip4:205.131.177.
126/32 ip4:73.23.28.0/24 ip4:208.
76.128.0/21 ip4:66.159.72.186/32
ip4:216.230.115.73/32 ip4:216.52.
6.89/32 " "ip4:216.230.115.69/24
ip4:66.169.72.166/24 ip4:216.230.
114.66/24 ip4:216.230.101.69/24
ip4:66.169.72.176/32 ip4:173.201.
193.170/24 ip4:107.20.210.250/32
ip4:52.1.14.157/32 " "ip4:52.6.
44.126/32 ip4:52.207.153.36/32
ip4:65.196.93.7/32 ip4:96.43.152.
64/28 ip4:96.43.152.80/32 " "ip4:
149.19.38.227/32 " "ip4:149.19.
37.167 ip4:149.19.38.138 ip4:149.
19.37.159 ip4:149.19.37.32 ip4:
149.19.37.73 ip4:149.19.37.55 "
"ip4:163.120.86.44 ip4:163.120.
86.62 ip4:149.19.37.109 ip4:149.
19.37.33 ip4:149.19.37.49 ip4:149.
19.37.86 ip4:163.120.86.56 ip4:
163.120.84.26 ip4:149.19.38.45
" "ip4:163.120.84.80 ip4:149.19.
38.69 ip4:149.19.38.87 ip4:149.
19.38.105 ip4:163.120.84.62 ip4:
163.120.84.37 ip4:149.19.38.63
ip4:163.120.84.20 " "ip4:52.61.
131.175/32 ip4:52.61.131.176/28
ip4:52.61.135.175/32 ip4:52.61.
135.176/28 ip4:34.206.132.87/32
ip4:18.233.74.128/32 include:spf.protection.outlook.com" " a:usalearn…ing.net mx:usalearning.net include:e2ma.net exists:%{i}._spf.mta.salesf…orce.com include:leepfrog.com -
all" opm.gov

This TXT record was entered at 11:57 am on Jan. 29 [I believe this record is UTC]

[edited to add effective date at bottom]

What an absolute hero!

While Musk is trying to kill entire government agencies by tweet, Samantha Power walks into The Late Show and explains why USAID is the agency that keeps the world safe and free from disease.

Everything Elon is trying to hide because he wants to free up money for his own tax cuts, Samantha Power lays out beautifully right here:

https://youtu.be/OIHJub72vuM?si=yDT2rOtUWGxums89

Boost her!

@GottaLaff As a Kentuckian, I fully support Canada on this: A minor inconvenience to this state isn't going to change the minds of people in power or the votes that got them there.

Canada needs to hit the bully as hard as it can. It has to make this economic pain something that is felt & remembered so this tariff bullshit isn't something that is tried again.

Wreck an industry.

Our bourbon industry is currently vulnerable thanks to overproduction, changing consumer tastes, and 25% EU tariffs during Trump's first term.

As of December, there were a record 14.3M barrels of bourbon sitting around & aging. In the last couple weeks, Brown-Forman announced it is closing it's last cooperage in April (they'll now outsource production of wooden barrels) and will layoff 12% of their workforce. While EU's bourbon tariffs were suspended under Biden, a 50% tariff is scheduled to bounce back into effect on March 31st. 95% of all bourbon is made in KY. Hitting the bourbon industry now is an EXCELLENT way to selectively target Trump, Mcconnell, Rand Paul, James Comer, Thomas Massie, Hal Rogers, and the people who are keeping them around.

I'm just going to leave Freedom of the Press Foundation's excellent guide to leaking to the press right here in case anyone happens to need it: https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/sharing-sensitive-leaks-press/

After “How do we stop Trump?” the second most common question I’ve received this week is “How do we stop Musk?”

Musk's access to our private data is blatant corruption. It is a coup. And while we continue to wait for Democratic leadership to act—what can we as ordinary citizens and residents of this nation do? Enter the Privacy Act of 1974 and a clear call to action each person can and should take.

As always, no paywall. Please read, act, and share.
https://lets-address-this-with-qasim-rashid.ghost.io/how-do-we-stop-the-south-african-billionaire/?ref=lets-address-this-with-qasim-rashid-newsletter

#Breaking

Greenland’s parliament the Inatsisartut today passed a new law making it illegal for foreign entities to donate to political parties or politicians in Greenland. The law was passed with 22 to 0 votes.

That’s how much the people of Greenland want a hostile takeover from Trump and his cronies.

And in case you are wondering: X is NOT a popular medium in Greenland, so Musk will not be able to tamper with the public narrative

Source (in Danish): https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/groenland-forbyder-penge-fra-udlandet-i-politik-og-regeringsformand-foreslaar-valg

EV charging alliance IONNA moves into full-scale deployment of 30k new charger bays in US https://electrek.co/2025/02/04/ev-charging-alliance-ionna-full-scale-deployment-30k-new-charger-bays-us/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

WASHINGTON! The legislature is coming for your wolves and we need you to speak up and out before TOMORROW. Send a message to the committee to vote no on these disastrous bills.
https://secure.everyaction.com/Nn632OCHtkWTMCky0MNytg2

You nailed it @AuthorJMac !

Edit : Original (and complete) post on March 29, 2024

« You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction.
I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. »

Cf. https://indiepocalypse.social/@AuthorJMac/112178826967890119

#AI #IA #LLM

Tesla sales tank in Europe, fresh EV deals, and Canada strikes back https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/tesla-sales-tank-in-europe-fresh-ev-deals-and-canada-strikes-back/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

We would be remiss not to credit the journalists who broke this story at @WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/

I don't typically engage via a social media service in order to look for "work", but...
I am looking to transition into or near #Seattle #Washington by the end of the year. If anyone working in the #cannabis industry wants to get a hold of me, feel free to hit me up. If it helps, I'm an ex-IT guy, so my skill set is all over the place.
#fedihired #getfedihired