[rz2k]

I think it’s a great reaction to news stories to imagine how you could have made the same bad decisions. Furthermore this public confession of being able to imagine making bad decisions might encourage a similarly minded to 20-something to wonder why an older version of themself is so afraid of even having such a dataset. It might even prompt someone to destroy some long forgotten cache of data they exfiltrated a long time ago.

I don’t think there’s a risk that it will influence a rare person in power to enforce the rules to go lighter. I just think it encourages people to be less reckless with hoarding data who might otherwise put themselves in danger.

[atmavatar]

Over and above the fact that everyone should already know that the SSN database is extremely sensitive, DOGE had to strong-arm people out of the way to gain access to it in the first place. Even a fresh twenty-something should have known better than to download the entire thing onto a flash drive and carry it around, let alone take it home with them, and especially not to share with a future employer.

The idea that could be done accidentally and innocently lacks any sort of credulity. It's so far out of the ordinary that I don't think applying Hanlon's Razor can be done in good faith.