Email Empowerment
Turns out that putting underqualified kids in charge of the federal government’s HR agency wasn’t the smartest move. Last night, an exploit in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) new home-cooked email server seems to have made it possible for anyone with an email address to blast messages to vast numbers of federal employees.
As a result, over 13,000 employees with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found their inboxes bombarded with spam and messages from vulgar trolls. Some users signed the NOAA up for newsletters from entities like the Church of Scientology, or the Perfect Jean — “Welcome to Jean Perfection,” a screenshot reads. One particularly vulgar email offered pointers on Trump’s alleged performance at a sexual act. An “Important Weather Alert” warned that the next four years have a 99 percent chance of fecal showers. “Aren’t you tired of working for a complete c***?” asked one sender. A missive from a sender identified as “Craig” simply reads “yo.”
Ken Klippenstein, the national security reporter who revealed the breach, once again took the opportunity to plug his infamous newsletter with the subject line: “urgent, time sensitive.”
If you feel this paints a pretty grim picture of the state of our government agencies, you’re not alone. “Goes to show you how fast this [new comms system] was cobbled together,” one NOAA employee told Ken Klippenstein. “No security or screening on this address.”
Spam of God
The whole thing apparently stems from an overhaul at the OPM led by oligarch-in-chief Elon Musk. On Tuesday, Wired reported that Musk had been given free reign to replace the agency’s high-level staff with lackeys from his previous ventures.
Those included a 21-year-old who had previously worked for Peter Thiel, and a summer intern from Neuralink who just graduated high school. It also included Amanda Scales — a former xAI HR staffer who is reportedly in place as the OPM’s new chief of staff.
Scales is allegedly implementing what some have called a hostile takeover of the OPM, axing the Chief Information Officer Melvin Brown II for refusing to implement the new regime’s in-house email server. Brown evidently made the right call, as the new system — on top of all the aforementioned drama — was immediately hit with a class-action lawsuit for failing to pass Bush-era cyber security checks.
All this server drama is important, as it’s reportedly key in DOGE’s goal of gathering information on every government employee. Tuesday’s much-reported “fork in the road” email memos came from this unsecured server, which unintentionally revealed the involvement of two non-government individuals, both heavily involved in Project 2025.
As Trump’s acolytes look to gut the federal government and install their own yes men, the drama swirling around this email server will have a lot to reveal about the new administration’s unprecedented strategy.
More on email leaks: In Leaked Email, Elon Musk Admits Defeat on Twitter
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