A SpaceX and X engineer, Christopher Stanley—at present serving as a senior advisor within the Deputy Lawyer Normal’s workplace on the Division of Justice (DOJ)—was reportedly caught bragging about hacking and distributing pirated e-books, bootleg software program, and recreation cheats.
The boasts appeared on archived variations of internet sites, of which a number of, as soon as flagged, have been shortly deleted, Reuters reported.
Stanley was assigned to the DOJ by Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE). Whereas Musk claims that DOGE operates transparently, not a lot is thought about who the staffers are or what their authorities roles entail. It stays unclear what Stanley does at DOJ, however Reuters famous that the Deputy Lawyer Normal’s workplace is accountable for investigations into varied crimes, “together with hacking and different malicious cyber exercise.” Declining to remark additional, the DOJ did affirm that as a “particular authorities worker,” like Musk, Stanley doesn’t draw a authorities wage.
The engineer’s questionable previous seemingly dates again to 2006, Reuters reported, when Stanley was nonetheless in highschool. The information web site related Stanley to numerous websites and boards by tracing varied pseudonyms he nonetheless makes use of, together with Reneg4d3, a nickname he nonetheless makes use of on YouTube. The outlet then additional verified the connection “by cross-referencing the websites’ registration knowledge towards his previous e-mail handle and by matching Reneg4d3’s biographical knowledge to Stanley’s.”
Amongst his earliest websites was one that includes a “crude sketch of a penis” referred to as fkn-pwnd.com, the place Stanley, at 15, bragged about “fucking up servers,” a now-deleted Web Archive screenshot reportedly confirmed. One other, reneg4d3.com, was launched when he was 16. There, Stanley branded a competing messaging board “silly noobs” after supposedly gaining admin entry by means of an “simple exploit,” Reuters reported. On Bluesky, an account referred to as “doge whisperer” alleges much more hacking exercise, a few of which seems to be corroborated by an IA screenshot of one other web site Stanley created, electonic.web (sic), which as of this writing can nonetheless be accessed.
