Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#61

Post by r3bl » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #34

pyre wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. I entered an address I don't care about, and it just kept asking me for what is essentially a marketing profile: - Is this a personal email address? - Please enter 10 more email addresses that you use (i.e. are associated with this email address) so that we can "narrow down the search results." Really. How is whether or not this is a personal email address meaningful in searching hacked data for the email ad…

Yeah, same experience, same results, although at least it doesn't appear to make up fake results to force you to register (I used a completely fabricated address and it said it didn't find any match before it even asked me to register).

I went a step further. I added two email addresses (one ditched long time ago), was created a "report", but I had to create an account to access it... which I did, received a temporary password via email (lol), and gained access to... pretty much the same data you get on HIBP, but even less detailed: https://imgur.com/i9sOU27

Also, see this, which may or may not be associated with this thing: https://twitter.com/zackwhittaker/status/876830107230449664

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#62

Post by djtriptych » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

strictnein wrote: post #56

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #47

As long as the CEO of an company (RNC) that gives data to an outsourcer (Deep Root Analytics) is not going to jail to give data to an unqualified company, nothing will change. If the CEO goes to jail, things will change very rapidly (CEO will manage his CMO much tighter who will first want to see an security audit not older than 6 months). At least CEOs I have reported to as CTO were very sensitive for implemention i…

What law did they break, exactly? These aren't medical or financial records. A careless programmer makes a bad choice and the CEO has to go to jail? Come on.

Careless programmers can also mishandle health/credit card/minor information. We have laws protecting all of that data in particular. I'm not sure the expansion of data privacy laws to include all PII is so farfetched.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#63

Post by apeace » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:20 PM UTC

> Spreadsheets containing this accumulated data—last updated around the January 2017 presidential inauguration—constitute a treasure trove of political data and modeled preferences used by the Trump campaign

Genuinely curious: can you really have 198 million rows in a spreadsheet?

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#64

Post by jellicle » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:20 PM UTC

arianvanp wrote: post #23

So you think it is okay to model ethnicity and religion of 200 milion citizens? This is how my country got all their jews killed in WWII [0]. The mere thought of compiling such information here would lead to some hefty jail time these days. I really cannot believe you can even defend such a thing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_registration#Netherlands

The US most definitely does think it is okay. Every political party and many corporations and non-party entities will have similar databases. If you wanted a list of every Jew in the United States, with their current address, and accuracy exceeding 99%, any number of data vendors would be happy to sell it to you, today. For better or worse, the US makes very different choices about privacy than many other advanced nations do.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#65

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

briffle wrote: post #45

arianvanp wrote: post #23

So you think it is okay to model ethnicity and religion of 200 milion citizens? This is how my country got all their jews killed in WWII [0]. The mere thought of compiling such information here would lead to some hefty jail time these days. I really cannot believe you can even defend such a thing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_registration#Netherlands

I had another friend suggest it was probably fine, asked how they would feel if it had "ATF Form 4473 status" on it. Then they could grasp the importance. The person is a huge 2nd amendment proponent, and afraid the government is going to take away all their guns, so it really pointed it out to them in a way they understand.

You could also replace 4473 with "pro-recreational-weed" which is something that is not very popular at the federal level right now.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#66

Post by jellicle » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

thatcat wrote: post #58

wildmusings wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States, the First Amendment protects your right to compile publicly available data in any way you see fit. I have experience working on a political campaign and they ALL have databases such as this.

What is the publically available source to view voting history ? I thought that was protected information.

How one votes is secret. Whether one votes is typically compiled by the government and made available to political parties and often the general public.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#67

Post by maxerickson » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

pdog wrote: post #32

This raises so many questions... Why is U.S. voter registration made public at the individual name/address level? Why do the states publish their voter registrations in the first place? Why should private campaign operations (or anyone else) have access to this data? Shouldn't voters' privacy be protected by the states? Is there a privacy policy you can review when you register to vote?

Independent review of voter eligibility.

(Eligibility which will vary down to the smallest political divisions)

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#68

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

strictnein wrote: post #56

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #47

As long as the CEO of an company (RNC) that gives data to an outsourcer (Deep Root Analytics) is not going to jail to give data to an unqualified company, nothing will change. If the CEO goes to jail, things will change very rapidly (CEO will manage his CMO much tighter who will first want to see an security audit not older than 6 months). At least CEOs I have reported to as CTO were very sensitive for implemention i…

What law did they break, exactly? These aren't medical or financial records. A careless programmer makes a bad choice and the CEO has to go to jail? Come on.

[deleted]

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#69

Post by vinhboy » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

> It would ultimately take days, from June 12th to June 14th, for Vickery to download 1.1 TB of publicly accessible files

Do security firms have special permission to do this? Because as a private citizen, I am pretty sure I would go to jail if I tried this.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#70

Post by creepydata » Mon, Jun 19, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

apeace wrote: post #63

> Spreadsheets containing this accumulated data—last updated around the January 2017 presidential inauguration—constitute a treasure trove of political data and modeled preferences used by the Trump campaign Genuinely curious: can you really have 198 million rows in a spreadsheet?

It's plural, spreadsheets. It could be thousands of separate files.