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Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

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Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#71

Post by thegayngler »

yahelc wrote: post #18
wyldfire wrote: post #12

I hate to be in the position of defending a leak such as this. But if what they've done is "merely" compiling data that was available from our public profiles, are they obligated to secure that compilation? I'm asking -- I don't know for sure how the data was gathered, it just sounds like it was from scraping public records + public web sites. Also, can someone ask Troy Hunt whether he has or can get access to this d…

Voter files being public data depends on which state you're talking about -- you're looking at ~50 different sets of laws and regulations. Some states restrict access to only political parties using it for political uses and prohibit distribution to non-parties/candidates. Some states (Florida, for example) will let anyone just apply to get it. To your latter question, some states, like California, do include email a…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot All 50 states have some form of secret ballot. Only WV has an open ballot.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#72

Post by kevindqc »

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.

It's not about the careless programmer IMO. It's that there was nothing in place to make sure the data was secure. Or if there was, it wasn't effective.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#73

Post by apeace »

creepydata wrote: post #70
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.

Good catch. According to Microsoft[0], the max number of rows is 1,048,576. So I guess there must have been a couple hundred!

[0] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Excel-specification...

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#74

Post by sp332 »

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?

Excel limits each "sheet" to 1,048,576 rows, but there's no limit to how many sheets you can have in a single file. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/excel-specification...

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#75

Post by remline »

_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…

If this data has private information on non-republicans then jail them for having it, not for leaking it.

There is no special purpose in these two groups of colluding Americans that grants them special rights to gather data on their non-associates any differently than any other member of the public.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#76

Post by kevindqc »

VonGuard wrote: post #38
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?

So that the two parties who voted for this to be the case can have unfettered access to their potential voters, go to their houses, send them things, and know for sure they're only hitting up people in their party, so as not to mobilize the other side. Nothing that would harm the 2-party system ever changes in the US, and nothing ever will.

But why does it need to be public?

In the US, you register with the party no? So the party you register with your information, and they can do what you said

> go to their houses, send them things, and know for sure they're only hitting up people in their party, so as not to mobilize the other side.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#77

Post by angersock »

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 don't compile dossiers on over 200M American citizens just for funsies.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#78

Post by wyldfire »

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.

52 U.S.C. § 21083 has some relevant text (excerpts below). § 10101 (NVReg Act) does not. By my read, neither bars public access to this data. 5 U.S. Code § 552 (FOIA) probably supersedes.

> (1) ... (v)

> Any election official in the State, including any local election official, may obtain immediate electronic access to the information contained in the computerized list.

> (3) Technological security of computerized list

> The appropriate State or local official shall provide adequate technological security measures to prevent the unauthorized access to the computerized list established under this section

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#79

Post by treehau5 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #40

If you're a glass half full person at least they care about the do not call list enough to give it its own column.

They take the DNC list and subsequent enforcement very seriously. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/do-not-call-...

source: work at place with large call center. Avoiding DNC fines is among one of our top priorities.

secondary source: S.O. works at place with call center for a large bank. Same thing.

Also anecdotally: If you file a complaint with the FTC for an unknown number that keeps calling you back without them giving you a chance to "opt out" (this is most scammer numbers), you file a ticket with the FTC, and they usually respond to the ticket within 2-3 days. (Another funny thing -- they use Zendesk.). I stopped receiving the calls since filing the report.

As to why they take it so seriously? My guess is it's easy money for them. Kind of like traffic tickets for cops.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#80

Post by smt88 »

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

In the US, Nazis can march through Washington, and police will spend time and money protecting them. They'll do this for any group with any ideology.

Needless to say, our countries have different ideas about which freedoms can and cannot be sacrified.

Using public data to guess at someone's race isn't, out of context, illegal. It is in some situations, but not this one.

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