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Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

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Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#131

Post by draw_down »

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.

Well, that's the whole game. Either we care and there are consequences, or we don't care and there aren't consequences. We decided we don't care.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#132

Post by AndrewKemendo »

ericcumbee wrote: post #94
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost made this same comment however it's not comparable because these were private firms compiling the data for a private political committee. This is NOT the government collecting this data. Rest assured the government has much better data on everyone already.

Would you like to put money on that?

Money on what? That the USG has better cumulative info on the population than a few private polling firms? Yea I'll put money on that.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#133

Post by throwaway40483 »

kevinburke wrote: post #119
DannyBee wrote: post #24

Speaking as a guy with a lot of experience with voter data ( I built the first "where do I vote" apps for Google and helped found the voting information project): This is actually almost entirely public data. Yes, including addresses and phone numbers and political affiliation. There are some states that is not public as part of the voter file, but you can still get it other ways publicly. For example: USPS, etc. Som…

It's probably good that a lot of this is public, but one thing I think we're going to reckon with is how "available" all of this data should be, and how much it costs in terms of time or money to retrieve it. Should I be able to find the public records for any citizen, anywhere in the country, at the snap of a finger? Or should I have to go to e.g. the courthouse and ask for the records in person, deal with a phone s…

Adding this kind of friction only discourages people with good intentions. It doesn't stop people with not so noble intentions (who are most likely backed with a lot of money)

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#134

Post by ksk »

fnovd wrote: post #81
strictnein wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't blame a "careless programmer" when the real problem is organizations simply not committing any resources to security. It's like a hospital only employing 1 nurse and blaming her when patients inevitably die. The organization has a clear responsibility to employee a sufficient number of experts to protect their data. DRA is not unique here but does demonstrate a pattern of companies playing fast and loose wi…

>You can't blame a "careless programmer" when the real problem is organizations simply not committing any resources to security.

How have you established that they didn't have a sufficient number of experts? What if they purchased a product or service and it simply didn't work? Its rather harsh to point fingers without having all of the information.

>We'll keep seeing things like this until our laws are such that stewards of data like these have some sort of incentive to protect them.

I think we need to give companies appliance-like products with a simple set of instructions that anyone can follow. Even a simple change where the data is stored in a 'vault' that requires the use of special tools with built in access controls and auditing would prevent a lot of data breaches. This means you cant email files around or share them on google docs or whatever. I'm convinced that people will do the right thing if you make it easy enough for them.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#135

Post by erikpukinskis »

remline wrote: post #125
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are gathering data through any means it's no different than other marketing firms. I think the real debate needs to be about what any companies can share.

But it is not about what they can share, it is about what they or anyone can collect, store and use. What you can share lets companies store and make decisions based on data they shouldn't have and couldn't share as long as their inputs and outputs look clean. I,e. Facebook or Google could help you intentionally run a race biased campaign across all their assets as long as they don't tell you any specifics and includ…

This is a losing battle. The cost of rebuilding this kind of database, even from scratch, is only going to go down.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#136

Post by 794CD01 »

djtriptych wrote: post #62
strictnein wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a slippery slope. Analysis of writing style, patterns of use, etc can deanonymize data to the point where basically everything becomes PII.

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#137

Post by Godel_unicode »

angersock wrote: post #77
strictnein wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#138

Post by holaboyperu »

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.

Where does the buck stop then?

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#139

Post by cowabungamann »

DannyBee wrote: post #24

Speaking as a guy with a lot of experience with voter data ( I built the first "where do I vote" apps for Google and helped found the voting information project): This is actually almost entirely public data. Yes, including addresses and phone numbers and political affiliation. There are some states that is not public as part of the voter file, but you can still get it other ways publicly. For example: USPS, etc. Som…

where can I get access to this data?

Re: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak

#140

Post by protomyth »

philh wrote: post #130
protomyth wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I try to pick my sides based on what seems right, not based on who else picks that side. I look at the picker of sides and their motives to determine the consequences of picking a side. I tend to favor protection of people as a whole.

> I look at the picker of sides and their motives to determine the consequences of picking a side. Taken literally, this suggests that you can't work out the consequences without looking at the supporters. If that's what you mean, I have to say it seems weird to me. Taken less literally: if you think the consequences of one side winning include "people get harmed", you can just say that. You can point at the conseque…

The people picking sides provides data and case studies for what that side really means. Its nice to think in the abstract about issues, but it is helpful to see the movements of the various actors in a situation to determine if a decision has a net benefit while not violating what I hold dear. The whole ignore the actors on both sides sacrifices getting a benefit from the analysis they did to pick a side.

Plus bad actors are quite good at sounding very good in the abstract while showing their true colors in their actions.

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