The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40 • Hacker News Board

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#191

Post by qznc » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #173

danso wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter registration is considered public information in many states. Some states even provide the entire database on their website to download. However, voter registration does not include who a person voted for in an election. You are free to augment the database with your own data, of course.

I don't even understand why party affiliation is tracked by the state. What's that good for other than entrenching the two party state? Parties should have their own member lists.

My (very uninformed) guess is that this is cultural. When democracy spread, Europe already had a good system of tracking people. The church was keeping records of every family for hundreds of years already. In contrast, the USA is a country of immigrants where new people without a history came in all the time. Tracking who votes where could not rely on an established system.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#192

Post by zifnab06 » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

jaaames wrote: post #122

tvanantwerp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in DC, land of the professional Fed. At the absolute highest level and after adjusting for location, the most a DC Fed could earn is $164,200. No surprise that anyone with serious technical talent--and by extension, market value--doesn't want such a job.

True, but consider some folks are content with a 38 hour week, may have automated large chunks of their job, and find the demands of working for a big public sector organization far less than that of a similar role in a private sector tech company.

This is something I argue with myself a lot about. I work as a software engineer for a large non-tech company. They pay well, but I could easily go to a tech company and make 20% more. Except...well, in 18 months I've never had to work more than a 40 hour week. I can totally see the appeal of a government job.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#193

Post by zifnab06 » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

Fellshard wrote: post #155

rlucas wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you lived anywhere else, like, say, the northeast? Seattle is a shockingly well run municipality among American cities of size.

You haven't met the city council of the last several years, then...

Maybe I should run. I wonder if I'd stand a chance against sawant.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#194

Post by danso » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

0xfffff wrote: post #30

quickthrower2 wrote: post #26

The writer has fessed up to reading a lot of the emails. As evidenced by summarizing the content (e.g. cheating spouses, zabbix etc.). Wouldn't the responsible thing to do be stop reading the emails once you realise what is going on?

I had the same thought - he seems to have indulged in the data quite a bit to come up with such a thourough analysis.

What was thorough about his analysis? He mentions a few things that could easily be detected with grep within a corpus of millions of messages.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#195

Post by edoceo » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #146

JoeSmithson wrote: post #32

I'm very surprised they gave out this information. I'm not talking about the mistake, I mean the actual request. In the UK I don't think you could even get a production order for this. Like, it's effectively getting Communications Data simultaneously against thousands of people not suspected of any crimes?? Like, do people know that by emailing their local government their email address is now free for scammers to re…

> Could I request this data myself, then start emailing them scam emails Yes, bad actors can find malicious uses for a dataset. Not sure what that has to do with FOI. Are you suggesting that people who email the government expect their email to remain private, even as that email may be forwarded to a number of agencies and employees?

Using FOIA data for marketing is not legal in USA.

It is done but not legal and hard to prove.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#196

Post by maxxxxx » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #177

maxxxxx wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even understand why party affiliation is tracked by the state. What's that good for other than entrenching the two party state? Parties should have their own member lists.

Mostly for primary eligibility. It also allows for things like ensuring that poll watchers etc are available in a equitable way.

Why is the state getting involved in primaries? That should be the parties' business. I think there should be no public record of party affiliation.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#197

Post by jtbayly » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #186

danso wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter registration is considered public information in many states. Some states even provide the entire database on their website to download. However, voter registration does not include who a person voted for in an election. You are free to augment the database with your own data, of course.

>However, voter registration does not include who a person voted for in an election. Many include 1) Last time you voted And 2) what your party affliction is

I'm personally afflicted by both parties.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#198

Post by anigbrowl » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #187

astura wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, voter registration does not include who a person voted for in an election. Many include 1) Last time you voted And 2) what your party affliction is

Yes, though neither of those include who you actually voted for.

Reflect on the fact that 'didn't vote recently' is being used as we speak to suppress voting in the upcoming election. For non-US readers, every state has a Secretary fo State who rather than doing any kind of foreign affairs work like the federal office of that name, primarily oversees paperwork and particularly elections. These Secretaries of State are elected offices and highly politicized, since officeholders can heavily impact the conduct of elections. In Georgia, for example, one of the candidates for Governor is currently Secretary of State, and has put the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters into question in a way that just happens to massively impact likely voters for his opponent.

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#199

Post by danso » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:27 PM UTC

edoceo wrote: post #195

danso wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could I request this data myself, then start emailing them scam emails Yes, bad actors can find malicious uses for a dataset. Not sure what that has to do with FOI. Are you suggesting that people who email the government expect their email to remain private, even as that email may be forwarded to a number of agencies and employees?

Using FOIA data for marketing is not legal in USA. It is done but not legal and hard to prove.

Some state laws do not restrict commercial usage [0] amd AFAIK, there is nothing in the federal FOIA law that prevents using information for marketing or other commercial purposes. That wasn't my point, though. The parent commenter talks about the potential danger of phishers using public data as being "against the spirit of FOI". Yes, I agree that using FOI to find info that facilitates a crime is not FOI's intended usecase. But the potential drawback has not been determined by legislators to outweigh all the potential benefits of transparency.

[0] https://www.mcall.com/news/watchdog/mc-nws-open-records-busi...

Re: The City of Seattle Accidentally Gave Me 32M Emails for $40

#200

Post by danso » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #196

Spooky23 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly for primary eligibility. It also allows for things like ensuring that poll watchers etc are available in a equitable way.

Why is the state getting involved in primaries? That should be the parties' business. I think there should be no public record of party affiliation.

Primaries aren't enshrined in the Constitution, but they became state business in the 1970s because there was a desire to let the average voter have more say in the selection process, which had previously been done via party conventions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/05/1...