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Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

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Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#21

Post by rjrjrjrj »

slopinthebag wrote: post #16

Other commentators are rightfully pointing out that this information is open public in other jurisdictions, and that Albertans' information is almost certainly already being shared and sold. I believe the reason why this has become such a large news story is the tension between Alberta (and the west) and the rest of Canada. Alberta has rising separatist sentiment, a premiere who is extremely popular in Alberta and ex…

Smith was friendly with Parker.

Attended his wedding, did softball interviews with his wife who worked for a right wing media site.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#22

Post by mig39 »

My understanding is that when Elections Alberta shares the voter list with legit users (ie: sitting members of the legislature), it includes unique fictitious entries in the data. That way if there is a leak of the data, they can trace the source of the leak. Which they apparently have done.

I guess it's a form of a canary trap.

It reminds me of mapmakers including fake towns or other features in their maps, in case someone leaked them.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#23

Post by pavel_lishin »

Teever wrote: post #13
tptacek wrote: post #9

The phone numbers in these data sets are weird and problematic, but the equivalent data in the US is usually public, and available for free to any registered candidate.

It appears that they registered as a party to get access to the data and them disseminated it publicly through a vibecoded app. While this data may generally be public in the US, it usually isn't in Canada, and there's an expectation that parties don't publish the data and it is seeded to detect that. A bigger problem is that people in Canada sign up for this list with the expectation that this data will remain reaso…

> and it is seeded to detect that.

Do you mean that there are "paper town"-like entries in the dataset to make it obvious when one has leaked?

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#24

Post by giarc »

justinclift wrote: post #6
mystraline wrote: post #5

So here in the Midwest USA, I can go to election commission and legally obtain the voter registration file. It, by law, is public. Anybody who asks for it must be provided the file. Naturally the law is pre-internet and ignorant of abuses you can do. But I'm not sure how this leak compares. Is it party affiliations and loads of PII to the point of impersonation?

Yeah, it almost sounds like the leaked information was... effectively the white pages for the area. ie name, address, and phone number

It is, but that's not the route they took. Another registered party (the Republican Party of Alberta) received the information legally, then shared it all with this group (likely illegally or at least against some rules). There's now speculation that the separatist group used it to add names to their petition since they required X number of signatures. For example, the group has claimed some communities had over 90% of electors sign the petition. Which most people would claim is really hard to physically do and also counter to the general polling in the province that finds about 25% of citizens support separation.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#25

Post by slopinthebag »

rjrjrjrj wrote: post #21
slopinthebag wrote: post #16

Other commentators are rightfully pointing out that this information is open public in other jurisdictions, and that Albertans' information is almost certainly already being shared and sold. I believe the reason why this has become such a large news story is the tension between Alberta (and the west) and the rest of Canada. Alberta has rising separatist sentiment, a premiere who is extremely popular in Alberta and ex…

Smith was friendly with Parker. Attended his wedding, did softball interviews with his wife who worked for a right wing media site.

See this is what I mean. "She was friendly" therefore she must be involved!!!

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#26

Post by giarc »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #23
Teever wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that they registered as a party to get access to the data and them disseminated it publicly through a vibecoded app. While this data may generally be public in the US, it usually isn't in Canada, and there's an expectation that parties don't publish the data and it is seeded to detect that. A bigger problem is that people in Canada sign up for this list with the expectation that this data will remain reaso…

> and it is seeded to detect that. Do you mean that there are "paper town"-like entries in the dataset to make it obvious when one has leaked?

Yes, Elections Alberta provided the list to the Republican Party of Alberta. Whenever they do this, they salt the list with fake names so that if it gets leaked, they can then determine which copy was leaked. That's how we know this republican group provided it to this "Centurion Group"

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#27

Post by pjc50 »

hexagonsuns wrote: post #17
cf100clunk wrote: post #8

It was left up in an unprotected state by Alberta separatists. Intentional?

The whole thing is really suspicious. If you dig deeper on the Centurion Project, things start to get weird. The Centurion Project website has little to no information, archives of the site go back to just over a month ago, and the address and phone number are for a random UPS Store in Calgary. I got really suspicious when I started looking into Parker himself. He spews the typical "right wing" rhetoric -- Globalists…

Quite possibly all those other people believe something like that. The "elites" are vulnerable to Internet brain worms like everyone else.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#28

Post by Spooky23 »

lukeinator42 wrote: post #12

The other concerning aspect of this leak is the fact that the list was shared with a group of separatists, and the data on the list is basically everything you need to fraudulently sign someone up for the separatist referendum petition. Some separatists are claiming that certain ridings have had 92.9% of eligible voters sign the petition which is highly dubious: https://x.com/RiseOfAlberta/status/2049668987307303389…

Sounds like an "active measures" operation.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#29

Post by lukan »

mig39 wrote: post #22

My understanding is that when Elections Alberta shares the voter list with legit users (ie: sitting members of the legislature), it includes unique fictitious entries in the data. That way if there is a leak of the data, they can trace the source of the leak. Which they apparently have done. I guess it's a form of a canary trap. It reminds me of mapmakers including fake towns or other features in their maps, in case…

" reminds me of mapmakers including fake towns or other features in their maps, in case someone leaked them."

Sounds the same to me, but are you sure they are doing it like this, or you guess?

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#30

Post by Eeems »

ginko wrote: post #15

>Security experts say a leak of Alberta’s provincial list of voters – nearly three million names, addresses and phone numbers – has created a potential public safety and political interference crisis that could have ramifications for decades. Name, address and phone number is generally just public information here in Norway. You can literally just check the phone book for this. You can opt out of this but few people…

This is not publicly available information in Canada. One very real concern here is that domestic abusers will now be able to find their victims: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-counci...
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