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[DeviantBoi]

Would be funny if some of this data was found to have come from the Russians hacking into voter databases.

 

[Squirrel Killer]

At a certain point the negligence showed by firms with massive amounts of data has to be considered criminal right?

Civil breach of contract is more likely. Most of this appears to be publicly available information and the stuff that isn't is probably member lists they bought from a special interest group. Nothing I've seen appears to be financial or health data.

How do you find out if you're on the leaked list of information? Kinda scary thinking shit about you is available to anyone now.

Are you registered to vote in the US? If so, probably.

 

[The Albatross]

So is this kinda data-collection on voters legal in the US? the whole speculation on religion and so on?

200 millions peoples info leaked... oh man that is a lot of data.

Yes, it's legal. Marketing companies typically have much more named data as well than this, and they make more speculations about behavior than voting.

And there's nothing illegal with speculating about the likelihood of someone's religion, voting patterns, or how likely they are to buy Pampers over other leading diaper brands, etc.

 

[Koren]

UpGuard cyber risk analyst Chris Vickery discovered Deep Root’s data online last week. More than a terabyte was stored on the cloud server without the protection of a password and could be accessed by anyone who found the URL.

I'm happy to live in a country where this is illegal times 3:

- some of those data can't be in any database, unless I'm mistaken
- if you create such a database, its existence must be public, and people must be able to check/alter/delete their own data
- you have to protect the data, and justify of the means

The fact that the data was public for collection doesn't really matter...

 

[StarVigil]

Y'all are kinda fucked.

 

[Greigor The Fellhand]

I am assuming it's a russia backed firm, With stolen information and manpower.


I am also assuming theres a U.S. Analyst that had this data and realized something and released it.

 

[Lowmelody]

This is pretty fuckin crazy.

 

[wildfire]

That's not even a leak. They just put it up on the web themselves.

Seriously. That's the most disturbing part of all this.

 

[TCKaos]

Is there a way that I can see what data the RNC had on me?

 

[AndyD]

Subreddits are in this data for some reason lol.

They probably crawled various public social media to develop these profiles. That's where election battles seem to be going with micro profiling becoming prevalent.

 

[enzo_gt]

This is insane in scope.

Political data gathered on more than 198 million US citizens was exposed this month after a marketing firm contracted by the Republican National Committee stored internal documents on a publicly accessible Amazon server.

Also, fucking amateur hour for a data firm.

 

[BADMAN]

You can't be caught for leaking it to the Russians if it's up for anyone to download!

 

[Stinkles]

I am assuming it's a russia backed firm, With stolen information and manpower.


I am also assuming theres a U.S. Analyst that had this data and realized something and released it.

eh?

Also, is it searchable anywhere? I'm curious to see what I look like to a GOP strategist.

 

[Furyous]

I AM SUING.

I dead fucking serious right now. Let me find out my personal details were leaked by this business so I can class action my way into some money.

 

[jmdajr]

cool!

 

[Ushojax]

LOCK 'EM UP

 

[Dartastic]

eh?

Also, is it searchable anywhere? I'm curious to see what I look like to a GOP strategist.

Seriously, same.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

So this means I should be able to check if my info is leaked online right? Skimmed the article but found no clue how to do so.

 

[Haunted]

You can certainly expect these people to receive Russian propaganda going into the next elections.

They already did this election. They're called GOP flyers.

 

[whyamihere]

So this means I should be able to check if my info is leaked online right? Skimmed the article but found no clue how to do so.

I was wondering the same thing!

 

[Ekai]

I was wondering the same thing!

Articles are mentioning some sub-domain of Amazon that anyone can/could access but I don't know how to go about doing that.

 

[jellies_two]

https://www.upguard.com/breaches/the-rnc-files

Ok this is pretty sick
People claiming micro targeting wasn't used or useful are smoking something: these assholes managed to profile 198 million voters which is basically all of them down to reactions on issues love/hate of Obama religion ethnicity and so on.
With that data plus Facebook (again) they could run campaign messages (lies) that resonate in small areas.
They could also run a campaign that won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. Gerrymandering on a vast scale.

And they left it all unsecured but the bigger issue is is this the world people want to live in with a vast database that pins you down on issues? Name sex age street address etc.
Facebook has some answering to do.

 

[Moppeh]

That's a lot of cyber.

 

[takriel]

That's a lot of cyber.

lmao. Trump is such a dumbass.

 

[AndyD]

https://www.upguard.com/breaches/the-rnc-files
...
And they left it all unsecured but the bigger issue is is this the world people want to live in with a vast database that pins you down on issues? Name sex age street address etc.
Facebook has some answering to do.

To be fair, a lot of that info is already publicly available. Look at Spokeo.

 

[Frustrated_me]

BUT 👏 HER 👏 EMAILS 👏

 

[Trumplestiltskin]

You can't be caught for leaking it to the Russians if it's up for anyone to download!

So now the Russians haven't just compromised the President, nor the entire GOP, but even third party data firms that contract with the RNC?

 

[Neoweee]

So is this kinda data-collection on voters legal in the US? the whole speculation on religion and so on?

200 millions peoples info leaked... oh man that is a lot of data.

The basic voter registration files are supplied by local and state governments. This is a compiled version of that, with additional GOP-strategy notes attached, or other data sources appended, which is then sold/rented out to GOP campaigns for money.

Voter information should be more readily available than it is, and more standardized. Restricting access to it is a shady way that incumbents use to hamstring primary challenges and third-parties.

This site existed well before the leak:
http://nationbuilder.com/voterfile

Here, you can click on a state to see how much is available from the state, and for what price:
http://voterlist.electproject.org/
It shouldn't cost anything, but it does, for BS reasons.

There are a lot of Hot Takes about this data leak, but very few know what it is, and what was already available and what wasn't'.

 

[BlitzKeeg]

Sure. The data company that didn't realize it was on a public AWS server is confident that no malicious third parties didn't access the information in the 12 days it was available.

Suuuurrreeee.

 

[KernelPanic]

It's possible it wasn't an accident and more of a digital "dead drop" for someone to find.

 

[Squirrel Killer]

It's possible it wasn't an accident and more of a digital "dead drop" for someone to find.

What is there to dead drop? This is mostly publicly available data, mixed with some self-generated data, purchased data, and some analytics. This is a company incompetently relying on security through obscurity, not The Bourne Supremacy.

 

[Nafai1123]

What is there to dead drop? This is mostly publicly available data, mixed with some self-generated data, purchased data, and some analytics. This is a company incompetently relying on security through obscurity, not The Bourne Supremacy.

It's ok to share that info with a foreign government that we know interfered in the election?

 

[wedca]

I knew my stance of never having a sincere opinion online would pay off someday. Profile this big data! *points to crotch*

 

[Squirrel Killer]

It's ok to share that info with a foreign government that we know interfered in the election?

"That info" is easily obtainable voter registration info, info the company generated itself, some data they either bought or were given from various third parties, and their analysis. This isn't anything Russians couldn't do themselves.

The info, collected or purposefully shared, isn't the problem here.* It's the lack of security that is the problem.

* Two caveats:

1. The third parties almost certainly placed conditions on using their data. This leak likely gives those third parties grounds for a civil lawsuit (but that's not criminal.)
2. It's been a while since I've gotten voter registration data, but I know that some states used to default to using SSN for their voter ID field. The upguard.com story shows they had "StateVoterID" as one of the fields. If any states still use SSN for their voter ID, then that's a huge issue.