Data owns the (electoral) future

[OUTLAW 09]

The most disturbing part of this isn't the volume & detail of voter info that was compromised......It's the collection of it.

The leaked info "paints a detailed portrait of virtually all of America’s 200 million voters."https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/06/19/republican-contractor-database-every-voter-exposed-internet-12-days-researcher-says/


"These political data firms might as well be working for the Russians."
...do we know they aren't?

This is a such an important point: Taken to this extreme level, voter targeting really is a threat to democracy.

Appears that the loss of 198M US voters' personal information and voting information which could provide a rather detailed voter preference which was "stolen" by unknown persons BECAUSE it was left on an open unsecured location on an Amazon cloud server for 21 days was handled by a US defense contractor SCL...

SCL used to be owned by Trump special advisor Bannon before he sold it to Cambridge Analytica now owned by billionaire Mercer....

SCL is now being investigated by UK concerning this data breach which effected virtually ALL US voters.....

UK Information Commissioner opens a formal investigation into the use of data analytics for political purposes:
https://iconewsblog.wordpress.com/20...al-purposes/#…

They are investigating as well the connections between the US defense contractor SCL and CA and whether they are actually the same company just different names...

SCL and CA pride themselves in being "big data" and storage companies YET this was a massive breach and caused by themselves...

Some of the data sets that SCL had ......

[OUTLAW 09]

IMHO this is one of the worst data breaches in the last ten years of really bad data breaches YET it has not rated much comment in US MSM......

When coupled with data mining taken from social media on virtually all of these voters it is extremely easy to formulate and distribute targeted political media messaging much in the fashion of informational warfare which is the core of the Russian non linear warfare....

So it begs a serious question...if hacking of voter databases is considered to be "bad" as that would be seen as "direct meddling in an US election".....WHAT is then the effective use of targeted media directed against voters THAT could in fact get them to change their vote????

This data held by SCL when coupled with social media big data mining can in fact produce very accurate explicit psychographic scores THAT then can be converted into specific targeting of voters with messaging that "appeals" to their psychological voter profiles.

We are now seeing a modern Gobbels approach to impacting voting habits...

When one really takes the time to read the Russian doctrine on information warfare...it clearly states the end goal is the changing of opinions, attitudes and thinking of an entire society just not individuals...

AND if we look at the latest CBS polling also posted here we are seeing a not so subtle shift by a group of voters which had previously been largely negative towards Russian NOW being accepting of Russia and its current actions....

[davidbfpo]

I have copied four posts to this thread from the Russian Disinformation plus thread, as they clearly fit here and could be lost elsewhere.

[OUTLAW 09]

DHS Official: Russia Targeted 21 States for Election Hacking.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-...el-1498037401#

[OUTLAW 09]

Schiff to @maddow: House Intel is interested in finding out whether there was Russian support in the Trump campaign's use of data analytics.

THIS is the same question being raised now in UK....on the Brexit vote

[davidbfpo]

Slowly the debate on data capture and electoral politics is moving along in the UK, although to the discomfort of the parties in parliament.

At the weekend a columnist asked whether Russia had influenced the Brexit Referendum and the General Election:

Here’s a puzzle: although Britain is the only country to do exactly what Russia wanted it do and leave the EU, there is no British equivalent of the FBI investigation. Journalists have tried to fill the gap.

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ladimir-putin?

In parallel there is a steady accumulation of information on mysterious cash transfers in the Brexit referendum, ostensibly received by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland, from a body few have ever heard of and no-one knows who gave them the money.

That and more was covered in a recent public conference (podcast and summary):https://www.byline.com/column/74

[jcustis]

I am not surprised at all that Russian-sponsored bots have been deployed to serve as foot soldiers in these disinformation campaigns.

https://www.byline.com/column/67/article/1906