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GOP Data Firm Accidentally Leaks Personal Details of Nearly 200M American Voters

T

Tovarisc

Member
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.

The data leak contains a wealth of personal information on roughly 61 percent of the US population. Along with home addresses, birthdates, and phone numbers, the records include advanced sentiment analyses used by political groups to predict where individual voters fall on hot-button issues such as gun ownership, stem cell research, and the right to abortion, as well as suspected religious affiliation and ethnicity. The data was amassed from a variety of sources—from the banned subreddit r/fatpeoplehate to American Crossroads, the super PAC co-founded by former White House strategist Karl Rove.

Deep Root Analytics, a conservative data firm that identifies audiences for political ads, confirmed ownership of the data to Gizmodo on Friday.

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. Many of the files did not originate at Deep Root, but are instead the aggregate of outside data firms and Republican super PACs, shedding light onto the increasingly advanced data ecosystem that helped propel President Donald Trump’s slim margins in key swing states.
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The RNC paid Deep Root $983,000 last year, according to Federal Election Commission reports, but its server contained records from a variety of other conservative sources paid millions more, including The Data Trust (also known as GOP Data Trust), the Republican party’s primary voter file provider. Data Trust received over $6.7 million from the RNC during the 2016 cycle, according to Open Secrets, and its president, Johnny DeStefano, now serves as Trump’s director of presidential personnel.
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Deep Root further obtained hundreds of files (at least) from The Kantar Group, a leading media and market research company with offices in New York, Beijing, Moscow, and more than a hundred other cities on six continents. Each file offers rich details about political ads—estimated cost, audience demographics, reach, and more—by and about political figures and groups from the political spectrum. There are files on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Planned Parenthood, and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as files on every 2016 presidential candidate, Republicans included.

What’s more, the Kantar files each contain video links to related political ads stored on Kantar’s servers.
ja2dzpcaxnrqexktlh1d.jpg
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Source: http://gizmodo.com/gop-data-firm-accidentally-leaks-personal-details-of-ne-1796211612

A LOT more at source!
 
P

PuppetSlave

Member
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.
 
M

marrec

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

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
At this point you just have to assume your shit gonna get leaked eventually by someone either due to hax or just corporations being clueless.
 
J

Jinaar

Member
Right now Democrats should be putting this front and center on everything, the Georgia election, Trumps candidacy, Republicans in general. Put out advertisements showing how all their data is now out there. Costs money but dammit, you need that message out there.
 
C

cameron

Member
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. Many of the files did not originate at Deep Root, but are instead the aggregate of outside data firms and Republican super PACs, shedding light onto the increasingly advanced data ecosystem that helped propel President Donald Trump’s slim margins in key swing states.
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Bit from WSJ: Computer-Security Firm Says Voter Data Set Left Unprotected Online
The information was found on a publicly accessible cloud server, said Chris Vickery, an analyst with cybersecurity company UpGuard. He said he discovered the information on June 12 after trying different combinations of letters for web addresses that he thought might point to the information. Mr. Vickery is a specialist in searching for exposed information using this technique, known as “cloud fuzzing,” to help secure sensitive information.

The voter information, portions of which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, includes the names and other personally identifying information about 198 million registered voters, which would appear to be nearly all of the estimated registered voters in the U.S., the company found. The information includes dates of birth, mailing addresses and party affiliation, as well as self-reported racial demographics, according to Mr. Vickery, but didn’t include social security numbers or financial information.

Mr. Vickery, who has a history of discovering sensitive information exposed on the internet, said his most recent find is “quite possibly the biggest I’ve ever had.”

In all, 1.1 terabytes of personal information were found on the server owned by Deep Root Analytics, he said.
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N

Nafai1123

Banned
Just throwing it out there but maybe this was intentional to cover up tracks of collusion with Russia. "Oh we didn't share the voter roll data with them, they must've gotten it from this publicly available server."
 
Z

Zaru

Member
Nafai1123 said:
Just throwing it out there but maybe this was intentional to cover up tracks of collusion with Russia. "Oh we didn't share the voter roll data with them, they must've gotten it from this publicly available server."
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Ah, the good ol' incompetence defense
 
T

tbm24

Member
That level of incompetence is something else, holy shit. I wonder what the contract between them and the RNC stated. Hosting this in an unprotected server has to have violated something.
 
M

MikeHattsu

Member
W

Walter White Walker

Member
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