Reason and Justice
  • Seek the Truth
  • Who We Are
  • Get In Touch
  • Contribute
  • Seek the Truth
  • Who We Are
  • Get In Touch
  • Contribute



Background on the stories that make national news

​
   

Why has government been instituted at all? ​Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
   ~ ​Alexander Hamilton









​
Photo by Andrew Horne

"Whoever Owns this Data Owns the Future"

7/13/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture


​McClatchy DC reported July 13 that the Trump campaign data analytics operation is under scrutiny by the multiple investigations into possible coordination between the campaign and operatives working for the Russian government. “Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries.”

The McClatchy DC article explains that investigators now know that the Kremlin mounted a cyberattack on the United States of “unprecedented scale and sophistication” which delivered false and misleading stories about Hillary Clinton to the social media accounts of millions of voters.

The McClatchy DC article can be found here.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html

Will Bunch summarized some of the issues in the investigation in Philly.com. His suggestion for understanding how the Russians interfered in our election, and how the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign may have coordinated with them inolves just three words: Follow the data.

Bunch quotes Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian:
“There are three strands to this story. How the foundations of an authoritarian surveillance state are being laid in the US. How British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by a US billionaire. And how we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored. Whoever owns this data owns the future.”

The article from Philly.com can be found here.
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/will_bunch/the-key-to-the-trump-russia-scandal-follow-the-data-20170713.html

An article from Advertising Age explained in December of 2016 how the Trump campaign data analytics team used multiple data sources to assemble a data strategy to target voters with maximum impact and minimum cost.

After an October 5 meeting, the data team concentrated on three groups of voters they needed to convince to vote for their candidate. “There were three especially important voter segments they'd need to swing towards their candidate: unallocated voters, defined as people who were predisposed to listen to the Trump campaign and the GOP's message; ‘DJT Underperform’ voters, or Republicans still unconvinced about supporting Mr. Trump; and ‘HRC Change’ voters, defined as people leaning toward Hillary Clinton but also craving change in government."

Investigators now suspect, according to the McClatchy DC article from July 13, that the Russians targeted voters in swing states, even in key precincts. According to a source familiar with the criminal probe into Trump-Russia collaboration, investigators doubt that Russian operatives controlling the bots and trolls that distributed false and misleading news stories and memes satirizing Clinton could have “independently ‘known where to specifically target … to which high impact states and districts in those states.’”

The Advertising Age article can be found here.
http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/trump-camp-s-inexperience-set-stage-rnc-data-win/307105/


A June 2017 article in The Verge  provides insight into how Deep Root Analytics, which worked on the campaign for the Republican National Committee, scooped up data from Reddit, but it is still unclear how this data was used to target voters.
​

The scooped data was found when Deep Root Analytics left highly personal data about nearly 200 million U.S. voters on an unprotected cloud server in June. The exposed data, which includes multiple data points about far more voters than those registered Republican,  The Verge suggests that Deep Root Analytics may have been attempting to match Reddit profiles with voter information data, perhaps to categorize voters into the groups identified as important to turn toward Trump.

The article from The Verge can be found here.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/19/15829234/deep-root-analytics-leak-reddit-voter-targeting-gop

​The giant RNC data leak of nearly 200 million voters’ information was discovered in June of 2017 by Chris Vickery, a well-known cyber risk researcher working for the company Upguard, who has discovered these kinds of breaches before.
A detailed article about the RNC breach, along with a recorded question and answer period with Vickery, was published by the cyber security company Upguard, and updated July 12. The article can be found here.
https://www.upguard.com/breaches/the-rnc-files



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Truth is a real thing.

    Archives

    November 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    Categories

    All
    2016 Election
    Aleksander Kogan
    Alpha Omega Winery
    Backchannel
    Bots
    Breitbart
    Cambridge Analytica
    Charlottesville
    Cozy Bear
    Department Of Justice
    Devin Nunes
    Donald Trump
    Don McGahn
    Dutch Intelligence
    Facebook
    Fact-checking Trump
    Fancy Bear
    FISA
    Fusion GPS
    Gates
    Glenn Simpson
    Global Warminig
    Gregory Kennedy
    GRU
    Gun Rights Rally
    Haiti
    Hate Groups
    Helskinki
    House Intelligence
    House Of Representatives
    Hurricane Maria
    Indicment
    Internet Research Agency
    James Comey
    Jared Kushner
    Jefferson Beauregard Sessions
    Justice Kennedy
    Justin Kennedy
    King Abdullah II
    Magnitsky Act
    Manafort
    Mariia Butina
    Mark Zuckerberg
    Mercer
    Michael Avenatti
    Michael Cohen
    Michael Flynn
    Mogilevich
    Money Laundering
    Mueller Investigation
    National Rifle Association
    Nuclear Deal
    Obstruction Of Justice
    Oleg Deripaska
    Organized Crime
    Papadopoulos
    President Trump
    Puerto Rico
    Reince Priebus
    Renaissance Technologies
    Rod Rosenstein
    Russian Interference
    Russian Trolls
    Ryan Zinke
    Senate Intelligence
    Senate Judiciary
    Senator Feinstein
    Social Media
    Steve Bannon
    Stormy Daniels
    Supreme Court
    Torshin
    Treasury Department
    Trolls
    Trump Jupiter National Golf Club
    Trump Lawsuit
    Trump Organization
    Trump-Putin
    Trump Transition
    Turkey
    Twitter
    U.S. Treasury Department
    Whitefish
    White Supremacy

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly