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Speaking as a guy with a lot of experience with voter data ( I built the first "where do I vote" apps for Google and helped found the voting information project
by DannyBee 9y ago
Speaking as a guy with a lot of experience with voter data ( I built the first "where do I vote" apps for Google and helped found the voting information project):
This is actually almost entirely public data. Yes, including addresses and phone numbers and political affiliation. There are some states that is not public as part of the voter file, but you can still get it other ways publicly. For example: USPS, etc. Some states/players would make you sign agreements not to use it for commercial purposes.
The modeling info included is not public.
Acquiring 50 state data can be a bit of a pain, but there are at least two major players that will sell it to you.
(I remember one of them literally laughed when I told them we would want the databases without any personal info included, because we just wanted the address to various political precinct mapping.)
- unityByFreedom 9y ago> This is actually almost entirely public data Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. "almost public" is meaningless. One data item, like credit card number, or birthday, can make this a dangerous leak.
- fav_collector 9y ago> Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. mylife.com publicly posts birthdays so apparently not
- unityByFreedom 9y agoNo kidding, but I don't want that information out there, and I imagine most people don't. Just because some skeezy website shares all my personal information does not make it public information. It's private to me and I'd rather it remain undistributed, where possible. Overall point being, this US voter data leak is bad. That appears to have released information on all of us that we consider private.
- __david__ 9y ago> Just because some skeezy website shares all my personal information does not make it public information. I kinda think it does mean exactly that. Just because you don't want something to be public doesn't mean that it isn't public.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- unityByFreedom 9y agoSo do you consider your daily schedule, gps locations of where you go, to be public information? Nothing about the definition of public or private restrict either to being protected by the government. I can consider some information private without it being protected in the legal sense. That said, I expect that any government entity that released my birthday would be held responsible for a data leak.
- __david__ 9y ago> So do you consider your daily schedule, gps locations of where you go, to be public information? Nope. What's your point?
- unityByFreedom 9y agoYour words, > "Just because you don't want something to be public doesn't mean that it isn't public." In the future, your location data could be tracked, shared/hacked, analyzed to produce more information, and breached just like this RNC dataset. My point is, something private doesn't become public when a criminal exposes it. It's still private to you.
- __david__ 9y agoWhat? It isn't public because it isn't public. Not because I don't want it to be public. If in the future it is no longer public, then I won't consider it private. I may not be happy about it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is public at that point.
- nostrademons 9y agoBirthday is almost certainly public. You can get it easily from the DMV or from any of several dozen commercial providers that resell government data: https://www.dmv.org/public-records/ https://www.dmv.org/public-records/ That it's used to confirm identity shows how weak identity-theft protections are at most institutions, not what's public information. (For that matter, mother's maiden name is basically public information as well: you can get it from genealogical records.)
- mfoy_ 9y agoHow many dark patterns are used by truth-finder.com? Seriously.
- jack_kc 9y agoThe site you linked to is not affiliated with any state DMV. It links to a sketchy background check service that appears to be a scam. Edit: spelling
- unityByFreedom 9y agoThat, and, I've never consented to release my birthday publicly. I consider it to be private, therefore it is private. It's mine! I expect the government would not release it since they use it as part of an identifier all the time. There's no perfect identifier. That's why we need security. This is a major lapse. Pretty sneaky of the comment above yours to try to pass dmv.org as a government website.
- crooked-v 9y ago> I've never consented to release my birthday publicly. Too bad. The government doesn't care about you consenting to things. In fact, making you do things without your consent is literally the entire point of organized government, even if we usually overlook that because it's for a good purpose (for example, taxation to pay for health care or national defense).
- 9y ago
- creepydata 9y agoUm, no. Your birthday is certainly not private information. Births are openly published in the local paper and online. Not to mention stuff like this - http://www.wfsb.com/story/26835982/website-displaying-voters-personal-information-has-right-to-do-so http://www.wfsb.com/story/26835982/website-displaying-voters...
- unityByFreedom 9y agoUm, yes. It certainly is. I don't want it released publicly, nor have I consented to release it to any website. If there are websites out there sharing that private information, they're doing it without my consent.
- Gargoyle 9y agoYou may consider it private, but that doesn't make it legally private. Which is the kind of privacy under discussion in this thread.
- unityByFreedom 9y agoNobody has restricted this conversation to the legal sense. Is your daily schedule, when you go to work,drop off your kids, what route you take to work protected legally? No, but you probably wouldn't want to share that information publicly either. Yet, in the future, a data breach could reveal such information, and a business could seek to resell it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- creepydata 9y agoDid you read The link I posted? If you are a registered voter in Connecticut your birthday is public information by law.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Birthday is an included item. That's definitely private as it is often used to confirm identity. Lots of things that are actually not private data are used to confirm identity; “it is used to confirm identity” is not a disproof that a piece of information is public information.
- unityByFreedom 9y agoWould you like to share your full name and birthday with the world? I wouldn't. Therefore it is private.
- idbehold 9y agoThat would disclose way more information than just my name and age. You would then be able to associate that information with my HN username and all the data associated with it.
- unityByFreedom 9y agoI don't follow.
- creepydata 9y agoidbehold can't post his or her name and birthday without revealing he or she is the owner of the idbehold hacker news account. Which is more information than name+birthday, it's name+birthday+hacked news posting history. http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=38&From=list&SessionID=1053117630 http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=... This is a random guy. His named ERNEST BELL JR and his birthdate is 10/05/1959.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago> dbehold can't post his or her name and birthday.. Not sure why you're replying for someone else.. > This is a random guy. His named ERNEST BELL JR and his birthdate is 10/05/1959. Inmates obviously lose some rights when convicted. Data security is minor compared to losing the freedom of movement. Also doesn't surprise me that Florida would make all information on its inmates public.
- kevinburke 9y agoIt's probably good that a lot of this is public, but one thing I think we're going to reckon with is how "available" all of this data should be, and how much it costs in terms of time or money to retrieve it. Should I be able to find the public records for any citizen, anywhere in the country, at the snap of a finger? Or should I have to go to e.g. the courthouse and ask for the records in person, deal with a phone system, &c.
- throwaway40483 9y agoAdding this kind of friction only discourages people with good intentions. It doesn't stop people with not so noble intentions (who are most likely backed with a lot of money)
- closeparen 9y agoThis is how data brokers make money: go through all the labor intensive manual acquisition processes and then resell it through a slick web UI.
- cowabungamann 9y agowhere can I get access to this data?
- DannyBee 9y agoContact anyone with a voter file (google "voter file purchase") Trivially: http://nationbuilder.com/voterfile http://nationbuilder.com/voterfile etc As for "For free", states are generally required by law to give it to you if you ask. Some charge fees. Only two have crazy fees (5k and 30k) has a crazy fee (though if you challenge them, ...etc) https://trello.com/b/IlZkwYc0/national-voter-file-states-pipeline https://trello.com/b/IlZkwYc0/national-voter-file-states-pip... There is a github project i'm aware of to put together all of the data: https://github.com/national-voter-file/national-voter-file https://github.com/national-voter-file/national-voter-file
- hncommenter13 9y agoFYI, be careful what you do with it. Some of this sort of data--like federal contribution data from the FEC--cannot be legally used for commercial purposes[0]. They do actually enforce it, at least occasionally. [0] https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/saleuse.shtml#anchor578478 https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/saleuse.shtml#anc... (publication is from 1992, but still accurate per disclaimer at the top)
- shostack 9y agoThe modeling info is the real value. So taking that modeled data, loading it into Cambridge Analytica (which I understand is somewhat of a DMP in this sense), and leveraging it with highly-customized creative targeted against Custom Audience uploads using this modeled data would be insanely valuable to a political player with the capital to deploy this info weapon.
- political_tech 9y agoCA offers DMP services as part of their product suite, but they specialize in doing this kind of modeling as a professional service.