4 ms·

> Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago. Minor nit: Years ago. The name Cambridge Analytica was being circulated in hac

• letslightafire 9y ago
  My guess: Selling psychological data to advertisers is boring but if you get Bannon involved and rope it into the Trump news cycle, it suddenly gets a lot of people talking. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistl... This article is probably the biggest one right now.
  • mhneu 9y ago
    Selling psychological data to advertisers is boring, but when you get billionaires and foreign powers involved to elect a would-be autocrat who is degrading American democracy, it suddenly gets a lot of people talking. Yup. It's not a surprise why people are interested in the role of data in modern public debate and democracy.
    • mistermann 9y ago
      Wait until people find out American democracy is smoke and mirrors, then you'll see people talking. They better this situation under control soon or that might just happen.
    • rtx 9y ago
      That's why we need safeguards in place. Everyone was happy when Obama used it and never thought it can be used by someone else too. Edit: Someone linked this below - http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-marketer-year/131810/ http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market...
      • pritambaral 9y ago
        Did Obama acquire the data under false pretense, use it to lie and mislead people, or downright coerce candidates through bribes and sex?
    • downandout 9y ago
      I have seen no evidence that the efforts of “foreign powers” were even remotely close to effective. Has anyone done a study proving that people either changed their votes or didn’t vote based upon the Russian campaign?
      • JetSpiegel 9y ago
        I think most people believe Russian hackers literally hacked voting machines to give Trump the election. Subtle manipulation of emotions it too complex for the public.
• UncleEntity 9y ago
  > Suddenly, the public gives a shit and I don't understand what changed. Not the public per se but the media suddenly cares. My guess it's the runup to the US midterm elections, it's never too early to start the mudslinging...
• colordrops 9y ago
  What changed is that an attack vector has been found to take out Cambridge Analytica. The Democrats are in full political warfare with the Trump regime, and this is just another salvo.
  • mhneu 9y ago
    p.s. Did you know Steve Bannon looked at tech workers as people he could bamboozle to be his political footsoldiers? That's why the Mercers completely fund Breitbart - to propagandize young, mostly tech, men and boys. From Josh Greene's book: "Yiannopoulos devoted much of Bretibart's tech coverage to cultural issues, particularly Gamergate, a long-running online argument over gaming culture that peaked in 2014. And that helped fuel an online alt-right movement sparked by Breitbart News. "I realized Milo could connect with these kids right away," Bannon told Green. "You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump."" Mercer spends around $10M per year funding Breitbart to spread that propaganda.
    • mistermann 9y ago
      PS: And the democrats weaponize starry eyed, well-intentioned young progressive millennial and gen-xers. Why do you think the Russia-did-everything story sells so well when they were a bit player at most? Sorry to burst your bubble, but everyone is in on it.
      • watwut 9y ago
        Democrats are moving to the center (e.g. right) while conservatives move further right. Meanwhile, young progressive millennial and gen-xers are trying to move democrats to the left and are in large power struggle. Not the same.
        • mistermann 9y ago
          Spoken like a true believer.
        • 9y ago
• zilchers 9y ago
  That’s a great statement on the issue almost always faced by security professionals. Almost impossible to impress upon people the stakes when you can do something, almost impossible to do anything once it’s too late.
• magnusss 9y ago
  Nothing changed. What happened in many of these cases (Weinstein, Facebook) is that the story was thoroughly researched and reported in depth by a team of professional journalists working for the New York Times. My only point (if there is one) is that, despite the massive proliferation of blogs and amateur media, it often takes a professional, salaried reporter to bring an important story into the public eye.
  • briandear 9y ago
    > the story was thoroughly researched and reported in depth by a team of professional journalists working for the New York Times No. It was Ronan Farrow that originally broke the story. The NY Times took their sweet time before going after someone that was an ultra-major Democrat party donor. The Weinstein story was rejected by multiple "professional" news outlets. The "professional" journalists working for the NY Times KNEW about the Weinstein story as far back as 2004, but spiked it under pressure from various Hollywood interests. Professional journalists aren't supposed to spike stories for political reasons and that's exactly that the Times did in 2004. Weinstein's office in Tribeca was right downstairs from the Tribeca Film offices. It was on the 3rd floor. Spend a few hours in that building and you could probably have heard a dozen stories in whispered tones about Harvey. Some professional journalist from the NY Times should have had this story years ago. A high school journalist could have written this! And Kevin Spacey? Anyone who in Hollywood would have known about Spacey as far back as 2004, or perhaps earlier. It was an "open" secret. So open that it was a joke. It started becoming more "known" when Spacey was working with Sam Mendes on American Beauty in 1999. Give me a fucking break. Professional journalists sat on this story, ignored it or conspired to crush it. It took a rookie, Ronan Farrow, trying to make a name for himself while on a personal mission against that horrible abuser Woody Allen for this to all break. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/russell-crowe-matt-damon-helped-spike-a-weinstein-expose-in-2004-former-nyt-journalist-claims-20171010-gyxkn4.html https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/russell-crowe-ma...
    • magnusss 9y ago
      I was unaware of the Farrow article, thank you for noting it. Its role in publicizing the Weinstein scandal doesn’t diminish my point, however. Farrow is hardly an amateur; as a Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law graduate, he’s been published in numerous journals and works as an undercover journalist for NBC News. His article on Weinstein was carried by The New Yorker, a magazine with a stellar reputation for high journalistic standards. My point that it takes a pro to give credence to a big story still stands. I understand your reluctance to credit the Times given how they sat on the news for years before finally publishing their expose. Nevertheless, the Times article came out on October 5, 2017 — five days before Farrow’s story hit the wire on newyorker.com. So technically the Times still gets the scoop — and most of the credit :-).
• jimsmart 9y ago
  Perhaps part of what's changed is that just a few weeks back Cambridge Analytica claimed — in writing, to the UK Parliament — that they did not harvest profiles from Facebook: "On 8 February 2018 Mr Matheson implied that Cambridge Analytica "gathers data from users on Facebook." Cambridge Analytica does not gather such data." — Letter from Alexander Nix, CEO, Cambridge Analytica, to the Chair of the Committee, 23 February 2018 (PDF, linked from below page) https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/cambridge-analytica-ev/ https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z... — And now, it's basically been 'proven' by FB that they do. Of course the ICO is gonna get involved now. Edit: plus there's also this Channel4 investigation which went public today: "An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers." https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t... — I think that most certainly puts CA into all kinds of shit they weren't in just 24hrs ago.
  • roywiggins 9y ago
    They also testified to Parliament that they had no business in Russia, and an ex-founder (who left on bad terms, admittedly) has since come out and said that when he was still there, they were sending a Russian oil company information about how to target American voters. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-ana...
    • jrimbault 9y ago
      Question from a [mostly] ignorant person (me, about these subjets): Why would russian intelligence use an oil company as a shell ? Does Russia sell oil to the US ? If so do they market directly to individuals in the US ?
      • alchemism 9y ago
• belorn 9y ago
  Not just security nerds. Take for example Eben moglen, professor in law and history of law. "So I was talking to a senior government official of this government (2012) about that outcome and he said well you know we've come to realize that we need a robust social graph of the United States. That's how we're going to connect new information to old information." I suspect that the only reason we are hearing about the Trump campaign being the buyer is that the democrats already had the information. It is also why Facebook can not put the cards on the table since then they would not have any political allies left. Just like with the Snowden leak, privacy is not a issue for which the parties differentiates on. One can only hope that will change in the next election.
  • ubernostrum 9y ago
    There's been evidence that the Trump campaign did a massively better job of taking advantage of Facebook than any other campaign, Republican or Democrat, had previously. There's also evidence that Facebook's advertising models were a massive help -- the Trump campaign and affiliated organizations were paying much lower advertising rates than the Clinton campaign + affiliates, largely because Facebook's model prioritized the kind of controversy-and-outrage-generating stuff Trump was putting out there (since controversy and outrage drive engagement, and engagement is the metric Facebook cares about).
    • ataturk 9y ago
      The only reason I can think that the Democrats wouldn't have used the data is because their plan was to rig the election. I say that because other than Seth Rich, the Democrats have no a single shred of ethics at work anyplace. If the Democrats thought murdering old ladies would win them the election, they would murder old ladies. Not that some of the Republicans wouldn't--they are all birds of a feather, after all. The delicious thing about Trump, and what is becoming more and more clear, is that he is a reformed sociopath, or is trying to be that. I support him only for that reason--if we can't successfully reform our government and eliminate many of the truly awful people in it, then we're headed for a civil war as the next step. Regular Americans can't survive an oligarchy.
• freyir 9y ago
  > Suddenly, the public gives a shit and I don't understand what changed. The story was linked to Trump? Also, security nerds are attuned to how personal data might be misused. The public needs a concrete example.
• President321 9y ago
  Wasn't all this started with Blairs Premiership new Nudge technolgy to allow the government to get its subjects to behave as desired?
• cookiecaper 9y ago
  The public does not "give a shit". If Trump's win tells us anything, it's that there is not necessarily a correlation between what gets trumpeted as national news and what people actually believe, accept, or experience. There are major power players at work trying to a) exert control over the internet as a speech platform; and b) ensure that their political opponents can't win without establishment support. I discussed this some at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616227 . As for my grandma, my mom, and my sisters, like most of the public, they don't care about any of this, because this data was mostly already public-enough (friends list restricted) and they just want a platform where they know they'll be able to engage with friends and family.