Dodgy database exposes details of 191 million US voters

[Reddie]

Figured this would interest some of you.

If you voted in a U.S election in the last 15 years there's a high likelihood that your personal details are now online. The misconfigured database expose details of more than 191 million US voters, details which include: names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses.

Get more information here:

http://betanews.com/2015/12/28/dodgy-database-exposes-details-of-191-million-us-voters/

The database apparently still is online

 

[dogtowner]

And you trust the government with your medical record ? SMH

 

[BigRob]

Ha - 15 years? That data goes back much further than that. It is also public record. Anyone can buy voter lists from the state - that will include their name, address, and elections they voted in. That list can then be easily matched against phone/email lists etc to build a database with that contact information. You can buy lists already matched if you want also.

Generally it goes further than that, and more data sets are added to people, and a predictive model will be built - a good campaign will know exactly who you are, what messages you want to hear, the best way to put that message in front of you, and how to ensure you turn you out to vote. It will be modeled down to the voter exactly how many voters are needed (based on turnout projections) precinct by precinct to win.

 

[Alexia]

These days you can ask for your information to be kept private as in not online, but people can still buy the information. All voters have to be made public and recorded as such. When I was doing some research for a friend, one way was to look at electoral rolls, and I found where her great-grandmother was living as she had left her husband.

 

[Maelalove]

These days you can ask for your information to be kept private as in not online, but people can still buy the information. All voters have to be made public and recorded as such. When I was doing some research for a friend, one way was to look at electoral rolls, and I found where her great-grandmother was living as she had left her husband.

Wow, that sounds like an incredibly awkward situation. Did no one know where the great-grandmother had gone? I know you said she left her husband, but did she just cut everything off? That's kind of crazy...

 

[pwarbi]

While it's true that most personal information can be found out no matter how private it is one way or another, this is slightly different.

This is information that as been publicly broadcast. Nobody as got to pay to see it, it's freely out there and open to anybody to look at and so surely that can't be right? Furthermore, who's going to get the blame for this, and if anything untoward comes from this, who are people going to claim against?

 

[Maelalove]

While it's true that most personal information can be found out no matter how private it is one way or another, this is slightly different.

This is information that as been publicly broadcast. Nobody as got to pay to see it, it's freely out there and open to anybody to look at and so surely that can't be right? Furthermore, who's going to get the blame for this, and if anything untoward comes from this, who are people going to claim against?

I think it depends on the personal information. Things like social security numbers and credit card numbers are private, and would make it illegal. But things like addresses and phone numbers are posted anyway, and it's actually not illegal.

 

[pwarbi]

I'd imagine the information that has been leaked will be a lot more than phone numbers and addresses though to be honest. When the government makes a mistake it's not usually a minor one that gets rectified quickly, it tends to be a huge FU that they have to then scramble around to cover up...I mean fix.