In terms of illegality, there would only be a problem if AggregateIQ was not properly compensated for their work by the U.S. political campaigns--i.e. if AggregateIQ improperly provided value to the campaign as "in kind" donations of work.
If the campaigns paid AggregateIQ for their work, there's nothing illegal or even improper. Campaigns are allowed to purchase products or services from foreign sources.
It's not quite so simple. It's true that US campaigns can purchase products and services from foreign vendors, but only to the extent that those services do not include any management or strategic decision-making services. So you could hire a Canadian firm to make data visualizations for you, but the firm could not tell the US campaign, "we recommend you target group x" based on that visualization.
But I agree, based on what is described here, there may be nothing here. Very much unlike certain Cambridge Analytica activities across the pond.
He wants us to open the file but he wants it to be annoying?
For posterity:
<14-character non-dictionary word>+<My current CA DL number>+<Streetname of my residence during 1st grade>
Schema: aaaaaaaaaaaaaa+Annnnnnn+Aaaa Aaaaaaa
(a=lower alpha, A=upper alpha, n=numeric)
md5 those 36-characters. Hash is the passphrase
Since we know that non-dictionary word is 14-characters, and assuming English, entropy should much less than 26^14.
anyone willing to give it a spin?
It's an 8 digit number.
The keyspace for the streets would be a list of every street in Greater Victoria.
The selective publication and inflammatory language makes me less likely to believe this is of any importance, other than tut-tutting at the server insecurity.
The disinformation and jumping to conclusions in the comments of that tweet thread is extraordinary.
See http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/exclusive-cambridge-analytica... for a story today breaking on this.
Whether CA CEO Nix as a foreign national played a key strategic role is a different, perhaps thornier, issue.
Have you ever tried to write off open source work as a donation? I don't think this works the way you want it to. Software isn't a donation. Software is speech. Phil Zimmerman proved that rather nicely when he printed PGP as a book.
Can anyone explain how this is illegal or damning? It appears the biggest reveal is some database/statistical tools. Do they do anything illegal? Is it illegal to outsource a project, especially to an ally like Canada?
It seems they were developed as the result of an outsourced project, but does that count for anything?
We knew CA was hired to help them win the election. I don't understand how that itself is wrong, legally either.
Is this (anyone can register with an email address) the default mode for a self-hosted gitlab deployment?
You will want to make all your repositories private, which makes you whitelist all access.
Update: looks like the registration link was still listed / open, but my question still stands
Important to note this leak only (as of now) ever mentions ted cruz - nothing to do with Trump's campaign beside some handwavy connections between this marketing agency and cambridge analytica. Bannon is also literally never mentioned in the write up.
Whereupon it will promptly be buried. So went Digg, so goes HN.
As someone who didn't vote for Trump, and doesn't support him, that's one of the (many) things I find so disheartening about this entire process. Pretending that Trump is somehow a unique problem that needs to be solved rather just another corrupt politician is to whitewash the rest of the crooks running our government. It isn't an accident that Trump is being portrayed as a unique menace. The levers of power in our government (and their minions in media) are very careful to paint the picture of this being an aberration. They are playing on the myth of "American exceptionalism". That's where the whole Russian-conspiracy nonsense plays in, because naturally, the American people would never vote to reject the establishment in favor of a despicable con-man like Trump unless they were influenced or fooled by evil Russians! If we can just get rid of Trump (and the free and open internet that allowed the evil Russians to influence us), then we can return to the wonderful status quo of the "Liberal Western Order" AKA monopolar US global hegemony, that is great for everyone!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/12...
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/04/stop-listenin...
https://thinkprogress.org/blue-detectives-collapse-trump-rus...
It seems that the media can't make up their mind about him either: At times, discrediting him; other times, recommending his work. [2]
[1] https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judici...
[2] https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/971909060294561792
I don't necessarily agree that gizmodo should have led with tying this open repository of code to AIQ/SCL/CA to Bannon/Trump/Russia. Finding the tools and explaining what they do was more important given this was found today.
It's not like they can't write follow-up articles which explain the larger issues.
> Have you ever tried to write off open source work as a donation? I don't think this works the way you want it to. Software isn't a donation.
If you typically charge for your software development time hourly, and you provide 10 hours of software development to a 501(c)3, you indeed can write that off as a donation. You will just need a receipt from the org to which you donated your time.
You can't write off typical open source work as a donation because you're not donating anything. Under most open source licenses you keep your IP, but provide a free license to anyone who downloads the code. Even if a nonprofit uses your code, you set the price to $0.00, so there's nothing to write off.
The letter summarizes Abramson's allegations: "The facts point to a coordinated effort by some in the FBI to change the course of the Clinton investigation by leaking sensitive information to the public, and by threatening to leak additional information after the investigation was closed."
There are no two ways about it: Either Abramson is onto a huge story that hasn't been reported elsewhere -or- sitting members of congress take investigative actions based on the ramblings of an irresponsible conspiracy theorist. Both are concerning.
[1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/939432544008921088.html
Frankly, I'm just amazed at the amount of effort that continues to go into locating a smoking gun and a technical devious explanation for Trump/Brexit success beyond "a lot of people really are unhappy with the status quo".
I don't think that's true; I think there is a highly vocal set of people on HN fixated on selling that idea, but I don't think HN as a whole is.
edit: just on this thread:
"As someone who didn't vote for Trump, and doesn't support him, that's one of the (many) things I find so disheartening about this entire process. Pretending that Trump is somehow a unique problem that needs to be solved rather just another corrupt politician is to whitewash the rest of the crooks running our government. It isn't an accident that Trump is being portrayed as a unique menace. The levers of power in our government (and their minions in media) are very careful to paint the picture of this being an aberration."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16681901 - e.g. this person is picking the conspiracy theory answer of occam's razor. That it really is a wild and massive left/right wing conspiracy to make all this happen, controlling both houses of congress, the justice department, and all media (including Fox who has to play the tricky hand of being against the investigations, yet is unable to produce a compelling reason why they should actually be ended), yet DT was elected in the first place.
"I'm not picking on or defending anyone, I'm just weary of the last years' worth of articles that keep claiming "smoking guns." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16681776
these come out immediately on every story about this.