Slashdot Mirror
Look-Alike Web Sites Hoodwink Republican Donors
Hugh Pickens writes "Shane Goldmacher writes that a network of look-alike campaign websites have netted hundreds of thousands of dollars this year in what some are calling a sophisticated political phishing scheme. The doppelgänger websites have the trappings of official campaign pages: smiling candidate photos and videos, issue pages, and a large red "donate" button at the top and exist for nearly three-dozen prominent GOP figures, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and donation magnets such as Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Allen West of Florida. The only difference is that proceeds from the shadow sites go not to the candidates pictured, but to an obscure conservative group called CAPE PAC run by activist Jeff Loyd, a former chairman of the Gila County GOP in Arizona. 'The only thing they are doing is lining their pockets and funding their own operation,' says Republican political strategist Chris LaCivita. CAPE PAC has a strong Web presence, with over 100,000 followers on Twitter and 50,000 on Facebook and its business model is to buy Google ads — about $290,000 worth, as of the end of June — to promote its network of candidate sites whenever people search for prominent GOP officials. A search for 'Mitt Romney,' for instance, often leads to two sponsored results: Romney's official site and CAPE PAC's mittromneyin2012.com. Once on a CAPE PAC site, users would have to notice fine print at either the top or bottom of the page revealing that they were not on the official page of their favored politician. A dozen donors, including some experienced Washington hands such as Neusner, had no idea they had contributed to the group before National Journal Daily contacted them. 'It confused me, and I do this for a living,' says Washington lobbyist Patrick Raffaniello. 'That's pretty sophisticated phishing.'"
Idiots and their money are soon parted.
But hey, at least this way, they weren't going to as horrible of a cause.
To watch them eat each other...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Looks like capepac.org is slashdotted, so I can't donate!
:)
This was inevitable since citizens united. Money=speech and does not necessarily need to relate to a campaign to be used with respect to a campaign. Fraud(is it fraud?) was a completely logical consequence.
The dirty little secret is that there is less money in fishing for Democrats
This leads to something that has always puzzled me about American political parties -- their legal status. Are they non-profit corporations, or something? Other than the brownshirts, what keeps me from opening up a storefront down the street from the local Republican Party headquarters, and call my place the local Republican Party headquarters, instead -- complete with candidates that I support, fundraisers, etc.?
Funny how one slashdot article follows another sometimes.
are they advocating more government regulation? Maybe they are just pissed off because its not money in Their pockets
Perhaps some campaign finance reform is in order?
Yet the disclaimer was right there at the bottom of the page.
Why do you hate the free market, Neusner?
--
BMO
Hey just a quick reminder, election day this year for 3rd party candidates has been moved up to Tuesday November 6th so they have extra time to count handwritten "Ron Paul" write in votes and stuff like that... so if you're voting libertarian party, or really any 3rd party, anyone other than -R or -D, PLEASE show up at the polls on Tuesday November 6th, mkay? And if you're voting for a -R or -D then DO NOT show up at the polls until Wednesday November 7th this year. I'd really appreciate your help and if you could copy this to your facebook and G+ and twitter and all that, I'd really appreciate it as a personal favor. Please make sure that any -D or -R voters you know, won't show up at the polls until the 7th, OK?
TLDR is the voting commission has split presidential voting by party to reduce crowds, all 3rd party voters = vote on Tuesday Nov 6th, and D/R voters please don't arrive at the polls until Wednesday Nov 7th!
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
They go for smooth and polished, and don't look at all like the cluttered, Times New Roman-laden "stopmrobama.com" -- oh, and the fact that your "mittromneyin2012.com" link redirected to "stopmrobama.com", and the page that comes up is all about Obama, and doesn't have the word "Romney" anywhere on it, should also be big hints.
'It confused me, and I do this for a living,' says Washington lobbyist Patrick Raffaniello. 'That's pretty sophisticated phishing.'
Uh, no. This just proves Washington lobbyists are pretty bad at what they purportedly "do for a living".
It's interesting that this is hitting Republican donors. Republicans tend to claim to see regulations as something to be avoided, as big-government, anti-free-market, babysitting when people and/or the free market should take responsibility.
However, this is exactly the sort of "there ought to be a law" technically-legal-but-unethical business practice that regulations, at their best, can and do address. Right now this guy is probably protected from a solid fraud case because he puts the disclaimer, albeit in tiny print and in an unlikely place to read it. But regulations could be promulgated that would require any page site that accepts political donations to post disclaimers of proper level of font size, prominence, and in clear language.
Such regulations already exist for, for example, the credit card "box" that clearly, states terms of credit card offers, including the APR, fees, etc. Before the "box" regulations, this info used to be squirreled away, in fine print, obscure language, if it was to be found at all. And like the donors, people often found themselves unwittingly fooled out of real money because they were duped.
die by the sword.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Gotta love all the comments so far. Apparently, when it's a sleazeball in your own party, it's just a single sleazeball (or a handful of them, whatever), not representative of the party. But when it's the other party, it's poetic justice.
No, people, fraud is fraud, deception is deception, no matter which politics they put on their front door, and no matter who they defraud.
That's my guess too. But the fake Romney site points to "stopmrobama.com" when I mouse-over, not the site in the link's text.
I'm having mixed feelings about this. On one hand, phishing and defrauding is bad. On the other hand, this is money that would otherwise have gone to the already thickly lined pockets of the Taliban-Embracing-Americans party (aka TEA Party).
Yes, I said Taliban-Embracing-Americans party, because TEA party stands for religious fundamentalism - the same motivator that the Taliban uses. Religious fundamentalism must not be allowed to exist because it is harmful to human existence. Yet these people want religious fundamentalism to be the ruling style of the government. They would be happy with the equivalent of the Ayatollah ruling this country, making laws based religious principles.
And Obama donations just go to Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, and any group which claims to be socialist.
Yet again, we see how it is currently impossible to verify identities on the internet. I personally don't find it too hard to envisage a system wherein it is actually possibly to identify a person via the certificate they present.
At some point we were always going to need to have personal digital certificates, surely in the age we live in, with the extent to which the internet is integrated into our lives, some form of GPG-alike certificate ought to be part of our national ID-card/whatever.
Anyone else feel we are getting to the point where that needs to happen?
A better name would be Carpe PAC.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
Is it somehow easier to verify identities outside the Internet? Do you have an in-person identity verification system? Why are you sharing it?
Defrauding Republicans, or their supporters, is like stealing from a thief, giving a lethal injection to a murderer, or raping a rapist. Of course it's bad, but it's hard to feel bad.
Isn't free market capitalism all about Profit? It ain't illegal till you get caught. I never expected any less from the Right.
SECRET SOURCES OF MONEY that need not be revealed
does that really feel like something that should be part of your country? democrat, republican, anyone?
where is the outrage about that?
if money from who knows where can influence our politics, i don't know why this story should elicit 1/10th of the concern
if it comes from who knows where, it might as well go who knows where
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I could see some group outside the country doing something like this soon: Set up a bunch of websites pretending to be candidates, take charge cards for payments, but then keep the money instead of spending it. I would consider doing this, but something tells me if I did, I would end up in federal prison. Of course, if I was on good terms with a few major candidates and helped them get re-elected, nothing would probably happen.
"This is a really crooked tactic, and boy howdy do I know crooked"
A fool and his money are soon parted. In other news, people who are just as stupid are donating money to the actual Obama 2012 campaign site.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Caveat Stultus.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Look-Alike Web Sites Hoodwink Republican Donors
And Actual Democrat Web Sites Hoodwink Democrat Donors...
Don't hate, you'd laugh if it were reversed.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A great many countries require their citizens to carry ID cards, and many that don't still issue them. All countries issue passports. There's your physical "outside the internet" ID verification system. All I'm suggesting is the logical extensional step.
It's not Phishing. At all.
If you go to Google, search for something, then navigate from there to a fraudulent site, that's totally on you. You're an idiot. Stop blaming it on some security term that you don't understand in order to throw blame off of yourself, especially if the site /explains/ to you that you're doing something stupid.
Republican politicians hoodwink Republican donors (and the rest of us) every day of the week. Nothing to see here, move along.
One word: Awesome.
I love stuff like this - it's doing to the GOP's constituents what the GOP does to the country on a regular basis.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
This guy is going to give PAC's a bad name.
This is NOT Fraud.
Deceptive, arguably yes. (Probably no more or less so than say politics in general)
Super PACs can spend money however they see fit to promote candidates and/or views. A web page is an advertisement for a candidate. Purchasing google ads drives traffic to the website. They cannot correlate with the candidates they are supporting. If the SuperPAC is promoting "social" issues then they don't have to reveal their donors (A Super Secret PAC).
This is no more fraud than the selling of pet rocks.
There are dishonest, money grubbing, gravy sucking pigs taking advantage of the politically weak minded ... and then there are internet scammers. Man this is like Nazis and Child Molesters in a cage match... who do you boo and who do your root for??? Oh, and for those of you with sensitive skin, I'll add I'd feel not a wit different if the scammers had been doing Democrats instead so there is that.
Doesn't surprise me at all, though no where on the page did it say you were donating to their party or even the candidate. People don't understand how to find an actual page and then get taken and complain?
As for the "professional opinion" of that professor. He goes on to say his bookkeeper made the donation. So what does that have to do with him if he never accessed the page to donate?
Moreover, a refund because he did not read the footnote.
Of his own free will.
Caveat did not emptor.
"'It confused me, and I do this for a living,' says Washington lobbyist Patrick Raffaniello. 'That's pretty sophisticated phishing.'"
### No. That's poor reading comprehension and lack of due diligence on your part. The terms are in English at the bottom of the page and it's not even "hidden" with a tiny font. I checked myself. It's not like you're donating to a "payday" loan page. If you can't be bothered to even do some basic due diligence on a website before spending money on it, I wonder what else you don't do any due diligence on. Higgs boson help the poor buggers you're supposed to be lobbying for.
Let me highlight something you quoted...
...without government regulation or fear of monopolies.
This is the basic problem that I have with 'free market' proponents. Without the former, how do you prevent the latter? People have demonstrated time and again, that given the chance to acquire and abuse power, they will.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If by "liberal", you mean "Allen Greenspan", then yes. He famously, privately averred that the government shouldn't prohibit fraud, that the marketplace would sort it out more efficiently.
If the govt would stand aside completely and let "the market" truly sort things out... then there would actually be more business and profits to be made, because fine upstanding fellows like Tony and Guido would be able to earn a living thinning out the fraudsters and fellows like Saul and Mortie the undertakers would see an increase in their business as well. You know.... Greenspan might be onto something that would actually work.
It looks like the answer to your question is no. I just went to four parties' websites, and none of them had any sort of inline gpg signature on the page. That kind of tech is unusual on the web, though, so let's look at one highly-broken but widely ubiquitous way for websites to have at least some attestation of who they are: https.
For some amazing adventures in mismatched certs, 404s(!), other brokenness, and even the CA "Comodo" raising its ugly head (did you think they had gone out of business?), try loading (shown in sorted order):
https://www.democrats.org/
https://www.gop.com/
https://www.gp.org/
https://www.lp.org/
You have to see it all to believe it. The one which "works" (no spoilers) still manages to be self-defeating and useless for identity-checking.
More than (I even included the biggest two third parties!) 99 of voters spoke: No, we're not at the point where any voter gives a damn if a party's site says who it is.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
People have demonstrated time and again, that given the chance to acquire and abuse power, they will.
Can I play the FTFY game?
Governments^WCorporations have demonstrated time and again, that given the chance to acquire and abuse power, they will.
People are both the antidote, not^Wand the poison.
We could just as well say that " any organization made up of people has demonstrated at some time that, given the chance to acquire and abuse power, they will."
Some people are well-adjusted and will not willingly harm others of their own volition. Other people are sociopathic maladjusted dangers to others, who strive only for their own personal gain.
Many of us exhibit both sets of behaviors, among others, depending on the circumstances and overall context.
That said, when choosing whether to grant power over me to a government that is, at least ostensibly, representative, or to a company that is, at least ostensibly, interested primarily in making a profit while minimizing (and often externalizing) costs, I'll choose the government. At least I have some way of influencing governmental decision-making, even if I'm not a shareholder.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
This IS A fairly serious crime going on here. But considering how disfunctional the American politican campaign machine is and how much money is shovels out of the economy to drown out the other side's voice, I find that in this particular instance I'm OK with some money being funneled away from "the machine".
By the way, that's not a partisan statement. I'd like to see all sides with equal and far more limited funds. Less effective lobby groups and more time spent on actual policy by candidates. Works everywhere else in the Western world.
I made good money in college faking ID cards.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
voice=River Song "Spoilers" /voice
You can verify the lp.com cert by going to https://lp.org/ though it is only valid for www.lp.org The website does a redirect from https to http for www.lp.org. They don't have a redirect for https://lp.org/ but do for http://lp.org/
Yeah, I checked the links. Pretty scary that the only one that has a correct SSL cert, doesn't actually use it. And yet, we are supposed to trust the leadership of these parties with even more technical issues, like running a government.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
But there's a BIG difference between the ideologies of today's Republican vs Democrat in the US. Think about it - every time we've had a Republican President for the last 30 years, we've had a war and a recession, along with some fucked up ideology spouted out by that president.
Also, if I were well-paid, homophobic, racist against minorities, religious, sexist, and paradoxical in my thinking, what political party would I be most comfortable with? Actually, if I were BROKE and TOOTHLESS, homophobic, racist against minorities, religious, sexist, and paradoxical in my thinking, what political party would I STILL be most comfortable with? ...You've got one guess for both questions.
... it's hard to be red, too?
Wait.. is it commercial speech or political speech?
If it's commercial speech then they can have a trademark but they can also be regulated.
If it's political speech then they can't be regulated (that would be a massive 1st Amendment violation) but of course it's not covered by IP law.
Oh wait, I just remembered. Scientology has trade secrets within a religion.
Greedy people organize a company but call it "political action comity", make adds to say "foo is bad, and you should give money to us to say foo is bad to more people".
And of course creating and managing all this is work that should be paid, and since the management has nobody to oversee it can decide to be paid very well indeed.
Now what is the difference between this PAC and any other PAC ? I doubt other GOP (or DEM) PAC give the money back to the elector or something like that.
Their stated objective is to "spam (inform) you about issues and convince you to share their opinion...
Moreover they are expressively not endorsed by the candidates, since they are supposed to be "outside of his/hers cash stream"...
So I think this guy is just as legit as all the other goons.
The only guilty parties are the idiots and criminals who are giving money to PACs (idiots who are giving blindly, and criminals who discuss first about what they think the "right policy" should be).
And of course the people who voted for the con-persons who created this model of electoral law.
Personally I wish I had though about it before, and I hope many many creative Americans will create similar sites, until even the slowest cashcow understand that it is worthless to send money, and the electoral law goes in practice back to something a little bit less anormal.
"They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage."
if the proceeds went to the DemoCRAPic party instead...
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
Somehow I'm not surprised that a guy who gives money to politicians for a living wasn't paying attention to who he was actually giving to. We always knew Republican party members were low in intelligence, but damn!