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Pols Blur Line Between Data Mining, Cyberstalking

Posted by timothy on from the selfless-public-servants-all dept.

theodp writes "Mother Jones reports on Obama's Digital Gurus, the top-secret team of analytics engineers and scientists led by hipster CTO Harper Reed who work on text analytics, social network/media analysis, web personalization, computational advertising, and online experiments & testing from the campaign's Chicago HQ and satellite offices. For OFA (Obama for America), writes Tim Murphy, there is no such thing as Too Much Information. 'In terms of just the sheer amount of data that political candidates have on you,' says UNC Prof Daniel Kreiss, 'I think everyone finds it creepy.' Still playing catch-up to OFA in its data efforts is Team Romney, which reportedly hired former employees from places like Google Analytics, Apple, Ominture, and Overstock.com in an attempt to reverse engineer the Obama campaign's strategy."

18 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. What are they using this data for? by davydagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are they using this to campaign in the traditional sense or is the line between PR/Advertisement and "Spy Agency" is growing thinner and thinner. After all, the CIA started merely reading russian newspapers and expanded from there.

    Are they gathering information to conduct survailence, and perhaps the type of "blag bag jobs" that become easier and deniable after conducting lengthy intellegence gathering on your subject. Where is the line.

    What safeguards do we have in place to prevent these intellegence gathering PR agencies from:
    Spreading disinformation on enemies, that sounds plausable, based on information they've gathered.
    Digging up dirt on politicians enemies and disemenating it.
    Using the social network to intimidate non-likely voters by having their friends shame and intimidate them into voting.

    Looking up information on critics, and digging up dirt on critics

    Digging up dirt on potential voters to keep them in line with some form of blackmail.

    What system do we have to investigate these people should their massive campaigns succeed and their clients now have the power to pardon or otherwise shield them from the legal proccess after being elected.

    What happens when these PR goons become the new prateroian guard?

    1. Re:What are they using this data for? by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What happens when these PR goons become the new prateroian guard?

      Er, we stand up, yell "Praetorian!," and then wait patiently while he throws his water bottle away, draws his sword, and charges us. Then we stab him to death, steal his horse, and ride to the capital where, after a series of hilarious and tragic blunders and some compulsory phy ed, we kill the emperor.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:What are they using this data for? by Sique · · Score: 2

      Yes, it's called "pen and paper voting and watching the ballot box and the count".

      Try it, it works!

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    3. Re:What are they using this data for? by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ah, poperatzo, good to hear from you.

      How do you expect to have "secret voting" when Mitt Romney's son holds an equity interest in a company that makes voting machines (a company which has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Romney campaign).

      The vote is secret since there isn't personally identifiable information linked to the vote itself.

      Do you think that everyone at the company are both Romney only voters and are unethical? If not, how would they expect to keep quiet the sort of conspiracy you posit? Surely they would expect their behavior to be under scrutiny?

      Does their contract cover the whole state, and do they actually have the means to change the vote?

      We've outsourced our elections.

      Only the manufacture of voting machines, and do you really want the government in that business? The elections are supervised the same old way, and votes are still cast by voters.

      I have absolutely zero confidence in the integrity of US elections. and not because of "voter fraud".

      Voter fraud? The very idea! Rest assurred, it doesn't always work. ;) (Just because I know you've listened.)

      Besides, don't worry, the the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU have your back, in yet another embarrassment to the United States.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    4. Re:What are they using this data for? by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

      Simple, cheap, efficient, and trusted. - It's never gonna fly.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    5. Re:What are they using this data for? by dave420 · · Score: 2

      Just a heads up - any argument that relies on "because that's the way we've always done it" or "because tradition, that's why", is not being properly explained. Those are *not* valid reasons for *anything*. I'm not saying your point isn't correct, but that sure as hell isn't the right way to make the point to others.

    6. Re:What are they using this data for? by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      Already demonstrated in Canada - the Robocall scandal. Basically the Conservative government *allegedly* (because there's no direct proof) called up a bunch of Liberal party supporters and told them their polling station had moved. Of course, people who knew better voted at their proper polling stations, but crowds gathered at the fake locations do attest to the effectiveness at voter disenfranchisement.

      And, just so this type thing doesn't happen again, let's print it here for clarification:

      This election year, in order to make sure no large lines disenfranchise anyone, the Republicans vote on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.

      The Democrats (since they are incumbents for the Presidency) will vote the next day Wednesday, November 7, 2012.

      Please...advise everyone you know, so that this year, there is no confusion,and everyone's vote gets counted correctly.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. Anything They Want To, According to Privacy Policy by theodp · · Score: 4, Informative

    From Obama for America PRIVACY POLICY: "we may use personal information we collect...for any other purpose for which the information was collected....We may store and process personal information in the United States and other countries... You may also opt out of allowing OFA to collect your geographic location by changing the location settings on your mobile device..."

  3. Why doesn't Obama simply... by Trashcan+Romeo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... call the NSA and tell them to hand over their records of all our electronic communications?

  4. Re:Promoting Synergistic Synergy by bfree · · Score: 2

    If you scrap (sic) facebook

    Presuming you meant scrape (cause we know they aren't scrapping it) the more interesting question to me is: what is to stop facebook and/or google (maybe others) from picking a side and providing an interface to their chosen candidates campaign? If one side had a direct link to mine whatever they wanted what influence would that have on the result of the election?

    --

    Never underestimate the dark side of the Source

  5. Re:Promoting Synergistic Synergy by Nyder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    text analytics, social network/media analysis, web personalization, computational advertising, and online experiments & testing

    What the fuck does any of these even mean?

      If you scrap facebook to send out targeted spam, then just say so.

    Don't we all pad our resume with important sounding titles for normal everyday jobs?

    text analytics means he reads what people type.
    social network/media analysis means he goes online.
    web personalization means he knows how to upload an avatar to a forum.
    computational advertising means he posts his resume online.
    online experiments means you sell sex via a webcam.

    --
    Be seeing you...
  6. OFA: Sample Techie Job Requirements by theodp · · Score: 4, Informative

    From the Job Boards: "We are a multi-disciplinary team of statisticians, mathematicians, software developers, general analysts and organizers - all striving for a single goal: re-electing President Obama." 1) Digital Analytics - Data Production Analyst: MySQL, Perl, Python, Netezza, MS SQL, Vertica, Hive/Hadoop, Google Analytics, Optimizely, R, STATA, SPSS. 2) Analytics - Statistical Modeling Analyst: (M.S./PhD preferred), R, STATA, SPSS, Weka, KNIME, SQL HTML, XML, Python, Ruby, Java, C++, Excel. 3) Digital Analytics - Modeling Analyst: R, STATA, SPSS, SAS, Excel, Netezza, MS SQL, Vertica, Hive/Hadoop, Google Analytics, Optimizely.

  7. Obama has to have a special team to do it... by ibsteve2u · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...while the big telecomms and banks...the big retailers...your electric company...your natural gas company...your credit card company that knows just who you donate to...all those chunks of Corporate America that have far more in-depth information on you and far more experience at mining that data - and far, far more interest in seeing Mitt Romney elected...

    Do you suppose they even make Romney and the Republicans pay for that data, or just give it to 'em gratis?

    --
    Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
    1. Re:Obama has to have a special team to do it... by guttentag · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ...while...your natural gas company...have far more in-depth information on you and far more experience at mining that data - and far, far more interest in seeing Mitt Romney elected...

      Do you suppose they even make Romney and the Republicans pay for that data, or just give it to 'em gratis?

      Sometimes it seems like they have lots of in-depth information, and sometimes it seems like they're couldn't tell whether I'm warming a cup of milk or cooking dinner for 8 people.

      PG&E bills me by the kilowatt hour for my electricity, but they can't seem to get more granular data than a therm (100 cubic feet) when it comes to how much gas I've used. Whether I have my stove on for 5 minutes or 45 minutes, I get charged for 1.02 therms of gas that day. I've methodically tested it. It's only a couple dollars per therm, but if you use your stove every day and they're charging you $2 every time you turn it on versus the 50 cents of gas you're using, they're squeezing an extra $45 a month out of you for gas they still have in the pipeline.

      Unless... wait... <SARCASM>are you saying they do know how much of their product they deliver to us? I think you're giving them too much credit.</SARCASM>

  8. WTF is a Pol by chrismcb · · Score: 3, Informative

    WTF is a POL? I can barely understand the summary, doesn't look like there is a lot of English in there. The first three lines has like 2 verbs. But can we at least have a summary that makes a bit of sense? Like maybe don't use abbreviations when it isn't necessary. My first thought was it was a typo and they meant Polls...

    1. Re:WTF is a Pol by Maow · · Score: 2

      I agree, I was going to say the same thing. It was written by a 16 year old, had to of been...

      Through reading the "Firehose" (link titled "recent" at top left of page, where submissions are shown before being approved for the front page), I can say that the submitter, theodp, seems to make every post as inciteful (not insightful) as possible.

      PS, "had to of^H^H have been".

    2. Re:WTF is a Pol by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      So it is bad form to assume your technical audience might be able to squeeze a braincell or two to Google said terms or look them up in wikipedia?

      Well, yes, but it's also bad form to make assumptions about the knowledge your audience does have. I googled Pol and looked it up on Wikipedia, and I'm still not clear what meaning the headline is going for. And if it is meant to be "politicians," that might be passable on a politics forum, but this isn't one.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  9. information should be free by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

    They are right and just in doing this. Information should be free. Where the catch is, is that we deserve to have the same level of detail on their private lives and internet activity. Sadly that's not the case. The problem isn't out lack of privacy, the problem is the disparity between "us" and "them" If they know everything, and we know nothing, that's a cast system.