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Bernie Sanders Campaign Blocked From DNC Voter Info After Improper Access (washingtonpost.com)
PolygamousRanchKid writes with news that staffers for the Bernie Sanders campaign improperly viewed the voter data gathered by Hillary Clinton's campaign by exploiting a software error. "The discovery sparked alarm at the DNC, which promptly shut off the Sanders campaign's access to the strategically crucial list of likely Democratic voters. The DNC maintains the master list and rents it to national and state campaigns, which then add their own, proprietary information gathered by field workers and volunteers. Firewalls are supposed to prevent campaigns from viewing data gathered by their rivals." On Wednesday, while the software was being patched, it briefly opened access to all of the restricted voter data. The Sanders campaign fired the staffer responsible for viewing the data, Josh Uretsky. The campaign says their access was simply part of an investigation to determine their own exposure, and blames the vendor (and those who hired it) for improperly securing the data.
should suffice to confirm or rebut the explanation of the Sanders' director who was fired. Were queries limited to the Sanders supporters? If not, what is the extent of queries done for Clinton supporters? Enough to return information that was strategically useful?
Should have scrubbed the data...you know...with a rag or something.
From what the news stories are saying, this firewall-dropping was happening repeatedly. So:
NGP-VAN, the company that stores this data, which is run by an old Clinton hand who worked for them in 1992, the company paid $34,000 by Ready For Hillary, was repeatedly dropping their firewall between the two major Dem campaigns, Clinton and Sanders.
A guy who’s now fired from the Sanders team observed this. They complained once and were given assurances by the company that it was a mistake and wouldn’t happen again. Then it happened again. The guy decided to gauge how deeply the Clinton campaign was able to read into the Sanders campaign, by experimenting to see how much of the Clinton data he could get. That’s a bad call but by information security standards it’s not unthinkable: it’d be called a white hat intrusion, seeing how much of the firewall was down by probing the other side and assuming your own data was revealed exactly the same way. It does matter, but you still have to fire the guy.
One thing we can be sure of is, anything open to ‘stealing’ on the Clinton side was just as open on the Sanders side, literally. It’s the same system and the same firewall, and if the firewall keeps mysteriously going down for no good reason you have to wonder what’s up and more relevantly what’s being made available to those on the other side of the firewall, which might explain why the firewall’s going down like that.
The Sanders people did NOT throw a fit the first time this happened. But this time, the Sanders guy got caught crossing the nonexistent firewall. We have no information at all on whether anybody from the Clinton side was doing the same thing. During that time there WAS NO firewall and the guy wasn’t hacking, he was browsing, as anybody on either side could have done during those windows.
I think that’s accurate so far. The behavior of the firewall is important, whether or not it’s suspicious as a planned exploit of the Sanders data run by Clinton people who are at the DNC and at NGP-VAN.
In response to the Sanders guy browsing over and seeing data (how do they know? Because HE TOLD THEM. The Sanders team were the ones reporting this, that’s part of the story), the DNC suspended access by the Sanders campaign to THEIR OWN DATA at a crucial time. In order to get access back, at least as of this morning, the requirement is for the Sanders campaign to prove it has destroyed all data that it didn’t necessarily even download (remember, Sanders guy claims he was exploring the Clinton system because it would mirror the vulnerability of the Sanders system, and he’s not IN the Clinton system to go and browse the Sanders side to see how much is revealed, but he was IN the Sanders side and could look at the Clinton side and reasonably conclude that his own side was equally compromised)
And social media is blowing the hell up, not unreasonably, because it’s a goddamn hatchet job combined with a kneecapping to yank access by the Bernie campaign to its OWN DATA because a guy from the Bernie campaign passively browsed through a firewall he didn’t himself disable, a firewall run by a company controlled by Clinton partisans which had been going down already for reasons unknown.
Is that the other two campaigns didn't notice. Vigilance is needed these days to be a good President. Look what happened when Condi played games ignoring Clarke.
"Firewalls are supposed to prevent campaigns from viewing data gathered by their rivals."
Firewalls? Please. Anyone who knows anything about what a firewall is knows that firewalls do not do this sort of thing. Firewalls are 100% about controlling which ports are open or closed on a computer, and under what circumstances. They have nothing whatsoever to do with separating customer data, and anything you have that does that is called something else.
Listen, DNC: I know you need to give us a lie that minimizes your legal liability in these sorts of situations. Please prepare a plausible lie in the future.
The DNC doesn't want Sanders to be their candidate any more than the leadership of the GOP desperately doesn't want Trump to be their candidate - cause they both are afraid it would cost them the election at the Presidential and Senate level (and House seats too). Expect the DNC to do anything it can PR wise to help the expected winner to win. JMHO...
Also, while yammering away about a guy and his exploit through a firewall he himself didn't shut down
The DNC are using this as an excuse to lock the Sanders campaign out of its OWN DATA until whenever.
That data is how we print up lists of voters, addresses, phone numbers, and how we record people's reactions and what they care about. It goes into an NGP-VAN server and will eventually be used by ALL the Dem candidates.
And for 'whatever reason', the Democratic National Committee has decided to tell NGP-VAN to lock the Bernie campaign out of its own data, when we are counting the days until the first primaries.
While arguing about the guy and how guilty he is of data intrusion, try to consider whether it's worth shutting down the whole campaign and locking them out of their computer systems until (unspecified impossible conditions here). Because this is looking like an intra-Democrat coup to coronate Hillary Clinton, and that really helps nobody.
This could easily be shooting the messenger. The fellow responsible for protecting the Sanders campaign's voter data discovered that the DNC's patch had left their voter information database wide open. He starts determining the extent of the problem, which leaves an audit trail. As a result, he gets tossed over the side. Compare this to the commercial world. When you let one of your business customers discover that you've left their trade secrets wide open to their competitors, what happens? I guarantee that the employee who discovered it does not get sacked.
More computer-related Clinton shenannigans, cant trust that evil crone one iota. I don't blame the Sanders camp for trying to figure out what was going on.
Seriously are they saying that's how the data was secured, not ACL? I call bull, or the people reporting do not understand technology enough to report on it.
Hurts, doesn't it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Let's try a somewhat-analogous scenario as a thought exercise:
I find out that on my bank's website, I can easily see my neighbor's bank account by doing some obvious URL manipulation.
I immediately tell the bank that I'm worried about the security of my own account because I know that I could go into anyone else's.
The bank locks me, and only me, from accessing any bank accounts, including my own.
That response makes no sense. The only proper response would be to revoke ALL access to the bank's website until such time as the security hole can be confirmed fixed. Otherwise, the implied message is that you should NEVER tell the bank that they have a potential problem.
I just wonder whether this was actually a story of extreme incompetence or extreme corruption.
I smell a double agent.
Will President Sanders be just as respective of private information of citizens — especially, the opposition? Are we to expect more "snafus" from the Democrats?
Healthcare.gov, for example, is just a gold-mine waiting to be tapped. Or, maybe, not even waiting any more...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Queue angry Sanders supporters complaining about a broader conspiracy by Hillary/DNC/Mainstream Media/etc. to destroy his campaign in three... two... one...
Killary's friends run that company who host the database. It's a sham! Killary is a criminal! Nothing more than a chance for her to eliminate the competition!
You Democrats are nothing more than criminals! Chrony capitalism at its finest!
Holy fuck, do yourself a favor and run independently. Nothing to lose, the nomination to H.C. is a sure thing.
In the larger picture, this is exactly why "metadata" on phone calls should require a warrant. Who is to say some agent of Hillary...or Bernie...or Bush isn't looking up and fleshing out call networks, where everyone the Big calls is a potential or actual supporter, opening them up to some kind of harassment like an IRS investigation.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
He has a pretty good record on the environment here in Maryland. I'm not a Democrat but I'm seen what dynasties have done to the Republicans and how it hurt the country so I do worry that Democrats could end up doing the same. Bill would not have missed this. Why did Hillary?
While we are all assuming this is a hatchet job to get Bernie locked out, these "intermittent firewall drops" could, in fact, be Hillary having arranged for her people to be able to spy on him - but nobody is mentioning that in the news articles. P.S. 15 years as a network engineer and i still dont know why the press uses the term firewall so loosely. If it was sincerely a layer 3/4 security device, there would be lots of evidence as to exactly what happened - unless logging were disabled. I think in this case they are calling security mechanisms within their db or reporting app a "firewall" war were declared!!
will work for dragon quest localization
I knew something like this was going to happen. Bernie Sanders simply will not be allowed on the ballot by TPTB.
I'm still wondering what will happen to Trump. Then again, I would guess he's probably just a useful idiot to TPTB.
i still dont know why the press uses the term firewall so loosely
It's 2015 and even your mother has at least heard the term firewall.
Nobody knows what the hell an ACL is. NSA is a three-letter agency that fights terrah. SSH is something you do to loud assholes in a movie theatre.
I have always assumed the DNC would have to fabricate some contrived BS to make it less obvious when they break the illusion and Bernie doesn't get the nomination despite the only candidate with any actual public support.
I guess the stash of child porn they will "find" is plan B if this doesn't hurt him enough.
‘The DNC maintains the master list and rents it to national and state campaigns’
Seriously? As a European, this commercialisation of politics is revolting.
Today I'm contributing to Bernie's campaign.
THBBFT.
Commie Bernie is Stalin'ing UP!
Ha ha
Subject line says it all.
The Powers That Be have stacked the deck against Bernie in every way imaginable. DNC chairman is a former Clinton campaign manager. They cut the number of primary debates because they learned from focus groups that the more people see and learn about Hillary, less they like her, while the opposite was true for Bernie -- his favorability went up the more people learned about him.
Not only that, the few remaining debates have been scheduled to attracted as little viewership as possible (Saturday and Sunday nights, opposite major sporting events, Xmas shopping season, etc)
This latest flap is just a curt reminder for Bernie that he's just here as a prop and that he needs to know his place.
[I have no interest in voting for a socialist as President. Just not my politics. Also there is also NO WAY I'd vote for Hillary Clinton. NO WAY. But...]
After all the political snafus and screw-ups that the Democrats have been involved with in the past 30 years, one thing is clear: NO ONE ever gets fired. Ever.
So, if Bernie Sanders helmed a campaign that FIRED someone--I humbly submit that if you're trying to decide between the two, and don't want more of the same from this f'd up political system--Bernie should DEFINITELY get your vote.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
No, it's not like breaking into someone's house to photocopy their private shit. Your analogy sucks! It's more like having a car manufacturer 'accidentally' unlock your car a few times a day when they detect people are walking next to the car. Is the guy that opens your glove box wrong? Absolutely, but he didn't break into the car. He heard the lock pop so was curious as to what was inside.
Not only are you wrong, but you are wrong by car analogy.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
that Bernie is at the stage "then they fight you"? Because if true, only one step remains to be taken ("then you win" - the nomination, at least).
2016 will be a very interesting year...
An earlier challenge to haterz requesting citations of anything "fascist"-like about Donald Trump remains unanswered — though not for lack of trying.
Would you like to try again?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Ouch, that is so hateful, so sad...
No, he is unelectable, because his rhetoric is indistinguishable from that of Hugo Chavez. And, though Americans are often accused of neither knowing nor caring, what is happening outside their country, the sorry fate of Venezuela is infamous enough.
Don't take my word for it — when I asked the good Senator's fans here on Slashdot, all I got was the customary avalanche of hate, but no discernible differences. The most useful response pointed out that, unlike the late El Presidente, Bernie Sanders is not an anti-Semite. But nothing relevant to the economy or foreign policy was identified...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
According to Bernie Sanders — in their own words — these data are "the heart and soul of our campaign".
An eye-opening admission, I must say...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Blocking Bernie and Commie Company is a good thing.
Ha ha
With access to hundreds of thousands of Democratic "donors" credit/debit cards, birth dates, social security numbers, mother's names, "Secure Questions/Answers", Bernie and his commies just raided Fort Knox of the DNC.
Their retirement is now secure as they can sponge-off the accounts for years to come.
First rule is to deplete Hilly-Billy's Funds to zero before January 02 and keep the flow at maximum discharge up to the Super Duper Tuesday.
Poor Hilly-Billy! Butt-Fucked Again!
Ha ha
I'd heard that Jewish people weren't white, but figured that was racist anti-Semitic slander. It seems like separate forms of bigotry, and people who discriminate in one category often do so in another.
Is it partially a debate about which European ethnic groups count as white? Some Jewish ethnic groups are based in Europe. Bernie's father was from Poland, not sure where his mother's family was from.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Sanders is a candidate who says what he means and does what he says....which is my way of saying he's honest. Hillary is a dem in name only who changes what she things to get a poll boost. Thus, she's been anointed prez and sanders is getting the shaft
at the request of the Clinton people. Sanders people just were not supposed to find it. A little probing should indicate how often the Clintonistas accessed Sanders proprietary data.
I'm sure the DNC will allow the investigation to show that.
The Democrats have a very unusual scheme that the Republicans do not have: "super delegates".
Normally each party would, during primary season, hold elections in which party members vote for the candidate they want to represent their party in November. What they are ACTUALLY voting for though is a convention delegate who is pledged to vote and argue for the associated candidate at the convention. It works this way because there's no guarantee that winners in earlier primaries will get enough delegates to win the nomination and you cannot re-vote and re-vote over and over again in primaries until a national winner emerges in each party - by sending delegates to a convention, the parties are empowered to horse trade as necessary in a so-called "brokered convention" should no candidate be the clear winner. The Democrat "super delegates" however are awarded to rich and powerful Democrats to allow them to override the choice of the average Democrat voters, and this election cycle they have already selected Hillary Clinton. Having suffered a tidal wave of election losses all offices below the Presidency since Obama was elected, the party has decided that the only path to victory is to play the so-called "woman card" and try to get women of all parties to support the Democrats because: "first woman president". If the Democrats do not get the support of a huge number of women they can only keep the White House by getting the same sort of support from ethnic minorities that Obama got, but she is not so attractive to that segment.
Following that logic, which is reasonable given the electoral situation Obama is leaving the party in, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley cannot be the nominee - old white males are NOT automatically going to drive-up the women's vote or the black vote or the hispanic vote.
When you include Hillary's already-allocated super delegates to the minimum number the could likely win in the primaries, she is already the winner and the only things that could change that are a federal indictment or a severe health problem. Face it: The 2016 Democrat primaries are a scam, which is why the DNC has severely limited the debates and arranged all 6 of them to be on Democrat-friendly channels at times when most Americans are guaranteed to be watching something else - the party does not want ANYBODY damaging their already-selected nominee, Hillary. The Republicans have done debates in prime time on channels hostile to them; the Democrats are obscuring their debates and not going anywhere near (for debates or even interviews) the only channel that would ask them a tough question.
You're actually wrong about nobody getting fired. The bureaucrats at places like the EPA, the FBI, the State Department, and the IRS do not get fired for being evil and corrupt - they frequently get "punished" (REWARDED) with "mandatory paid leave" (i.e. an extra paid vacation) and a transfer (also known as a promotion to an easier, better-paying job). Campaign staffers who get caught doing bad stuff, however, are frequently faux-fired (with a promised promotion if the campaign succeeds).
When Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was running her election a few years back, one of her campaign workers was caught being evil and she very publicly fired him to show that she was uninvolved and very ethical - then she re-hired him hours after she won the race. Many campaigns have done this - it's one of those things every hired-gun campaign adviser would advise. Although I personally recall more Democrats doing it than Republicans, I am perfectly willing to say [a] it's bi-partisan and [b] I could be wrong on the numbers. No average citizen in any party should however be fooled by this fake quasi-ethical ploy no mater which party and candidate is involved.
A whole bunch of military guys (leaders, NOT the guys who were attacked) lost their careers over the Beirut bombing for having not properly secured that facility and having not properly assessed the risk environment, which was their job. Remember: this was the first big Islamic suicide attack on Americans, so no policy makers, and certainly no some political campaign staffers, were thinking in terms of radical Jihadis going Kamikazee on American peacekeepers assisting the French in Lebanon at that time.
And Iraq??? SERIOUSLY???? Is your knowledge of recent history THAT bad? SecDef Rumsfeld had the decency to offer his resignation multiple times and the President simply would not accept it. Bush finally accepted Rumsfeld resignation after the voters spanked Bush with severe congressional losses in the fall of 2006 (in other words: the system WORKED). Rumsfeld was far from the only one. A number of generals were replaced and even diplomats were shuffled around. People at the state department and the CIA were shifted out of their positions as well.
Next time when you want to be a partisan smart-a**, try doing it with examples that actually FIT (there actually are plenty that a smart person could choose). I really despise people who try to re-write history with "news" they got from the jokers on Comedy Central.
The spectacle is over. Sander's campaign has access again.
Why is this news? Isn't this expected, especially in a campaign?
often entail sacrificing pawns for the needs of the bigger picture.
I'm sure this particular guy, if he supports the Bernie campaign wholeheartedly would rather take the hit of 'being fired by documenting and publicizing the leak' than see this provide a serious disadvantage to the Bernie's overall campaign due to Clinton's personnel getting an unfair advantage by doing this without a clear understanding of what they were capable of.