Political Spyware
from the spyware-for-the-people dept
It's likely that any discussion on this story will turn into a political discussion -- which it shouldn't. We won't name the political party, because that would bias the conversation. Suffice it to say that we wouldn't be surprised if either of the major political parties were caught in a similar situation these days. Political spam is so tired these days. It's time to move on to political spyware. Found via Digg comes the story about how folks at Minnesota Public Radio were checking out a promotional CD-ROM being sent out by a political party concerning one of the hot-button issues that the press love to talk up. Looking through the CD, the person noticed that it had an "access code" and asked the user to vote on various items, but never made it clear what the purpose of those votes were. It turns out that the votes all get sent back to the political party. That's not all that surprising, but there's no privacy policy anywhere, and it's never made clear what's actually being sent or what's being done with the data. Perhaps that's because it has no privacy at all. After playing around with the CD some more, the same people discovered that not only was it sending a ton of personally identifiable info, it was sending it to a website that left all the data completely exposed for anyone to look at. So, you could see the political views of 25,000 people who took the time to check out the CD... some of whom probably had no idea that their info ever left their computer.
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Are not these politicians supposed to be setting a
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Re: Are not these politicians supposed to be setti
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Re: Are not these politicians supposed to be setti
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Re: Are not these politicians supposed to be setti
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Re: Are not these politicians supposed to be setti
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Re: Are not these politicians supposed to be setti
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No Subject Given
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How is this different
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Re: How is this different
I'd have to say that you are. Not that I'm at all a fan of any of the outdated, sensationalist 24h news channels, but cnn doesn't collect, transmit, or expose any personal information from its viewers. Which is a huge differece. And I don't know what kind of flash websites you've been visiting, but a flash website in and of itself does none of those things either. It certainly has the ability to, but that is a far cry from saying software that collects, transmits, etc your personal information is the same thing as a flash website.
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Re: How is this different
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Political Spyware
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No Subject Given
Did the 25,000 people who responded use their work computer?
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4th ammement
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Re: 4th ammement
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Re: 4th ammement
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Re: 4th ammement
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Take a good look at the laws in this country
The laws in the contry are not about what's good for the populace. They are about whats good for the politicians. Take a good look at the labor laws as a good example of this. Politicians have EXEMPTED themselves from a large number of the laws that they force on everyone else.
They exempted themselves from the Do Not Call laws. They exempted themselves from the Do Not Spam laws.
They will exempt themselves from spyware laws (assuming they have not already done so).
They set a CLEAR example: Me and my needs first, then we might consider you, maybe, if it get's me votes or publicity.
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Re: Take a good look at the laws in this country
compared to social security contribution
and discrimination in the workplace laws
which they've exempted themselves from too.
They've voted themselves a very nice wage
and retirement package as well.
It makes me want to puke.
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No Subject Given
i mean if your not doing anything wrong what do you have to worry about?
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How The Data WiIl Be Used
This CD is doing the same thing, they are building a database of voters. The information is very useful for targeted actions.
They will use the data when it is closer to election time. Fundraising and the final "get out the vote" effort will be targeted to those people who support the organization's position. For example, query and report all voters who are 65+ years old and support our position, call them and offer to drive them to the polling place. (And unfortunately some groups have contacted voters who do not support their position, and told them that their polling place has been changed.)
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No Subject Given
Well then suffice it to say you haven't been paying attention for the last six years. What ridiculous bias. Why not say the name of the guilty party unless you want to imply the other?
It must be great to be a Republican these days. Scandals involving the Democrats are evidence of how corrupt the Democrats are. Scandals involving Republicans are simply evidence of how corrupt politics are in general.
Quite a double standard.
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Re: No Subject Given
Not at all. Because politics seems to bring out such an emotional reaction, we're very careful never to place specific blame on either party. As far as we're concerned, they're both pretty bad.
It's also why we try not to name political parties when mentioning politicians. Without that info, it's often hard to tell who's who.
The focus of this story should be on what happened, not the political element. If you want that, go to a political site.
This site dislikes most politicians equally.
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Re: No Subject Given
And your "this site dislikes most politicians equally" comment proves my point about tarring everyone with the same brush regardless of actual guilt.
It's not all hard to tell who's who in the world of political corruption - they're usually Republicans. I'll name the ten most recent and serious if you'd like: but they're still all Republican scandals.
I'd also be happy to debate the reason for this if you'd prefer, whether Repubicans are generally more corrupt because of their nature or if it's a normal reaction to controlling all branches of government or whether the Democrats would act the same in the same circumstances. All valid for discussion.
Butimplying by ommission that the other guy could be guity is dishonest.
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Re: No Subject Given
>I truly hate that "we discrimate equally". How's
>this: it's ok for me to hate black people
>becasue I hate Jews equally as much.
>It's not all hard to tell who's who in the world
>of political corruption - they're usually
>Republicans. I'll name the ten most recent and
>serious if you'd like: but they're still all
>Republican scandals.
I'm sure your comment (and your other anti-Republican buddies here on the board) are incredibly well intentioned. I'm ever-so-certain you're going to convince that silent majority of undecided voters out there in America that Republicans are the source of all evil and corruption. Keep it up.
Meanwhile, you're missing the three, clear, recent examples of Democratic Party Vote Fraud and Corruption I mentioned earlier.
Meanwhile, you're looking like a moron talking to a non-existent undecided electorate.
Meanwhile, you're missing the point and the directive put forth *in the original post*: "discussion on this story will turn into a political discussion -- which it shouldn't"
Personally, I don't see Democrats and Republicans. I see Dumb and Dumbererer.
/mark "rizzn" hopkins
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Re: No Subject Given
What is so troublesome about this event, as well as similar events such as the political Wiki debacle and the abhorrent standards of electronic voting is that rather than introduce emerging technologies into political discourse as a potential for solutions, we are lately introducing technoloy as a source of the age-old corruption, cunning, and character/career assassination that typifies immoral politics.
That said, rather than try to make one parties depths seem better by comparison to another party, why don't we as voters instead call government on their naive ignorance of technology as a potential widespread solution when they prove publicly in their less-than-honest moments that they are comfortable enough to have it be a part of their personal strategems.
Honestly, what pro-technology initiatives have either party (and I am talking about technology that helps the people of the US, not just technology developed for an by the Military Industrial complex) spearheaded? Aside from their slavish commitment to pursuing pro-market copy protections as well as producing and supporting anti-piracy propoganda, what has the government done recently to promote a positive and equally distributed technological solution to any of the myriad problems plaguing our nation?
Seriously, lets stop limiting our political discourse to sophomoric bombast and actually propose workable solutions to real problems.
TS
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Re: No Subject Given
And your "this site dislikes most politicians equally" comment proves my point about tarring everyone with the same brush regardless of actual guilt.
As I said, the focus was on what happened, not the political angle. And, we did say *most* politicians. We're willing to talk about good politcians if they do stuff related to tech that makes sense. Just haven't seen many lately.
From a technology standpoint, however, it seems equally likely to us that either party would do this. Not out of maliciousness, but out of technology cluelessness.
This is not a political discussion. Why do you think that us saying that makes it a political discussion?
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Clearly, I'm Still Surrounded by Idiots
Seriously - if you think that Democrats are above reproach in every way, if you think that Republicans are the only politicians that cheat and screw up elections then you have no sense of history (and as Churchill said, "Those who don't know history are destineed to repeat it.")
Have you ever heard of the situation in Illinois? Just call someone up and ask them - any random person in the phone book from the state of Illinois. Get them on the phone and ask them if the Democrats rig elections - it's so much common knowlege. It's such common knowlege there's Discovery Channel Shows devoted to the idea. If I'm not mistaken, a prominent Chicago Democrat (Rostekowski was his name?) was removed from office due to allegations of voter fraud.
Not recent enough for you? How about the Motor Votor laws in Florida that allowed the election fraud of 2000 and 2004? Oh, but that was Republicans! They're the ones that benefitted! Yes, they found and exploited the loophole that was created 10 years earlier by Democrats. The Democrats thought that - hey, lots of snowbirds from New York and other Blue States come down and vacation in SouFla. We could make a law that says they can get registered with NO ID on the SIDE OF THE ROAD to vote in Florida, and have TWICE AS MANY BLUE STATES. Vote Early, Vote Often, and Vote Twice!
Unfortunately, these bad laws came back and bit Dems on the ass once the Republicans found out about it.
Not recent enough for you? Look at the recent governors race for the state of Washington. The Democrat there won the election just like the Lady Governor from that Chris Farley movie did in the state of Washington - by having dead people vote for her. In a situation where life imitated (well, I hesitate to call that art, but...) art, the Dems won the governer's chair there.
Listen, I could make a list of Republican scandals too, I'm just trying to educate some of these Namby-Pamby Dems around here who think their party can do no wrong.
Personally, I'm a Libertarian.
/mark "rizzn" hopkins
"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river."
- Nikita Khrushchev
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looking past our noses
Perhaps what is called for is a class-action lawsuit here to send a clear message to others who might try this crap in the future.
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The terrorists have already won...
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Interesting
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Poltical affiliation doesn't matter!
As a people, we have abandoned the idea of actively criticizing and questioning our elected leaders. As some have elluded to, we have stopped seeing elected officials as servants and pretty much handed them over the job of being our overlords. "We the people" need to stop passively taking what politicians spew at us and start telling them that if they suck, they're not going to have a job for long.
Anyway, it doesn't matter the party, inherently those that aspire for positions of authority are aspiring for power. The more complacent we are, the more power they will take for themselves. We elect people people partly because we believe they are "go-getters" and guess what, they are "going-to-get" whatever we are lazy enough not to protect.
As per the article, I think the next time some corporation get railed for releasing or not securing data properly, by EITHER party, this article should be quietly shoved under their noses.
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surrounded
Democracy is where the people vote for what they want and then get it good and hard.
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No privacy world
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Re: No privacy world
I wouldn't say it's the entire GOP, just Bush and his croanies. In fact, take a look at the number of GOP members who publicly voiced concern an opposition to the program, more than I thought would.
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cd
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my opinion
jackhollow
foreclosures
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my opinion
jackhollow
foreclosures
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re-
jackhollow
foreclosures
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