The Aggregate IQ Files, Part One: How a Political Engineering Firm Exposed Their Code Base

[NRaleighLiberal]

reported on Twitter by Chris Vickery @vickerysec

https://www.upguard.com/breaches/aggregate-iq-part-one

The UpGuard Cyber Team’s latest discovery of a data leak, involving the exposed IT assets of a data analytics firm based in British Columbia, Canada, presents significant questions for society about how technology can be used. In this first installment of a multipart series titled “The AIQ Files,” we begin to explain the importance of the data revealed from a publicly exposed AggregateIQ repository, and how it relates to recent US political history.


Coming amidst a firestorm of scrutiny about how political operations can use and harvest consumer information, including from social media networks like Facebook, the UpGuard Cyber Risk Team can now reveal that a large code repository originating from AggregateIQ, a Canadian political data firm active in the 2016 US presidential race, was left publicly downloadable online. Revealed within this repository is a set of sophisticated applications, data management programs, advertising trackers, and information databases that collectively could be used to target and influence individuals through a variety of methods, including automated phone calls, emails, political websites, volunteer canvassing, and Facebook ads. Also exposed among these tools are numerous credentials, keys, hashes, usernames, and passwords to access other AIQ assets, including databases, social media accounts, and Amazon Web Services repositories, raising the possibility of attacks by any malicious actors encountering the exposure.

This exposure reveals how applications and web assets apparently developed by AggregateIQ (AIQ), a small firm of twenty employees based in Victoria, British Columbia, were customized for the failed 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), as well as for Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott and a number of foreign political parties and figures. The Cruz connection raises obvious questions about the relationship of AggregateIQ to Cambridge Analytica (CA), a controversial London-based data analytics firm which was paid $5.8 million dollars by the Cruz campaign for services rendered in his unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

Cambridge Analytica, which is now being investigated for collecting the Facebook profiles of over fifty million users without their permission, has been reported to work closely with AggregateIQ in their efforts on behalf of clients, as will be further explained. In this first installment of “The AIQ Files,” we take a closer look at the suite of political data and microtargeting tools possessed by AggregateIQ and exposed in this data repository - in turn revealing the inner workings of the kind of influencing prowess in which Cambridge Analytica claimed expertise, to the campaigns of customers like Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump.


snip

long, complex, and a big breaking story. Read it all.

[poboy2]

1. r'd

[dalton99a]

2. "all-in-one tool that let a campaign manage its voter database, microtargeting efforts, door-to-door

canvassing, low-dollar fundraising, and surveys"

[Wellstone ruled]

5. This whole Idea of

targeting people via Social Media and the end results,is exploding right in front of us. Appears the Libertarian Crowd was and is using Tech as their tool to garner Political Power around the World.

[Sanity Claws]

6. isn't that ironic?

Libertarians say they want to be free of big government but help create a form of Big Brother, which can monitor all parts of our life.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Reference should have gone a bit

farther and included the Mega Wealthy. One only needs to reference the Koch Family and their past history of trying to destabilize Democracies around the World.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Don't forget the Mercers, appr. $7 billion wealth. Founded Cambridge Analytica with chump change.

Maybe $15 million, about 0.2%, about 1/500th.

[Wellstone ruled]

9. We are in interesting History making times.

There are references from our past as to what could happen going forward. As one who grew up in the Forties and Fifties,do remember reading about how Fred Koch,and his Cabal of Rich Industrialist tried to depose FDR and to be blocked by Smedly Butler. Then we were treated to the likes of Joe McCarthy,Richard Nixon and of course,Roy Cohn. Again,all chasing the big payday at the behest of the American Taxpayer and Destruction of our Democracy.

[Volaris]

10. The bedrock ignorance of libertarians is that they dont give a damn how Big and Powerful it is,

as long as it isn't the government's. So long as it's privatly held instead of Public, they think Market Forces by themselves are enough to keep that Power in check.
I say they're wrong.

[backtoblue]

3. Rec and bookmarking

[Loki Liesmith]

4. Kick

[FakeNoose]

11. Bookmarked K&R

Thanks - Hoo boy, lots to read here!

[NRaleighLiberal]

12. kicking