https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4700481/lanier-social-media-behavioral-loop-modification-empires

Full interview:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?438199-2/dawn-everything

Source: Forbes


120 million households exposed in massive database leak

Forbes

Thomas Fox-Brewster

Information on more than 120 million American households was sitting in a massive database found left exposed on the web earlier this month, Forbes has been told. It included an extraordinary range of personal details on residents, including addresses, ethnicity, interests and hobbies, income, right down to what kind of mortgage the house was under and how many children lived at the property. In total, there were 248 different data fields for each household, according to the researcher who uncovered the leak data this week.

While there were no names exposed, Chris Vickery, a cybersecurity researcher from UpGuard, told Forbes it was simple to determine who the data was linked to, either by looking at the details or by crosschecking with previous leaks. He found the data was sitting in an Amazon Web Services storage “bucket,” left open to anyone with an account, which are free to obtain.

As long as they knew the right URL to visit, an Amazon Web Services user could retrieve all the data, which was left online by marketing analytics company Alteryx. It was apparent that the firm had purchased the information from Experian, as part of a dataset called ConsumerView, on top of which Alteryx provides marketing and analytics services.

Vickery thinks the data was part of a product – the Alteryx Designer With Data – that sells for around $38,995 per license. In its own marketing for the Experian service, Alteryx notes that the database contains “consumer demographics, life event, direct response, property, and mortgage information for more than 235 million consumers.”



Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/120-million-american-households-exposed-in-massive-consumerview-database-leak/ar-BBH1F2V?ocid=spartanntp

(fanatical purists may cover their ears )

How Putin's proxies helped funnel millions into GOP campaigns

Ruth May


As Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team probes deeper into potential collusion between Trump officials and representatives of the Russian government, investigators are taking a closer look at political contributions made by U.S. citizens with close ties to Russia.

Buried in the campaign finance reports available to the public are some troubling connections between a group of wealthy donors with ties to Russia and their political contributions to President Donald Trump and a number of top Republican leaders. And thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, the political contributions are legal.

. . . Data from the Federal Election Commission show that Blavatnik's campaign contributions dating back to 2009-10 were fairly balanced across party lines and relatively modest for a billionaire. During that season he contributed $53,400. His contributions increased to $135,552 in 2011-12 and to $273,600 in 2013-14, still bipartisan.

In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns


Traitors.

Walter Shaub is a former director of the US Office of Government Ethics.


Walter Shaub‏Verified account @waltshaub


This weekend I’m stocking up on portable phone chargers, warm clothes, & gear needed for when we take the streets. I’m concerned the assault on the rule of law is coming over the holidays when we’re distracted. It‘ll be a defining moment for the Republic.

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/941767481563254785

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/941714545747382272

Democrats want to know more about a strange omission from the Trump campaign's digital director about his foreign contacts

Natasha Bertrand


The ranking members of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees want to subpoena two of the data firms hired by President Donald Trump's campaign team for documents related to their potential engagement with foreign actors like Russia and WikiLeaks during the election.

Reps. Elijah Cummings and Jerry Nadler sent a letter to Cambridge Analytica's CEO Alexander Nix and Giles-Parscale cofounder Brad Parscale — who also served as the Trump campaign's digital director — in October. The letter asked whether their firms received "information from a foreign government or foreign actor" at any point during the election.

... Parscale's letter mirrored those written by the RNC data firms and used virtually the same language — with one notable exception. Whereas the firms' letters included a line denying that they had had contact with any "foreign government or foreign actor," Parscale's did not.


http://www.businessinsider.com/subpoena-for-cambridge-analytica-brad-parscale-trump-russia-investigation-2017-12

Source: Jackson Free Press

UPDATED: Trump May Be in Jackson for Civil Rights, History Museums' Opening

JACKSON — This weekend, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum will open their doors—and President Donald Trump might make an appearance.

This afternoon, CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins reported that Trump will make an appearance at the opening on Saturday. However, the White House press office could not confirm the president's schedule for this weekend to the Jackson Free Press. An advisory listing his schedule will be published later in the week.

In a press release, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., says that Gov. Phil Bryant invited the president to attend the event on Saturday.

"With President Donald Trump accepting Gov. Phil Bryant's invitation to attend the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, I am hopeful he will begin to understand the pain he is causing in the black and underserved communities across America," Thompson said in a press release. "His unfair budget cuts in agriculture, education, healthcare, and housing disproportionately impacts people of color and is viewed by many as an act reminiscent of Jim Crow policies of the south."


(more)

Read more: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2017/dec/04/trump-may-be-jackson-civil-rights-history-museums-/

'Something was desperately wrong with this guy': US Army lieutenant general who served with Mike Flynn weighs in on his downfall

A retired US Army lieutenant general weighed in on Michael Flynn's guilty plea in the ongoing Russia investigation. Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who served with Flynn in the US Army, said he believes the former national security adviser's downfall was the result of an unexplained "hubris and vengeance" that overcame any sense of professionalism.

. . . Hertling, at turns seeming both somber and dismayed, said Flynn's political rhetoric and his increasingly fiery evangelism for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign was troubling — particularly for a three-star general.

"Mike Flynn went over the top, and that was the first indicator that something was desperately wrong with this guy," Hertling said. "I think something went wrong toward the end of his career; that demons got ahold of him, and for one reason or another, hubris and vengeance took over where, in the past, there had been professionalism."

http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-flynn-what-happened-russia-investigation-plea-deal-2017-12