Trump campaign app is a 'voter surveillance tool': MIT

[TheBlackAdder]

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About 800,000 people have downloaded the Trump 2020 campaign’s app. According to a study by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT, users are handing over a massive amount of personal information – and an astonishing amount of access – to the Trump campaign.

MIT, which investigated both the Trump campaign app and the Biden campaign app says the Trump campaign app is a “voter surveillance tool” with “extraordinary power.”

The Biden campaign app also collects data but far less than the Trump campaign app.

“Data collection,” MIT Technology Review reports, “is perhaps the most powerful thing the Trump 2020 app does. On signing up, users are required to provide a phone number for a verification code, as well as their full name, email address, and zip code. They are also highly encouraged to share the app with their existing contacts. This is part of a campaign strategy for reaching the 40 to 50 million citizens expected to vote for Trump’s reelection: to put it bluntly, the campaign says it intends to collect every single one of these voters’ cell-phone numbers. This strategy means the app also makes extensive permission requests, asking for access to location data, phone identity, and control over the handset’s Bluetooth function.”

That’s not all.

The Trump 2020 re-election app is “often actively deceiving readers with highly questionable or entirely disproven information under headlines such as ‘Media Continue to Spread Debunked Theory About Tear Gas,’ ‘Media Mask-Shamers Keep Getting Caught Breaking Their Own Rules,’ or ‘Top 8 Moments from Joe Biden’s Embarrassingly Disastrous, Epically Boring Livestream.'”

Security researchers “found it had left information exposed that could allow hackers to access the user data,” MIT reports.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/trump-campaign-app-is-a-voter-surveillance-tool-mit/

Most of that Open Sourced software is rife with vulnerabilities. It's a fallacy that Oper Source software is reviewed by others to keep it safe. They are actually filled with compromising code, the developer communities have been infiltrated by hackers and nation-state actors. Open Source allows developers to easily deduce holes and exposures in code with little effort. The only ones who seem to report the vulnerabilities are college academia, as most others either don't have time to review and analyze the code--they just use it hoping others did that task for them.

Anyone who trusts the Trump campaign or GOPers wither their data are fools.

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[Mike 03]

1. The only thing more dangerous than being this president's opponent is being

one of his supporters. I wonder if, knowing what they've downloaded, they would delete this app? Or just keep it and say, "I don't care, the president can know anything he wants about me!"

Fools.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. So the Russians will have all that personal data on Trump voters.

What do you s'pose they'll do with it?

[BComplex]

8. The Russians are going to have a ball with all this, I totally agree.

I hope after he's gone from office....if he ever IS gone from office...I hope he is exposed for everything he has done.

Can the FBI or security agencies EVER undo the damage that has been done to our international security? The Russians are so up in our business that every single person is now on their radar.

This is not the America I grew up in. I'm not sure it's the America I want to live in. We are in really dangerous territory.

[gratuitous]

3. I wonder

Of these people who have voluntarily downloaded and are using the Trump campaign app, how many of them are 100% convinced that they're being micro-chipped by vaccines (they aren't)?

[TheBlackAdder]

4. The ones who download it were probaby already microchipped at a MAGA or Trump event.

[dalton99a]

14. How many know they are being tracked like cattle:

The use of Bluetooth is especially notable because it can capture data and target people with political messages as they travel through a physical space. This practice has jumped to politics from the advertising industry. In one recent example, Bluetooth beacons (the radio transmitters used to track cell-phone users via Bluetooth signals) were found in campaign yard signs. In another, people were surveilled using these practices when they went to church. Our team has been exploring how this phenomenon—which we term geo-propaganda—has increased.

As you walk past a beacon embedded in a campaign sign or some other part of the physical environment, you are recorded and identified through Bluetooth or similar means. This data is then used to build a profile that can be used to advertise to you or people like you. One political consultant we interviewed for our study explained how this practice developed long before political apps were created:

“They [the apps] are plugged into different marketplaces, so if you open up Facebook or Google Maps or Candy Crush, even though you didn’t explicitly do anything—if you have location access enabled on those apps, that app will record your location at the instance you opened that app, and then that information can be sold to a third party.”

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/21/1004228/trumps-data-hungry-invasive-app-is-a-voter-surveillance-tool-of-extraordinary-scope/

[dickthegrouch]

18. That's illegal under Ca CCPA

Anyone collecting data on you has to get your permission and tell you what data they're collecting, what they are going to use it for and what kinds of organizations they are going to share it with.
There's a personal right of action which nets one $750 per occurrence of violations for California residents.

Help drain his coffers. File your CCPA violation suit!

[keithbvadu2]

25. Probably covered in the 'agreement' like the waivers for Trump rallies.

Probably covered in the 'agreement' like the waivers for Trump rallies.

[dalton99a]

5. Parscale says 100 million, not 800,000

Last week Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale bragged he has a secret weapon that would help them communicate with 100 million Americans.

[mercuryblues]

6. This should be illegal

The Official Trump 2020 app has been downloaded nearly 800,000 times and requires new users to provide when signing up to submit not only their cell phone number — itself a valuable piece of information — but also their full name, email address, and zip code. The app requests further permissions to access their phone’s identity, calendar, contacts, call history, location, and even control over its Bluetooth function.

So much for small government.

[Kaiserguy]

19. So if my phone # is in some Trumpers phone

Trump & Putin now have my information's ? If so that is just plain wrong!!!

[mercuryblues]

21. Yes they do.

I also suspect there is no way to completely delete the App once a person downloads it.

The App also had a securuty flaw that allowed hackers to access personal info. Who wants to bet that was placed in there for Putin's use?

[zipplewrath]

7. Wonder if we could "kpop" this.

What if I sign up with alot of bogus info. I could severely limit access to my data. Maybe give them a landline or VOIP phone. But in the process, give them the idea they have support especially in areas that doesn't exist. It could screw up their targeting efforts and have them spending money in the wrong place.

[Grins]

9. Help me out: "control over the handset's Bluetooth"?

Because...?

What do you do with that? How?

[Maraya1969]

13. I hope someone provides a better answer but I remember hearing on here that some bluetooth's

like Alexa can be manipulated from outside to open the doors and such. Which is when I decided to never get one of those.

[dalton99a]

15. To record their whereabouts:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/21/1004228/trumps-data-hungry-invasive-app-is-a-voter-surveillance-tool-of-extraordinary-scope/
The Trump 2020 app is a voter surveillance tool of extraordinary power
Both presidential campaigns use apps to capture data, but Trump's asks to scoop up your identity, your location, and control of your phone's Bluetooth function.

[Maraya1969]

10. After I bought a ticket to this Tulsa Rally, (to fuck with them only) I got stuff sent to me. One

was a rediculous poll that had questions like, "Do you support Trump 100%, 90%, 80% or are you the enemy?"

OK that is not an actual question but it could have been.

I just wrote back, "Stop" and they went away.

[mercuryblues]

22. Do you still have the APP on your phone?

[Maraya1969]

23. No. I didn't download any app. They just got my phone number from reserving the ticket.

[mercuryblues]

11. More from MIT

A member of our research team discovered that the app was compiled with an older version of Android, which does not include some of the latest privacy improvements, and uses software provided by a company called Phunware, well known for collecting people’s location information and relations with the Trump campaign, a role highlighted by a Wall Street Journal investigation last year.

Phunware has come under major scrutiny recently for accepting millions of dollars in federal loans intended to help small businesses cope with the coronavirus, and in May Nasdaq filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to delist the company over its finances. Phunware’s invasive tactics for gathering data and reaching voters have drawn comparisons to Cambridge Analytica.


https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/21/1004228/trumps-data-hungry-invasive-app-is-a-voter-surveillance-tool-of-extraordinary-scope/

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. Putin gets all this data

Plus, if I were a scammer looking for a database of the most gullible people on Earth, this would be worth 10,000 Trump body-weights in gold.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

16. What about financial information?

I'm sure that some young Russians could use that money someday.

[C_U_L8R]

17. Perhaps Apple and Google should pull the app off their stores

Would they let any other app provider get away with this much?

[dickthegrouch]

20. Someone's who's actually downloaded it needs to file a complaint with them /nt

[C_U_L8R]

24. I'm not gonna try it. You gonna try it?

Hey, let's give it to Mikey, he'll download anything.

[herding cats]

27. There are a lot of GenZ folks out there who might complain about this...

You know? I'm just mentioning if they happened to download this, they can legally complain to their platforms.

[keithbvadu2]

26. Campaign tool used by you or on you?

[ret5hd]

28. What does any of this have to do with Open Source software?