From the horse's mouth: the NGP Van statement on the data breach.

[JDPriestly]

I am tired of posting and re-posting this link.

In fact, I am so tired of posting it that I failed to post it first time around. Thanks to the DUer who brought that omission to my attention:

HERE IT IS:

http://blog.ngpvan.com/data-security-and-privacy

Everyone from Hillary fans to the Washington Post has provided erroneous information about what happened.

NGP Van is the vendor that manages the database in question.

These are the facts as NGP Van presents them. I cannot quote the entire statement, so please go to their website and read their explanation.

First, Bernie did not break into Hillary's database. The combined, complete database that included SOME of Hillary's data was provided to the Sanders campaign due to a "bug" in the release of the information, a bug due to NGP Van's activities.

Per NGP Van:

On Wednesday morning, there was a release of VAN code. Unfortunately, it contained a bug. For a brief window, the voter data that is always searchable across campaigns in VoteBuilder included client scores it should not have, on a specific part of the VAN system. So for voters that a user already had access to, that user was able to search by and view (but not export or save or act on) some attributes that came from another campaign.

The breach was brief:

Again, this bug was a brief isolated issue, and we are not aware of any previous reports of such data being inappropriately available. We look forward to supporting all our Democratic clients, and in particular apologize to the DNC, Clinton and Sanders campaigns for our bug Wednesday.

What information was exported?

First, a one page-style report containing summary data on a list was saved out of VoteBuilder by one Sanders user. This is what some people have referred to as the “export” from VoteBuilder. As noted below, users were unable to export lists of people.

NGP Van states that it was not involved in the earlier breach that Sanders' campaign reported.

I am not associated with NGP Van in any way, but I think it is only fair to base our discussion in this matter on NGP Van's information and not on the conjecture and hysterical assumptions of the press, the electronic media or the Hillary supporters.

Thanks for being rational.

[PowerToThePeople]

1. "Thanks for being rational"

Good luck with that.

[Matariki]

2. Beat me to it!

"Good luck with that".

[Doctor_J]

9. desperate to the point of being pathetic

Just like a certain candidate

[Hortensis]

176. Bernie staffers EXPORTED data that was

forbidden to them. They KNEW it.

The phony claim that the accusation is that they "broke in" is an obfuscation meant to hide the fact that real criminal and severely unethical activity occurred here.

But so what? What's with you guys? Bernie wants this past and forgotten!

Why are you making excuses for criminal behavior and keeping the story going and going? Your own private Bernghazi? Are you going to perpetuate your 180-degree twists and pledge to never allow anyone to forget them?


I do not get this behavior. Move on. Stop sabotaging Bernie and start trying to get him nominated!

[questionseverything]

185. funny thing is, this is related to benghazi

same bunch that ran her private server and all////


The founder of vendor NGP VAN is Nathaniel Pearlman, who was chief technology officer for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. Pearlman supervised Bryan Pagliano as the 2008 Clinton campaign IT director
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/clinton/clintonorg.html
Pagliano went on to set up and manage Clinton’s private email server.
Pagliano pleaded the 5th when Hillary's emails and his role came under scrutiny.


///////////////////

and now in this thread we have learned the dnc ceo was the former emily list honcho that is overwhelming contributing to hc's campaign.......could we at least get the appearance of a fair election?

[hill2016]

3. do you think Clinton stole data from Sanders in Oct?

just wondering

[JDPriestly]

12. I have no idea.

I don't think that the Sanders' campaign "stole" information from Hillary this time.

If you go to the NGP Van website, you will understand that "stealing" information would be pretty impossible.

I quote directly from NGP Van about what happened. I'm not coloring it with my opinion, although from my work with databases, I figured out what happened before I read their website.

I worked for a non-profit and set up a donor database. I'm not a computer programmer, but I have worked with various databases.

The NGP Van database is probably just enormous and it would not be practical to do much in terms of downloading or printing out lists unless you had a very targeted search of a portion of the information.

NGP Van explains what little was viewed and what was done.

[hill2016]

14. the statement you quoted says

that they are not aware of previous reports of such data being inappropriately available.

this suggests that the Sanders campaign is making an Oct incident up.

[Bubzer]

25. This has been addressed. NGP VAN was not the vendor during the October incident.

[DUbeornot2be]

88. If that is the case...

... and the previous complaint went only to the dnc, then their solution was to hire another vendor with similar security issues?

Seems more like a 'shell game' or a game of 'beat the clock' than a move to assure the integrity of the process...

[JDPriestly]

98. Maybe it is just hard to maintain the security. I don't know about that.

I may be wrong, but from the article I linked to, I have the impression that there is a huge voter database and that the candidates can add their own information about the donors to it. The information added by the candidates to the large list is supposed to be compartmentalized with a firewall dividing one candidate's campaign input or information from that of other candidates.

It would, I think, be that firewall, the procedures or program that separates the information input by the separate campaigns from each other that failed.

An investigation is needed to find out just what happened.

[Bubzer]

167. Whoa, hold on there... We don't know why the DNC went with a different vendor.

We've already got a shell game going where everyone's focused on Bernie's campaign because of the fireings... but hillary had access to the exact same data... as a hillary supporter is claiming (a bit absurdly), her campaign team could have done "screen grabs" and left no digital trail (assuming NGP VAN is really that incompetent).

[JDPriestly]

190. Interesting. But screen grabs take a long time. Hillary, however, could have done that.

The amount of information was enormous I should think. You would have to have a lot of screen grabs, but they could have done it if they had planned it, if they had been told the firewall would be down.

But at that point, I think we get into the area of imagination. Still possible, but unlikely. It should be investigated. The entire handling of the computer databases from the beginning should be investigated especially considering Hillary's history with her e-mails and the DNC's hiring of a company associated with the Hillary's e-mails person -- assuming the claim it is the same person is true.

This really needs to be thoroughly investigated.

What makes me think that Bernie's team did not intend to do anything wrong is the fact that they were so transparent about what they did -- the searches they made, etc.

The searches could be interpreted as probing for information that Bernie's campaign was not supposed to have, but could also be interpreted as attempting to define the extent of the mixing of the data in order to know what Hillary's campaign could have found with regard to Bernie's data. Either interpretation could be true.

That's why we need a really thorough investigation.

I do not believe in allowing each side to make up its own story. We need many more facts on this. If each side is allowed to make up its own story (and that is what is happening now), at the end of it all, we will have a Democratic Party even more bitterly divided than it is now.

The answer to this is that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her team at the DNC resign, a thorough investigation is held, new leadership at the DNC is appointed that is neutral during the primary season. That new leadership team should include appointees from all the campaigns. At the end of the primary season when the candidate is picked, the appointees from the winning team take over the leadership of the DNC.

That's the way this should work.

Understandably, Sanders and probably O'Malley supporters have utterly no confidence in Debbie Wasserman-Schulz at this point. No confidence in her personally or in her team at the DNC. It isn't just this database fiasco, it is also the terrible debate schedule, the rights to the debate videos and a number of other problems that are due to either bias or mismanagement at the DNC.

That's my opinion. I'm not employed by any campaign. Never have been. I'm just a volunteer.

[Bubzer]

193. +1

There's absolutely no reasonable justification for the debate schedule. The DNC under DWS has been more about burying the debates rather than displaying them. Everyone in politics knows DWS's debate schedule is designed to minimize actual debate exposure... which is absurd.

[JDPriestly]

94. You are correct. NGP Van was not the vendor in the earlier incident.

[Jarqui]

156. I believe during Weaver's press conference he mentioned

that the different vendor at fault (at least one of the times) in October was a modeling software company the DNC uses. As I understand it, that is a different software application in terms of functionality than the NGP VAN system.

[JDPriestly]

157. Thanks!

[floriduck]

26. Sanders lawsuit will flush the truth out.

So hold your accusations until we get the complete facts. Because nobody, and I mean NOBODY, on this site knows the truth on the October claim.

[JDPriestly]

100. Right. The vendor has more information than any of us. But there will be more on this, I feel

certain.

[magical thyme]

29. From what I've read, Sanders campaign reported the October incident to the DNC. DNC owns the system;

therefore it is incumbant upon them to work with their vendor to address security and other systems issues. If the IT company didn't hear about the problem, that suggests that the DNC failed to follow through on the problem report.

I've also read that the October incident involved a different system than the one in this incident. I don't know if that is true, but if true, it may have involved a different part of the same company.

Sanders campaign isn't making up the October incident. Their lawsuit cites the DNC's failure to correct the problems that Sanders campaign brought to their attention back in October. They aren't so foolish as to file a lawsuit and put reputation, campaign, and careers on the line on a made up incident.

It seems more likely that DWS/DNC's backing down from their stance just hours ahead of the hearing suggests that when they looked into it, they realized they had failed to follow through on the October report, that trying to make a mountain out of a molehill was doing them far more damage than the Sanders Campaign, and that maybe it wasn't the best way to distract attention away from the GOP circus.

[JDPriestly]

101. Very possible.

NGP Van clearly states that they were not the vendor that was responsible for the earlier breach.. But the DNC should have warned all vendors of a problem.

I imagine it is tricky to keep the database portion that is proprietary to a specific campaign isolated from the other campaigns' data.

[magical thyme]

133. not any trickier than maintaining any "permissions"

For example, at the hospital, a lab tech has "permissions" that enable them to see certain patient data and not other patient data. A doctor has a different set of permissions. Billing can't access patient test results. Lab techs can't see patient's billing. Everybody can see the same patients name and identifiers -- dob, medical record #, etc. -- but for other data only what is needed for their part of the work.

At the mutual fund company where I worked, one team could see only the data for their specific client, say Fidelity. Another team could only see a different client, say Goldman Sachs. An individual customer might have mutual funds held with Fidelity and mutual funds held with Goldman. For that customer, both sets of reps could see the same customer name and personal data but the financial data *only* for their specific client.

And even here at DU, we are all working off the same database. But when you and I log in, we can't see all the same information as Skinner or Elad, or the same information as moderators. They have "permissions" that we lack, for both data and functionality.

Likewise, with the DNC database, the campaigns have access to the same basic voter information -- name, address, phone # -- but not access to each others privately gathered notes. And when the permissions lapses occurred, it was the same sort of thing as if billing called up a patient and along with the billing information they had patient's lab tests, lab test results, medical chart with doctor's notes, blood pressure and temperature, etc. All information they have no "need to know." It's a serious breach of HIPAA and simply doesn't happen.

It's inexcusable that it happened here simply because it is a very basic function of databases. It leaves real questions about the vendor's sw and their management practices. It's not normal to upgrade a sw and not test it yourself. That they would put on a patch and then monitor the clients to see if the permissions failed is beyond bizarre.

The DNC was responsible for more than warning vendors of a problem. They are contractually responsible for managing the vendor and for ensuring the security of all the data. That means that when they were advised of security lapses in the sw, they were responsible for ensuring those lapses were fixed, whether that meant making sure the vendor fixed them or replacing the vendor and software. The security lapses -- when the firewalls (really "permissions&quot came down and searches yielded intermixed data from the different campaigns -- were breaches of contract. Once notified in writing of the breach, they contractually had 10 days to "cure." They failed to do that.

They also were contractually required to give Sanders campaign written notice of its breach and give him 10 days to cure. They failed to do either, which is why Sanders campaign sued for injunctive relief. And the law suit continues because of the DNC's earlier failures to remedy the situation back in October. If the DNC had acted reasonably, the campaign wouldn't have sued.

[JDPriestly]

136. Thank you. It is definitely the vendor's fault.

And the DNC's fault. I called the DNC today to ask that Debbie Wasserman Schultz resign.

She showed very poor judgment when she so quickly went to the press.

But then Hillary has very poor judgment also in my opinion.

We all make mistakes, but Hillary??????

Now the mess in Libya and Syria???

I suggest you watch the Democracy Now with Amy Goodman's interview of Seymour Hersch.

I have been asking where ISIS got its weapons. Especially in the beginning. Hersch explains. It's precisely what I thought, and it does have just a tad to do with Benghazi. Just a tad.

Hillary should not be our candidate.

[ejbr]

31. Sanders campaign

states they notified the DNC in October. Whether they shared that information with the appropriate parties is another matter. I have heard that DWS alluded to knowing about the earlier incident

[George II]

44. Either that or it was a completely different type of "incident" but they're talking about it to.....

....dilute the effect of last week's breach.

[Cheviteau]

171. Well, Yeah...

I suppose it would seem that way to those with low reading comprehension skills.

[azureblue]

55. do you think pigs fly?

the moon is made of green cheese? Unicorns are real? The moon landing was a fake? Just wondering..........

[RoccoR5955]

86. ANYTHING is possible!

The only way to find out is to see ALL of the logfiles from ALL sides of the race. Until I see them, I will presume that there is something up on one side or another.

[CorporatistNation]

92. What The Public Heard Was That Sanders Team Cheated... As Hillary Team Screamed BLOODY MURDER!

This "stepping back" is a ploy by the Hillary Team to diminish the need for the independent investigation because their rhetoric has been softened by this press release by NGP VAN.

NOT SO FAST FOLKS!!! Hillary Team led by Debbie Wasserman Schultz started this thing so now it ain't gonna be over until WE say it is under the auspices of Bernie Sanders and Jeff Weaver.

WE demand an Independent Investigation of ALL communications... emails, phone logs, calls made/received from cell phones between Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC officials, NGP VAN and anyone else that might possibly be party to this as light is shed on this affair.

It must be carried out in an expeditious and timely manner with the chips falling as they may. I am quite certain that The Sanders campaign has a complete understanding of just what the records will demonstrate with regard to actions by their employees while Team Hillary having failed to think through what they were doing not so much.

Therefor, we continue to hear the much repeated call by Hillary herself as well as her parroting supporters to just "Move On."

NOT SO FAST HILLARY... NOT SO FAST

[JDPriestly]

102. We need an independent investigation.

[RoccoR5955]

108. +1 n/t

[creeksneakers2]

139. Sounds like the Benghazi committee

What is all that information needed for? Must be for a fishing expedition.

This whole thing isn't that big of a deal. I wish everybody would let it go before it drives more of a wedge between Democratic voters.

[bvf]

142. It was a big enough deal for the DNC

to attempt to cut the Sanders campaign off from its own data.

This is a big deal. DWS made it one.

[creeksneakers2]

148. Temporarily

The access was restored.

None of this is going to change the minds of one voter and none of it will give either candidate a significant advantage. The only thing that can change is the possibility that both sides will support the nominee. Hillary's PUMAs were crazy back in 2008.

[bvf]

159. Access was restored *in the face of a lawsuit.*

This has certainly made me rethink my stance on a couple things.

[tazkcmo]

166. bull.

"None of this is going to change the minds of one voter". If you had been honest with yourself you would have to acknowledge the "anti-establishment" wave rolling over the electorate. Most Americans are fed up with the big power structures rigging the "game" (it's not a friggin game!) in their favor and this is just another example of it. IUt's going to change many minds if it's shown that there is indeed collusion between the DNC and Clinton campaign.

I always find it peculiar that "Let's move on" is backed up by "it won't change any minds". This would only be true if no collusion was found and would thus help the Clinton campaign by proving she's not corrupt. But let's move on? Why? Wouldn't you want your candidate to be exonerated? It would give a club to HRC to beat Sanders over the head with. No, let's move on. Makes no sense because, what ever the results, it will have an effect on how voters vote.

[creeksneakers2]

169. tazkcmo writes:

"Wouldn't you want your candidate to be exonerated? It would give a club to HRC to beat Sanders over the head with."

Investigations don't convince anybody of anything. If there is a losing side their supporters just claim it was a cover up. When its all over everybody still believes whatever they believed when it started.

I don't want Hillary to beat Sanders with a club. I want the campaign to be about issues that will affect the country in the future.

Collusion between Hillary and the DNC has already been widely reported. If more evidence comes out it will just be confirmation, not a new scandal.

[tazkcmo]

172. creeksneakers2 writes:

The same thing again. "Investigations don't convince anybody of anything. "

[JDPriestly]

164. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz pretty much alienated all Sanders voters with her reaction to this

matter. She needs to leave the DNC position she now holds.

After having been treated with contempt in many ways by the Obama administration in spite of our assistance and support for him during the elections (especially arrogant, disrespectful comments made by Rahm Emmanuel which will never be forgotten by most of us progressives), I don't think that we progressives are going to rush out and vote for Hillary even if it does mean that a Republican gets the White House.

We need to win the Senate and House. They are just as important as winning the White House.

In fact, as we have seen with Obama, no matter how good a president we have, no matter how strong as a Democrat he or she is, we can't get a Democratic agenda enacted unless we control one or both houses of Congress.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has been a terrible failure in terms of getting Democrats elected to Congress.

And in this NPG Van matter, MS. Wasserman-Schultz chose to offend a large segment of voters who are needed not just to vote but to work to get a Democratic Congress elected.

She just does not think strategically or politically. She should have held her tongue and not reacted with her high-on-her horse self-satisfied wrath.

We who support Sanders will not forget how Hillary's friend Debbie Wasserman-Schultz dealt with this matter.

We progressives are important in this party.
Our votes are needed. I have quite a few friends who have left the Democratic Party and vote for third parties because they are sick of the kind of heavy-handed and insensitive actions of party leaders like Wasserman-Schultz.

We progressives are important. Our votes are needed. Both President Obama and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and all other Democrats need to treat us with respect.

[creeksneakers2]

173. I agree that all voters should be respected

I also agree the Debbie Wasserman-Schultz handled the latest episode poorly, and has been a poor chairman. I'd love to see her replaced. Maybe bring back Howard Dean. We won when he was there.

[Scootaloo]

126. I think the existence of security holes makes it a possibility

[baldguy]

168. They have no proof, no indication that happened, nobody in the Sanders campaign is saying that....

But it's a good accusation to throw around anyway. That and the promotion of numerous DWS & DNC conspiracy theories (also completely unfounded) are only meant to distract from the criminal conduct of Sanders' staffers.

This is just another flavor of Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

[KittyWampus]

4. LOL! "was provided". You make it sound like they gave it to Sanders. Stop covering for his

staffers.

[JDPriestly]

15. Access to Hillary's information was provided by NGP Van, not intentionally apparently, but due to

a "bug" that was present when they released the database information.

Please go to the website and read it.

Bernie's employees did not hack into Hillary's information. It was there mixed in with Bernie's information on the website. From what I read in NGP Van's blog, the amount of information made available to Bernie's staff was limited. Read it yourself and draw your own conclusion.

But yes, the information was provided to Bernie's campaign.

As I read the NGP Van statement the database that contained all the information, both Bernie's and Hillary's was probably also provided for a short period to Hillary's campaign.

NGP Van states that only Sanders' campaign accessed the data.

Thanks for being rational.

[George II]

45. Access to the data was provided (accidentally) by the vendor, the data wasn't provided....

...by the vendor - the Sanders people took it.

[Perogie]

48. So now you have all the answers that no one else has?

Or do you just want to dig your heals in even if you have no proof?

[PosterChild]

154. Here is the proof!1!

Sanders communications director Michael Briggs:

"After discussion with the DNC it became clear that one of our staffers accessed some modeling data from another campaign. That behavior is unacceptable, and that staffer was immediately fired."

Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager:

"Clearly, while that information was made available to our campaign because of the incompetence of the vendor, it should not have been looked at. Period"

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/460273748/bernie-sanders-campaign-locked-out-of-key-voter-file-after-data-breach

Sheesh, they admitited it! There isn't a big mystery here folks !

[azureblue]

56. you have no idea at all

how this works, do you?

[baldguy]

174. Anyone claiming the Sanders campaign is totally blameless certainly don't.

[libdem4life]

186. Like who said that? Surely was not a cover up. They reported it. Twice.

[baldguy]

195. Who said that? Nearly everyone defending the theft perpetrated by the Sanders campaign.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post8
"Down with the DNC/DWS and their connection to HRC. We need honest politicians, we are Democrats."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post12
"I don't think that the Sanders' campaign 'stole' information from Hillary this time."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post15
"Bernie's employees did not hack into Hillary's information."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post17
"Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's over-reaction to a problem that Bernie's campaign did not cause disqualifies her in my opinion as head of the DNC."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post26
"...hold your accusations (against the Sanders campaign) until we get the complete facts..."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post43
"Every single DUer who insinuated 'theft' needs to apologize until a true investigation is conducted."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post75
"Hillary should apologize for going on TV and accusing Sanders camp of 'stealing'. That was a lie."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post92
"NOT SO FAST HILLARY... NOT SO FAST"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post110
"This was not the fault of the Sanders campaign."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post113
"There is a visual that shows the relationships between Wasserman Schultz and Hillary's campaign and the vendor."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post116
"Hillary loves to play the victim."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post133
"If the DNC had acted reasonably, the campaign wouldn't have sued."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post136
"It is definitely the vendor's fault. And the DNC's fault."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post142
"This is a big deal. DWS made it one."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post144
"If you read the NGP Van blog, you will learn that the vendor was at fault."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post145
"In a sense, Hillary's data had intruded into Sanders' part of the website."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post161
"I seriously doubt that the intent behind the searches was malicious."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post164
"We who support Sanders will not forget how Hillary's friend Debbie Wasserman-Schultz dealt with this matter."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post166
"...there is indeed collusion between the DNC and Clinton campaign."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post167
"...but hillary had access to the exact same data..."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post185
"...same bunch that ran her private server..."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251938502#post190
"...screen grabs take a long time. Hillary, however, could have done that."
"What makes me think that Bernie's team did not intend to do anything wrong is the fact that they were so transparent about what they did"

And that's just in this thread.

[libdem4life]

199. You could have saved a lot of time by just going to the vendor's website.

Nobody is defending anyone. He made a mistake, he got fired. EOS

Carry on with your frivolous "theft" fantasy.

Anyway, with the lawsuit brought by the "guilty" party, looks like we'll find out.

But first, again, go to the vendor's website.

[Duckhunter935]

80. are you sure

My guess is they did data searches and data that should not have provided came back with the results due to the glitch. The anders campaign may have not tried to get it but it was pushed to them.

[JDPriestly]

110. Yes. They expected to get only their data, but they got some of Hillary's too.

Then, my guess is that they probed through queries or searches of the data to try to ascertain whether they really had Hillary's data too and just what and how much of her data they had.

I briefly saw a list of the page of searches they did. Looked very carefully aimed to identify Hillary's data.

If they had really wanted to steal Hillary's data, I think they would have stuck with general searches and never mentioned Hillary's name.

Obviously, their searches with Hillary's name, since they were not supposed to have Hillary's information mixed in with their data in that part of the database would have alerted the managers of the database that something was amiss.

Apparently the breach, the bug was discovered and corrected.

And now we have a hysterical Hillary campaign.

This was not the fault of the Sanders campaign. I would like to know exactly what the information is that Sanders fired his staff member over. I suspect that it was not really a very big deal. But I don't know. We need an investigation to find out -- and not one done by the DNC but rather one in which all campaigns are involved in picking the investigators.

[senz]

95. Ah! You want someone to thank you for being irrational.

[George II]

99. If I was irrational, I certainly wouldn't want to be thanked for it, but obviously I posted....

....a very inconvenient, and RATIONAL, truth. Sorry it bothers you.

[JDPriestly]

104. The NGP Van site describes the very limited amount of data that was "taken."

Please read the NGP Van statement on their website.

[AgingAmerican]

106. No data was taken according to VAN

Databases were temporarily partially combined, according to VAN. No data was imported, according to VAN.

Read.

[George II]

112. Their logs say otherwise - data was searched, downloaded, and stored in folders created....

...specifically for the data culled. The logs are posted in this thread.

[AgingAmerican]

117. Nope

It's time for you to move on. The vendor has spoken.

[George II]

119. Yes, the vendor has spoken, and spoken again:

Original story about the intrusion:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/22/bernie-s/Sanders-take-Clinton-voter-data/

Link to the logs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PSBeQvNakGxuty36ACPFNaNLNeoqgz2Pn7e2x0VMYds/edit

Note the earliest and latest times - the total time expired was 1 hour 44 minutes, NOT the "about 40 minutes" that Sanders' campaign manager Weaver claimed.

This is not so innocent on the part of the Sanders staffers, and most likely this is not going to go away. Reminder, Sanders fired one staffer and suspended two staffers. That doesn't happen to people who haven't done anything wrong or, at worst, illegal.

[JDPriestly]

121. 1 hour and 44 minutes is no time at all to review a database that large.

The vendor should have caught and repaired its gaffe earlier. Is that what you are trying to say?

Maybe in Hillary's campaign people are only fired if they do something illegal or wrong.

Sanders sets a higher standard than that, I am sure.

[JonLeibowitz]

128. No she promotes them

See John Podesta's current position after the shenanigans he did in 2008 against Obama. Blatantly racist and illegal tactics.

[George II]

138. They weren't interested in reviewing the database online, that's why they performed....

....specific searches, downloaded them, and saved them for review at their leisure. They knew what they were doing - set up new users, performed targeted searches, saved them in newly created folders, and concentrated primarily on the earlier primary states.

So then, can you, or the Sanders campaign, explain why Weaver said the "breach" was only about 40 minutes when in fact it was almost three times as long?

[JDPriestly]

153. To what location do you think they saved the results of their searches?

[JDPriestly]

149. I assume the vendor found this data on their own website. It was not exported from the website.

It remained on the website. To make a deal out of this is crazy. There was nothing hidden. It all remained on the website. But the logs proved that Hillary's data was mixed into Sanders' data.

It's like Sanders staff walked into Sanders' HOUSE and found Hillary's stuff strewn all over.

Then Sanders tried to figure out what part of Hillary's stuff was in Sanders' house.

[JDPriestly]

163. And where were the files stored? On NPG Van's website. That's where. In plain sight.

The searches and queries were also done in a traceable, plain sight manner.

The outrage by Hillary supporters is ridiculous.

[JDPriestly]

150. The searches that the Sanders employees made identified what information was Hillary's.

[lumberjack_jeff]

87. Yes, that's why they call it the setup of permissions "provisioning".

VAN provided the campaigns a set of inappropriate permissions.

I'm eager to see what is determined during discovery in the Sanders lawsuit.

[JDPriestly]

107. Your language is much better than mine. It actually describes the process. Thanks.

[notadmblnd]

5. Let's keep this kicked up

cause you know the Clinton experts here who know better than the vendor what happened will be back making the accusations that Sander's is a thief and stole millions from HRC.


Oh and if you don't post a link, they'll tell you the vendor didn't say it.

[KittyWampus]

7. Amy Dacey, DNC CEO, says Sanders staffer: tried to delete notes . . . to hide his activities.

[notadmblnd]

11. I'm certain she has excellant database administration credentials

and knows better than the vendor what happened- as I stated previously.

[zeemike]

53. Well I looked it up.

Because first I did not know that the DNC had a CEO or needed one...and I wonder what it pays. But what was not a surprise is her background.
Degree in political science and went strait to DC to work.

Dacey began her career at the National Foundation of Women Legislators.[4] During the 2000 election cycle she was the Deputy Political Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.[5] She then served as the Deputy Political Director on the Democratic Senatorial Committee for the 2002 election cycle;[6] the National Political Director of Keeping America’s Promise; the Director of Government Relations at the Service Employees International Union;[7] and in 2004 Dacey worked as the special assistant to John Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign.[8] During the campaign Dacey acted as the Traveling Political Director. During the 2006 election year she worked as the National Political Director for Senator John Kerry’s national leadership PAC.[9] In 2010 Dacey took the job of Executive Director at Emily’s List where she increased the membership by 500 percent.[10]

She like many in our government have never been outside the government bubble and seem to belong to a class of people like that.

[notadmblnd]

64. Sounds like she doesn't have a technical background at all

nt

[Betty Karlson]

158. So in effect: Dacey is in the tank for Clinton? (as per establishment echo chamber) eom

[zeemike]

170. My guess would be yes.

But the thing that impresses me most is has never done anything else. And I have done this with others who's name pop up in the news who are in government positions of power and many of them have the same career path.

It seems to be a big club.

[questionseverything]

183. that is important info zeemike

i always wondered why emily's list was pushing for hc so hard...now we know

[zeemike]

191. Well the founder of Emily's List, Ellen Malcolm

Was co chair of Hillary's 07 campaign so that is not surprising.

Ellen Malcolm is the heir to the IBM fortune and when you look into things like that they all come from wealthy backgrounds of privilege and go from school right into positions of power.
Which underscores George Carlin's remarks of "It's a big club, and you ain't in it"

[JackInGreen]

37. Uhhuh

The CEO will know better than the vendor.
Want me to call your company CEO n have em fix your microwave? I SWEAR, they've got CEO next their name so they must know best!

[randys1]

60. But werent MANY here alleging NGP VAN were in cahoots with DNC and Hillary?

[notadmblnd]

63. allegations are just that.

what's your point?

[randys1]

65. POINT? Either they are in cahoots, or they are the ethical company this OP clearly shows.

You see I have an advantage over people who will say anything if they think it will help their cause,. I happen to know and trust someone who says he knows the CEO of this company and that they are very trustworthy.

But I sit here and watch certain folks accuse them of one thing one day, then use them the next to make a point.

Makes me angry, should make everybody who claims to be a liberal and supportive of dems angry

[notadmblnd]

67. It is yet to be proven

until it is- it is speculation and allegations. No law against making either that I'm aware of. You know something the rest of don't?

[JDPriestly]

113. They are. The name of one of the officers is Wasserman. That person is apparently related

to Debbie WASSERMAN Schultz. That is what I have read. There is a visual that shows the relationships between Wasserman Schultz and Hillary's campaign and the vendor.

Doesn't mean that the vendor did anything on purpose, but it doesn't mean they didn't either.

That is one of the reasons why we need an objective and neutral investigation done by someone other than the DNC.

[JonLeibowitz]

129. There is no relation. That has been thoroughly debunked.

see: https://mobile.twitter.com/AharonWasserman/status/678061075926007808

They seem chummy, but not related.

[JDPriestly]

134. Thanks. Even I am guilty of misrepresentation. Whew! The gossip on the internets.

I would correct it, but I have said it too often. I don't think I could find all my posts. That's how misinformation moves quickly on the internet.

[stevil]

146. LOL!!!!

No shit?

[randys1]

179. Can you prove they are related?

[WillyT]

6. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[rhett o rick]

8. Down with the DNC/DWS and their connection to HRC. We need honest politicians, we are Democrats.

Throw out the corruption.

[zentrum]

32. It kills me

Last edited Tue Dec 22, 2015, 08:08 PM - Edit history (1)

…that some Democrats are currently not objecting to the thumb on the scale for HRC and current DNC tactics because of the scummy values all that represents.

That's not who we are! I thought it was the Democratic Party, not the Hillocratic Party! Discouraging.

[rhett o rick]

33. The 1% owns the Party leadership. They aren't the real Democrats that will show up

to throw them out.

[Enthusiast]

42. +1 an entire shit load.

[haikugal]

82. I'll second that!

[tblue37]

122. Frankly, I have always assumed the reason the Dem leadership and power players ignore the clear

evidence of vote tampering with the secretive and easily hacked machines is that many of them benefit from the fix, too, and they have a gentlecrooks' agreement with the other side that they will go along to get along.

[rhett o rick]

151. Yep! And maybe that would explain why Gore treated his loss in 2000 like it was losing a

tennis match.

[Bjornsdotter]

10. I posted the same thing on FB...

...nothing but crickets chirping.

[winter is coming]

13. I'd like to know more about the October breach: which company was it,

and was it completely separate from NGP Van, or a sibling company. We really need an independent audit from day one of the campaigns. Until one is done, all we've got are competing stories.

[JDPriestly]

17. We do need the audit.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's over-reaction to a problem that Bernie's campaign did not cause disqualifies her in my opinion as head of the DNC.

Like Hillary, she has shown that she has poor judgment and panics and over-reacts.

One of the things I like so much about Obama is that he does not lose his cool. He stays calm even in crises. He does not get offended right away. He does his research. He asks the right questions. He calms everyone down.

Bernie too is very rational.

Hillary -- not so much. She and Debbie over-react. I am a woman. I am not like that. Women can be steady and have their feet on the ground.

Hillary tries very hard to give the impression of strength. But I am not fooled. She is easily excited, easily riled. She angers and gets huffy very easily. Those are not good traits in a leader or even in a person who is more of a follower (like me). Someone has to keep their head on their shoulders, and you hope that person is the leader.

That's one of the reasons I am backing Sanders.

Sanders has a steadier head on his shoulders. He is truly strong from deep within himself.

[Uncle Joe]

19. That's one of my favorite things about President Obama as well.

Thanks for the thread, JDPriestly and trying to shed a little bit of sanity into this issue.

[hill2016]

22. did you watch the debates?

clinton always comes across as cool and composed.
sanders comes across as angry and looking like he forgot to breathe

[Bubzer]

27. People who lie a lot are very good under presure.

I remember a certain claim of being under sniper fire.

[rhett o rick]

35. Not how I see it. Sanders is passion about helping the 99%. Clinton smiles and gives nothing

but rhetoric. For example, where does she stand on helping college students afford college? She said something about she had a job when she went to college. I guess that's her plan. Where does she stand on fracking? After being strongly in favor of it as SS she now says she might limit the fracking on federal land, phased in over time. Rhetoric.

[senz]

103. Sanders cares about the issues.

Hillary cares about her image.

[Voice for Peace]

46. Thanks for the op and posts

And solid rationality. Kicking

[maggies farm]

47. In times of a tendency for war

it might be wrong to choose a woman that walks with enough warhawk swagger to have the biggest *jock strap* in the room. (*to keep it g rated).

I am very concerned that in this case (Hilary) will overcompensate and be more militaristic. In a sad way she will show that she is better than the boys and she will walk in infamy for her use of force.

If Hilary was a real peacenik wearing Birkenstocks, she could even share the blanket of Wall Street and I would vote for her.

However who could not consider someone's bloodlust when stating, "we came, we saw, he died"?

[JDPriestly]

115. She and Obama and Kerry made big mistakes in Syria.

Watch Democracy Now's interview of Seymour Hersh which I think was today.

I have suspected precisely what Hersch tells Amy Goodman.

The Obama administration and the policy of Hillary in Libya and Syria has been disastrous. They were supplying arms to Syrian rebels quite possibly. It's a mess. I have thought that was the case since Benghazi.

[grasswire]

83. and she is quick to portray herself as a victim

way tooooo often

[JDPriestly]

116. That is what motivated this hasty accusation that has very little real substance.

Hillary loves to play the victim.

As I have said many times, I will vote for all Democrats on my ballot except Hillary. I cannot bring myself to vote for her.

[haikugal]

84. Absolutely! Great post!!

[tblue37]

124. As much as I like Gore, his main problem as a campaigner was being easily stampeded and

easily persuaded by idiot advisors to mask his real self in response to focus groups. Hillary's "authenticity" campaign reminded me of Gore's earthtones wardrobe revamp.

Bernie is authentic. He doesn't bend with every wind, but rather sticks to his proinciples.

[one_voice]

105. I'm with you on this. I'd like an independent..

audit.

[questionseverything]

182. yes after all this discussion, why do we still not know who the oct breach company is?

[SusanCalvin]

189. Really.

Nothing to see here, move along....

[Motown_Johnny]

16. You must be really tired of posting that link

since you didn't include it in your OP.

[JDPriestly]

20. Thanks. You are so right. I have posted it so many times yesterday and today.

For your convenience.

http://blog.ngpvan.com/data-security-and-privacy

I really appreciate your letting me know I forgot to post it. Think of all the people who replied to my post without seeing the link.

We should all read the entire statement on their website.

Hey! This happens in this computer age. Glitches. Bugs. Mistakes.

[Motown_Johnny]

34. Thank You, bookmarked now n/t

[George II]

90. See post #89.

[bvar22]

18. DURec for the TRUTH.

The statement from NGP Van validates the posts at DU from IT professionals.
I'll believe the professionals from several independent sources of IT professionals
LONG before I'll believe a Hillary poster at DU.

[ChiciB1]

93. Yeah, Sad To Have To Say It... But I'm Most

certainly on the same wave link as you and so many of the rest of us. And I'm also distressed that each time I see her talking the stump and especially at the debates my reaction to her gets more negative as time goes by. I will admit that I never supported her the last time, and it got worse as her campaign went along and I saw things that were done I felt relief when she didn't get the nomination.

Also I wasn't a huge Obama supporter because I could see he was more conservative than me. Of course I doubt any of us thought how vindictive the Repubs vowed to be. They did say from day one that they intended to block him at every turn but to this day I wish he hadn't felt the need to compromise right off the bat. But he has gotten some things done, but the bill he just signed is FULL of awful laws that I doubt many even know. I watch RT & FSTV for my news and one of those shows on RT featured a man names Lionel and the host discussed the whole deal as yet. Just heard about it a few hours ago. What a mess.

And I fear Hillary will be worse! I don't think Bernie will roll over so easily and will fight harder. We ALL know he can't do this alone, there IS a Congress involved so nothing will be easy, BUT unless this country is willing to get a new bunch of people at the top we stay in this RUT!

And I honestly believe Hillary will say anything to get back into the WH and I AM very afraid! I simply have no trust in her but there's no doubt she can put on a GREAT performance and this time there are MORE people around her willing to do whatever it takes to win!

I WISH she would come out and support a complete audit, but since has yet to do so. So I'm even more concerned by what may happen! Don't know what she knows, but I'm sure DWS will DO whatever it takes. She's looking for a big payoff I'm sure!

Thanks for the link, I already saw some of it from their FB page but JDP you've supplied more! WE MUST keep working as hard as we can because we aren't just up against Hillary and her team, we're up against our own Democratic Party!

Even those I thought wouldn't support her have already done so... Wonder what was done behind the scenes to convince the Democrats I felt would stand for us to so quickly come out and give their support already!

Enough or now!

[tblue37]

137. I think many factors led to early endorsements. First of all, she had early dominance and a huge war

chest, and people whose careers are involved want to be seen as early supporters of the winner. Not necessarily even for their *own* benefit, either (though DWS is definitely in it for herself, period). A hero like Rep. John Lewis, for example, needs to support the winner because politics consists of deals and trades. If he wants to benefit his constituents and promote his policy positions, he can't be seen as "betraying" those who have real power. Also, the winning candidate can do a lot to fundraise for downticket candidates.

Second, it is pretty certain that few expected Bernie to mount a significant challenge. Obama was clearly a charismatic rock star. He had been tapped to give the convention keynote speech, just as Bill Clinton and Kerry had, and just as Castro did most recently, because he was being groomed for a presidential run. They just thought he would "wait his turn"--maybe take the VP slot on the ticket before aiming for the top slot. I expect that Castro will be on a very short list for HRC's VP pick. If he is her VP and they win, he would run in 2020, I bet, and she, having achieved her lifetime goal of entering history as the first woman president, would probably choose to serve just one term.

Third, most of them probably still don't believe Bernie could win the GE, so they prefer to stick with a "safe" choice.

Fourth: groupthink.

Fifth, some bias against someone who didn't register as a Dem despite voting and caucusing with them.

And sixth, a general tendency among those currently in office to fear losing corporate donor money or provoking the deep pocket types and their media lapdogs to mount a real challenge against them if they don't play ball and resist the temptation represented by BS's support of the 99% against the 1%.

[ChiciB1]

180. That Most Certainly Sums It Up...

Your post describes everything that's going on AND everything that HAS BEEN going on for far too many years! John Lewis was a huge disappointment to me, as was Sherrod Brown and most certainly person most of us saw as a real Liberal! I don't know what Barney Frank has to gain now that he's out of Congress and basically OUT period (pun intended) and he jumped in very, very early.

Howard Dean is another, but I suppose "playing the game" is MUCH MORE important than what REAL Democracy was intended to look like. If we continue on this path I have to wonder if ANYONE is really taking a hard look into the future. I'm from the Viet Nam Era and see men and women who are in their middle to late 70's and older who never had a high paying job or were part of a Union who are hurting even now. To say NOTHING of technology that's constantly evolving, they're the target of ruthless money making scams!

Was just listening to a story on Al Jazeera America about how the HUGE push by people to get people to buy up Trailer Parks as a way of making money and being told to raise the rents as high as possible after they buy the Park as a great investment! They said 20% of Americans now live in Mobile Home Parks or "Trailer Parks" as they call them. They're even being told how to cut back on recreational activities at these places as a way to cut down on the cost of owning and running these places. THIS is a disgrace, but how many people know this is going on?

Even Warren Buffet was a name mentioned as a person who's right now part of this type of ownership!! As this country becomes more tech savvy as a way of communicating these people DON'T have a clue about what's going on. Even operating a TV with a cable company has become a nightmare! I have Verizon now (horrors) and am getting notices that they must have merged with AOL and I'm thinking my email address will change to AOL! Then ALL the time I'll have to put in to change just my email address!

I could go on an on about a myriad list of issues like this that boggles my mind. I have grandkids and I constantly wonder what will happen to them. It's no longer "group think" it's either "I got mine, you get yours" or "my family can survive together" and forget about the rest. BUT the BIG picture is being missed... When we don't stand together for the common good of our country many will fall by the wayside and will be plucked away by the vultures who pick away at their carcasses until they no longer exist.

Just writing about this makes my stomach churn because I know for a fact that this kind of thinking is becoming a reality. WHY? Because even my own daughter says to me all the time "Mommy (she's over 40) but yeah I'm still Mommy to her, but I hear from her "our family will be alright" because she & her husband have Master's degrees as ARNPs and work in the medical field. They can't be called rich though because right now they're combined income is around $200,000 a year. And my son who is younger than her is a Contractor making a good living and has a home that's paid for. We all live in the same area so yes we may do better than millions of others. BUT this kind of insular thinking is disturbing and it's also wrong. I've told her that the less fortunate will need to scrounge and steal from others to survive. Too many don't think that far ahead so her theory isn't plausible to me. It's just so wrong headed!

That and the fact that I MYSELF want to remain a person who's willing to help my fellow man.

Jimmy Carter has already said we've become an Oligarchy so we're careening toward something worse. Anarchy maybe! And it comes full circle that we go the way of Rome in some sense.

WOW, didn't mean to write a mini-book, but my brain just won't shut down. It does seem We Are pretty much living in the "I've Got Mine, You Get Yours" society! In the animal world where each animal has to kill it's prey for survival it's call balance of nature. What shall we call it when humans do the same? The words of Pink Floyd enter my head... Is Anybody Out There, Can Anybody Hear Me?"

[tblue37]

181. I hear Tennyson's line about "nature red in tooth and claw." nt

[ChiciB1]

192. Pretty Scary Too... And One Not Often Quoted...

However the meaning is much the same. We MUST make a change no matter what. I DO wish I had more faith in Hillary because she's got the deck stacked in so many ways. I'm very, very worried and I know I can only do so much. We not only have a mountain to climb, I think if we reach the top of the mountain we'll look across the valley and see yet ANOTHER mountain waiting!

Yet, WE as a country are so into naval gazing that we actually aren't aware that our attempts to spread DEMOCRACY to other countries is nothing more than a joke! I know others from many countries who actually tell me this. Not that I travel all over, just am a huge tennis fan and belong to a "closed FB page" of supporters of our favorite player. I'm not afraid to ask them the question, and there are many who tell me they hope Bernie will win. Actually, not ONE of them have told me they support Hillary.

That may be because they KNOW who I support though. The page is for OUR No. 1 player Novak Djokovic, and we as his fans can talk freely without fans of other players attacking us. Another long story!! Still there are people from many, many countries that are members. It's quite interesting what they have to say.

It'd eye-opening none-the-less!

[JDPriestly]

196. Thanks for your post. I think it is our agreement with you about the cynical selfishness of our

society right now that is pushing so many of us to support Bernie. Thanks.

[LWolf]

21. Thank you! nt

[SixString]

23. K & R!

[Progressive dog]

24. more from the Horse's mouth

"The one area that was impacted was voter file data. We are confident at this point that no campaigns have access to or have retained any voter file data of any other clients; with one possible exception, one of the presidential campaigns. "
"One possible exception"!!!

[JDPriestly]

120. That issue is probably why Bernie fired someone.

The website assures that the breach was not material. It won't help the Sanders campaign.

We need an investigation beyond the vendors, an independent investigation.

The name of one of the main figures in the ownership or management of the website is Wasserman-- a relative apparently from what I have read of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

So we need an independent investigation.

[tecelote]

28. Thanks for the truth and for defending it!

[emsimon33]

30. K&R

[rhett o rick]

36. k & r. Thanks for posting. nm

[AzDar]

38. K & R

[Enthusiast]

39. K&R! I hope this post accumulates hundreds of recommendations!

The opposition knows they are wrong on this issue. I suspect they don't want to waste what they consider a useful meme.

Maybe someone will alert on my post. You know, for having an opinion outside the strict constraints of Hillarydom.

[paleotn]

40. Thanks for posting....

...turns out this whole hurricane Sandy sized debacle really amounts to a tempest in a tiny teapot. Good luck with certain people being rational. I'd bet large sums that ain't gonna happen.

[George II]

41. That statement was issued before they had a full understanding of the breach AND before....

....the logs were published. That "brief" breach, which Sanders' campaign said was only about 40 minutes, lasted from 10:40 to 12:24. That's a full hour and 44 minutes, much longer than "40 minutes".

[Deny and Shred]

43. " ... COULD POSSIBLY HAVE ... "

NGP VAN's own words :

"... Our team removed access to the affected data, and determined that only one campaign took actions that could possibly have led to it retaining data to which it should not have had access. ..."

Would it kill DWS to get her facts straight before going to the press to attempt a killshot on the Sanders campaign???

I recall Rove boasting about how the most important element is controlling the initial message because that is what the average voter will remember when it comes time to pull the lever. No amount of truth nor retraction erases that inital impression for a far-too-large segment of the electorate.

Every single DUer who insinuated "theft" needs to apologize until a true investigation is conducted - the vendor themselves can't verify!!!

Right after Weaver's inital press conference on the 16th, I watched DWS call Senator Bernie Sanders a liar on national TV, CNN, and claim, "all he has is bluster" if he tries to explain himself. This was an unadultered travesty. Its beyond undemocratic for the party chair to defame the character of a primary contender in this manner. For the chair of the party for whom I cast every vote in my lifetime to sink to these depths is beyond the pale.

[randome]

49. So Sanders over-reacted when he fired Uretsky, then. Right?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Deny and Shred]

70. That's what you got out of my post - okay.

You don't respond to any other aspect? Okay.

I'll even play on your field.

He reacted. I don't know about over-reacted. He fired him immediately upon hearing that their might be any semblance of impropriety. He then immediately asked to go the Federal Court for a full airing of the facts.

DWS responded to the announcement of the lawsuit by saying that she wouldn't restore his access to the voter file until an investigation was conducted. A few hours later, DWS gave him access back without an investigation. This wasn't much of a negotiation because the lawsuit is still pending. DWS got NOTHING by caving.

Explain that. Seriously - explain.

[creeksneakers2]

147. An over-reaction

is continuing a lawsuit after Bernie's access was restored.

[JDPriestly]

125. Maybe if it had happened in Hillary's campaign, she wouldn't have fired anyone.

Sanders sets the highest standards for his staff when it comes to integrity.

That's the kind of person I want to be my president. A person who sets the very most stringent standards when it comes to honesty and reliability.

I do not mean to say anything bad about Uretsky. He may have done nothing at all "wrong" by normal business standards. I doubt that he had bad intentions.

It's just that Bernie values integrity in government and in his campaign.

Bernie is a man with real values, a man who loves and wants clean government.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to make this point and to differentiate between the normal very corrupt standards we commonly accept in our politics and government and those of Bernie.

[JDPriestly]

123. Thank you.

[in_cog_ni_to]

50. Brick walls

are dense.

I'm just sayin'.

PEACE
LOVE
BERNIE

[randys1]

51. BUt I thought the CEO of NGP VAN and the company itself was in CAHOOTS with HIllary

and the whole thing was planned to trap Bernie, so which is it?

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

57. They have a business and reputation to protect!

Of course, they're going to say whatever they can to minimize the screw up.

[randys1]

58. Either they are in cahoots with Hillary or they are not, so which is it?

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

59. I really don't know, but they could conceivably be

"in cahoots" with Hilary and still have a reputation to protect. They are in business to make money...I'm pretty sure, anyway.

[randys1]

61. Dear god...sigh like I have NEVER sighed before

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

72. I said I don't know.

I could believe that the DNC and those working for the DNC are supporting Hillary. DWS does all but carry a placard for Hillary, but I don't know.

And are you prone to dramatics? Sigh like you've never sighed before?

[randys1]

73. Of course DWS is behind HIllary, you could even say that is HER JOB given her JOB is to

elect a Democrat no matter what.

But we were talking about some here alleging the company was in cahoots, and yet some of those same people are pointing to their statements.

[Duval]

52. And thank you for the rationality!

[CharlotteVale]

54. K&R

[Amimnoch]

62. From the other side of the aisle.. K&R

This whole thing is ridiculous (both camps), and severely detracts from what should be real campaign issues.

This is the kind of shit that should be saved for the GE, not picking our party candidate.

[paleotn]

71. Agreed....

It's a whole lot of to do about something that is meaningless in the grand scheme. The only real beef I have is DWS's gross overreaction, which exposed her true motives to anyone willing to look at this objectively.

[shawn703]

66. It won't matter to the Hillarians

Their candidate relies on lies, half truths and misinformation to make points. It only stands to reason that her most loyal followers will do the same.

[840high]

76. I find it disgusting - so tired

of the lies. I don't believe anything Hillary or her supporters say anymore.

[magical thyme]

68. K&R nt

[AlbertCat]

69. The MOST interesting thing about this whole shebang is....

...... the revealed nepotism of Schultz, NGP Van, and Clinton.

[Uben]

74. Excuse my ignorance, I haven't really followed this story too closely.

So it was a bug that allowed access to the information? I can see that happening, and certainly not Sanders' campaign's fault. But did the bug also download the information to Sanders' campaign computers? If not, was the act of downloading available information an ethical practice? I don't now if there was wrongdoing or not, to be honest. If you encounter a store/shop/business that has had its door left unlocked and you walk inside, I can't say there was a crime committed. One might very well have thought they were open for business. But, if one then removes anything from the business and takes it without notice or payment, I would say there was a crime committed. By the same token, wouldn't the downloading of the information be unethical at the least? I can't see the Sanders' campaign firing anyone unless it was not legal or ethical.

That's just what I am thinking. Anyway, they did fire those responsible, so I don't see any guilt/culpability being placed on the Sanders' campaign.

I'm neither for or against any dem candidate. I will vote for the nominee, regardless. I'll let you guys hash out who that is going to be. I will be happy with either of them...both great leaders and candidates.

[JDPriestly]

130. Read the NGP Van website's blog on this.

It answers your questions.

Sanders sets a very high standard of ethics for his staff.

We don't know whether Hillary would have fired a staffer for so little cause.

The website I linked to tells you what happened.

Bernie's staffers made searches. As one who has dealt with databases, much more primitive ones, in the past, I would say the searches were probably intended to determine how much of Hillary's information was available to Bernie --- first that Hillary's data was mixed in with Bernie's and then to what extent they two databases were mixed.

Remember. There is a huge, huge amount of data on the website and the breach lasted, I have been now informed only about an hour and 40 minutes. That is not very long when you think of the huge amount of data there.

Bernie's staff were not to blame for this. It was a glitch, a flaw in NGP Van's management of the website. The website probably contains a huge amount of data, so an occasional glitch is not exceptional I should think.

What should not have happened was Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's reaction, especially since she is related to one of the people who works at the website and the website has employees who worked for the Clintons.

[ViseGrip]

75. Hillary should apologize for going on TV and accusing Sanders camp of 'stealing'. That was a lie.

IT was damaging. It was false. Her campaign came out so fast after the breach, there was not time to know anything about it. That is telling and why there must be a FULL AUDIT!!

THE DNC/DWS should apologize too. And if the first breach was not NGP/VAN file, who was in there?????

What the hell is going on! Again, we need an audit.

[nc4bo]

77. When is that audit going to begin anyhow? Sanders is

ready to go from what I understand.

Aren't both campaigns in agreement on this?

[840high]

78. She won't.

[ViseGrip]

81. Well Bernie was certainly a gentleman, and Hillary is not acting like a lady, let alone a prez.

talk about REACTING to quickly!

not ....what we need.

[840high]

85. Bernie tells the truth. I've

waiting many years to vote for someone like him.

[Jack Rabbit]

79. The establishment media provide errorneous information about the 2016 election campaign?

[center]

[/center]

[George II]

89. More "from the horse's mouth" - actual internal NGP VAN logs:

Original story about the intrusion:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/22/bernie-s/Sanders-take-Clinton-voter-data/

Link to the logs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PSBeQvNakGxuty36ACPFNaNLNeoqgz2Pn7e2x0VMYds/edit

Note the earliest and latest times - the total time expired was 1 hour 44 minutes, NOT the "about 40 minutes" that Sanders' campaign manager Weaver claimed.

This is not so innocent on the part of the Sanders staffers, and most likely this is not going to go away. Reminder, Sanders fired one staffer and suspended two staffers. That doesn't happen to people who haven't done anything wrong or, at worst, illegal.

[Thinkingabout]

109. I read comments this was reported in October and how bad NGP VAN is, looks like the

truth is yet to be revealed. It will be.

[George II]

111. Actually NGP VAN isn't as bad as some would like them to be, in fact they're very good.....

....and have a great reputation in the industry.

I posted a list of their clients sometime over the weekend, virtually every state Democratic Party uses them, as well and many candidate committees.

The Connecticut Democratic Party uses them, I've been to their training program, its very intensive.

[Thinkingabout]

114. It is about blaming someone or something else. Coverups are hard to walk back.

[JDPriestly]

131. NGP Van says it was not the vendor involved in the October breach.

[uponit7771]

118. Welp, there it is then... they were viewing exclusive HRC data for nearly 2 hours !!!!

[JDPriestly]

132. Not very long for a database of that size in my opinion. Not unless you have a photographic

memory. And that is rare.

[uponit7771]

135. Point being Sanders DD knew they should NOT have viewed the data at all and called the vendor the

... second they suspected their data was exposed instead of 4 of them searching on HRC data within a 2 hour period.

The Sanders DD and the 3 staffers were dead wrong... full stop

[JDPriestly]

145. Hillary's data was mixed in with theirs. Why should they not have access to their own data.

It's like you walk into your house and you find Hillary's junk strewn all over the floor.

Why shouldn't you be free to walk into your own house.

The vendor breached its duty. Sanders' staff verified that the breach had happened by searching for the presence of Hillary's data and for the extent of Hillary's data and the kinds of Hillary's data that were on the Sanders part of the website.

In a sense, Hillary's data had intruded into Sanders' part of the website.

We don't know whether Hillary's staff also had access to Sanders' data but they probably did.

[uponit7771]

160. Bad analogy, they weren't in their "house" THIS db environment is closer to an apartment building vs

... a single family home and they saw an apartment door open (HRC data) and decided to walk in and look around knowing they weren't invited.

They were searching exclusively on HRC data not SBS data and columns of HRC data that wasn't supposed to be in the queries showed up

Also, if they cared about the SBS data they SHOULD have requested access or operations shut down till it was provisioned correctly.

that would've taken a couple of hours at the most vs being fired.

That would've been quick and the end of the matter but they continued to search on HRC data that they KNEW they weren't supposed to see for nearly two hours.

The DB logs showed what happened...

SBS is not being advised correctly on this matter

[JDPriestly]

161. From reading the vendor's statement on the website, there was data common to both or all

campaigns. That was the core voter information. It was shared in one common file. Then each candidate could add the information, comments, data that was unique to its campaign, notes on each voter, into a database that was linked to the common basic information. The information that was unique to a campaign was supposed to be separated from the information unique to other campaigns. You could query, ask for information or view your own unique information.

For about an hour and 40 minutes, the database was just one. Hillary's and Bernie's information was all searchable probably by either campaign. The core voter database that they shared was there for them to see but in violation of the rules and probably of the contractual duty of the vendor (although I don't know, I can't imagine this arrangement existing without a carefully written contract that imposes on the vendor the duty to maintain the firewall), the campaigns were able to search or query the entire database.

Sanders' campaign would have expected to be able to access only its own information. And voila there it was, Hillary's information. That Hillary's information was available to Bernie's campaign, that is that Bernie's campaign had permission to search not just its proprietary information but the entire database with Hillary's information on there too, was not supposed to be possible.

We shall see why Bernie's employees queried or searched for Hillary's information. It is important that Hillary agree to a thorough investigation of this situation.

The question arises whether this happened before whether known or unknown to the vendor.

Obviously, the queries, the searches, were easily identified and traced by the vendor. Anyone who works with databases and computers would know that. It is difficult to believe that someone would have searched with a malicious or sneaky intent since they would be versed enough in computer technology to know that the history of their searches could be read by the vendor.

I seriously doubt that the intent behind the searches was malicious. If it was, the person doing the searches was not very knowledgeable about computers.

I suspect the searches were done to verify that Hillary's information was accessible to Bernie's campaign as well as the kinds of information from Hillary's campaign that was accessible.

[uponit7771]

162. They at the least could've filtered HRC data out in their quieries and didn't. There's no way

... the SBS DD comes out clean on this.

They saw a door open and walked in and looked around for almost 2 hours according to the logs.

There were a multitude of ways to handle this that kept SBS data safer than to query on HRC data for more than an hour

[JDPriestly]

197. I saw a list of some of the searches.

They were specifically naming Hillary in some of their searches. That would be a very obvious thing to do in that the vendor would easily see that they were querying Hillary data.

Also, if they were specifically in a part of the database that held only Hillary's data, then they would not have needed to query using Hillary's name I should think.

The firewall between the databases was down as to the portion of the database that was supposed to be specific to one candidate and not to the other.

The searches were obviously aimed to determine whether Hillary's data was accessible and just what the scope of her accessible data was.

And anyone who deals with a computer knows that a history of actions is maintained. So the point may not have been to surreptitiously obtain Hillary's data. That might have been the aim, but it might not have been. That's why an independent audit is needed.

I'm sure Sanders would like to know whether this ever happened before, and whether Hillary ever took advantage of such a breach.

[MADem]

155. They did NOT "call the vendor." The vendor locked them out after they realized

they were screwing around in a database that they weren't supposed to be in.

You know how Sanders found out about this?

Debbie Wasserman Schultz CALLED him and told him, after his campaign refused to respond to the vendor's requests for information about the intrusion.

The campaign didn't even call the boss and let him know there was a problem.

There's going to be some ugly stuff coming out when this audit is done--I wouldn't be surprised if more heads roll over at Camp Bernie.

[Le Taz Hot]

91. Kicky Poo.

I see the usual suspects (the few that I can still see) continue to post "Bernie stole Hillary's data!!!111!!1" threads.

[ViseGrip]

96. Let's get to the audit, quickly.

[WillyT]

97. Let It Go JDPriestly... They Have No Interest In The Truth... Only Winning.

[joshcryer]

140. You left out the part about the voter file.

Conveniently.

But it's interesting to see people siding with the vendor now after days of blaming the vendor.

[JDPriestly]

144. If you read the NGP Van blog, you will learn that the vendor was at fault.

The vendor did not maintain the firewall in the database between Hillary's and Bernie's proprietary information, the information that the campaigns had entered into the database.

You have one database that is shared by all the campaigns and then there is supposed to be a part that is separate and protected from the view of the other campaigns into which a campaign can enter its own data. The protection failed.

So Bernie's employees went into the part of the website that was supposed to have their information -- their apartment in the apartment building so to speak. When they got in the door, they noticed that some of Hillary's information was there. They did searches and learned that her junk was strewn all over everything.

It was strictly the vendor's fault.

[joshcryer]

152. It's in the vendors best interest to downplay potential data retention.

But they flat out said that the Sanders staffers could have retained the voter files (which the logs showed that they requested and saved to their own lists).

It's unlikely they were able to retain those files because they got caught so quickly. If they did this thing will go to a whole other level once the feds are done investigating.

[SoapBox]

141. Where's that pic of Hill's bus, where it says "Powered by NGP Van"

above the front window?

Gee, no bias there.

[AllyCat]

143. Because they have no interest in protecting their

Integrity. They would never make it sound like they have had a breach for anything longer than absolutely necessary.

[Historic NY]

165. You conveniently left out For clarification, NGP VAN played no part in the October data issue that

For clarification, NGP VAN played no part in the October data issue that has been mentioned.

[JDPriestly]

198. Actually, I believe I did mention that. I am trying to be fair and give everyone the benefit

of the doubt. NGP Van was not involved in the October issue. That needs to be made very clear.

[riversedge]

175. "NGP VAN played no part in the October data issue that has been mentioned by Sanders camp"

Happy Holidays..



"NGP VAN played no part in the October data issue that has been mentioned by Sanders camp." http://blog.ngpvan.com/news/data-security-and-privacy#.VnqXBoIkt3Y.twitter #p2 #uniteblue

[SusanCalvin]

178. I see the bare assertion.

Sure would like more details, which I'm looking for and so far not finding.

OK, Uretsky supports the assertion (MSNBC interview), but WHAT "other system," exactly? Now that is what I'm looking for and not finding.

[Sunlei]

177. a software bug, like a developer said 20 years ago. "If you build it bug exploiters will use it"

do like the developers do, include some ringers in the secret lists and you'll catch exploiters easy.

[Historic NY]

184. Meanwhile the next day Sanders says on MTP

"We didn't go out and take" information from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

— Bernie Sanders on Sunday, December 20th, 2015 in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press".
Sanders spins the facts when he says campaign did not 'go out and take' Clinton data..

But in an interview the next day on NBC’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd pressed Sanders on exactly what happened when a software glitch allowed his people to see some of the Clinton data. The system is run by the Democratic National Committee, and the DNC had temporarily blocked the Sanders campaign from using its valuable voter information.

"As a result of a breach caused by the DNC vendor, not by us, information came into our campaign about the Clinton campaign," Sanders said Dec. 20, 2015.

"Magically," asked Todd?

"We didn't go out and take it," Sanders replied.

Really? In this fact-check, we’ll explore whether the Sanders campaign staff didn’t "go out and take" information from the Clinton campaign.

He earns a mostly false from Politifact.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/22/bernie-s/Sanders-take-Clinton-voter-data/

[JDPriestly]

187. Politifact knows what happened?

The two databases appeared as merged into one. Without the firewall it was one database.

Sanders' team did not go out and "take" the information.

Bernie's team would have seen Hillary's notations on the underlying, common data as if it was Bernie's information but with some sort of Hillary designations on it.

That's why they did searches to identify Hillary's information.

The amount of information was huge.

That is the way I see it.

The question is whether any information was exported. Because only if it was exported from the database or printed out would Bernie have been able to retain it long enough to use it.

If the information stayed within the vendor's control, the vendor could retrieve it, close down folders and the information would no longer be within Bernie's campaign's reach.

That is the way I picture this. If any computer experts think differently, please tell me. They use huge computers for this stuff.

[JDPriestly]

188. The truth needs to come out in a thorough investigation of the DNC's handling of these glitches.

Sanders said that his campaign did not go out and take information from the Clinton campaign. From all accounts, it is true that the Sanders campaign did not attempt to break into the voter data of a rival campaign. The Sanders people stumbled upon a glitch.

But rather than reporting the glitch immediately, they probed the database for a bit under two hours. At some point, the staff produced a page of information that at the very least would show the count of certain voters.

Experts familiar with the Democratic voter data base say that the Sanders campaign would have gleaned valuable information. At the end of the day, they knew some things about the Clinton campaign that they hadn’t known before, even if they didn’t seek to crack into the Clinton data.

We rate Sanders’ claim that the campaign didn’t "go out and take" information as Mostly False.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/22/bernie-s/Sanders-take-Clinton-voter-data/

The "mostly false" rating is politifact's opinion. I don't think it is supported by the facts.

The glitch occurred. The searches done identified and categorized and measured the amount of Clinton data that appeared in the mixed database including Hillary and Sanders data. The Sanders campaign states that it believes its data was compromised in an earlier situation in October. Of course, they wanted to be able to show that a similar glitch occurred last week.

I disagree with politifact's conclusion about what happened. The only way to find out what really happened will be to investigate the entire handling of the campaigns by the DNC with regard to safeguarding data and asking the parties that handled the data and searched the data what their thoughts and intentions were at the time.

Remember. If they were computer savvy, they knew at the time they did the searches that the history and details of their searches would be very easy to find, to see and to publish. It's not like they could sneak around and hide the searches that they did. It remains in the database records.

So I doubt that they were actually trying to go out and take information to use.

Think about how they can find Hillary's e-mails in the vast, year-long, off the government server e-mail history she left. Computer history can be destroyed or lost, but here the Sanders campaign had no control over the record of the searches they made. They were just part of the NPG Van's records.

[EndElectoral]

194. Thanks for the update. if their own DNC vendor says this, why would DWS so overreact?