schwit1 shares a report from TechCrunch: A privacy bug in Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's official campaign app allowed anyone to look up sensitive voter information on millions of Americans, a security researcher has found. The campaign app, Vote Joe, allows Biden supporters to encourage friends and family members to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election by uploading their phone's contact lists to see if their friends and family members are registered to vote. The app uploads and matches the user's contacts with voter data supplied from TargetSmart, a political marketing firm that claims to have files on more than 191 million Americans.

When a match is found, the app displays the voter's name, age and birthday, and which recent election they voted in. This, the app says, helps users find people you know and encourage them to get involved." While much of this data can already be public, the bug made it easy for anyone to access any voter's information by using the app. The App Analyst, a mobile expert who detailed his findings on his eponymous blog, found that he could trick the app into pulling in anyone's information by creating a contact on his phone with the voter's name. The Biden campaign fixed the bug and pushed out an app update on Friday.

"We were made aware about how our third-party app developer was providing additional fields of information from commercially available data that was not needed," Matt Hill, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, told TechCrunch. "We worked with our vendor quickly to fix the issue and remove the information. We are committed to protecting the privacy of our staff, volunteers and supporters will always work with our vendors to do so."

NPR reporter Shannon Bond reports of a little-known -- and now nearly entirely forgotten -- company called Simulmatics, which had technology that used vast amounts of data to profile voters and ultimately help John F. Kennedy win the 1960 election. From the report: The [...] company was called Simulmatics, the subject of Harvard historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore's timely new book, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future. Before Cambridge Analytica, before Facebook, before the Internet, there was Simulmatics' "People Machine," in Lepore's telling: "A computer program designed to predict and manipulate human behavior, all sorts of human behavior, from buying a dishwasher to countering an insurgency to casting a vote."

Lepore unearths Simulmatics' story and makes the argument that, amid a broader proliferation of behavioral science research across academia and government in the 1960s, the company paved the way for our 21st-century obsession with data and prediction. Simulmatics, she argues, is "a missing link in the history of technology," the antecedent to Facebook, Google and Amazon and to algorithms that attempt to forecast who will commit crimes or get good grades. "It lurks behind the screen of every device," she writes.

If Then presents Simulmatics as both ahead of its time and, more often than not, overpromising and under-delivering. The company was the brainchild of Ed Greenfield, an advertising executive straight out of Mad Men, who believed computers could help Democrats recapture the White House. He wanted to create a model of the voting population that could tell you how voters would respond to whatever a candidate did or said. The name Simulmatics was a contraction of "simulation" and "automation." As Greenfield explained it to investors, Lepore writes: "The Company proposes to engage principally in estimating probable human behavior by the use of computer technology." The People Machine was originally built to analyze huge amounts of data ahead of the 1960 election, in what Lepore describes as, at the time, "the largest political science research project in American history."

Joe Biden's presidential campaign was hit by an attack that was caught by Microsoft, which reportedly gathered information identifying hackers linked to the Kremlin as the most likely suspects. The Daily Beast reports: Reuters reported Thursday morning that suspected Russian state-backed hackers have attempted to breach the systems at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a strategy and communications firm working hand-in-glove with Joe Biden's campaign. The attacks, which took place over the past two months, were unsuccessful. The failed hacking attempt was brought to SKDK's attention by Microsoft, which reportedly gathered information identifying hackers linked to the Kremlin as the most likely suspects. The attacks are said to have mainly focussed on phishing -- a common hacking method which lures users into disclosing sensitive passwords. That was the method used by Russian hackers to access DNC emails, which were subsequently leaked online, ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

A person familiar with SKDK's repelling to the hacking attempts said the agents didn't get very far, telling Reuters: "They are well-defended, so there has been no breach." Another source said it was impossible to confirm if Biden's campaign was the target, or whether the Russians were trying to gather intel on the long list of other SKDK clients.

Google said it will block some autocomplete search suggestions to stop misinformation spreading online during the U.S. presidential election in November. From a report The autocomplete feature of the world's largest search engine regularly recommends full queries once users begin typing words. The company said on Thursday it will remove predictions that could be interpreted as claims for or against any candidate or political party. In addition, Google said it will pull claims from the autocomplete feature about participation in the election, including statements about voting methods, requirements, the status of voting locations and election security. For instance, if you type in "you can vote" into Google's search engine, the system may have suggested a full query that includes misleading or incorrect information. Typing those three words into Google on Thursday produced the full phrase "You can vote yourself into socialism" as the top recommended query.

Legendary journalist Bob Woodward reports in his new book new details on Russia's election meddling, writing that the NSA and CIA have classified evidence the Russians had placed malware in the election registration systems of at least two Florida counties, St. Lucie and Washington. From a report: While there was no evidence the malware had been activated, Woodward writes, it was sophisticated and could erase voters in specific districts. The voting system vendor used by Florida was also used in states across the country.

Facebook is offering users money to refrain from using the site and Instagram in the weeks leading up to the bitterly contested November elections. The New York Post reports: To assess the impact of social media on voting, the company will pay selected members up to $120 to deactivate their accounts beginning at the end of September. "Anyone who chooses to opt-in -- whether it's completing surveys or deactivating FB or IG for a period of time -- will be compensated," Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois tweeted last week. "This is fairly standard for this type of academic research." The Silicon Valley giant said it expects 200,000 to 400,000 people to take part.

"Representative, scientific samples of people in the US will be selected and invited to participate in the study. Some potential participants will see a notice in Facebook or Instagram inviting them to take part in the study," Facebook said. "Study samples will be designed to ensure that participants mirror the diversity of the US adult population, as well as users of Facebook and Instagram." The results of the study are expected to be released sometime next year.

Mark Zuckerberg tells "Axios on HBO" that Facebook is imposing new election rules to deter use of the platform to spread of misinformation and even violence, and to help voters see the results as "legitimate and fair." From a report: The new measures, announced Thursday, include throwing a flag on posts by candidates who claim premature victory, and forbidding new ads within a week of Election Day. "There is, unfortunately, I think, a heightened risk of civil unrest in the period between voting and a result being called," Zuckerberg told Axios' Mike Allen. "I think we need to be doing everything that we can to reduce the chances of violence or civil unrest in the wake of this election."

Facebook will stop accepting political advertising in the United States a week before Election Day on Nov. 3, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on Thursday. From a report: But the social network will continue showing users all political ads that candidates or political action committees buy before that day, and continue to let these groups adjust who they target. Candidates for political office will also still be able to run ads containing lies. In Thursday's announcement, Zuckerberg claimed he was putting in the one-week ban on new ads prior to the election because he was "concerned" about the challenges people could face while voting. "I'm also worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country," Zuckerberg said. Social networks are facing increasing pressure to police political advertising on their platforms ahead of the US elections, and some critics have urged tech companies to stop running political ads altogether. Last year, Twitter banned all political advertising from its platform, and Google restricted micro-targeting of political ads on certain products.

The Russian group that interfered in the 2016 presidential election is at it again, using a network of fake accounts and a website set up to look like a left-wing news site, Facebook and Twitter said on Tuesday. From a report: The disinformation campaign by the Kremlin-backed group, known as the Internet Research Agency, is the first public evidence that the agency is trying to repeat its efforts from four years ago and push voters away from the Democratic presidential candidate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., to help President Trump. Intelligence agencies have warned for months that Russia and other countries were actively trying to disrupt the November election, and that Russian intelligence agencies were feeding conspiracy theories designed to alienate Americans by laundering them through fringe sites and social media. Now Facebook and Twitter are offering evidence of this meddling, even as the White House in recent weeks has sought to more tightly control the flow of information about foreign threats to November's election and downplay Russian interference. The Trump administration's top intelligence official as recently as Sunday has tried to suggest that China is a graver risk than Moscow. Facebook and Twitter, which were slow to react to wide-ranging disinformation campaigns on their services in 2016 and continue to face criticism -- even from their own employees -- that they are not doing enough to confront the issue, said they were warned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the Russian effort.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Microsoft is releasing new technology to fight "deepfakes" that can be used to spread false information ahead of the U.S. election. "Microsoft Video Authenticator" analyzes videos and photos and provides a score indicating the chance that they're manipulated, the company said. Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to alter videos or audio to make someone appear to do or say something they didn't. Microsoft's tool aims to identify videos that have been altered using AI, according to a Tuesday blog post by the company.

The digital tool works by detecting features that are unique to deepfakes but that are not necessarily evident to people looking at them. These features -- "which might not be detectable to the human eye" -- include subtle fading and the way boundaries between the fake and real materials blend together in altered footage. The tool will initially be available to political and media organizations "involved in the democratic process," according to the company. A second new Microsoft tool, also announced Tuesday, will allow video creators to certify that their content is authentic and then communicate to online viewers that deepfake technology hasn't been used, based on a Microsoft certification that has "a high degree of accuracy," the post said. Viewers can access this feature through a browser extension.

Beginning today, Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can add official Biden-Harris campaign signs to their island yards. Engadget reports: At the moment, there are four sign designs -- the official Biden-Harris logo, the Team Joe logo, a "Joe" Pride logo and an image of red, white and blue aviators. To add the signs to their yards, players will scan QR codes through the Nintendo Switch Online app. The campaign has also sent the signs to a handful of gaming influencers, who will share them throughout the day tomorrow. Campaign staffer Christian Tom said this is just the beginning. The team is planning more "digital swag," voter education tools and organizing efforts for Animal Crossing and other platforms. That makes sense considering Animal Crossing's popularity -- the game has sold more than 22 million units.

In a mindboggling and dangerous move, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week quietly reversed its recommendation on COVID-19 testing for those exposed to the virus. Now, the CDC says that exposed but symptomless people do not need to be tested. From a report: The change immediately alarmed and outraged public health and infectious disease experts. It is well established that SARS-CoV-2 -- the pandemic coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 -- can cause completely asymptomatic infections in some and spread from other infected people before they develop symptoms (so-called "pre-symptomatic transmission"). In fact, some modeling studies have suggested that pre-symptomatic transmission may account for nearly half, or even more, of SARS-CoV-2 spread.

That information previously spurred the CDC to recommend testing for anyone that was known to have -- or even suspected to have -- close contact with an infected person (that is, be within six feet for 15 or more minutes). "Testing is recommended for all close contacts of persons with SARS-CoV-2 infection," the agency said on its website as recently as August 22. "Because of the potential for asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission, it is important that contacts of individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection be quickly identified and tested."

It took five decades, but the Democratic Party has finally changed its stance on nuclear energy. In its recently released party platform, the Democrats say they favor a "technology-neutral" approach that includes "all zero-carbon technologies, including hydroelectric power, geothermal, existing and advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and storage." Robert Bryce writes via Forbes: That statement marks the first time since 1972 that the Democratic Party has said anything positive in its platform about nuclear energy. The change in policy is good -- and long overdue -- news for the American nuclear-energy sector and for everyone concerned about climate change. The Democrats' new position means that for the first time since Richard Nixon was in the White House, both the Republican and Democratic parties are officially on record in support of nuclear energy. That's the good news.

About a decade ago, a high-ranking official at the Department of Energy told me that a big problem with nuclear energy is that it needs bipartisan support in Congress. That wasn't happening, he said, because "Democrats are pro-government and anti-nuclear. Republicans are pro-nuclear and anti-government." That partisan divide is apparent in the polling data. A 2019 Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Republicans strongly favored nuclear energy but only 42 percent of Democrats did so. The last time the Democratic Party's platform contained a positive statement about nuclear energy was in 1972, when the party said it supported "greater research and development" into "unconventional energy sources" including solar, geothermal, and "a variety of nuclear power possibilities to design clean breeder fission and fusion techniques."

Since then, the Democratic Party has either ignored or professed outright opposition to nuclear energy. In 2016, the party's platform said climate change "poses a real and urgent threat to our economy, our national security, and our children's health and futures." The platform contained 31 uses of the word "nuclear" including "nuclear proliferation," "nuclear weapon," and "nuclear annihilation." It did not contain a single mention of "nuclear energy." That stance reflected the orthodoxy of the climate activists and environmental groups who have dominated the Democratic Party's discussion on energy for decades. What changed the Democrats' stance on nuclear? I cannot claim any special knowledge about the drafting of the platform, but it appears that science and basic math finally won out. While vying for their party's nomination, two prominent Democratic presidential hopefuls -- Cory Booker and Andrew Yang -- both endorsed nuclear energy. In addition, Joe Biden's energy plan included a shout-out to nuclear.

The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that found President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking his critics on Twitter. From a report: The lawsuit arose in 2017 after Trump's social media account blocked seven people who had tweeted criticism of the president in comment threads linked to his @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle. Lower federal courts found that Trump's twitter account, where he often weighs in on official matters, constitutes a public forum and that blocking his detractors violated their constitutional free speech protections. In its Thursday petition to the Supreme Court, attorneys for the Justice Department (DOJ) urged the justices to overturn a unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit against Trump.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Microsoft President Brad Smith warned of ongoing election interference through technology on Thursday at an Axios virtual event on the Future of Employability. From a report: "It was four years ago at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia that our eyes were first opened to nation-state cyberattacks on candidates and campaigns ... Here we are again four years later ... We have stronger defenses ... but the threats are becoming more sophisticated," Smith said. "We are seeing attacks that are more likely to succeed than they were four years ago precisely because they are more numerous and more sophisticated," he added.

"I think we need to be doing more not only to protect candidates and campaigns and journalists and think tanks, but where I think we really need to focus our energy is continuing to fight misinformation and securing our voting systems," Smith urged. Klobuchar, who earlier in the year sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said: "Last election was a dress rehearsal for what [Russia is] going to try now. There's every reason to believe they're going to do it again."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Election voting is the cybersecurity industry's most difficult challenge, and casting ballots on paper is the safest option against any digital disruptions, saysCrowdStrikeHoldings co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer Dmitri Alperovitch. "Voting is the hardest thing to secure when it comes to cybersecurity," Alperovitch said on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "The only way we know how to do it well and safely is by using paper." The best ways to ensure that a digital hack won't happen, he said, are in-person voting and ballots that are either mailed in or dropped off at collection sites. Alperovitch said he hasn't seen evidence of Russian hacking into campaigns or political organizations and leaking information so far this year. He warned of "influence operations" by China, Iran, and Russia conducted through social media. U.S. intelligence agencieshave saidRussia is still using social media and television to help President Donald Trump, while China and Iran want the Democratic candidate Joe Biden to win the presidency in November.

The election infrastructure, which includes voter databases and vote-tallying and vote-reporting systems, is "very, very, vulnerable to hacking," Alperovitch added. "I'm not so much concerned about foreign entities interfering in the paper process, but we do need to make sure that states are prepared to take in the huge number of mail-in ballots that will come in." One less-discussed but viable option is ballot drop-off, Alperovitch said. All precincts should install drop boxes by the curbside, where people can drop off the ballot without using the mail, he said. The election in November may be one where "we may not know who the president is the night of the election or the day after," Alperovitch said, echoingcommentslast week byFacebook's head of cybersecurity policy. The social media platform is preparing to rein-in misinformation in a prolonged period before the result is released.

The Trump administration announced on Monday it will further tighten restrictions on Huawei Technologies, aimed at cracking down on its access to commercially available chips. From a report: The U.S. Commerce Department actions will expand restrictions announced in May aimed at preventing the Chinese telecommunications giant from obtaining semiconductors without a special license -- including chips made by foreign firms that have been developed or produced with U.S. software or technology. The administration will also add 38 Huawei affiliates in 21 countries to the U.S. government's economic blacklist, the sources said, raising the total to 152 affiliates since Huawei was first added in May 2019.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business the restrictions on Huawei-designed chips imposed in May "led them to do some evasive measures. They were going through third parties," Ross said. "The new rule makes it clear that any use of American software or American fabrication equipment is banned and requires a license." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the rule change "will prevent Huawei from circumventing U.S. law through alternative chip production and provision of off-the-shelf chips." He added in a statement, "Huawei has continuously tried to evade" U.S. restrictions imposed in May.

The Democratic and Republican nominating conventions, long mainstays of the US presidential election cycle, have been forced online, creating the biggest test yet for conducting life remotely during the coronavirus. From a report: Robbed of the energy of convention halls, the parties will seek to re-create that enthusiasm in high-production streaming events that beam their luminaries from around the country to online audiences. The Democrats, whose convention begins on Monday after a roughly month-long delay, have lined up the party's most visible figures, including former President Barack Obama. The Republicans, who will make their case for four more years in the White House, grab the spotlight on Aug. 24. Done with savvy and pizzazz, the Democrats and Republicans could galvanize support for their candidates -- former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, respectively -- despite the absence of cheering crowds, over-amplified rock music and blizzards of confetti. If technical glitches hobble the proceedings, the parties risk broadcasting a mammoth Zoom call derailed by freezes, connection mishaps and mute fails.

As Democrats and Republicans prepare to hold their national conventions starting next week, YouTube on Thursday announced updates to its policies on deceptive videos and other content designed to interfere with the election. From a report: The world's largest video platform, with more than 2 billion users a month, will ban videos containing information that was obtained through hacking and could meddle with elections or censuses. That would include material like hacked campaign emails with details about a candidate. The update follows the announcement of a similar rule that Google, which owns YouTube, unveiled earlier this month banning ads that contain hacked information. Google will start enforcing that policy Sept. 1. YouTube also said it will take down videos that encourage people to interfere with voting and other democratic processes. For example, videos telling people to create long lines at polling places in order to stifle the vote won't be allowed.

Facebook on Thursday launched a 'Voting Information Center' for the 2020 U.S. elections to help voters easily navigate the poll process. From a report: The hub will connect Facebook and Instagram users to accurate and easy-to-find information about voting wherever they live and help them hold their elected officials accountable, the social media company said in a blog.