Voter Data Circulates on Darknet Forums, Raising Privacy and Targeting Concerns

Summary

DarkOwl reports voter databases shared on darknet forums and discusses how voter and donor information could be used for financial crime, intimidation, or targeted influence. It notes that some campaign-contribution data is public.

Key points

• DarkOwl says voter registration databases from Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and Colorado were shared freely, while some state databases were reportedly packaged and sold on deep-web forums.
• The article recalls earlier exposures involving 191 million voters in 2015 and 198 million in 2017; it attributes those discoveries to researchers and describes misconfiguration or an exposed S3 bucket.
• A forum post reportedly offered personal information about millions of political donors, but the post did not identify its source or campaign, and moderators removed it.
• DarkOwl analysts observed discussion of donaldtrump[.]watch, a donor-search website. The article says archived pages described it as a donor locator using FEC data, which is publicly available.
• The article says users disputed the site's accuracy, while some reported that family information was correct; DarkOwl's analysis suggested donation information was current through August 31, 2020.
• The article warns that voter and donor details could enable targeting or intimidation and, combined with disinformation, support audience profiling and amplification.

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