[jdnier]

My understanding is that the DNC contracts with VAN to manage the voter files for all fifty states. It's a shared database, with candidates able to build up their own data on top. All the campaigns can see the underlying voter data, but they additions they make are private to the individual campaign. The Sanders campaign staffers realized they were able to see Clinton campaign data they should not have access to. That's all that happened. The problem was fixed within a few hours. The Sanders people didn't abuse the bug in any significant way, in fact they reported it. But then the DNC cut off Sanders campaign access completely -- the nation-wide voter file, all their additions, inaccessible. At this point, the DNC response seems more punitive than security-related.

[luckynonce]

"The Sanders people didn't abuse the bug in any significant way"

It isn't clear if this is true.

"in fact they reported it"

VAN has not stated the issue was reported by the Sanders campaign. The claims that the Sanders campaign had reported an earlier issue are refuted in the OP, which states they had reported issues with another vendor's software.

It is possible the bug was abused:

"The database logs created by NGP VAN show that four accounts associated with the Sanders team took advantage of the Wednesday morning breach. Staffers conducted searches that would be especially advantageous to the campaign, including lists of its likeliest supporters in 10 early voting states, including Iowa and New Hampshire. Campaigns rent access to a master file of DNC voter information from the party, and update the files with their own data culled from field work and other investments. After one Sanders account gained access to the Clinton data, the audits show, that user began sharing permissions with other Sanders users. The staffers who secured access to the Clinton data included Uretsky and his deputy, Russell Drapkin. The two other usernames that viewed Clinton information were “talani" and "csmith_bernie," created by Uretsky's account after the breach began. The logs show that the Vermont senator’s team created at least 24 lists during the 40-minute breach, which started at 10:40 a.m., and saved those lists to their personal folders. The Sanders searches included New Hampshire lists related to likely voters, "HFA Turnout 60-100" and "HFA Support 50-100," that were conducted and saved by Uretsky. Drapkin's account searched for and saved lists including less likely Clinton voters, "HFA Support <30" in Iowa, and "HFA Turnout 30-70"' in New Hampshire. Despite audit logs, Weaver said at the news conference that NGP VAN has told the campaign that no Clinton data was printed or downloaded."

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-18/sander...

[olefoo]

A fresh account, commenting on a new, extremely controversial issue should probably disclose affiliations before getting too embroiled in arguing interpretations and facts.

[untog]

...and if they don't have any affiliations?

[olefoo]

It seems unlikely that someone so disconnected from society as to be completely uninvolved and unopinionated on the topic at hand would have created an account for the specific purpose of commenting on the story.

We are social creatures; we have a deep need to align ourselves with groups of others. And the evidence points to our having a deep need to argue as well.

[jdnier]

Hmm, that's much more specific, and seems to go beyond simply establishing that there's a permissions problem and they can see data they shouldn't. I still think cutting off the Sanders campaign from all their data, even after the bug was fixed, is over the top. Perhaps the staffers did act inappropriately or aggressively, but deal with them, and let the campaign continue with its daily business.

[luckynonce]

To clarify:

The Sanders campaign had in October reported an unrelated software issue in a non-VAN system.

They did not report THIS issue to the DNC or NGP VAN, but claim they were gathering information about the breach for the purposes of reporting. Based on my reading of the OP, the breach was discovered by NGP VAN employees.

[slg]

>The Sanders people didn't abuse the bug in any significant way, in fact they reported it.

That is pure conjecture and I'm not even sure the Sanders campaign would agree with you considering they have fired a staffer over this.

[jdnier]

The fact that every search, export, and page access is logged, and that the Sanders people knew everything they did would be traceable, do you think they really would have tried to hoover up a bunch of Clinton data? The VAN CEO is emphatic that none of the exposed data was ever exportable.

[yaur]

My read on this is that very few people involved in the conversation have a very good understanding of technology and gp's speculation matches my own understanding.

[vvanders]

See the MSNBC interview with the fired staffer. They were trying to understand the extent of the disclosure in preparation for reporting it.