This arti­cle talks about how the Koch Broth­ers heav­i­ly invest­ed in Com­put­er sys­tems and ana­lyt­ics and AI to use avail­able polit­i­cal and con­sumer infor­ma­tion on 89% of the pop­u­la­tion. They use pre­dic­tive mod­el­ing from the 1800 unique pieces of infor­ma­tion on each indi­vid­ual. The infor­ma­tion is cat­e­go­rized in a strength score (1–10) that is used to cre­ate an indi­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ty pro­file. This pro­file is then cat­e­go­rized in a spe­cif­ic group for either con­sumer mar­ket­ing or polit­i­cal mes­sage tar­get­ing depend­ing on the objec­tive. In polit­i­cal tar­get­ing they will send mes­sages through that users most pop­u­lar medi­um – inter­net pur­chas­ing, e‑mails, or Cable TV and send adds with the polit­i­cal mes­sages that will be most like­ly to influ­ence that per­son and/or their spouse. The com­put­er software/analytics com­pa­ny, i360 has had exten­sive long term fund­ing by the Koch Broth­ers who more than reap the polit­i­cal ben­e­fits of their mes­sag­ing to sup­port their can­di­dates. The Koch Broth­ers sup­port­ed politi­cians get the ben­e­fits of this research and data­bas­es for below-mar­ket pric­ing so they can tar­get vot­ers with spe­cif­ic adds accord­ing­ly. The Repub­li­cans have ben­e­fit­ted from this. As have the Koch Broth­ers and their allies ener­gy inter­ests who, although not explic­it­ly stat­ed in this arti­cle sup­port dereg­u­la­tion as they attack the EPA so that their prof­its are increased.

https://www.salon.com/2018/11/05/koch-brothers-are-watching-you-and-new-documents-expose-how-much-they-know/

Koch broth­ers are watch­ing you: And new doc­u­ments reveal just how much they know

Salon
CALVIN SLOAN
NOVEMBER 5, 2018 12:00PM (UTC)
New doc­u­ments uncov­ered by the Cen­ter for Media and Democ­ra­cy show that the bil­lion­aire Koch broth­ers have devel­oped detailed per­son­al­i­ty pro­files on 89 per­cent of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion, and are using those pro­files to launch an unprece­dent­ed pri­vate pro­pa­gan­da offen­sive to advance Repub­li­can can­di­dates in the 2018 midterms.
The doc­u­ments also show that the Kochs have devel­oped per­sua­sion mod­els — like their “Hero­in Mod­el” and “Hero­in Treat­ment Mod­el” — that tar­get vot­ers with tai­lored mes­sag­ing on select issues, and part­ner with cable and satel­lite TV providers to play those tai­lored mes­sages dur­ing “reg­u­lar” tele­vi­sion broad­casts.

Over the last decade, big data and micro­tar­get­ing have rev­o­lu­tion­ized polit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions. And the Kochs, who are col­lec­tive­ly worth $120 bil­lion, now stand at the fore­front of that rev­o­lu­tion — invest­ing bil­lions in data aggre­ga­tion, machine learn­ing, soft­ware engi­neer­ing, and Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence opti­miza­tion.

In mod­ern elec­tions, incor­po­rat­ing AI into vot­er file main­te­nance has become a pre­req­ui­site to pro­duc­ing reli­able data. The Kochs’ polit­i­cal data firm, i360 states that it has “been prac­tic­ing AI for years. Our team of data sci­en­tists uses com­po­nents of Machine learn­ing, Deep Learn­ing and Pre­dic­tive Ana­lyt­ics, every day as they build and refine our pre­dic­tive mod­els.” [1]
Thanks to that invest­ment (and the Supreme Court’s cam­paign finance rul­ings that opened the flood­gates for super PACs), the Koch net­work is bet­ter-posi­tioned than either the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty or the GOP to reach vot­ers with their indi­vid­u­al­ly tai­lored com­mu­ni­ca­tions.
That is a dan­ger­ous devel­op­ment, with poten­tial­ly dra­mat­ic con­se­quences for our democ­ra­cy.

The Kochs and i360
The Kochs for­mal­ly entered the data space nine years ago, devel­op­ing the “Themis Trust” pro­gram for the 2010 midterms — an uncom­mon­ly impact­ful elec­tion cycle where Repub­li­can oper­a­tives exe­cut­ed their REDMAP pro­gram and algo­rith­mi­cal­ly ger­ry­man­dered con­gres­sion­al maps across the coun­try in their favor.

In 2011, the Kochs fold­ed Themis into a data com­peti­tor it acquired, i360 LLC, which was found­ed by Michael Palmer, the for­mer chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer of Sen­a­tor McCain’s 2008 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Palmer still leads

the orga­ni­za­tion.
Back then, as jour­nal­ists Ken­neth Vogel and Mike Allen doc­u­ment­ed, the Kochs’ long-term fund­ing com­mit­ments to i360 allowed the orga­ni­za­tion to think big­ger than their polit­i­cal com­peti­tors.

“Right now, we’re talk­ing about and build­ing things that you won’t see in 2016, because it’s not going to be ready until 2018,” Michael Palmer said in the wake of the 2014 midterm cycle.

Those pro­grams are now oper­a­tional. And accord­ing to a suc­cess­ful GOP cam­paign man­ag­er, i360 is the “best in the busi­ness” at pro­vid­ing Repub­li­cans with vot­er data.
i360’s client list reflects that data supe­ri­or­i­ty. The country’s most noto­ri­ous and effec­tive polit­i­cal spenders, like the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion, use the plat­form to iden­ti­fy and influ­ence vot­ers, as do Repub­li­can par­ty com­mit­tees, and U.S. House and Sen­ate cam­paigns.

i360 sweet­ens the deal to its clients by offer­ing its ser­vices at below-mar­ket rates. And once clients are locked into the i360 plat­form, they have access to the company’s vot­er file — the beat­ing heart of mod­ern polit­i­cal cam­paigns.

Con­ser­v­a­tives agree that the Kochs are sub­si­diz­ing i360. The loss­es they sus­tain by under­charg­ing clients, how­ev­er, are a pit­tance com­pared to the down-stream pub­lic pol­i­cy returns and polit­i­cal pow­er the Kochs receive from oper­at­ing what amounts to a shad­ow polit­i­cal par­ty in the Unit­ed States — one that vig­i­lant­ly guards the fos­sil fuel sub­si­dies, dereg­u­la­to­ry schemes, and regres­sive tax struc­tures that enable Koch Indus­tries to bring in $115 bil­lion annu­al­ly in pri­vate rev­enue.
Inside the i360 Vot­er File

i360’s vot­er file iden­ti­fies “more than 199 mil­lion active vot­ers and 290 mil­lion U.S. con­sumers,” and pro­vides its users with up to 1,800 unique data points on each iden­ti­fied indi­vid­ual.

As a result, i360 and the Kochs know your vitals, eth­nic­i­ty, reli­gion, occu­pa­tion, hob­bies, shop­ping habits, polit­i­cal lean­ings, finan­cial assets, mar­i­tal sta­tus, and much more.

They know if you enjoy fish­ing — and if you do, whether you pre­fer salt or fresh water. They know if you have blad­der con­trol dif­fi­cul­ty, get migraines, or have osteo­poro­sis. They know which adver­tis­ing medi­ums (radio, TV, inter­net, email) are the most effec­tive. For you.

i360 has the fol­low­ing attribute tags, among hun­dreds of oth­ers, ranked 1–10, or sub­di­vid­ed oth­er­wise in their vot­er file.

But i360 attribute codes are not lim­it­ed to that 1–10 scale. Their knowl­edge of your finan­cial stand­ing is gran­u­lar, from how much equi­ty you have in your home to your net wealth and expend­able income.

They know where you live, what your mort­gage sta­tus is, and even how many bath­rooms are in your house.
i360 has also cre­at­ed a set of 70 “clus­ter­codes” to human­ize its data for cam­paign oper­a­tives. These cat­e­gories range from “Fad­ed Blue Col­lars” to “Mean­der­ing Mil­len­ni­als,” and have flam­boy­ant descrip­tions that cor­re­spond with their attribute head­ings.

Here are some exam­ples: INCLUDED IN ARTICLE LINK
Koch Per­sua­sion Mod­els
Addi­tion­al­ly, i360 has devel­oped a series of per­sua­sion mod­els for its vot­er file. These mod­els are often region­al­ly sen­si­tive — since vot­ers have region­al con­cerns — and are being used in fed­er­al elec­tions and down-bal­lot races to assist Repub­li­cans across the coun­try.

In 2016, i360 cre­at­ed a set of region­al mod­els while work­ing with Sen­a­tor Rob Portman’s 2016 re-elec­tion cam­paign. Port­man start­ed out the race polling 9 points behind his Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent, Gov­er­nor Ted Strick­land but ulti­mate­ly won with 58 per­cent of the vote.

The com­pa­ny devel­oped a mod­el that could pre­dict whether a vot­er sup­port­ed Port­man or Strick­land with 89 per­cent accu­ra­cy, and oth­ers that pre­dict­ed vot­er pol­i­cy pref­er­ences. Well aware of the 2016 land­scape, i360 also made a Trump/Clinton mod­el, an Anti-Hillary mod­el, and a Tick­et Split­ter mod­el.

Much of i360’s suc­cess in the race, how­ev­er, was linked to under­stand­ing (after con­duct­ing exten­sive polling) that a “key local issue fac­ing Ohio was the opi­oid epi­dem­ic.” In response, the com­pa­ny cre­at­ed a “hero­in mod­el” and a “hero­in treat­ment mod­el” that were par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive at con­vinc­ing vot­ers to sup­port Port­man.

When describ­ing how they employed their “hero­in mod­el,” i360 was clear that Rob Portman’s “posi­tion” on the cri­sis depend­ed on the vot­er, empha­siz­ing health­care solu­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tions for some, and crim­i­nal jus­tice solu­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tions for oth­ers.
Here is i360 on the sub­ject: FORMATTED IN ORIGINAL ARTICLE

T]he issue of opi­oid abuse was par­tic­u­lar­ly com­plex in that it was rel­a­tive­ly unknown whether it was con­sid­ered a health­care issue or a crim­i­nal jus­tice issue. The answer to this would dic­tate the most effec­tive mes­sag­ing. In addi­tion, this was a par­tic­u­lar­ly per­son­al issue affect­ing some vot­ers and not oth­ers.

By lever­ag­ing two pre­dic­tive mod­els — the Hero­in mod­el iden­ti­fy­ing those con­stituents most like­ly to have been affect­ed by the issue of opi­oid abuse and the Hero­in Treat­ment mod­el deter­min­ing whether those indi­vid­u­als were more like­ly to view the issue as one of health­care or of crim­i­nal jus­tice — the cam­paign was able to effec­tive­ly craft their mes­sag­ing about Sen­a­tor Portman’s exten­sive work in the Sen­ate to be tai­lored to each indi­vid­ual accord­ing to their dis­po­si­tion on the top­ic.

This manip­u­la­tion of the opi­oid cri­sis for polit­i­cal gain has a per­verse irony giv­en the Kochs’ long-run­ning work to pro­vide cor­po­rate inter­ests, includ­ing health­care and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal inter­ests, with undue polit­i­cal pow­er and influ­ence over pub­lic pol­i­cy deci­sions. The Kochs have gift­ed over a mil­lion dol­lars to ALEC, for exam­ple, an orga­ni­za­tion that counts Pur­due Phar­ma — the uncon­scionable man­u­fac­tur­er of Oxy­Con­tin — as a mem­ber.

The com­pa­ny also stat­ed it joined Portman’s cam­paign 21 months before the elec­tion, and that, “Togeth­er, i360 and the cam­paign strate­gized a plan to exe­cute one of the most cus­tom-tar­get­ed, inte­grat­ed cam­paigns to date with a focus on get­ting the right mes­sage to the right vot­er wher­ev­er that might be.”

This is notable because dur­ing the 2016 elec­tion, i360 also ran $11.7 mil­lion worth of “inde­pen­dent” expen­di­tures for the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion Polit­i­cal Vic­to­ry Fund, Free­dom Part­ners Action Fund, and Amer­i­cans For Pros­per­i­ty in Portman’s race.

These out­side spenders, two of which are Koch-fund­ed groups, and Rob Portman’s cam­paign all used i360 to coor­di­nate their dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, phone banks, and tele­vi­sion ad buys, in the same mar­ket, in the same elec­tion.

Addi­tion­al­ly, i360 sup­plied Portman’s cam­paign with oth­er issue-based mod­els on gun con­trol, gay mar­riage, and abor­tion that the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to sup­ply to its clients in 2018.

Here are some exam­ples of i360’s issue-based mod­els: FORMATTED IN ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The list goes on, but the struc­ture stays the same. The Kochs are tai­lor­ing their adver­tis­ing to you, because they know near­ly every­thing about you.

[1] Less than two years ago, Koch Indus­tries also acquired and invest­ed $2 bil­lion into Infor, a cloud com­put­ing com­pa­ny focused on busi­ness appli­ca­tions. And as the own­ers of a diver­si­fied con­glom­er­ate, the Kochs have worked for decades to max­i­mize their sup­ply chains by invest­ing sub­stan­tial cap­i­tal into sys­tems engi­neer­ing and analy­sis.

The meth­ods used by the Koch Broth­ers and oth­er right wing orga­ni­za­tions to influ­ence polit­i­cal behav­ior is doc­u­ment­ed in Jane Mayer’s book “Dark Mon­ey, The Hid­den His­to­ry of the Bil­lion­aires Behind the Rise of the Rad­i­cal Right” it is described in the NY Times Book Review
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html

The pre-planned, “self-made” bil­lion­aire Jeff Bezos — world’s rich­est man.

BEZOS’ GRANDFATHER: ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION, DARPA/ARPA

https://americandigitalnews.com/index.php/2019/01/11/bezos-grandfather-atomic-energy-commission-darpa-arpa/

YOUR CAR IS SPYING ON YOU, AND A CBP CONTRACT SHOWS THE RISKS

A “vehi­cle foren­sics kit” can reveal where you’ve dri­ven, what doors you opened, and who your friends are.

The kit can dis­cov­er “when and where a vehicle’s lights are turned on, and which doors are opened and closed at spe­cif­ic loca­tions.”
Is Like They Got Smart­phone Data With­out Hav­ing to Crack Into a Smart­phone

“We had a Ford Explor­er … we pulled the sys­tem out, and we recov­ered 70 phones that had been con­nect­ed to it. All of their call logs, their con­tacts and their SMS.”

https://theintercept.com/2021/05/03/car-surveillance-berla-msab-cbp/

https://jalopnik.com/the-feds-can-access-the-data-on-your-phone-through-your-1846830499