back to article Jeb Bush, the man who may lead the US in 2016, dumps Floridians' private data on the web

Former Florida governor, and likely US presidential candidate, Jeb Bush is taking heat after he published online a massive dump of email correspondence – which included highly personal records detailing the affairs of his constituents. JebEmails.com was set up by Team Bush to provide "transparency" into his eight-year stint at …

  1. elDog

    We're entering a strange world where everything can be connected

    I personally think that the lack of some common sense of scrubbing individuals names, addresses, phone#s, personal identification, etc. needs much better controls at both ends (extract and load).

    However this may not be totally useful since the algorithms can now detect who you are based on many correlative information.

    Let's start with a login name - probably close to something else you use.

    Then your IP - helps. Your cookies (mmm)

    The topics you are interested in (even hovering over a link lets the web site know you are thinking about clicking.)

    The sites you visit. The ancillary sites you allow to be loaded if you are paranoid.

    Best of all, the way you enter free-form text when requested (such as this.) I bet any decent 3-letter agency (and their commercial cohorts) would know who I am by the contents of this little text box.

    1. John G Imrie

      Re: We're entering a strange world where everything can be connected

      even hovering over a link lets the web site know you are thinking about clicking

      Not in my browser. and not in yours I expect unless the web page had downloaded some heat map generating javascript.

      1. elDog

        Re: We're entering a strange world where everything can be connected

        Yup - many sites are now JS-only. If you want to see the content you need to allow them to run code in your browser.

        And Yup - I do know of sites (and have coded some) that track your mouse actions and phone home with that info. If you want technical details, I'll supply them.

        Would you like to up-vote me now?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Further proof...

    that the weak link in the security chain is users. More often than not at least. Especially idiots or those who employ idiots to act on their behalf.

    I tried many tactics over the years to try to educate people using different company networks but at the end of the day most don't take it seriously. At best you end up getting called the network/password nazi.

    All you can really do is try to protect end users from themselves and when they blame you for their own mistakes you can point to a dozen emails about best practices you sent them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Further proof...

      Hi, network/password nazi

      : p

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: Further proof...

        Hi? Shouldn't that be 'Heil'?

        1. Kane
          Coat

          Re: Further proof...

          Godwin's Law in action.

          Yes, yes, I'm leaving...

      2. 's water music

        Re: Further proof...

        Hi, network/password nazi

        No network/password for you

    2. Oninoshiko
      WTF?

      Re: Further proof...

      What I want to know is why where people sending him their SSN by email? Would you write it on a postcard and send it around the world?

      1. Florida1920

        Re: Further proof...

        What I want to know is why where people sending him their SSN by email?

        "It's the governor's office FFS. The governor wouldn't misuse or release my personal information!"

        Some of my fellow Americans still trust their government.

        1. Oninoshiko

          Re: Further proof...

          1) Good god, what's wrong with them?!

          2) There is no 2

          3) Given that you can trust the government (as much of a stretch as that is), You're still sending enough information to steal your identity over unsecured networks (you should assume ALL networks are unsecured anyway) in plaintext.

          The reason I used a postcard in my example is non-encrypted email is the digital equivalent of a postcard. You should just ASSUME everyone has it at that point.

          I realize that not everyone is an elReg commantard, and so may not grasp the finer points of security, but a basic understanding of some of this needs to be given before you're allowed to use a computer.

  3. Mark 85

    Well, another idiot has bigger idiots for staffers and correspondents.

    So much for the tech savvy of the Florida Governor's office. If it had been a private company, there would be people screaming for heads... but never a politician's. As for the users A/C @ Further Proof summed it up. Sheeesh..........

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Encouraging future candidates to withhold emails

    They'll cite privacy concerns for their constituents, and point to Jeb Bush as an example.

  5. Mitoo Bobsworth
    Trollface

    Dear Jeb,

    Doo y'all need sumwun tuh explainify 'privacy' tuh yew?

  6. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    No beating about the Bush

    These people are idiots.

    1. Mitoo Bobsworth
      Thumb Up

      Re: No beating about the Bush

      Yes, beat him! Hold him upside down & shake him until his brains run out of his ears & some more useful internal organ slides up to fill his empty skull - his spleen prehaps.

  7. gregthecanuck
    Devil

    Jeb Bush rap

    Jeb Bush pushed a PST

    Without no thought to privacy.

    In a panic he did redact

    A great big fail and that's a fact.

  8. Magani
    FAIL

    Just what the world needs -

    Another shrub on the White House lawn.

  9. Big_Ted
    Devil

    Who needs the NSA

    When someone who could be Prez will give all the info to everyone on the web.

    Putin, IS et al must be drooling at the thought.

  10. frank ly

    I've often wondered

    Would it be worse to be ruled/governed by an evil dictator or by an idiot?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I've often wondered

      Cheney-Bush years: Evil dictator and an idiot

    2. dogged

      Re: I've often wondered

      I think Jeb Bush's staff cocked this one up.

      That man is no idiot. Neither is his father. His brother.... yeah well, there's always one. Jeb Bush is certainly dangerous and probably going to win the US presidency (because Americans don't have hereditary offices or royal families or aristocracy and I may stop laughing eventually).....

      George Bush was good at appealing to "the common man" - ie, idiots. He actually had charisma, people liked him. People like Jeb too. Jeb is George and Cheney all rolled into one. Well, maybe not as evil as Cheney but that's hard to quantify.

      1. Afernie

        Re: I've often wondered

        "That man is no idiot. Neither is his father."

        I'll hold fire on Jeb, but as for GHWB?:

        "It's no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or another."

        "I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."

        "Boy, they were big on crematoriums, weren't they?" (During a tour of AUSCHWITZ)

        "Fluency in English is something that I'm often not accused of."

        "If a frog had wings, he wouldn't hit his tail on the ground. Too hypothetical."

        "I'm not the most articulate emotionalist."

        Your definition of 'idiot' must be unique.

        1. dogged

          Re: I've often wondered

          I never said he was articulate :)

          1. Afernie

            Re: I've often wondered

            OK, but if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's a shrewd operator whose tongue trips him up occasionally, being articulate is a fairly critical skill for the Leader of the Free World, wouldn't you say? :-D

            1. dogged

              Re: I've often wondered

              > OK, but if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's a shrewd operator whose tongue trips him up occasionally, being articulate is a fairly critical skill for the Leader of the Free World, wouldn't you say? :-D

              Well, apparently not. Incidentally, most of the Free World does not regard POTUS as its leader in any way.

              Inarticulacy didn't stop GHWB from becoming head of the CIA, for example.

              1. Afernie

                Re: I've often wondered

                "Well, apparently not. Incidentally, most of the Free World does not regard POTUS as its leader in any way."

                Sarcasm detection failure...

                "Inarticulacy didn't stop GHWB from becoming head of the CIA, for example."

                A fact that you really ought to find terrifying.

        2. fishman

          Re: I've often wondered

          Just remember - GWB's grades at Yale were about the same as Gore & Kerry - his opponents in 2000 and 2004.

          Scary, isn't it?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Laziness

    Reminds me of my MP in the last UK government. An email question about a surveillance bill received a snailmail reply.

    Enclosed was a photocopy of an emollient reply to a similar query by another constituent. They had redacted the other person's name/address with a black marker pen after copying the original. Holding the page at a particular angle reflected the light off the toner layer - and those details were easily readable.

    1. jbuk1

      Re: Laziness

      Did you contact the ICO?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    he isn't, like, related?

    to those two, you know, them Bushes?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder if the money boys will still like him after this.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/jeb-bush-fundraiser-100k-per-ticket-115086.html

  14. heyrick Silver badge

    It's obvious

    Even God doesn't want another Bush in the White House.

    (would add "getting my coat" icon but that's not an option in the mobile version)

    1. earl grey
      Trollface

      Re: It's obvious

      You mean Hilary?

  15. Alistair
    Windows

    Bush.

    Them there Bush folk are bein' religious right?

    Ain't those books say them religious bushes should be burnin?

    Yup. Sounds legit.

    *shudders* at the thought of having another one of that family of stupid running the country south of the border.

  16. Tikimon
    Facepalm

    Voting market stifled for lack of choice

    It's the same everywhere. Hollywood can't think of anything new or creative, so they remake the same movies, work the same franchises over and over. It's a safer bet to make money on X-Men VII than try something new, right?

    Same with the political parties. Why chance a new candidate when you can roll out a Bush or Clinton again? They try the same old hacks again (John McCain or Kerry) as if nobody better has come along in 20 years.

    THIS DOES NOT MEAN WE THE PEOPLE WANT THEM. Please respect that neither side of the pond has ANY real choice in who "governs" our countries. The parties pick them, they make sure of that.

    1. JCitizen
      Megaphone

      Re: Voting market stifled for lack of choice

      Not if I can help it. I go to the caucuses and vote for the candidate I want in the primary elections. However, I'm only one member of one state - you can't control all 50 of them. We actually do try to select who we want before the election starts - Don't folks in the UK do the same?

  17. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Happy

    JeB Bush? TL;DR

    Sorry, I just can't seem to get past that name in any article that includes it. I start giggling hysterically at the thought of the Beverly Hillbillys in charge of the USA!

    1. disgruntled yank

      Re: JeB Bush? TL;DR

      The Bush family consists of Connecticut carpetbaggers who have successfully assimilated in the Sun Belt. They have mostly been schooled (expensively) in the mid-Atlantic states and New England: Andover, Yale, Harvard. That you imagine otherwise may be a tribute to their protective coloration, I suppose.

    2. JCitizen
      Angel

      Re: JeB Bush? TL;DR

      I actually think Jed Clampett would do a better job as President of the US! HA!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Republican'ts

    Did you really expect a republican't to have even the slightest understanding of technology. They all want us back in the dark ages.

    Remember 2008!!!!

    1. Saigua
      Meh

      Re: Republican'ts

      Got that Minimum Viable Error Product all warmed up, they did. Well, if we get a security reset every time, we'll just skip the election altogether and hope Solaris Desktop '16 works out for us and that we don't all have to live at equidistant points on one road, the Rue De Bolivar.

  19. disgruntled yank

    2017, anyone?

    The next presidential election will be in 2016, the next presidential inauguration on January 20, 2017.

    But you have to admit--Bush v. Clinton--always something new out of America!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just another example of gross incompetence

    Nothing new here...just another day in the life of a politician and his staff.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just another example of gross incompetence

      Dumb and Dumber, life imitates art.

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