Consider the Following Scenario
During the 2016 election campaign, a political firm named Cambridge Analytica was hired by the Trump Campaign. The firm obtained access to the private user information of 50 million Facebook users and had developed tools to assess the personality traits of the users. Based on usage habits largely relating to what a user “liked” on Facebook garnered from the user data, they were able to target digital advertisements tailored for various audiences to the individuals that comprised those groups.
According to testimony before Congress, Facebook contends that this was not a data breach in that it has routinely allowed access to data for academic purposes and that users consent to this when signing up for an account and further states that the data collected did not contain any sensitive data. They do concede that their previous policy which allowed this data to be harvested allowed a vulnerability to remain despite their prohibition against the data being transferred outside of the intended academic purposes and has since banned it.
The exploitation of this data by Cambridge Analytica was seen by many as a gross violation of their personal privacy and has brought about a considerable investigation, discussion and debate of what needs to be done to better protect peoples private information so it cannot be used in ways they find objectionable. In addition to the privacy concerns relating to this case, there is also considerable worry about the influence foreign powers may be having on our elections by spreading propaganda and fake news stories via Facebook and concern as to how far these actors are willing to go. Facebook is under extreme scrutiny by Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and other, very numerous, entities both domestically and internationally and has taken a hit to not only its reputation but also its bottom line with shareholders expressing significant disapproval a by-product.
This 2-3 page individual writing assignment requires reading the 2018 New York Times article, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as Fallout Widens (Links to an external site.)involving Cambridge Analytica and Facebook as a case study that you should use to base for your answers to the three questions posed below. Use the tools introduced in this lesson to assess the risk to the United States election system:
Risk-Consequence-Action Assessment
Risk/Consequence
Threat/Action Positive Negative
True
False
Grading Rubric
BLUF: Clear articulation of the bottom-line up front for the assignment scenario.
VAR: Addressed the VAR for an attempt to influence the US election system without taking an overt cyber action and with them taking an overt cyber action. Identified the three variables influencing VAR.
PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE: Cells are properly completed with the possible action/consequence. Identified the precautionary principal cell.
PRESENTATION/GRAMMAR: Cohesive responses, good presentation, summary free of spelling and grammatical errors, citations and bibliography where appropriate.