
Cambridge Analytica staff set up new firm - edward
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44807093
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lordnacho
This can't be a surprise. A lot of firms in the professional services sector
have no real assets, just the knowledge and relationships held by their staff.
Bankruptcy doesn't transfer such things to creditors, and legal rulings stick
with the old entity.

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dalbasal
This is an example of leaks in the corporation="legal person" abstraction, the
"intangible assets" abstraction.. or it's twin, IP. Some "stuff" is not like
other "stuff".

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nickbauman
Cambridge Analytica -> Auspex

Blackwater -> Xe Services

Operating in Africa, no less.

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civilitty
Xe Services -> Academi

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mockingbirdy
I think their value comes from the collected data of Facebook profiles. If
they just copy the data and their trained models, they essentially just use
the IP that brought them into that mess in the first place.

All the knowledge doesn't help them, they'll need to use their models which
they've developed at CA. Otherwise they can know a lot about machine learning
and statistical methods, but don't have the data to train their models. I
think it will be revealed that they just use the same data. Which is
borderline illegal, IMO.

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lozenge
Their psychographic model was hugely overblown. A couple of Facebook likes do
not mean they suddenly know the path to change your mind with some ads. They
were just a political dirty tricks operative.

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/19/cambridge-
an...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/19/cambridge-analytica-
execs-boast-dirty-tricks-honey-traps-elections)

~~~
mockingbirdy
In the article you've linked, the whistleblower says: "the company itself was
founded on using Facebook data" (watch at minute 09:00).

Their models might not be the most accurate, but they are a big part of their
success. + all those dirty tricks they've pulled off.

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sml156
What did people think they were going to do just give up and go work on a
construction site or maybe work at McDonald's

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jonny_eh
This is why people need to be punished, not just companies.

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stochastic_monk
Another one? They already started emerdata.

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rch
> The company was set up by Ahmed Al-Khatib, a former director of Emerdata

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amelius
If only LinkedIn allowed us to give these people negative endorsements ...

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toomuchtodo
Nothing stops you from creating a quick website with details, screenshots, and
good SEO to show up in Google.

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amelius
Yeah, but Google allows one to issue a request for removal of a URL.

(Also, I'm not sure this would be the best way to deal with people like this,
and I guess it would need more thought.)

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toomuchtodo
If you own the URL. Others can only submit removal requests if the content no
longer exists.

