#quote is from bombshells 85

[oraclesclocktower]

have you ever loved someone so much your heart goes quiet and still? that was my sister.

DC Bombshells - 2015

[xtruss]

Israeli — Not Chinese — Firm Caught Exporting Its ‘Authoritarian Model’

Is there a double standard when government-linked makers and sellers of ‘nasty’ spyware used by autocrats are U.S. allies?

— JULY 20, 2021 | Written by Ethan Paul | ResponsibleStateCraft.Com

Politicians and pundits in Washington have long warned that China is seeking to erode global democracy and “export its authoritarian model,” but the culprit behind explosive spy revelations this week appears to be America’s closest military ally in the Middle East.

A private Israeli surveillance firm has been selling spyware to several governments for use in terrorism and criminal investigations, but some have turned it on journalists, activists, business executives, and politicians, an investigation by a consortium of 17 media organizations revealed on Sunday.

Reports by The Guardian and Washington Post, among others, said that NSO Group, a private Israeli firm with links to the state, developed and sold governments licenses for hacking software called “Pegasus.” The tool is capable of penetrating smartphones, granting access to their most sensitive data, and remotely activating features such as cameras and microphones.

Investigations of a leaked data system containing 50,000 phone numbers concluded that it may have been a list of possible targets compiled by 10 countries with licenses to use the tool. Among them are several authoritarian or increasingly non-democratic countries, such as Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, and Hungary, as well as others close to the U.S., including Saudi Arabia, India, and Mexico.

1,000 people spread across 50 different countries were identified as having numbers on the list. According to the Washington Post, among them are “several Arab royal family members, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists, and more than 600 politicians and government officials.” This includes Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s lead Iran negotiator, and journalists for CNN, the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.

Forensic analysis of 67 implicated phones found that 37 showed traces of attempted or successful penetration; results for the remaining 30 were “inconclusive,” but did not definitively rule out an attempted hack. “After the investigation began,” the Post reported, “several reporters in the consortium learned that they or their family members had been successfully attacked with Pegasus spyware.”

Timothy Summers, a former cybersecurity engineer in the U.S. intelligence community quoted by the Post, described Pegasus as an “eloquently nasty” tool that could be used to “spy on almost the entire world population.”

The tool was developed by Israeli ex-cyberspies a decade ago, and has been in use since at least 2016. NSO counts 60 intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies across 40 countries as customers, and the Post characterizes the organization as a “worldwide leader in the growing and largely unregulated private spyware industry.”

For its part, NSO disputed the investigation’s findings. It claims that licensing contracts stipulate Pegasus is only to be used for terrorism and criminal investigations, and that it conducts a rigorous vetting process into potential customers’ human rights records. It denied that the leaked data constituted a list of targets, and said that it has terminated contracts with five governments over concerns about potential abuses.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense closely regulates NSO and individually signs off on new export licenses for its surveillance technology – making it likely that the program was well-known if not endorsed at the highest levels of the Israeli government.

Less than 24 hours after this bombshell dropped, the United States joined the European Union, NATO, Japan and its “Five Eyes” allies in a Monday morning media blitz accusing China of orchestrating a global cyber hacking campaign, including a large attack on Microsoft first disclosed in March.

Although U.S. intelligence agencies likely target China in cyberspace for non-commercial reasons, there is no doubt that China is a highly aggressive actor with a long history of targeting companies, universities and government agencies; it is also a leading exporter of some high-tech surveillance equipment, although the U.S. and other democracies are not far behind.

There is also no doubt that if a Chinese firm were found selling spyware to potentially dozens of governments, some of whom then used it to target activists and journalists, it would be held up as a leading example of how China is “exporting its authoritarian model” or “exporting its ideology,” adding fuel to the Biden administration’s fire that it is leading a great global struggle between democracies and autocracies to win the 21st century.

What ideology is one of America’s closest military and political partners exporting when it sells Pegasus to rights-abusing regimes with limited oversight? Was the U.S. government aware of this practice, and if so, for how long? What will the U.S. and its coalition of democracies do to hold Israel accountable for eroding global democratic norms?

That the Biden administration and Congress are unlikely to offer substantive answers to any of these questions — despite the fact that Washington has far more leverage over Israel than it does China — lends credence to the argument that being considered a threat to the “liberal rules-based order” is more about who you are than what you do.

It signals to China and others that, so long as you support Western power and primacy, you will get a pass; as long as you challenge it, you will be a threat. If so, what does China have to gain from exercising restraint, and what does it have to lose from taking aggressive actions such as hacking Microsoft?

Little to nothing. If China believes it is in a global struggle with the West simply over power and position, then it makes little sense to pass up any opportunity to gain any strategic advantage, no matter how much Western backlash it produces.

[jonfarreporter]

Movie Star of Hollywood Golden Era contributed to the current technology of ‘WiFi and BlueTooth’

By Jonathan Farrell

Netflix and Amazon have both made available the 2017 biography, "Bombshell:The Hedy Lamarr Story,” directed by Alexandra Dean. This past May, Netflix added it to its new releases line up for subscribers to watch.

While the hour-and-a-half documentary highlights the fascinating and complex life of the Austrian-born movie star, it also mentions her struggles to promote inventions she patented.

One invention she was most persistent about was her invention of what is known as "frequency hopping" or "Spread Spectrum." This method of radio transmitting signals is the basis of our current wireless and 'BlueTooth' technology. It is noted by Wikipedia and others that there were several "inventors" of this type of transmitting system, the first being Guglielmo Marconi just before the beginning of the 20th Century, along with Nicholas Tesla and several others.

But it was actress Hedy Lamarr that obtained a U.S. Patent in 1942 during World War II. It is she who provides the most unusual of attempts amid the many who sought to implement this approach to radio wave transmitting. Her patent refers to radio frequency idea as a "Secret Communications System."

Much of the basis of the documentary is formed from interviews and books like “Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World,” by Richard Rhodes. Dean was able to obtain recordings of telephone interviews with Lamarr in 1990 by Forbes writer Fleming Meeks. According to Dean as she told the LA Times back in Dec. of last year, "In those tapes, Lamarr talked about her inventions..."

This reporter was able to reach out to biographers James Parish and Patrick Agan. Both writers focus on the entertainment world, especially, Hollywood and its Golden Age. At the peak of her career Lamarr epitomized the glamour and allure of that era.

Some of Parish’s work and excerpts of comments about Lamarr are included in "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story." He noted that Lamarr was quite a remarkable woman, especially due to the fact that women inventors at that time were rare. "After a long day at the studio making movies, she would get home and work on her inventions."

When I talked to writer and biographer Patrick Agan he mentioned that Lamarr was much more than what appeared on screen. Her beauty may have attracted audiences to the cinema. "...but once they were there she let them know there was more to her than the languid beauty...the soulful eyes..."

"I talked to her for many hours by phone over a period of several years," he said. Agan at the time was working on a book about Lamarr entitled "Beyond Ecstasy."

Some who were skeptical of Lamarr's work said she must have taken it from someone else.

When asked if he knew if Lamarr had plagiarized any of her ideas from someone else, Agan affirmed that her first husband Freidrich Mandl an executive at a armaments company in Austria discussed these subjects frequently; and that she might have been privy to conversations about torpedoes and other weapons of the time. But, her sheer determination and persistence went far beyond mere dabbling.

While Lamarr had no formal scientific training, she had been encouraged to learn and take an interest in things like science from an early age. In the documentary it was said that as a little girl she took things apart. And, then put it back together again. Lamarr was quoted that it was her father who encouraged her the most and her inquisitiveness never left her. She always kept notebooks/sketch books of her ideas and discoveries.

As tensions throughout Europe in the 1930's increased, Lamarr left for Hollywood. But not without being distraught over the devastation and suffering WWII caused. One of the first things that movie mogul Louis B. Mayer did was have Lamarr cut all ties to her Jewish identity and heritage. She lost relatives in the concentration camps and was very anti-Nazi. The power of Nazi Germany during WWII was a menace that reached beyond Europe. Both British and US forces struggled to gain an upper hand over the growing power of the Nazi war machine.

Even though she was ignored and discouraged by U.S. military and government officials when approaching them with this technology idea of "frequency hopping," she would not give up.  

It was something she worked on diligently. "She wanted the war to stop and the Nazi's to be defeated, Agan said. Lamarr did have a collaborator, the composer George Antheil whom she met at a party."

New Jersey-born Antheil had spent considerable time in Europe before the war. He was among a group of avant-garde musicians and composers of the time. He eventually made his way back to the U.S. and to Hollywood where he worked composing music scores for movies. He was also an accomplished author of plays and articles for publications.

Like Lamarr, he too lost relatives in the war, was very anti-Nazi and wanted to the war to stop. At the party, where they met, when their conversation turned to torpedoes and the way they were controlled by radio frequencies, the two got very interested the idea of radio frequency hopping.

At the time, a torpedo's course could be detected and thrown off course by jamming or interfering with the radio signal frequency. The Nazi-German forces were excelling in this type of war-technology.

With his knowledge of music, especially piano key notes, Antheil used the idea of piano keys to randomly change the signals. Using a spectrum of 88 frequencies like the keys on a piano key board the code for a sequence of frequencies would be kept by the ship with the controls over the torpedo. Fortunately, aircraft tycoon, Howard Hughes liked Lamarr and gave her full access to his team of engineers and scientists to help her.

Some historians speculate that Antheil's piano keys approach was an early form of encrypting; making it impossible for enemy forces to scan or jam the series of frequencies. It is not clear whether or not Lamarr and Antheil actually made a prototype. Only when the patent for their "Secret Communications System," was rediscovered in the 1950s when private companies sought to develop methods and devices of their own is when renewed interest flourished.

The U.S. Military did not consider the invention any further until the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early 1960s. By that time Lamarr's patent had expired, allowing the military to use it. Yet, despite skepticism, according to a NY Times news brief from 1941, Col. L. B. Lent, chief engineer of the National Inventors Council was quoted as saying Lamarr's invention was to be classified as in the 'red hot' category.

Even if Lamarr and Antheil's lack of formal training in science was the main reason for the U.S. Military's reluctance to look deeper  into their idea, "the persistence of Lamarr is amazing," said Again. She took great risk not only to her Hollywood career but to her status as an immigrant. "All those times I talked to her by phone, said Agan, I never asked why she didn't become a U.S. Citizen until the 1950s."

After her work with legendary director Cecil B. DeMille in the 1949 hit movie "Samson and Delilah," Lamarr's Hollywood career was never the same. She did make appearances but her star power was not as it had been. 

Over the years that followed, her failed marriages, addiction to drugs and plastic surgery turned Lamarr into a recluse. Which, some say is why she conducted those interviews with Meeks and then with Agan and others by phone.

In 1997 Lamarr's invention was recognized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She died in 2000 at the age of 85.

To learn more about the documentary film "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story now streaming, visit Netflix.

[dorianthekinkymf]

FLIP TO PAGE 85 OF HEIR OF FIRE AND READ WHAT LUCA SAID IF U DON'T HAVE A COPY WITH YOU I CAN QUOTE HIM. HERE: "We did have a female wander in here with raw magic two years ago-- she could do anything she wanted, summon any element, and she was here a week before Maeve called her to Doranelle and we never heard from her again. A shame-- she was so pretty too." DORIAN IS PRETTY AND HAS RAW MAGIC TOO HE ALSO LOOKS NOTHING LIKE HIS PARENTS, AND SO MY EPIPHANY IS SHE IS HIS REAL MOTHER.

(SO I started answering this but it turned into somewhere to paste all my views and theories about the Havilliards hahahaha)

Hmmm idk but I’ve never really believed any theories about Dorian’s parents being anyone other than the King and Queen for a few reasons: 

You can’t really dupe everyone in regards to the mother. Like the Queen can’t just show up one day and be like “hey this is my son” because everyone will be like “lol nope, you weren’t pregnant”, unless there is some sort of elaborate scheme to swap newborns 

I’m probably the only person in the entire fandom who thinks this, but you know that scene in QOS where the King is revealed, like the real King beneath the valg and we realise that this entire time he had been controlled and had used whatever independence he had to shield Dorian. Well... at that point I honestly forgave him for everything. I was crying at the fact that he had tried his hardest to save baby Dorian and this is probably just because I love Dorian so much and would protect him with my life, but I forgave him. ANYWAY, as a King he would have wanted his real heir to continue the line. And also the King of Adarlan was quite powerful so i reckon his power went to Dorian

Maybe, maybe there is some aspect in Valg in Dorian (not quite sure what happens when you have sex with a valg inhabited human). I feel like Hollin is definitely the product of valg inhabited human x human but another unpopular opinion, I really don’t like the #killHollin2k17 tag and its variations. Yeah he’s absolutely horrific but he is an 11 year old boy. Many of our faves have done things just as bad and they are fully fledged adults who get easily forgiven. I just think its a bit unfair (another side note: yeah Hollin is probs a Havilliard but there’s nothing to suggest he has magic yet so he can’t forge the lock regardless??)

Also I think it’s a bit late in the game for Dorian’s real heritage to be revealed? Like we only have one book left and honestly it would cause a mess because as (1) some random kid made a prince or (2) an illegitimate child; he will be ineligible for the throne

I also feel like my entire view is based on the fact that so much of Dorian’s character and my love of him derives from his status as a prince and later King who just wants to do what’s best for his people. And who has turned into such a good man despite what he faced. And having his title taken away would devastate me and i’m sure it would devastate him

BUT THERE ARE SO MANY LITTLE EASTER EGGS, that I can’t 100% say that SJM won’t hit us with a bombshell of where Dorian came from

[magzier-blog]

Another Path Of Exile Race Held By One Of The Game Fans Went Public And Is Drumming For More Participants Now

Earlier today, there was a race published in Path of Exile official website billboard calling for community members' volunteering. Unlike the previous ones, the race, which will be held in the game 4 days later, is a player-initiated event other than usual official hosting events. Advocated, funded and hosted by one of the Path of Exile players, named Kammel, the race soon has become the highlight and bombshell in the community and drew plenty of attention from the player base after the announcement went public.

A Path of Exile race a type of event where players compete in a special league to win prizes. With durations ranging from twelve minutes to one month, they allow players to demonstrate mastery of the game. The goal is to accumulate the highest amount of experience possible within the time limit, starting with a new character and an empty stash. Many races have special modifications, such as preventing players from making parties or increasing monster damage.

Based on the history, all Path of Exile races varies from modifiers, timelines, winner prizes, and rules of course. And this latest race is much more different from any of the past ones in history. First of all, this race doesn't require a modifier as we already heard it from the announcement quoted "the league will be modless". A race without modifier means that there will be no more bars or thresholds during the whole competition once you're in. It will be much easier for most of the participants to complete the race without running themselves into the ground.

In addition to No-Modifier, this race also features the duo-only entry rules. Competitors must have to team up with one another participant in their own parties and complete the race as a duo. Also, the rules regulate the requirements of participants' levels, recording as well as the division of bonus in a duo by indicating that one of the players in a duo must hit 85+ level and stream their competition process on Twitch (doesn't need to be the same person do both). And it's a 50-50 split when it comes to claiming their bonus for the winning teams.

The most thrilling and fascinating part of this race that should be headlined would be prize pool. Hugely differ from the past, this race will provide RWM(Real World Money) instead of any of virtual currencies or prizes as winning bonus. So far, the prize pool has already $320 in it, but the number clearly won't hold given there are still a couple of days ahead of announcing the winners' list and the host promised to threw another 100 bucks into the prize pool with donation access later. By the granting rules published on the site, the prizes will only go to the two teams that hit 85 first before any else does.

More specifics to put forward, the host, Kammel made it very clear on the announcement regarding one of the entry restrictions that mattered most would be, as quoted, "Please if trying to enter into race have some racing history, a vouch from someone in the race or a good VOD. Looking for sub-2h A5 Kitava or sub-4h A10 Kitava both with labs (excluding Merc Lab in A10 run) and skill points done." I figure if any of the players would jump at the chance to participate in the race, some necessary backgrounds like the above ones should be viewed carefully before making a gaffe in front of other competitors.

To view more details about this race, click here to check out the complete version of the original announcement in the official website on your own.

Find grinding or questing too boring to go on? Doing all the quests and adventures still can't provide you with the desired amount of Path of Exile Currency? Hard to furnish yourself with a bunch of legendary equipment that you have none and stoop to picking up lousy ones? Here is a cure for all of your concerns and anxiety - MMOAH. MMOAH.com now opened up a New POE Currency store and welcome all the gamers have been yearning for POE Orbs, Items, and other POE Currency in new Betrayal League. Take a look at the new store, if you purchase now, you will be given a coupon code - "BETRAYAL" for free, which can save you 6% off for every order on MMOAH.

[harryandmeghan0-blog]

James Weir column: Meghan Markle’s destination baby shower sets new trend - NEWS.com.au

New Post has been published on https://harryandmeghan.xyz/james-weir-column-meghan-markles-destination-baby-shower-sets-new-trend-news-com-au/

James Weir column: Meghan Markle’s destination baby shower sets new trend - NEWS.com.au

First came destination weddings and destination birthday parties, now it’s all about destination baby showers — and we have Meghan Markle to thank for the punishing onslaught of invites to the Gold Coast we’re about to receive.

The Duchess threw her baby shower this week in Manhattan and it was all very grand.

She’s such a trend setter and at first it was fun. She’d be spotted with a stylish-yet-affordable Oroton purse and we’d all run out and buy it so we could tell people it’s the same one Meghan has. But it’s just getting ridiculous. Baby showers are tedious to begin with — and now we’re going to have to commute to annoying locations to get to them.

Any destination celebration is just the worst.

“People are still talking about our destination wedding,” one friend, who made everyone lumber over to New Zealand for the nuptials last year, recently claimed.

“Talking about or complaining about?” I replied.

“Everyone loved it, because it was kind of like a mini holiday for them,” he insisted.

Destination parties are a holiday for no one except the person throwing it. For attendees, it’s a waste of money and annual leave.

The worst part about these destination baby showers we’re all going to have to attend is they won’t be anything like Meghan’s. Her bash this week took place in the $100,000 a night penthouse of The Mark Hotel on the Upper East Side.

There were crates of Sancerre and meat provided by a luxury butcher (apparently that’s a thing). There was a fairy floss machine next to a classy harp player, which is a really expensive example of juxtaposition. Amal Clooney chartered a private jet and Serena Williams bankrolled the entire operation.

The showers we’ll be heading to from now on won’t be at some glam hotel in NYC. They’ll be at some random Rydges Resort. And they won’t involve the private jet of human rights lawyer Amal Clooney — just us suffering through a Jetstar flight while questioning our human rights.

20 YEARS IN POLITICS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY TINA ARENA CD

Is Julie Bishop more than just a fabulous pair of shoes and a well-worn Tina Arena CD?

Of course she is. She also has great blazers.

But apparently shoes and Evita are all that came to ScoMo’s mind when pushed to reflect on the groundbreaking career of the former foreign minister.

Julie Bishop’s bombshell decision to quit politics this week surprised. But it was ScoMo’s speech that shocked.

“We share many things in common, not just thinking that Tina Arena is the best Australian female singer!” he chortled.

“Her successor will have big shoes to fill, and we all know Julie has the best shoes in the parliament!”

He said a bunch of other things but these are the two quotes some people are latching onto and context is for losers, anyway.

His statements have raised eyebrows for many reasons. Mainly about Tina Arena being the best Australian female singer. It’s like he’s not even aware all five former members of Bardot are still alive and partially working.

He was trying to be personal while eulogising Julie’s career but it came out like a dad joke. It’s the kind of message you write on the big novelty card that’s passed around the office when Jill the admin girl goes on maternity leave.

ScoMo was one step away from suggesting Julie may like to forge a post-political career as the 2IC of that fancy new shoe level at David Jones Elizabeth Street.

Indeed, Julie’s achievements throughout her 20 year political career can’t be summarised in a hokey send-off. But when I eventually quit my job — and fingers crossed it’s any day now — I hope all that’s mentioned are my fabulous shoes and collection of Tina Arena CDs.

A TRIBUTE TO THE WORLD’S OLDEST MEAN GIRL

Vale Karl Lagerfeld — the legendary creative director of Chanel who died this week aged 85 — and congratulations to his cat Choupette, who’s set to inherit a giant chunk of his $273 million fortune.

Hands up if you’d trade in your current life to be Choupette. She has several maids and gets around in a private jet — probably the same one Amal used for Meghan’s baby shower. Once you know these facts, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous Karl left her the cash — obviously she has a lot of bills to pay.

Karl was internationally known as a fashion god, but in the hours following his death many people began to realise he was also the world’s oldest mean girl. Countless listicles have now been published detailing all the savage things he said about people. Most of his insults were about women in sweatpants and, honestly, it’s all pretty accurate.

In a particularly snarky quote, he voiced his disdain for “rumpledness”. And this probably explains his decision to be cremated. I imagine being buried underground would lead to insane rumpledness.

Karl literally would not be caught dead looking rumpled. Could you imagine if, in the future, his body had to be exhumed for further analysis and they hoisted him out of the dirt looking rumpled? He’d die.

HOT NEW SEX ACT CAPTIVATING AUSTRALIANS

We’ve been shocked by a lot on this year’s Married At First Sight — cheating scandals and virgins ending up in the ER. But one thing has topped it all — a hot new sex trend: Thumbing. It’s all the rage.

Over two episodes, an extremely rational and not at all hilarious debate raged on between Lizzie and Sam about who thumbed who.

“You put ya thumb in my mouth! You put ya thumb in my mouth!” Lizzie yelled at her estranged husband.

“No, you put my thumb in your mouth,” he screamed back.

It was all very sensible. And it hurled into the spotlight the act of thumbing. Long overlooked in the bedroom, it’s about time thumbing got the attention and acceptance it deserves.

Too embarrassed to ask for it? I get it. Try giving your partner a subtle hint by just leaning into it. If they’re a little shy, maybe start with a pinky.

Both feeling adventurous? Switch it up and thumb each other.

Or go bold: thumb yourself.

REAL WINNER OF THIS YEAR’S OSCARS

The Oscars is this Monday and Bradley Cooper is psyched. Not just because he’s up for Best Actor with A Star Is Born. But because the evening will mark perhaps the final time he has to hang out with Lady Gaga.

The past few years of working with Gaga on the flick have been a total punish for Bradley. The lady’s intense. And it has ramped up over the past few months doing promo for the movie. He actually can’t stand hearing her recite the same earnest “one hundred people in a room” monologue one more time. But it’s almost over. And he will be the true winner of the night.

Twitter and Facebook: @hellojamesweir

Source: https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/james-weir-meghan-markle-kickstarts-annoying-new-trend-of-destination-baby-showers/news-story/a846fba1c67a362e84edd24d21db69cb

[anthonycharlestabone]

Having trouble viewing? View in Browser Tuesday, November 21, 2017 Welcome to Fox News First. Not signed up yet? Click here. Developing now, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2017: Federal judge blocks President Trump's executive order cracking down on sanctuary cities. Veteran journalist Charlie Rose faces uncertain future after CBS and PBS suspend him following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct Massive manhunt in killing of Border Patrol agent Democrats in disarray after series of sex scandals The Justice Department sues AT&T to stop its $85 billion Time Warner deal THE LEAD STORY: A federal judge in California has permanently blocked President Trump's executive order to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with U.S. immigration authorities ... U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick ruled that the White House does not have the authority to impose new conditions on spending already approved by Congress. The latest decision is in line with the argument Orrick made in April that temporarily halted the administration’s attempt to crack down on sanctuary cities, prompting an appeal. The judge’s ruling came after two California counties, San Francisco and Santa Clara, filed lawsuits against the Trump administration. Judge William Orrick bundled $200K for Obama Who is Judge William Orrick III? Sanctuary cities: What you should know Closing arguments in Kate Steinle murder trial CHARLIE ROSE ACCUSED: Charlie Rose faces an uncertain future while CBS and PBS reel after eight women accuse the legendary journalist of sexual misconduct ... The 75-year-old "CBS This Morning" co-host and longtime PBS star said in a statement, "I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed." CBS and PBS both suspended Rose and PBS halted production of his show. Powerful and influential men have been facing allegations of sexual misconduct on a regular basis since disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was outed as a sexual predator with a pair of bombshell reports in The New York Times and New Yorker in October. High-profile media members such as New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush and Mark Halperin have joined celebrities such as Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K. and a handful of politicians accused of sexual misconduct in recent weeks. SEARCH FOR SUSPECTS: Authorities have launched an intense manhunt for suspects in the killing of a Border Patrol agent ... Illegal immigrants appeared to have “ambushed” two U.S. Border Patrol agents near the Texas border with Mexico and bashed their heads with blunt objects -- possibly rocks -- killing one agent and sending another to a hospital in serious condition Sunday, a National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) official told Fox News.Rogelio Martinez, 36, was killed and another agent, who has not been identified, was injured while they were patrolling the Big Bend Sector, leading authorities to scour West Texas for the attackers, officials said. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has offered a reward of up to $20,000 "for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible" for the attack.  DEMS ON DEFENSIVE: Democrats are on the defensive as a series of sexual misconduct have rocked the party and forced a revisit of ghosts of Bill Clinton's past  ...  Suddenly, longtime Clinton loyalists like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand are abandoning them, out of political expediency. The sexual misconduct allegations continued Monday. California Assembly Majority Whip Raul Bocanegra scrapped his re-election campaign and announced his resignation amid growing sexual harassment allegations. In addition, a second woman came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Sen. Al Franken. Fox News Opinion: Hillary is toast: Scandals finally catch up with Clintons Hey, Kirsten Gillibrand - a lot of us knew what Bill Clinton did was wrong back in the 1990s No "Pence rule" would have made any difference with sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein AN EPIC COURTROOM BATTLE COMING: The Justice Department is suing AT&T to stop its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner, setting up a potentially titanic legal battle ...  The DOJ's antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, said that a combined AT&T-Time Warner would "greatly harm American consumers" by hiking television bills and hampering innovation, particularly in online television service. The DOJ said AT&T would be able to charge rival distributors such as cable companies "hundreds of millions of dollars more per year" for Time Warner's programming — payments that would ultimately get passed down to consumers through their cable bills. AT&T said it is confident a federal court will reject the Justice Department's challenge. The company's general counsel, David McAtee, said the suit was "a radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent." AT&T-Time Warner deal outcome will redefine anti-trust laws: COX President   AS SEEN ON FOX NEWS CLINTON COMEUPPANCE: "This is not ancient history. You're going to have all these liberal wheedlers [asking] why are we talking about Bill Clinton. ... [The Clintons] are the godparents of victim-shaming smear tactics." – Michelle Malkin, on "Hannity," sounding off on the Clinton family being "protected" by the mainstream media for decades until a recent series of sexual misconduct allegations against fellow liberals surfaced. WATCH THE LAST STRAW?: "His family deserves justice. This should never be happening in the United States."  – Laura Ingraham, on "The Ingraham Angle," saying the murder of U.S. Customs & Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez "better be the final straw for members of Congress" to take action on President Trump's proposed wall and meaningful border security legislation. WATCH ACROSS THE NATION UC Berkeley professor's 'slaughterbots' video on killer drones goes viral. Wife of Raiders' head coach says Trump's tweets on NFL makes her regret early support, reports say. Exclusive: Lawmakers call on Trump administration to outlaw Muslim Brotherhood with new strategy.   MINDING YOUR BUSINESS A Black Friday road map for shoppers. U.S. growth forecasts are on the rise. NFL is dead in red states as anthem protests hurt football.   NEW IN FOX NEWS OPINION Lena Dunham embodies the myth of white liberal 'tolerance.' Charles Manson -- America's poster child for our fascination with evil and fear. Elephant trophies? Seriously? This is what Washington is spending its time on?   HOLLYWOOD SQUARED Seth Meyers in final talks to host the 2018 Golden Globes. Beyonce topples Taylor Swift as the highest-paid female musician of 2017. Kevin Spacey accuser's mother says eight people have come to her with more stories.   DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS? Black Friday's biggest deals and savings. Wild conspiracy theory claims that Apollo moon landing was 'faked.' 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The Data That Turned the World Upside Down

Psychologist Michal Kosinski developed a method to analyze people in minute detail based on their Facebook activity. Did a similar tool help propel Donald Trump to victory? Two reporters from Zurich-based Das Magazin went data-gathering.​

An earlier version of this story appeared in Das Magazin in December.

On November 9 at around 8.30 AM., Michal Kosinski woke up in the Hotel Sunnehus in Zurich. The 34-year-old researcher had come to give a lecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) about the dangers of Big Data and the digital revolution. Kosinski gives regular lectures on this topic all over the world. He is a leading expert in psychometrics, a data-driven sub-branch of psychology. When he turned on the TV that morning, he saw that the bombshell had exploded: contrary to forecasts by all leading statisticians, Donald J. Trump had been elected president of the United States.

For a long time, Kosinski watched the Trump victory celebrations and the results coming in from each state. He had a hunch that the outcome of the election might have something to do with his research. Finally, he took a deep breath and turned off the TV.

On the same day, a then little-known British company based in London sent out a press release: "We are thrilled that our revolutionary approach to data-driven communication has played such an integral part in President-elect Trump's extraordinary win," Alexander James Ashburner Nix was quoted as saying. Nix is British, 41 years old, and CEO of Cambridge Analytica. He is always immaculately turned out in tailor-made suits and designer glasses, with his wavy blonde hair combed back from his forehead. His company wasn't just integral to Trump's online campaign, but to the UK's Brexit campaign as well.

Of these three players—reflective Kosinski, carefully groomed Nix and grinning Trump—one of them enabled the digital revolution, one of them executed it and one of them benefited from it.

How dangerous is big data?

Anyone who has not spent the last five years living on another planet will be familiar with the term Big Data. Big Data means, in essence, that everything we do, both on and offline, leaves digital traces. Every purchase we make with our cards, every search we type into Google, every movement we make when our mobile phone is in our pocket, every "like" is stored. Especially every "like." For a long time, it was not entirely clear what use this data could have—except, perhaps, that we might find ads for high blood pressure remedies just after we've Googled "reduce blood pressure."

On November 9, it became clear that maybe much more is possible. The company behind Trump's online campaign—the same company that had worked for Leave.EU in the very early stages of its "Brexit" campaign—was a Big Data company: Cambridge Analytica.

To understand the outcome of the election—and how political communication might work in the future—we need to begin with a strange incident at Cambridge University in 2014, at Kosinski's Psychometrics Center.

Psychometrics, sometimes also called psychographics, focuses on measuring psychological traits, such as personality. In the 1980s, two teams of psychologists developed a model that sought to assess human beings based on five personality traits, known as the "Big Five." These are: openness (how open you are to new experiences?), conscientiousness (how much of a perfectionist are you?), extroversion (how sociable are you?), agreeableness (how considerate and cooperative you are?) and neuroticism (are you easily upset?). Based on these dimensions—they are also known as OCEAN, an acronym for openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism—we can make a relatively accurate assessment of the kind of person in front of us. This includes their needs and fears, and how they are likely to behave. The "Big Five" has become the standard technique of psychometrics. But for a long time, the problem with this approach was data collection, because it involved filling out a complicated, highly personal questionnaire. Then came the Internet. And Facebook. And Kosinski.

Michal Kosinski was a student in Warsaw when his life took a new direction in 2008. He was accepted by Cambridge University to do his PhD at the Psychometrics Centre, one of the oldest institutions of this kind worldwide. Kosinski joined fellow student David Stillwell (now a lecturer at Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge) about a year after Stillwell had launched a little Facebook application in the days when the platform had not yet become the behemoth it is today. Their MyPersonality app enabled users to fill out different psychometric questionnaires, including a handful of psychological questions from the Big Five personality questionnaire ("I panic easily," "I contradict others"). Based on the evaluation, users received a "personality profile"—individual Big Five values—and could opt-in to share their Facebook profile data with the researchers.

Followers of Lady Gaga were most probably extroverts, while those who "liked" philosophy tended to be introverts.

Kosinski had expected a few dozen college friends to fill in the questionnaire, but before long, hundreds, thousands, then millions of people had revealed their innermost convictions. Suddenly, the two doctoral candidates owned the largest dataset combining psychometric scores with Facebook profiles ever to be collected.

The approach that Kosinski and his colleagues developed over the next few years was actually quite simple. First, they provided test subjects with a questionnaire in the form of an online quiz. From their responses, the psychologists calculated the personal Big Five values of respondents. Kosinski's team then compared the results with all sorts of other online data from the subjects: what they "liked," shared or posted on Facebook, or what gender, age, place of residence they specified, for example. This enabled the researchers to connect the dots and make correlations.

Remarkably reliable deductions could be drawn from simple online actions. For example, men who "liked" the cosmetics brand MAC were slightly more likely to be gay; one of the best indicators for heterosexuality was "liking" Wu-Tang Clan. Followers of Lady Gaga were most probably extroverts, while those who "liked" philosophy tended to be introverts. While each piece of such information is too weak to produce a reliable prediction, when tens, hundreds, or thousands of individual data points are combined, the resulting predictions become really accurate.

Kosinski and his team tirelessly refined their models. In 2012, Kosinski proved that on the basis of an average of 68 Facebook "likes" by a user, it was possible to predict their skin color (with 95 percent accuracy), their sexual orientation (88 percent accuracy), and their affiliation to the Democratic or Republican party (85 percent). But it didn't stop there. Intelligence, religious affiliation, as well as alcohol, cigarette and drug use, could all be determined. From the data it was even possible to deduce whether someone's parents were divorced.

The strength of their modeling was illustrated by how well it could predict a subject's answers. Kosinski continued to work on the models incessantly: before long, he was able to evaluate a person better than the average work colleague, merely on the basis of ten Facebook "likes." Seventy "likes" were enough to outdo what a person's friends knew, 150 what their parents knew, and 300 "likes" what their partner knew. More "likes" could even surpass what a person thought they knew about themselves. On the day that Kosinski published these findings, he received two phone calls. The threat of a lawsuit and a job offer. Both from Facebook.

Only weeks later Facebook "likes" became private by default. Before that, the default setting was that anyone on the internet could see your "likes." But this was no obstacle to data collectors: while Kosinski always asked for the consent of Facebook users, many apps and online quizzes today require access to private data as a precondition for taking personality tests. (Anybody who wants to evaluate themselves based on their Facebook "likes" can do so on Kosinski's website, and then compare their results to those of a classic Ocean questionnaire, like that of the Cambridge Psychometrics Center.)

Our smartphone, Kosinski concluded, is a vast psychological questionnaire that we are constantly filling out, both consciously and unconsciously.

But it was not just about "likes" or even Facebook: Kosinski and his team could now ascribe Big Five values based purely on how many profile pictures a person has on Facebook, or how many contacts they have (a good indicator of extraversion). But we also reveal something about ourselves even when we're not online. For example, the motion sensor on our phone reveals how quickly we move and how far we travel (this correlates with emotional instability). Our smartphone, Kosinski concluded, is a vast psychological questionnaire that we are constantly filling out, both consciously and unconsciously.

Above all, however—and this is key—it also works in reverse: not only can psychological profiles be created from your data, but your data can also be used the other way round to search for specific profiles: all anxious fathers, all angry introverts, for example—or maybe even all undecided Democrats? Essentially, what Kosinski had invented was sort of a people search engine. He started to recognize the potential—but also the inherent danger—of his work.

To him, the internet had always seemed like a gift from heaven. What he really wanted was to give something back, to share. Data can be copied, so why shouldn't everyone benefit from it? It was the spirit of a whole generation, the beginning of a new era that transcended the limitations of the physical world. But what would happen, wondered Kosinski, if someone abused his people search engine to manipulate people? He began to add warnings to most of his scientific work. His approach, he warned, "could pose a threat to an individual's well-being, freedom, or even life." But no one seemed to grasp what he meant.

Around this time, in early 2014, Kosinski was approached by a young assistant professor in the psychology department called Aleksandr Kogan. He said he was inquiring on behalf of a company that was interested in Kosinski's method, and wanted to access the MyPersonality database. Kogan wasn't at liberty to reveal for what purpose; he was bound to secrecy.

At first, Kosinski and his team considered this offer, as it would mean a great deal of money for the institute, but then he hesitated. Finally, Kosinski remembers, Kogan revealed the name of the company: SCL, or Strategic Communication Laboratories. Kosinski Googled the company: "[We are] the premier election management agency," says the company's website. SCL provides marketing based on psychological modeling. One of its core focuses: Influencing elections. Influencing elections? Perturbed, Kosinski clicked through the pages. What kind of company was this? And what were these people planning?

What Kosinski did not know at the time: SCL is the parent of a group of companies. Who exactly owns SCL and its diverse branches is unclear, thanks to a convoluted corporate structure, the type seen in the UK Companies House, the Panama Papers, and the Delaware company registry. Some of the SCL offshoots have been involved in elections from Ukraine to Nigeria, helped the Nepalese monarch against the rebels, whereas others have developed methods to influence Eastern European and Afghan citizens for NATO. And, in 2013, SCL spun off a new company to participate in US elections: Cambridge Analytica.

Kosinski knew nothing about all this, but he had a bad feeling. "The whole thing started to stink," he recalls. On further investigation, he discovered that Aleksandr Kogan had secretly registered a company doing business with SCL. According to a December 2015 report in The Guardian and to internal company documents given to Das Magazin, it emerges that SCL learned about Kosinski's method from Kogan.

Kosinski came to suspect that Kogan's company might have reproduced the Facebook "Likes"-based Big Five measurement tool in order to sell it to this election-influencing firm. He immediately broke off contact with Kogan and informed the director of the institute, sparking a complicated conflict within the university. The institute was worried about its reputation. Aleksandr Kogan then moved to Singapore, married, and changed his name to Dr. Spectre. Michal Kosinski finished his PhD, got a job offer from Stanford and moved to the US.

Mr. Brexit

All was quiet for about a year. Then, in November 2015, the more radical of the two Brexit campaigns, "Leave.EU," supported by Nigel Farage, announced that it had commissioned a Big Data company to support its online campaign: Cambridge Analytica. The company's core strength: innovative political marketing—microtargeting—by measuring people's personality from their digital footprints, based on the OCEAN model.

After the Brexit result, friends and acquaintances wrote to him: Just look at what you've done. 

Now Kosinski received emails asking what he had to do with it—the words Cambridge, personality, and analytics immediately made many people think of Kosinski. It was the first time he had heard of the company, which borrowed its name, it said, from its first employees, researchers from the university. Horrified, he looked at the website. Was his methodology being used on a grand scale for political purposes?

After the Brexit result, friends and acquaintances wrote to him: Just look at what you've done. Everywhere he went, Kosinski had to explain that he had nothing to do with this company. (It remains unclear how deeply Cambridge Analytica was involved in the Brexit campaign. Cambridge Analytica would not discuss such questions.)

For a few months, things are relatively quiet. Then, on September 19, 2016, just over a month before the US elections, the guitar riffs of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" fill the dark-blue hall of New York's Grand Hyatt hotel. The Concordia Summit is a kind of World Economic Forum in miniature. Decision-makers from all over the world have been invited, among them Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann. "Please welcome to the stage Alexander Nix, chief executive officer of Cambridge Analytica," a smooth female voice announces. A slim man in a dark suit walks onto the stage. A hush falls. Many in attendance know that this is Trump's new digital strategy man. (A video of the presentation was posted on YouTube.)

A few weeks earlier, Trump had tweeted, somewhat cryptically, "Soon you'll be calling me Mr. Brexit." Political observers had indeed noticed some striking similarities between Trump's agenda and that of the right-wing Brexit movement. But few had noticed the connection with Trump's recent hiring of a marketing company named Cambridge Analytica.

"Pretty much every message that Trump put out was data-driven," says Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix 

Up to this point, Trump's digital campaign had consisted of more or less one person: Brad Parscale, a marketing entrepreneur and failed start-up founder who created a rudimentary website for Trump for $1,500. The 70-year-old Trump is not digitally savvy—there isn't even a computer on his office desk. Trump doesn't do emails, his personal assistant once revealed. She herself talked him into having a smartphone, from which he now tweets incessantly.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, relied heavily on the legacy of the first "social-media president," Barack Obama. She had the address lists of the Democratic Party, worked with cutting-edge big data analysts from BlueLabs and received support from Google and DreamWorks. When it was announced in June 2016 that Trump had hired Cambridge Analytica, the establishment in Washington just turned up their noses. Foreign dudes in tailor-made suits who don't understand the country and its people? Seriously?

"It is my privilege to speak to you today about the power of Big Data and psychographics in the electoral process." The logo of Cambridge Analytica— a brain composed of network nodes, like a map, appears behind Alexander Nix. "Only 18 months ago, Senator Cruz was one of the less popular candidates," explains the blonde man in a cut-glass British accent, which puts Americans on edge the same way that a standard German accent can unsettle Swiss people. "Less than 40 percent of the population had heard of him," another slide says. Cambridge Analytica had become involved in the US election campaign almost two years earlier, initially as a consultant for Republicans Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. Cruz—and later Trump—was funded primarily by the secretive US software billionaire Robert Mercer who, along with his daughter Rebekah, is reported to be the largest investor in Cambridge Analytica.

"So how did he do this?" Up to now, explains Nix, election campaigns have been organized based on demographic concepts. "A really ridiculous idea. The idea that all women should receive the same message because of their gender—or all African Americans because of their race." What Nix meant is that while other campaigners so far have relied on demographics, Cambridge Analytica was using psychometrics.

Though this might be true, Cambridge Analytica's role within Cruz's campaign isn't undisputed. In December 2015 the Cruz team credited their rising success to psychological use of data and analytics. In Advertising Age, a political client said the embedded Cambridge staff was "like an extra wheel," but found their core product, Cambridge's voter data modeling, still "excellent." The campaign would pay the company at least $5.8 million to help identify voters in the Iowa caucuses, which Cruz won, before dropping out of the race in May.

Nix clicks to the next slide: five different faces, each face corresponding to a personality profile. It is the Big Five or OCEAN Model. "At Cambridge," he said, "we were able to form a model to predict the personality of every single adult in the United States of America." The hall is captivated. According to Nix, the success of Cambridge Analytica's marketing is based on a combination of three elements: behavioral science using the OCEAN Model, Big Data analysis, and ad targeting. Ad targeting is personalized advertising, aligned as accurately as possible to the personality of an individual consumer.

Nix candidly explains how his company does this. First, Cambridge Analytica buys personal data from a range of different sources, like land registries, automotive data, shopping data, bonus cards, club memberships, what magazines you read, what churches you attend. Nix displays the logos of globally active data brokers like Acxiom and Experian—in the US, almost all personal data is for sale. For example, if you want to know where Jewish women live, you can simply buy this information, phone numbers included. Now Cambridge Analytica aggregates this data with the electoral rolls of the Republican party and online data and calculates a Big Five personality profile. Digital footprints suddenly become real people with fears, needs, interests, and residential addresses.

The methodology looks quite similar to the one that Michal Kosinski once developed. Cambridge Analytica also uses, Nix told us, "surveys on social media" and Facebook data. And the company does exactly what Kosinski warned of: "We have profiled the personality of every adult in the United States of America—220 million people," Nix boasts.

He opens the screenshot. "This is a data dashboard that we prepared for the Cruz campaign." A digital control center appears. On the left are diagrams; on the right, a map of Iowa, where Cruz won a surprisingly large number of votes in the primary. And on the map, there are hundreds of thousands of small red and blue dots. Nix narrows down the criteria: "Republicans"—the blue dots disappear; "not yet convinced"—more dots disappear; "male", and so on. Finally, only one name remains, including age, address, interests, personality and political inclination. How does Cambridge Analytica now target this person with an appropriate political message?

Nix shows how psychographically categorized voters can be differently addressed, based on the example of gun rights, the 2nd Amendment: "For a highly neurotic and conscientious audience the threat of a burglary—and the insurance policy of a gun." An image on the left shows the hand of an intruder smashing a window. The right side shows a man and a child standing in a field at sunset, both holding guns, clearly shooting ducks: "Conversely, for a closed and agreeable audience. People who care about tradition, and habits, and family."

How to keep Clinton voters away from the ballot box

Trump's striking inconsistencies, his much-criticized fickleness, and the resulting array of contradictory messages, suddenly turned out to be his great asset: a different message for every voter. The notion that Trump acted like a perfectly opportunistic algorithm following audience reactions is something the mathematician Cathy O'Neil observed in August 2016.

These "dark posts"—sponsored Facebook posts that can only be seen by users with specific profiles—included videos aimed at African-Americans in which Hillary Clinton refers to black men as predators, for example.

"Pretty much every message that Trump put out was data-driven," Alexander Nix remembers. On the day of the third presidential debate between Trump and Clinton, Trump's team tested 175,000 different ad variations for his arguments, in order to find the right versions above all via Facebook. The messages differed for the most part only in microscopic details, in order to target the recipients in the optimal psychological way: different headings, colors, captions, with a photo or video. This fine-tuning reaches all the way down to the smallest groups, Nix explained in an interview with us. "We can address villages or apartment blocks in a targeted way. Even individuals."

In the Miami district of Little Haiti, for instance, Trump's campaign provided inhabitants with news about the failure of the Clinton Foundation following the earthquake in Haiti, in order to keep them from voting for Hillary Clinton. This was one of the goals: to keep potential Clinton voters (which include wavering left-wingers, African-Americans, and young women) away from the ballot box, to "suppress" their vote, as one senior campaign official told Bloomberg in the weeks before the election. These "dark posts"—sponsored news-feed-style ads in Facebook timelines that can only be seen by users with specific profiles—included videos aimed at African-Americans in which Hillary Clinton refers to black men as predators, for example.

Nix finishes his lecture at the Concordia Summit by stating that traditional blanket advertising is dead. "My children will certainly never, ever understand this concept of mass communication." And before leaving the stage, he announced that since Cruz had left the race, the company was helping one of the remaining presidential candidates.

Just how precisely the American population was being targeted by Trump's digital troops at that moment was not visible, because they attacked less on mainstream TV and more with personalized messages on social media or digital TV. And while the Clinton team thought it was in the lead, based on demographic projections, Bloomberg journalist Sasha Issenberg was surprised to note on a visit to San Antonio—where Trump's digital campaign was based—that a "second headquarters" was being created. The embedded Cambridge Analytica team, apparently only a dozen people, received $100,000 from Trump in July, $250,000 in August, and $5 million in September. According to Nix, the company earned over $15 million overall. (The company is incorporated in the US, where laws regarding the release of personal data are more lax than in European Union countries. Whereas European privacy laws require a person to "opt in" to a release of data, those in the US permit data to be released unless a user "opts out.")

The measures were radical: From July 2016, Trump's canvassers were provided with an app with which they could identify the political views and personality types of the inhabitants of a house. It was the same app provider used by Brexit campaigners. Trump's people only rang at the doors of houses that the app rated as receptive to his messages. The canvassers came prepared with guidelines for conversations tailored to the personality type of the resident. In turn, the canvassers fed the reactions into the app, and the new data flowed back to the dashboards of the Trump campaign.

Again, this is nothing new. The Democrats did similar things, but there is no evidence that they relied on psychometric profiling. Cambridge Analytica, however, divided the US population into 32 personality types, and focused on just 17 states. And just as Kosinski had established that men who like MAC cosmetics are slightly more likely to be gay, the company discovered that a preference for cars made in the US was a great indication of a potential Trump voter. Among other things, these findings now showed Trump which messages worked best and where. The decision to focus on Michigan and Wisconsin in the final weeks of the campaign was made on the basis of data analysis. The candidate became the instrument for implementing a big data model.

What's Next?

But to what extent did psychometric methods influence the outcome of the election? When asked, Cambridge Analytica was unwilling to provide any proof of the effectiveness of its campaign. And it is quite possible that the question is impossible to answer.

And yet there are clues: There is the fact of the surprising rise of Ted Cruz during the primaries. Also there was an increased number of voters in rural areas. There was the decline in the number of African-American early votes. The fact that Trump spent so little money may also be explained by the effectiveness of personality-based advertising. As does the fact that he invested far more in digital than TV campaigning compared to Hillary Clinton. Facebook proved to be the ultimate weapon and the best election campaigner, as Nix explained, and as comments by several core Trump campaigners demonstrate.

Cambridge Analytica counts among its clients the U.S. State Department, and has been reported to have communicated with British Prime Minister Theresa May, pictured here with Secretary of State John Kerry on July 19, 2016. Image: U.S. Dept. of State

Many voices have claimed that the statisticians lost the election because their predictions were so off the mark. But what if statisticians in fact helped win the election—but only those who were using the new method? It is an irony of history that Trump, who often grumbled about scientific research, used a highly scientific approach in his campaign.

Another big winner is Cambridge Analytica. Its board member Steve Bannon, former executive chair of the right-wing online newspaper Breitbart News, has been appointed as Donald Trump's senior counselor and chief strategist. Whilst Cambridge Analytica is not willing to comment on alleged ongoing talks with UK Prime Minister Theresa May, Alexander Nix claims that he is building up his client base worldwide, and that he has received inquiries from Switzerland, Germany, and Australia. His company is currently touring European conferences showcasing their success in the United States. This year three core countries of the EU are facing elections with resurgent populist parties: France, Holland and Germany. The electoral successes come at an opportune time, as the company is readying for a push into commercial advertising.

Kosinski has observed all of this from his office at Stanford. Following the US election, the university is in turmoil. Kosinski is responding to developments with the sharpest weapon available to a researcher: a scientific analysis. Together with his research colleague Sandra Matz, he has conducted a series of tests, which will soon be published. The initial results are alarming: The study shows the effectiveness of personality targeting by showing that marketers can attract up to 63 percent more clicks and up to 1,400 more conversions in real-life advertising campaigns on Facebook when matching products and marketing messages to consumers' personality characteristics. They further demonstrate the scalability of personality targeting by showing that the majority of Facebook Pages promoting products or brands are affected by personality and that large numbers of consumers can be accurately targeted based on a single Facebook Page.

In a statement after the German publication of this article, a Cambridge Analytica spokesperson said, "Cambridge Analytica does not use data from Facebook. It has had no dealings with Dr. Michal Kosinski. It does not subcontract research. It does not use the same methodology. Psychographics was hardly used at all. Cambridge Analytica did not engage in efforts to discourage any Americans from casting their vote in the presidential election. Its efforts were solely directed towards increasing the number of voters in the election."

The world has been turned upside down. Great Britain is leaving the EU, Donald Trump is president of the United States of America. And in Stanford, Kosinski, who wanted to warn against the danger of using psychological targeting in a political setting, is once again receiving accusatory emails. "No," says Kosinski, quietly and shaking his head. "This is not my fault. I did not build the bomb. I only showed that it exists."

Additional research for this report was provided by Paul-Olivier Dehaye.

© Cover image by Marc Kandalaft