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Is Russia Conducting A Social Media War On America? (time.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Time magazine ran a cover story about "a dangerous new route for antidemocratic forces" -- social media. "Using these technologies, it is possible to undermine democratic government, and it's becoming easier every day," says Rand Waltzman of the Rand Corp., who ran a major Pentagon research program to understand the propaganda threats posed by social media technology." The article cites current and former FBI and CIA officials who now believe Russia's phishing emails against politicians were "just the most visible battle in an ongoing information war against global democracy." They cite, for example, a March report by U.S. counterintelligence which found "Russians had sent expertly tailored messages carrying malware to more than 10,000 Twitter users in the Defense Department."
Each message contained links tailored to the interests of the recipient, but "When clicked, the links took users to a Russian-controlled server that downloaded a program allowing Moscow's hackers to take control of the victim's phone or computer -- and Twitter account...
"In 2016, Russia had used thousands of covert human agents and robot computer programs to spread disinformation referencing the stolen campaign emails of Hillary Clinton, amplifying their effect. Now counterintelligence officials wondered: What chaos could Moscow unleash with thousands of Twitter handles that spoke in real time with the authority of the armed forces of the United States?" The article also notes how algorithms now can identify hot-button issues and people susceptible to suggestion, so "Propagandists can then manually craft messages to influence them, deploying covert provocateurs, either humans or automated computer programs known as bots, in hopes of altering their behavior. That is what Moscow is doing, more than a dozen senior intelligence officials and others investigating Russia's influence operations tell Time."
The article describes a Russian soldier in the Ukraine pretending to be a 42-year-old American housewife. Meanwhile, this week Time's cover shows America's White House halfway-covered with Kremlin-esque spires -- drawing a complaint from the humorists at Mad magazine, who say Time copied the cover of Mad's December issue.
"In 2016, Russia had used thousands of covert human agents and robot computer programs to spread disinformation referencing the stolen campaign emails of Hillary Clinton, amplifying their effect. Now counterintelligence officials wondered: What chaos could Moscow unleash with thousands of Twitter handles that spoke in real time with the authority of the armed forces of the United States?" The article also notes how algorithms now can identify hot-button issues and people susceptible to suggestion, so "Propagandists can then manually craft messages to influence them, deploying covert provocateurs, either humans or automated computer programs known as bots, in hopes of altering their behavior. That is what Moscow is doing, more than a dozen senior intelligence officials and others investigating Russia's influence operations tell Time."
The article describes a Russian soldier in the Ukraine pretending to be a 42-year-old American housewife. Meanwhile, this week Time's cover shows America's White House halfway-covered with Kremlin-esque spires -- drawing a complaint from the humorists at Mad magazine, who say Time copied the cover of Mad's December issue.
After 9/11, I was listening to a interview with Rudy Giuliani. He made a joke, that while as some other countries might have the best engineers, America has the best Madison Avenue. He was referring to the propaganda pipeline, and how the US worked hard to make itself hear around the world and exerts its influence globally. /hr, but with the changes in the economy, prices skyrocketed because the economy was opened up to the West (shook capitalism, it was called).
Probably the biggest source of propaganda came during the 2007 TARP. If the American people did not bail out the banks who had been holding CMOs, the economy would be devastated. All the wrong people would have the money, so the richest 1% had to work hard to maintain the status quo.
I remember hearing [re-]broadcasts by Ronald Reagan via "Voice of America" broadcast into Afghanistan in the 1970's. He went off the deep end and talked about how there are plenty of jobs for Afghan defectors. This was such bullshit, as there were lots of unemployed Americans, so I just didn't understand how shit like this would be believed (by the East). Apparently, it was reasonably successful, for the amount of descent it would cause. Similarly, most of the strikes in Gdansk Poland were strongly influenced by the US, with the help of the catholic church. All sorts of nonsense was promised to the workers in the shipyards, most ironically, that they would get Western wages if they broke away from the Eastern block. After the bankruptcy of the Gdansk shipyards and the fall of the Soviet Union, "Johnson and Johnson" negotiated purchasing the shipyards. The workers were getting around $.25/hour before the changes and managed to get $.50
Stop treating government as a sporting contest where you cheer for your team to crush the other team.
Some countries like Switzerland have not a single head of executive, but a council of 7 people.
It the same was practiced in your country, that would lead to totally different campaigns.
It would be very difficult for the candidate of one or the other of your bipartite system, to spend time arguing that the other is "an incompetent idiot", because with such system, they are guaranteed to then later have to work together reaching a consensus.
Hard to crush a team, when all the team *must in practice* work together.
The only big suspense would be who out of the minor parties are going to get the last of the coucil seats.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I've been noticing since the election how odd it is that whenever I meet a Trump supporter, or a Hillary hater, If I bring up Russia, their nationalistic sense of American sovereignty will completely evaporate. To a person, they deflect concern about Russian hacking or Putin's oligarchy with such skill as if they've attended an 8-week media training course. They'll claim the Russians did us a favor by exposing Democratic corruption, and even shed a tear for the plight of the Russian people suffering under Obama's sanctions.
When I meet someone who says they "don't support Trump" but somehow only attacks liberals, I can just imagine the Facebook group that got their hooks in them. I keep seeing groups for political causes that used to have their own identities, but now only post pro-Trump or anti-liberal messages. "Being Libertarian" had a perfect example – libertarianism is diametrically opposed from authoritarianism, and yet it showed up in my feed because a friend of mine clicked "Like" on a picture of a parody of that one poem. It said "They came for the socialists, and I said nothing. Then everything was better and they stopped coming for people." Thousands of likes, each one from someone who labels themselves "libertarian" but totally signed off on the rounding-up of their political enemies, and declared their trust that strongman authority only takes away rights temporarily.
And that's what is worrying, because even if Trump gets impeached, the national psyche is already gravely wounded, and the Kremlin has a fresh truckload of salt for us every day to stop it from healing.
Many shadowy parties are reported to be involved in this sort of thing, another is American Billionaire Robert Merce who has also been implicated in unlawful campaigning in the UK Referendum and General Elections, illegally under UK election regulations.
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
Heh TFA says "the Russians would consider it a success if you questioned the truth of your news sources"
If that is truly the goal of Russian hackers, then they are doing us a favor.
Now if only we can get people to doubt news sources they agree with.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
While we are at that, would suggest you having a look at commentaries on Russia affairs by Mark Ames, which are more on the information side I believe.
Thank you for that source. I read it, and it provides some very interesting facts about the murky nature of the FBI, and how that organization has been used for, what I will characterize as, political malfeasance. However, I don't agree with the author's belief that "The FBI isn't even legal". I'm pretty sure if it were, the courts, Congress, and the President would have taken note of it by now.
To clarify my comments above, let me state the following:
Yep.
Countless times it has been shown how half the twitter followers espousing such things as open boarders, free food, health care, housing free everything (unless you are an american citizen of course) are pretty much fake.
Accounts for Congressional members on twitter are and their followers numbers probably fake too.
I mean have you watched the news lately? You know, there are other things more important going on right now than trying to remove a individual from office because the oligarchs don't like him.
I would like to see more news coverage on what is being done in the middle east to reduce the conflict there, or how trade is working out for this country.
I am so sick and tired of the new programs airing nothing but Dump Trump crapola 24/7.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I called out a Chinese paid poster on CNN years ago. While their english was good and their posts were well constructed, there were a few subtleties that clued me in that this was not "Robert from Iowa" claiming the Japanese are the territorial aggressors. My wife is Japanese and her english is also good, however english is a tricky fucking language because our structure differs from pretty much every other modern language. Being use to her speaking/writing made it very clear to me the person was Asian.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
And the problem is that it is not only America - the pattern repeats in several countries - it started with Russian minority in Ukraina and Crimea and when proven successfull - spread to Balic States, Poland, UK, France, Germany and several other places.
One can observe posts on foras that have character dramatically different to those 3-4 years ago.
There are many liberal media foras on which 75% of posts are anti-liberal/anti-immigrant/anti-West. Something unseen 5 years ago when 90% of posts were liberal.
I can hear echos of these anti-liberal posts in what my younger coworkers say and I am scared - something big is going on and it reminds me 1930 Nazi or 1950 Communist propaganda.
In the USA? The cops steal five times as much stuff, year in year out as burglars do.
Also, some bendejho federal judge has recorded an opinion that opening your door amounts to inviting the cops into the front room. Hence, security screen door with a good solid lock. Talk to people through it, stop push ins before they start. Keeps 'the hounds' from being unintentionally released.
Works for all criminals, not only those that wear blue.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There is not, and has never been, any evidence, large or small, connecting Donald Trump to Russia, or linking Russia to the DNC hacking. At all. Ever. In any capacity.
Never, ever get on the wrong side of the argument with Bruce Schneier. At all. Ever. In any capacity.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
The Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential election form part of Russiaâ(TM)s campaign of propaganda and disinformation to undermine and interfere in democratic processes in the Western countries.
http://www.newsweek.com/brexit...
Irrelevant. Russia has every right to defend its interests. We started this shit, so have no right to judge what they are doing. We asked for it, actually.
https://www.thenation.com/article/state-department-says-russia-invading-ukraine-should-we-believe-them