Editor

I believe the following to be true:

A large-scale information campaign is deceptively injecting Russian propaganda into American public discourse online. It operates on both the left and the right, generating thousands of fake news articles, memes, tweets, and videos. Collectively, this propaganda is undermining our public discourse by providing a warped view of the world, where Russia can do no wrong, and America is a corrupt dystopia that is tearing itself apart. It is vital that this effort be exposed for what it is: A coordinated attempt to deceive U.S. citizens into acting in Russia’s interests.

The quote comes from a site called ProporNot. They’ve compiled a list of news sites that, in their view, seem intended to blunt opposition to and strengthen popular support for Russian strategic priorities. Have a look at their website, make up your own mind.

The authors argue:

… in an important sense it does not matter whether [people who spread this stuff] are being knowingly directed and paid by Russian intelligence officers (although some of them undoubtably are), or whether they even knew they were echoing Russian propaganda before being called out: If they continue to do so, for whatever reasons, their willingness to uncritically echo Russian propaganda makes them a tool of the Russian state. The term “useful idiot” often applies, and calling them out is justified, appropriate, and valuable.

Here are their suggestions for identifying it:

1) Check to see whether the social-media account/commenter/outlet consistently cites obvious Russian propaganda outlets such as Russia Today/rt.com, the Russian defense ministry, and other official Russian spokespeople.

2) Check to see whether the social-media account/commenter/outlet has a history of reusing text directly from obvious Russian propaganda outlets, especially without attribution.

3) Check to see whether the social-media account/commenter/outlet has a history of generally echoing the Russian propaganda “line” by using themes, arguments, talking points, images, and other content similar to those used by obvious Russian propaganda outlets. These themes include:

• How wonderful, powerful, innocent, and righteous Russia and Russia’s friends are: Putin, Donald Trump, Bashar al-Assad, Syria, Iran, China, radical political parties in the US and Europe, etc. Investigate this by searching for mentions of, for example, “russia”, on their site by Googling for “site:whateversite.com russia”, and seeing what comes up.
• How terrible, weak, aggressive, and corrupt the the opponents of Russia and their friends are: The US, Obama, Hillary Clinton, the EU, Angela Merkel, NATO, Ukraine, Jewish people, US allies, the “mainstream media”, and democrats, the center-right or center-left, and moderates of all stripes. Investigate this by searching for mentions of, for example, “NATO”, on their site by Googling for “site:whateversite.com NATO” and seeing what comes up.
• An obvious bias towards Russia and Russian-backed policy in foreign affairs, including:
  • How fantastic Brexit and Ukrainian/Georgian separatism is, but how terrible Chechen separatists are,
  • How advanced Russian technology is, and how dangerous Western technology is,
  • How great it is when Western secrets get exposed, but how terrible it is when Russian ones do,
  • How militarily powerful Russia and their friends are, and how weak and craven Russia’s enemies and their friends are, etc.
• How dangerous standing up to Russia would be: It would inevitably result in “World War 3”, nuclear devastation, etc, and regardless of who shot first or is bombing civilians where now, would be the West’s fault. Russian propaganda never suggests it would just result in a Cold War 2 and Russia’s eventual peaceful defeat, like the last time.
• Pre-emptive discouragement of critical analysis: Assertions about them “having the truth”, or the need to “wake up the sheeple”, or how the “mainstream media” can’t be trusted.
• Hyperbolic alarmism, anti-Western conspiracist insinuations, “Eurasianism”, racism, gold-standard nuttery and attacks on the US dollar, 9/11-trutherism, anti-Semitism, anti-“globalism”, anti-vax/anti-GMO paranoia, and generally ridiculous over-the-top assertions, which cites Russian propaganda outlets as “evidence”.

Before dismissing these concerns as lunacy, paranoia, elitism, hysteria, and DNC talking points, have a look at their arguments.

For what it’s worth, I don’t agree with the insinuation that Michael Flynn (Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor) is a Putinversteher, as some are now insinuating. From his book:

I hope this means that President-elect Trump knew better when he suggested that. I have plenty of reservations about Flynn, but I’m not worried that he’s in bed with Putin. (I am, however, worried that he’s in bed with Erdoğan. But nobody’s perfect.)

Source: https://ricochet.com/390783/russian-propaganda-judge/

I received a heads up on this profile just a few minutes ago.

Usually, a person puts in at least 10.5 seconds worth of effort into making faking a profile.

As you can see, this person put 0.5 seconds into the effort.

If you’ll scroll down, you’ll see lots of nothing.

Obviously, this person is recruiting contacts. They’re mining for contact information, contact names, and so on…

I would like to bestow the first annual award for the absolute laziest false profile builder in the world.

smh

November 28, 2016 – 12:17

The latest edition of StopFake News with Benjamin Cohen. Among the disinformation debunked this week. Russian Sputnik agency’s claims that life in Ukraine is worse than ever, an official Turkish delegation visiting Crimea turns out to be not so official, and in a first, a Russian site admits to a fake and apologizes. WOW!

Source: http://www.stopfake.org/en/stopfakenews-110-eng-with-benjamin-cohen/

Recently, the Russian Ministry of Defence disclosed logistical data of railway traffic to other countries for the upcoming year.

It revealed that the Kremlin is planning to significantly increase the amount of military cargo headed for Belarus.

This may be a sign that Moscow is preparing to redeploy a large number of Russian troops to Belarus in 2017.

A piece by Belarus Digest predicted that the Kremlin is trying to transform Belarus into a flash point for menacing NATO and Ukraine by deploying its military capabilities on Belarusian territory.

Unfortunately, this prediction is corroborated by the aforementioned logistic data, as well as the fruitlessness of the recent meeting between Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The negotiation agenda: two different angles

On 22 – 23 October 2016 Alexander Lukashenko paid a working visit to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss bilateral economic problems. The lack of official comments on the results of the negotiations in Moscow raises some doubts about its real agenda. Moreover, the current state of affairs demonstrates that the Kremlin is unwilling to compromise and will continue to put pressure on Minsk.

Significant economic problems have been accumulating in Moscow-Minsk relations since the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2014. The list of grievances includes permanent trade wars and restrictions of Belarusian goods on the Russian market, the gas price dispute and the incomplete delivery of oil to Belarus from Russia, and the sudden implementation of controls on the Belarusian-Russian border.

However, Alexander Surikov, the Russian ambassador to Belarus, announced shortly before the meeting that the two presidents would not be discussing economic problems. According to him, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko would focus on political issues in the changing international context. He did not specify which ‘changes’ were implied.

Nevertheless, it seems that Putin had already set the political agenda for negotiations with Lukashenko during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Peru on 21 November 2016, one day before the meeting in Moscow. He explained why Russia is so alarmed by NATO’s expansion and stressed that the ‘situation is heating up’.

Without doubt, Putin did discuss the current security situation in the region with his Belarusian counterpart. According to Kremlin strategists, upcoming deployments of four NATO battalions in Poland and the Baltic states will undermine the strategic stability of the region.

Putin believes that Belarus must participate in Russia’s military response to NATO’s activities on its Eastern flank

For this reason, Putin believes that Belarus must participate in Russia’s military response to NATO’s activities on its Eastern flank. Part of this response includes the large scale ‘Zapad / West 2017’ military drills taking place on the territory of Belarus and Kaliningrad next year.

Military drills or occupation?

However, the newly revealed logistical data of Russian military cargo to Belarus illustrate the Kremlin’s far-reaching strategic designs. It seems that Moscow is planning to redeploy a large number of Russian troops on the territory of Belarus for purposes other than military drills.

According to these data, the Russian Ministry of Defence plans to send 4,162 railway carriages to Belarus next year. This would be 33 times more traffic than in 2015, and 83 times more traffic than this year. Some more argue that this increase in flow is connected with the ‘Zapad/ West’ joint strategic military exercises taking place next September.

However, comparing next year’s logistical data with the number of railway carriages coming from Russia in 2013, during the previous ‘Zapad’ military drills, paints a rather different picture.

The Russian Ministry of Defence sent only 200 railway carriages to Belarus that year. Moreover, almost half of the motorised brigade of the Russian Armed Forces (comprising 2,500 troops) took part in the joint military exercises on the territory of Belarus.

Source: Russian Ministry of Defence

In contrast, next year the Russian Ministry of Defence is planning to send 20 times more railway carriages to Belarus than during previous ‘Zapad’ drills in 2013. What’s more, the Kremlin’s strategists are not required to publish certain military logistic data in open sources. This is a usual practise. Therefore, to get a more realistic idea of the scale of Russian troops’ redeployment to Belarus, the number of railway carriages should be multiplied at least by a factor of 1.5.

This logistical military data indirectly confirms that Russia is going to redeploy a number of troops to Belarus almost equal to the 1st Guards Tank Army of the Western Military District, and not simply participate in regular military drills.

Obviously, the Kremlin does not need this many troops for training purposes. A more likely scenario is that Russia plans to transform Belarus into an outpost for military confrontation with NATO. Specifically, Russia may use Belarusian territory in order to generate security threats and challenges to the Baltic states.

the Kremlin must first set up a strategic military presence on the territory of Belarus

In order to accomplish this, the Kremlin must first set up a strategic military presence on the territory of Belarus. Obviously, if this many Russian troops arrive in Belarus, it will be difficult to send them home later. Without doubt, this is detrimental to the sovereignty and independence of the Belarusian state.

Implications of the meeting in Moscow

Notably, this Russian military logistical data appeared in open sources one week prior to Lukashenka’s visit to Moscow earlier this month, despite the fact that Belarusian military officials had not yet ironed out the details of next year’s ‘Zapad’ drills with their Russian counterparts.

In this regard, the publication of these data can be seen as a tool to put psychological pressure on Minsk in order to bring Belarus into line with the Kremlin.

Simultaneously, the Russian media launched an information campaign dedicated to Belarus immediately following Lukashenka’s visit to Moscow. Even certain federal-level Russian TV channels, such as ‘Channel One Russia’ and ‘Zvezda’, reported on the topic of Belarus

Some journalists’ stories drew parallels with the situation in Ukraine. According to them, the same fate of destabilisation awaits Belarus, as Western intelligence agencies are preparing a colour revolution to overthrow Alexander Lukashenko.

Other stories focused on the growth of nationalist sentiment and ‘Russophobia’ in Belarusian society, as well as an outburst of right-wing oppositional political movements and parties. ‘Zvezda’, the TV channel of the Russian Ministry of Defence, warned explicitly that Alexander Lukashenko could be overthrown by Ukrainian provocateurs and so on.

Belarus Digest has written articles outlining a hypothetical coup scenario in Belarus launched by the Kremlin. According to this sequence of events, Russian-backed sabotage groups could operate as Belarusian nationalists or ‘Ukrainian provocateurs’. In another scenario, based on the failed tactics of plotters in Montenegro, Russian agents could also pose as local security forces.

It seems that the Kremlin is preparing Russian public opinion for a serious crisis in Belarusian-Russian relations. The fruitlessness of Alexander Lukashenko’s visit to Moscow also signals that Belarus is refusing to become a Russian military outpost in the event of a confrontation between NATO and the West.

In the future, an intensification of tension and an increase in coercive measures by the Kremlin – should Belarus continue to defend its national sovereignty and independence – is possible. This could even entail a coup attempt and destabilisation as an excuse for the Russian military to intervene in Belarus and instal a fully pro-Kremlin regime in Minsk.

Without a doubt, such a pro-Kremlin regime would acquiesce to however many Russian troops the Kremlin desires on Belarusian territory.

Arseni Sivitski

Arseni is the Director of the Centre for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies based in Minsk; he is also a military officer in reserve for the Belarusian Armed Forces.

Source: http://belarusdigest.com/story/will-russia-occupy-belarus-2017-28101

JUSTICE NEWS

The bravado, the absolute lunacy, is strong in this one. “We”?

The most ignorable person makes an irresponsible statement about doing the impossible.  Perhaps Putin put him up to this, but it reflects badly on… whatever you want to call this unholy alliance between Russia and a mangy bunch of mercenaries.  Let’s hope somebody puts a muzzle and a bark collar on this cur.

</end editorial>

Anglo-Saxons – the root of all evil, evidently, the cause of all of Russia’s woes…..

The great and considered wisdom of former frozen chicken salesman Olexander Zakharchenko, leader of the DPR/DNR

A reporter contacted me today but could not understand the concept of how Russian propaganda works.  So, please allow me to dedicate one entire blog to showing how Russian propaganda and fake news, almost interchangeable terms, work.

One of the ways I’ve tracked Russian propaganda through the years is to track certain unique phrases the Russian propagandists copy and use in specific articles.  Last week I was tracking a story on a known Russian-proxy propaganda dissemination site, YourNewsWire.com.  My definition of a Russian propaganda site is that the site must contain at least 20% Russian propaganda, the rest is fluff, filler or “cover” – to make the site appear legitimate.  I don’t care what the fluff looks like as much as that 20% propaganda.

The story I was tracking at YourNewsWire is  “Obama To Sign Bill Making ‘Alternative Media’ Illegal“. In the story, the phrase “measures by Russia to exert covert influence” appears, already in quotation marks. I plugged that phrase into Google to see where else it appeared.

Reuters published this (I added the emphasis), which appears to be the original:  “The top U.S. intelligence officer has asked Congress to drop a provision in a pending bill that would create a special committee to combat Russian efforts to exert covert influence abroad, saying such a panel would duplicate current work and hinder cooperation with foreign allies.” Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-intelligencwe-russia-idUSKBN13R2GB.  Please notice two different directions taken by these articles, the original story in Reuters says the effort is stopping, the propaganda story in YourNewsWire says the effort is continuing. If there is any doubt that

Please notice two different directions taken by these articles, the original story in Reuters says the effort is stopping, the propaganda story in YourNewsWire says the effort is continuing.

If there is any doubt that GlobalResearch.ca is a Russian fake news site, here is their version: “When Truth-Telling Becomes Russian Propaganda“.

This is one of the many ways that Russian propaganda works, because most Americans do not check if a story is real. I saw the phrase on RT, where it most likely began and was then spread through a network of other Russian and Russian proxy propaganda sites.

When I did the search, I took the top 60 results and copied them into a document for later analysis and reporting.  It is too voluminous to include here.  Perhaps tomorrow…

Can the West respond to Moscow’s information attacks without using the same tactics?

The flurry of hacking, paranoia and fake news which preceded the biggest upset in recent US political history has led to talk of a new “information war” with Russia. But even as they debate the possibility of a Russian role in President-Elect Donald Trump’s unexpected victory at the polls, analysts and media alike need to understand the nature of Russian information warfare—and how the response can be just as damaging as the tactic itself.

The use of (dis)information to undermine the enemy is as old as the Trojan Horse. Back in the 6th Century B.C., the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu was already advising that the ideal form of attack would see you defeat an enemy purely psychologically, without landing a physical blow. Today, the information revolution allows for an unprecedented number of ways to influence and subvert other countries.

But while theorists and practitioners across the world are experimenting in ways to weaponize information, for some, the term “information war” has gone beyond psyops (psychological operations) to become a grand myth which explains away the world. Indeed, one of the most damaging ideas an information war can plant in the mind of the enemy is the idea of an information war itself.

Information war has long obsessed Russian geopolitical analysts looking to explain the failure of the Soviet Union. They assert that the country collapsed not because of its terrible economic, cultural and social policies, but because of “information viruses” planted by Western security services through Trojan-Horse ideas such as freedom of speech (Operation Glasnost) and economic reform (Operation Perestroika). Alleged secret agents in the Soviet establishment who posed as so-called modernizers, allied with a DC-dictated fifth column of anti-Soviet dissidents, supposedly oversaw the dissemination of these “viruses.”

For a long time, such theories were not in the Russian mainstream. But as the Kremlin searched for ways to explain its losses in the 21st Century—such as the 2004 and 2013 Revolutions in Ukraine or the 2011 protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow—“information war” became a convenient way to cover up for policy failures.

In a 2012 article called “Russia and the Changing World,” Putin elaborated about how he perceives such “soft power”—namely, as “a matrix of tools and methods to reach foreign policy goals without the use of arms but by exerting information and other levers of influence;” a device used “to manipulate the public and to conduct direct interference in the domestic policy of sovereign countries.” He rejected as “unacceptable” the work of “pseudo-NGOs and other agencies that try to destabilize other countries with outside support…”

Others were more specific. Describing the Arab Spring in a 2014 piece for The Military-Industrial Courier, General-Major Vasily Burenok, president of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences, wrote that “In North Africa, the main aim [of the West] was to inspire a civil war and sow chaos.” Meanwhile, in Ukraine, he claimed, Western “colonels” tried to “reformat” Ukrainian thinking during the Maidan revolution of 2013. The internet and mobile communications allow for new intensity and power in this “non-material” warfare, he observed.

And Moscow has acted accordingly. Over the past two years, since war with the West has become the Kremlin’s main message, Russian officials have alleged information wars to explain everything from anti-corruption reporting about Putin’s money to investigations into Russia’s Olympics doping programs.

Does the Kremlin really believe in these wars? Are they merely a convenient cover? Or are they a case of projection?

In Soviet times, the Kremlin ran an extensive operation to subvert the West through what were known as “active measures.” An estimated 15,000 KGB employees worked, in the words of former KGB General Oleg Kalugin, to “drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts, particularly NATO, to sow discord among allies, to weaken the United States in the eyes of the people in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America.”

Putin, as a former KGB officer, is, of course, well aware of this history.

Whatever its motivations, paranoia has become Russia’s foreign policy, with the Kremlin setting up its own fake NGOs and international propaganda-outlets; buying up political actors and supporting extremist groups; enabling hackers, troll farms, rent-a-mobs and corrupt businesspeople to destabilize democracies and eat away at Western alliances.

One noticeable aspect of the Kremlin’s approach is support for European far-right parties which then support the Kremlin’s foreign policies. The National Front in France, for example, has received funding from Kremlin-connected sources. Another is the use of disinformation to obscure Russian responsibility for such mistakes as bringing down Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 over Donbass or for bombing a United Nations aid convoy in Syria.

Disinformation (“dezinformatsiya”) was also an important part of Soviet active measures, but the media environment within which it spread has changed. The Soviets tried to prove their fake stories were actually true. Today, the fakes are sprayed into the chaos of social media and conspiracy websites, adding to the lack of trust in mainstream media and to the overall confusion of so-called post-fact societies. This amounts to not so much an information war, as what some analysts describe as a “war on information.”

At its most effective, the Kremlin does not invent new issues. It tries to fan the flames of existing problems such as corruption, anti-EU and anti-NATO sentiment, low-quality media, xenophobia, and conspiracy theories.

But responding to such tactics also carries the risk of replicating the Kremlin’s information-war mythology and seeing all domestic problems as products of an “information war.” This poses dangers.

For one, democratic leaders can use the claim of information warfare as an excuse to attack viable opposition. In February 2016, for example, Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius alleged, with no proof, that strikes by the Trade Union of Lithuanian Teachers are influenced by Moscow. He apologized a day later, saying that he’d only meant to signal the pro-Putin proclivities of the union’s Russian counterparts.

Others can use the claim of an information war to go after the press. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called a New York Times editorial criticizing his lack of reforms part of Russia’s “hybrid war” against Ukraine, while his interior minister, Arsen Avakov, labels independent Ukrainian journalists who do not toe the government line “liberal-separatists.” (Many of the journalists have received death threats.)

In Ukraine, there are also attempts to bring in new legislation which would allow for censorship under the cover of defending against “information aggression.” The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media criticized the proposed bill for potentially preventing media from acting as a watchdog on government. The Ukrainian parliament has not yet voted on the proposed change.

Such legislative tactics actually play directly into the Kremlin’s hands. Moscow’s aim is to sharpen the divisions in societies, to stir discontent and alienate communities. Those divisions can be severe.

In EU-member Latvia, for instance, one recent study by the Latvian Defense Academy found that 41.3 percent of some 1,715 respondents who speak Russian at home believe that “Russian intervention” to defend their “rights and interests” is “necessary and justified.” Initiatives by Latvian politicians to test Russian-language teachers for “loyalty” and to expel Russian-speakers might only help sharpen these divisions.

Ultimately, whoever wages it, an “information war” is a model used to explain the world which actually explains nothing. This doesn’t mean the West should ignore the challenge of Active Measures 2.0, but it needs to find its own way of evaluating them and its own language for combating them. Democracies are in a double bind: How can they respond to the Kremlin without becoming like it?

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/1/16

Ladies and gentlemen, please let me give you a caution.  Your skills are in demand.  You are very good at what you do.

You inform a target audience and influence them.  Also known as information operations, information warfare, marketing, public relations, advertising, perspective management, psychological operations, strategic communications, public diplomacy, social engineering, and any of another 30 or so names some people call what we do.  We inform and we influence. We never inform and not have an effect on our audience.  Maybe not the first time, maybe not every time, and maybe not until they have heard our message 150,000 times… but eventually what we say, and, more importantly, what we do, is going to sink in, give someone pause, and they might have an “aha!” moment.  It may be even more subtle than that.  Or even something might snap and everything becomes clear.

Most of the doctrine, policies, techniques, tactics, and procedures we use are totally unclassified, open for the whole world to read.  That is a good thing.

But when you put it all together and teach somebody “how to”, you are now enabling them to practice our art.  It is an art.  Sometimes it works, often it doesn’t.   We are working to change our art into a science, but we currently lack the computer processing power to factor in all the variables.  We lack the knowledge of how the mind, the human brain, how it actually works, to adequately predict how a certain piece of information is going to be received in any one specific brain.  We lack the knowledge of how culture, language, religion, history, geography, all the endless factors, how they will be affected and have an effect on the message.  The narrative.  We do not honestly understand what happens when it hits the wetware between your ears.  We think we know. We know in certain cases. We believe we know the expected outcome.  Most of the time…

When you produce a video describing our art form, how it works, how we put it all together, what to factor in, what to consider, you have now concisely and precisely described to some people who should not know how to push their message.  They will now have the knowledge, the skills, to sell their message to people who might always have been susceptible.  Now you may have enabled them to share their message so that they are effective salespeople of what could be an evil message.

Today, a reporter from an established news source was interviewing me.  He mentioned a video that had been produced and was being passed around a white-supremacist group as a ‘how-to’ for these racists.  I knew the lecturer.  I knew the producer. I knew their qualifications (very good, by the way).   The lecturer is an expert in psychological operations.  This was basically an instructional video on doing psychological operations on social media. It had been recorded in a professional setting but was publicly available on YouTube.

I could not hang up the phone fast enough.  I called the producer who had posted the video online and explained what was happening, what I had discovered.  The video was immediately taken off YouTube and put behind a paywall.  I also sent a note to the lecturer.  Crisis averted.

I would like to share this cautionary note with you, the experts within our community.  Please.  What you do is valuable. What you do is necessary.

But what we do is sensitive.  Take appropriate precautions, no matter what you do.

December 15, 2016

Providing new details about how it’s trying to counter the spread of fake news on its services, Facebook says it’s working with fact-checking groups to identify bogus stories — and to warn users if a story they’re trying to share has been reported as fake.

Facebook also says it will let users report a possible hoax by clicking the upper right hand corner of a post and choosing one of four reasons they want to flag it — from “It’s spam” to “It’s a fake news story.”

If a story is deemed false, it will be tagged with an alert message saying it’s been “disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers.”

A mockup provided by Facebook shows the screens it will use to allow users to report a potential hoax or fake news story.

Facebook

The social media giant was sharply criticized after the Nov. 8 election, as false stories were blamed for adding confusion to a dynamic campaign season. Since then, fake news and conspiracy theories were also identified as a motivating factor in a man’s assault on a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.

In the wake of that and other stories, some called for Facebook to hire editors to vet news stories; in today’s update from Facebook’s vice president in charge of its News Feed feature, Adam Mosseri, the company could be seen to be effectively outsourcing that job to third-party groups that it says have signed on to Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles.

The update to Facebook’s plan to cope with bogus information comes nearly one month after CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook had “much more work” to do in how it handles false stories.

Today’s news touches on four of the seven areas that Zuckerberg listed as part of his company’s fight against misinformation. It remains to be seen whether the moves will satisfy Facebook’s critics — both inside and outside the company’s ranks — who’ve faulted the way it deals with controversial, offensive and/or fake posts. As NPR’s Aarti Shahani reported in November, that effort has grown to include thousands of overseas subcontractors.

In a news release outlining how Facebook’s new reporting and flagging process will work, Mosseri said the company will rely on its users to report a story as potentially bogus, “along with other signals.” The story would then be sent to fact-checkers.

“If the fact-checking organizations identify a story as fake,” Mosseri said, “it will get flagged as disputed and there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why. Stories that have been disputed may also appear lower in News Feed.”

Mosseri added, “It will still be possible to share these stories, but you will see a warning that the story has been disputed as you share.”

The flagged story will also be rejected if anyone tries to turn it into a promoted ad, Facebook says.

While fake news created a stir because of its intersection with U.S. politics, many of the people behind the sites say they’re mainly in it for the money.

Here’s how Craig Silverman of BuzzFeed News described what he found in researching the phenomenon, Wednesday’s Fresh Air:

“Facebook directly doesn’t really earn them a lot of money. But the key thing about Facebook — and this is true whether you’re running a politics site out of Macedonia or whether you run a very large website in the U.S. — Facebook is the biggest driver of traffic to, you know, news websites in the world now. You know, 1.8 billion people log into Facebook every month.”

Today, Facebook says it has “found that a lot of fake news is financially motivated” — and that it’s taking steps to remove some of that incentive.

“On the buying side we’ve eliminated the ability to spoof domains, which will reduce the prevalence of sites that pretend to be real publications,” Mosseri says. “On the publisher side, we are analyzing publisher sites to detect where policy enforcement actions might be necessary.”

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/15/505728377/facebook-details-its-new-plan-to-combat-fake-news-stories

Russia remains a lawless country, bereft of morals or ethics.

Russia protects hackers that break laws, refuses their extradition, and covets their online prowess for their purposes.  Any hacker, regardless their skill level, suits Russia’s purposes.  Either they can quietly steal or attack on behalf of Russia, or provide noise to cover the good ones.

</end editorial>

U.S. Faces Tall Hurdles in Detaining or Deterring Russian Hackers

By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO DEC. 15, 2016

WASHINGTON — When a suspected Russian cybercriminal named Dmitry Ukrainsky was arrested in a Thai resort town last summer, the American authorities hoped they could whisk him back to New York for trial and put at least a temporary dent in Russia’s arsenal of computer hackers.

But the Russian authorities moved quickly to persuade Thailand not to extradite him, saying that he should be prosecuted at home. American officials knew what that meant. If Mr. Ukrainsky got on a plane to Moscow, they concluded, he would soon be back at work in front of a computer.

“The American authorities continue the unacceptable practice of ‘hunting’ for Russians all over the world, ignoring the norms of international laws and twisting other states’ arms,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The dispute over Mr. Ukrainsky, whose case remains in limbo, highlights the difficulties — and at times impossibilities — that the United States faces in combating Russian hackers, including those behind the recent attacks on the Democratic National Committee. That hack influenced the course, if not the outcome, of a presidential campaign and was the culmination of years of increasingly brazen digital assaults on American infrastructure.

The United States has few options for responding to such hacks. Russia does not extradite its citizens and has shown that it will not easily be deterred through public shaming. At times, the American authorities have enlisted local police officials to arrest suspects when they leave Russia — for vacation in the Maldives, for example. But more often than not, the F.B.I. and Justice Department investigate and compile accusations and evidence against people who will almost certainly never stand trial.

The American government divides the cybersecurity world into two categories: attacks directed or sponsored by governments, and those conducted by criminals. But Russian hacking defies easy categorization, American officials say, because the Russian government tacitly supports many private hackers and occasionally taps them for freelance government work. That has complicated investigations and upended the normal diplomatic order.

In May 2009, for instance, Secret Service agents met in Moscow with their counterparts in the Russian Federal Security Service, known as the F.S.B. The Americans said they were investigating a hacker who had installed malicious code in the software that some American businesses used to process credit card transactions. The hacker was stealing millions of credit card numbers and selling them in an underground digital marketplace.

The agents provided a name — Roman Seleznev — and the aliases he used online. His father was a member of the Russian Parliament. The Secret Service had followed his digital trail to Vladivostok, and they asked for help catching him.

Within weeks, all evidence of Mr. Seleznev’s online identity vanished from the internet. Rather than advancing the case, the Russian government had set it back, the American authorities believed. Prosecutors described their blunt conclusion in court documents: “Further coordination with the Russian government would jeopardize efforts to prosecute this case.” The American authorities were left to pursue Mr. Seleznev by themselves.

The Russians are not always uncooperative. This week they deported Joshua Samuel Aaron, 32, who was wanted by the F.B.I. on charges of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from Wall Street banks. But Mr. Aaron, who was arrested Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from Moscow, is an American, not a Russian.

In another computer crime case, in 2014, the Justice Department shut down two global computer networks that had been used to steal millions of dollars. Called Operation Tovar, it involved intelligence agencies around the world. The target was 30-year-old Evgeniy M. Bogachev. Safely in Russia, he watched as the F.B.I. made him a most-wanted fugitive and offered a $3 million reward for his capture.

In that case the F.B.I. was actually able to identify the person sitting at the keyboard. More often, the authorities identify aliases or internet addresses but cannot prove who is behind them unless the hackers get sloppy.

In the Seleznev case, for example, the authorities searched a Yahoo email account that was used to register some of the servers in the credit-card scam. Agents found, among other things, receipts for flowers that Mr. Seleznev had sent to his wife.

In the D.N.C. case and other election-year hacks, the authorities have concluded that people affiliated with the Russian government are to blame. But even if intelligence officials can identify who is behind those attacks, naming the actual perpetrators is even harder. One senior federal law enforcement official said this week that investigators still had many unanswered questions.

If it can be done, naming and prosecuting the hackers would follow a path set in 2014, when the Justice Department indicted five members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on charges of hacking into American networks. The indictment links the men to specific email addresses and aliases, but does not reveal how the authorities made those connections.

“The chance of us ever getting those Chinese guys is about zero,” said Mr. Anderson. “But it does show them that there’s a change afoot. At least the way we’re looking at it policy-wise.”

Criminal charges have more practical implications, too. “It’s about denying them the ability to travel freely and preventing them from spending their ill-gotten gains anywhere but Russia,” said Leo Taddeo, the chief security officer at Cryptzone and the former top agent in the F.B.I.’s New York computer operations division. “You’re confining them to a prison that spans 11 time zones that can be a pretty unpleasant place.”

In short, even hackers take vacations. In July 2013, the authorities captured a notorious Russian hacker named Aleksandr Andreevich Panin while he was in the Dominican Republic. Mr. Panin was sentenced to more than nine years of prison for selling malware that resulted in the theft of nearly $1 billion.

“Cybercriminals be forewarned: you cannot hide in the shadows of the internet,” said Sally Q. Yates, who was the United States attorney in Georgia at the time and is now the deputy attorney general. “We will find you and bring you to justice.”

It was certainly true for Mr. Seleznev. After finding the flower receipt and making other connections, the American authorities made secret plans to capture him while he vacationed in the Maldives. Agents arrested him at the airport there in 2014 and hurried him onto a plane to the United States territory of Guam.

After a trial in Seattle, he was convicted in August of 38 counts related to hacking in a scheme that prosecutors said cost businesses more than $169 million.

The Russian government declared Mr. Seleznev’s arrest to be an unlawful “kidnapping.” It has denied involvement in the D.N.C. hack and criticized the American government’s efforts to arrest Russian citizens traveling abroad.

That is playing out now in Thailand with Mr. Ukrainsky, and in the Czech Republic with Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin, 29, accused of hacking into LinkedIn and Dropbox. He was captured in October in a raid at a hotel in Prague, where he was vacationing with his girlfriend, the police said.

The Russian response was swift: “We insist that the detained Russian citizen should be transferred to Russia.” He remains in the Czech Republic.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/us/politics/russian-hackers-election.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Ten years ago, I deployed to Iraq for fourteen months during the time period historically known as “The Surge”.  I served as the Multi National Division – Baghdad Communications Line of Operations Chief which is a verbose way of saying I was the 1st Cav Division information campaign manager.  I wrote an essay once a week which was part of what the division operations officer later coined a ‘subliminal internal information campaign’.  I will post three or so for the first two weeks until I am caught up to the actual date.  This is the first of about sixty for your consideration. Thanks to Joel Harding for allowing me to use his venue.

WEEK 1 – 19 Nov 06

POLITICS-POLITICS-POLITICS

“War is merely the continuation of policy by other means,” – Karl von Clausewitz

To any US military commander, the Clausewtiz quote is a no brainer, but oft, it is forgotten when applied to other types of conflicts or turmoil.  It is not lost on Dr. Harith al-Dhari, the chairman of the Association of Muslim Scholars.  The Association has been a supporter of the Sunni insurgency since 2004.  A few weeks ago, the media cited him as having said the violence (in Baghdad) is political not sectarian.

It can be hard for us to comprehend how these ever increasing ruthless extra-judicial killings (note our sanitization) could not be anything but genocide or ethnic cleansing, but then again we are not Iraqis.  To the typical Iraqi these days, death, murder, revenge and torture are neither an abomination nor a rarity.   They are a part of life.  This is Iraqi politics and Dr. al-Dhari knows this.

The political rhetoric is escalating pressures within the Division’s information environment on scale with the violence on the ground and, at times, even precedes the violence.  The leader of the Sunni Tawafuq Coalition and Minister of Education threaten to pull the coalition out of the government: politics.  A few days later, seventy plus people, all Sunnis, are kidnapped from the Baghdad University: politics.  No coincidence.

Harith al-Dhari is not immune.  Minister of Interior Bulani issues a warrant for Dr. al-Dhari’s arrest for crimes of inciting terrorism: politics.  Dr. al-Dhari calls on Sunnis to pull out of the government: politics.  The PM’s spokesman says the Government of Iraq really won’t pursue the warrant but instead will investigate the matter: politics.

We in the military operate on a different plane from that of most politicians, and especially Iraqi politicians, be they Sunni or Shia, Arab or Persian.  Work hard, be a team player, don’t rock the boat, be forthright (but not too candid), bide your time and good things will happen to a US soldier and officer.

In Iraqi politics, arguing, grandstanding and posturing are all an effort to upstage your opponent.  Deny your opponents position and ignore him.  You win.   Directness is meaningless.  Yet, we cannot discount the political maneuvering in the information environment as a mere war of words.

The threat of pulling out of the government is real because the violence on the ground is real.  The government has done little to stem the violence and fulfill its obligation to the populace. Should the Sunnis pull out of the government, which they may, and force the government to collapse, it is not the end of the Coalition effort.  As long as the Sunni are involved in the political process, we can still salvage a solution.

The Italian government collapses all the time, yet Italy hasn’t fallen into Civil War.  Iraq and its Sunni and Shia, however, are not Italians and European.  The Iraqis are spilling blood, the government does nothing, and their republic slips towards the brink.

This is the second of nearly sixty essays I wrote while serving as the Multi National Division – Baghdad and 1st Cav Division information campaign manager during “The Surge”.  Week One ended like this, “The Italian government collapses all the time, yet Italy hasn’t fallen into Civil War.  Iraq and its Sunni and Shia, however, are not Italians and European.  The Iraqis are spilling blood, the government does nothing, and their republic slips towards the brink.”

WEEK 2 – 26 Nov 06

BRINKSMANSHIP

“Mazin,” I asked of my Iraqi-American acquaintance, “What would you say to the statement, ‘every time they (the Iraqi government) seem like they are going over the brink, they pull something out’? “

“When you understand that,” Mazin replied, “you’ll understand Iraqi politics.”

Thanksgiving has passed, so it is time for the Christmas specials.  Given the events within our area of operations over the past few weeks, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” comes to mind.  Envision the scene where the Grinch and his sleigh are stuck on a peak while the Grinch’s dog, wearing a reindeer antler headpiece, dangles in the air.  One small weight shift will cause the sleigh to slide backwards to safety or barreling uncontrolled down the hill.  The hapless dog can do nothing.

This week’s events pushed the Government of Iraq and Prime Minister Maliki to the ledge as insurgents targeted Dawa party members and Ministry of Health deputies of the already embattled Prime Minister.  One deputy Minister of Health was kidnapped from his home and another deputy health minister survived an assassination attempt in central Baghdad.  The Sunnis, it seemed, were striking back very hard and were unwilling to make any political concessions.  They had the government back on its heels again.

By mid-week, external influencers to the information environment were giving the Prime Minister (PM) a boost.  The United States Government called upon Syria to be a constructive part of Iraq’s future and then announced a summit between President Bush and PM Maliki in Jordan.  Not to be outdone, Iran offered to host a conference between Syria, Iraq and Iran.  Suddenly, Maliki was popular and had some reason for optimism.

Internal events furthered the optimism as Maliki agreed to host insurgent leaders to discuss their issues.  Senior Shia leaders within the Ministry of Defense were arrested on corruption charges.  Perhaps, the PM indeed had a grip on the government – the ledge was suddenly in retreat, but not for long.

The car bomb attacks in Sadr City have thrust the government back over the precipice as the various leaders use information to further their cause.  Sadr appeals to Harith al Dhari to apologize and be brothers.  To nobody’s surprise, Dr. al Dhari refused to cow to Sadr and blamed the United States for the car bombs.  Sadr blames the US for protecting Sunni Al Qaeda and has threatened to walk out on Maliki’s government if the PM meets with President Bush.  The White House responded saying the meeting is still a go.

The ball is back in the Prime Minister’s court.  He is the PM and he cannot back down to the likes of Moqtada al Sadr…unless he believes Sadr will back out of the government and force its collapse.  If PM Maliki meets with President Bush, this is good for the Coalition and for the position of the PM or any future PM.  If Sadr backs out and forces the government to collapse, it may be for the best.

Let’s go back to the Grinch’s dog hanging over the ledge.  Inferring who may be the hapless dog doesn’t matter and the kiddie metaphors are finished.  The future of the government is sliding and is about to go over the brink.  Having the government collapse, however, can be like having the Park Service instigate a snow slide instead of waiting for the avalanche.  The collapse allows the Iraqis to regroup in a somewhat controlled manner.  The alternative is an avalanche also known as Civil War.

A liberal friend just posted a highly incendiary piece on Facebook, Robert Reich’s “Trump’s Seven Techniques To Control The Media“.  It is far too obvious this is a blatant attempt to attribute negative characteristics to the President-elect, likening him to Goebbels.  Reich’s attempt is more Goebbels-like, and it is a dreadful testimony to the depths to which Reich has descended.  Now Reich appears to be nothing more than a political smear artist.  But let’s put petty politics aside and examine the salient points in the article.

Of course, I took an interest.  Controlling the media, controlling the news?

There are 7 steps that Reich says Trump supposedly uses to control the media.

1. Berate the media
2. Blacklist critical media
3. Turn the public against the media
4. Condemn satirical or critical comments
5. Threaten the media directly
6. Limit media access
7. Bypass the media and communicate with the public directly

*The seven step video from Democracy Now is at “Part 1, Robert Reich: Like a Tyrant, Trump Is Deploying Seven Techniques to Control the Media” and “Part 2: Robert Reich: Like a Tyrant, Trump Is Deploying Seven Techniques to Control the Media” are more Trump bashing than a discussion of Media control techniques. But still, the steps are embedded amidst the obviously biased political discussion.

This list looked very familiar, so I did some mild digging. Okay, confession time. When I hit a brick wall I became semi-obsessed.  Reich put a vague disclaimer on his website, but if you know me, I won’t let a mosquito buzz in my ear for too long.

I did an exhaustive search, and I do mean exhaustive.  I came up with some very strange results, which will be the result of my next blog.

After coming up with nothing, I cast my net out to experts, who suggested the following

• Ralph Sawyer, The TAO of Deception, unorthodox warfare in historic and modern China
• Goebbels
• Bernays
• Lenin
• Mao
• Sun Tzu
• Aristophanes
• Demosthenes

After searching, I found nothing.  My search continues, unless somebody can help.

I found this article about President Obama, from March 4, 2013.  “White House and Press Relations Getting Worse“.  In the article, President Obama is accused of doing the exact same things to control the press.

Apparently, Democracy Now and Robert Reich borrowed from the same list that the article from 2013 borrowed from.

Reich’s only concession to a reference is this vague paragraph:

Historically, these seven techniques have been used by demagogues to erode the freedom and independence of the press. Even before he’s sworn in, Trump seems intent on doing exactly this.

Reich did not invent this list, he borrowed it from somewhere.  I distinctly recall reading this previously.  He gives no examples of these demagogues.  He gives no references, no citations, and gives no credit.  The list has, therefore, no credibility. By extension, Robert Reich has no credibility.

Week 3, Civil War?, of the sixty essays I wrote while serving as the Multi National Division – Baghdad and 1st Cav Division information campaign manager during “The Surge”.  Week 2, Brinksmanship, ended like this, “The future of the government is sliding and is about to go over the brink.  Having the government collapse, however, can be like having the Park Service instigate a snow slide instead of waiting for the avalanche.  The collapse allows the Iraqis to regroup in a somewhat controlled manner.  The alternative is an avalanche also known as Civil War.”

WEEK 3 – 3 Dec 06

CIVIL WAR?

A war between political factions or regions within the same country – Dictionary.com

Choose your definition and your poison Ladies and Gentlemen.  We have a Civil War in Iraq!  Don’t we?  Yes we do!  The violence is raging across the country and up and down the Sunni-Shia ethnic fault line:  Najaf, Baghdad, Baqaba and Samarra.  Well, this is kind of true.  Najaf has a car bomb now and then and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) arrested some insurgents in Samarra.

Really, though, all but three of the eighteen provinces, Baghdad, Anbar and Salah al Din are mostly calm.  Ninawa gets hot now and then.  The Kurds are doing so well the Koreans may soon leave.  The Coalition just completed transfer of Provincial Iraqi Control in Hilla and Najaf and Karbala should transfer in December and January.  Okay.

We have a Civil War in Baghdad!  The attacks against the Coalition remain constant and high.  The Extra Judicial Killings continue unabated as the Sunni and Shia are killing each other at will despite the deployment of more ISF and Coalition Forces in the city.  Yeah, but.  Watching the video streams along Route Iowa and other routes with cars coming and going to work in the morning completely unencumbered dispels the notion of a Civil War.  The energy production capacity is increasing and the job market has improved slightly.  Hmmm?

Why all the waffling?  Why not?  Everybody else is waffling.  Earlier in the week, Muqtada al Sadr threatened to withdraw his party from the government to protest the Prime Minister’s summit with President Bush and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.  When the Prime Minister and the President departed for Jordan, the Sadrists emphatically declared they would no longer support the Maliki government albeit on a temporary basis.

Not to be out done, the Prime Minister delayed the start of the summit because he was already meeting with King Abdallah II and because the King wanted to discuss the Israel-Palestine question and because he was affronted by the leaked memo questioning his capabilities and because he kind of sort of didn’t want to lose the Sadrists support and because, well, you get the picture.

The summit was reduced from two days of high level talks to breakfast, a meeting and a joint press conference.  At the joint press conference, President Bush emphatically supported the Prime Minister’s government, acknowledged the Prime Minister’s concerns and committed to do something about it.  Thank goodness somebody could be decisive.

In the information environment, we have Civil War!  Why?  Because the National Broadcasting Company said so, that’s why.  In this business, he who gets his word out first often wins.  Today, The Stars and Stripes political cartoon section provided reinforcing fires to NBC’s declaration of Civil War.  It is a done deal.  We have Civil War in the information environment.  So, what does it mean?

It means information is conditioning the Baghdad populace to believe it is at Civil War and it may be only a matter of time before the people take more definitive actions like erecting road blocks, fortifying neighborhoods, not going to work and not crossing the river unless the parties involved come to a solution.

The breakthrough to a solution may have come on Friday when two high ranking Sunnis, Vice President Tariq Hashimi and Deputy Prime Minister Salam al Zawba’i, unexpectedly aligned themselves with the Sadrists and criticized the current government.

The Supreme Council Islamic Republic of Iraq (SCIRI) and Dawa parties and the Kurds have to be feeling a little nervous.  The Sadrists and Sunnis are nationalists.  If the nationalists come together, they will likely fight for their country harder than those who are an extension of Iran.  The Kurds can always go back to neutrality and find haven up north.  SCIRI and Dawa, however, may not be so fortunate and may find themselves switching their attitudes toward Sunnis and Sadrists as a matter of self preservation.

In a land where the enemy of my enemy is my friend, waffling is not uncommon.  Right now, Baghdad is a hot waffle iron and sometimes waffles get burned.