How deep is the rabbit hole?
Discussion
Randy Winkman said:
As I was told in the thread about the Grenfell Tower fire; I might note care about something (in my case, Lily Allen's tweets), but I live in a world where these things do matter. You might not do Facebook, but loads of other people do. It therefore affects your life.
yes, i can see how it works from that perspective.jonnyb said:
Lord Marylebone said:
Breadvan72 said:
Russia is not a major threat as it is relatively skint, but it suits Putin, who is a short to medium term thinker, to foment instability in democracies. A weak and divided US and a weak and divided EU are good news for him.
Is exactly the correct answer.He may not be a direct threat, but he very much likes to distract his own population by causing trouble elsewhere.
Russia is rearming, it’s command and control systems battle hardened by Syria. It’s facing a weakend Europe and nato. Only the other day the head of the UK armed forces stated the UK would not be able to resist a Russian attack. And we would have to resist until the US could place enough assets in theatre to turn the tied. That could takes weeks if not months.
Russia is a threat we ignore at our peril.
Wondering how much help Jeremy Corbyn got from the Russians in the general election? their campaign was far more reliant on the young vote and that was driven by social media.
Jeremy Corbyn in power would be a wet dream for the Russians, Likely to ditch our nuclear deterrent and has said he wouldn't press the button anyway. Will more than likely crash our economy, pledged to ban fracking and so on and so on.
I bet the Russian bots where on over time in the general election.
Jeremy Corbyn in power would be a wet dream for the Russians, Likely to ditch our nuclear deterrent and has said he wouldn't press the button anyway. Will more than likely crash our economy, pledged to ban fracking and so on and so on.
I bet the Russian bots where on over time in the general election.
Randy Winkman said:
As I was told in the thread about the Grenfell Tower fire; I might note care about something (in my case, Lily Allen's tweets), but I live in a world where these things do matter. You might not do Facebook, but loads of other people do. It therefore affects your life.
Most importantly, those "loads of other people" include everybody in the traditional media.Not-The-Messiah said:
Wondering how much help Jeremy Corbyn got from the Russians in the general election? their campaign was far more reliant on the young vote and that was driven by social media.
If he gets in at the next election, expect this story to gather pace rapidly - especially among those who dismiss it at the moment because it may have helped get what they wanted.4x4Tyke said:
That leaking of data is a field of study in computer science, it is called information entropy. In lay terms, the more complex a communications system becomes the more information leaks out of it, information wants to be free, a meme so true, it has become a bit cliché.
There is an upside, information entropy also works in progressive ways with increasing whistle blowing leaks and demands for increasing transparency.
The truth will out in the end, my grandfather used to say many decades ago.
Sorry but that is absolute bThere is an upside, information entropy also works in progressive ways with increasing whistle blowing leaks and demands for increasing transparency.
The truth will out in the end, my grandfather used to say many decades ago.
ks. Information entropy is part of information theory and has nothing to do with what you'r suggesting.williamp said:
Its always happened. The odd thing is that americans really believe Russia could spend ***just*** $46k and swing the vote of the election. And $54k after the election. Just $100k in total. Slightly more then a fully loaded Cadillac.
Comapre the $48k with the estimated amount Clinton and Trump spent on the election: $1.4Bn and $957m respectively. Do you really believe tha Russias £48k of spend on advertising made any difference at all, nevermind significant difference, nevermind vote-changing difference??
And to what end?? Why would Russia favoue trump over Clinton? And if they did, why wouldnt you spend more???
Just $48k. The same price as a mid spec cadillac. And the senate committee are looking into it. Its madness....
The thing is, that $100k figure is clearly bComapre the $48k with the estimated amount Clinton and Trump spent on the election: $1.4Bn and $957m respectively. Do you really believe tha Russias £48k of spend on advertising made any difference at all, nevermind significant difference, nevermind vote-changing difference??
And to what end?? Why would Russia favoue trump over Clinton? And if they did, why wouldnt you spend more???
Just $48k. The same price as a mid spec cadillac. And the senate committee are looking into it. Its madness....
ks. It's the amount that some groups who are most blatantly linked to the Russian government spent on Facebook ads. The total ad spend is completely unknown and paid Facebook adverts are also a tiny part of it. There are large numbers of fake and bot accounts spread across social media, being run by Russia, which are reinforcing their chosen propaganda themes. Edited by hairykrishna on Tuesday 21st November 13:24
hairykrishna said:
There are large numbers of fake and bot accounts spread across social media, being run by Russia, which are reinforcing their chosen propaganda themes.
As a technical matter how is this known? I'd have thought the Russian state and its agents were proficient at hiding their physical location or language clues in propaganda no?fblm said:
hairykrishna said:
There are large numbers of fake and bot accounts spread across social media, being run by Russia, which are reinforcing their chosen propaganda themes.
As a technical matter how is this known? I'd have thought the Russian state and its agents were proficient at hiding their physical location or language clues in propaganda no?So Russia is just one of many groups/organisation/individuals etc etc etc within such a set.
The west will be just as active in this field as the east.
fblm said:
hairykrishna said:
There are large numbers of fake and bot accounts spread across social media, being run by Russia, which are reinforcing their chosen propaganda themes.
As a technical matter how is this known? I'd have thought the Russian state and its agents were proficient at hiding their physical location or language clues in propaganda no?
plasticpig said:
Sorry but that is absolute bks. Information entropy is part of information theory and has nothing to do with what you'r suggesting.
ks. Information entropy is part of information theory and has nothing to do with what you'r suggesting.
That link proves Leaked entropy IS information content.
There are two types of people in this world those that understand the original science and those that think bluster and a link Wikipedia will get them by. Why not prove you are not the latter by levelling a specific critique and adding something other than bluster.
All systems continuously leak entropy, they leak information. It is leaked at the particle physics level of and all the way to the top of the technology stack. That little fact is a cornerstone of PKI, cryptanalysis and IT security.
fblm said:
As a technical matter how is this known? I'd have thought the Russian state and its agents were proficient at hiding their physical location or language clues in propaganda no?
Yes, but they are not perfect, they are humans they make mistakes. You probably don't know, but one of the first cracks in enigma was provided by a simple human failure by German operators. They would double key a specific letter at the start of each message. This gave the cryptanalysists two characters of some plausible plain text and two encrypted characters; other leaks were long winded titles in signatures giving known plain text for part of the message. This is the leaked entropy, I've mentioned elsewhere.The reality is there are many ways of leaking info and as many attacks as IT security researchers looking at it. Traffic analysis, language and timezone encodings, browser fingerprinting, posting patterns to name a few.
They could and probably will improve their counter-measures, they still will not remain completely hidden from dedicated IT security researchers.
Atomic12C said:
Also, is it not beyond the scope of assumption that equally there will be many bots and fake accounts set up by ANY vested interest or pressure group trying to further their cause?
So Russia is just one of many groups/organisation/individuals etc etc etc within such a set.
The west will be just as active in this field as the east.
That is pretty much the point I was raising by the thread title.So Russia is just one of many groups/organisation/individuals etc etc etc within such a set.
The west will be just as active in this field as the east.
Previously we've known these techniques were used commercially, we've thought the vast majority are only trying to subvert our wallets. The rabbit hole is just who else is trying to subvert democracy, liberty, or what else?
We won't stop the miss-information happening, which I why people to be educated to the shape of the threat.
The Germans eventually closed that
in enigma caused by double keying, but by then it was too late.The question of how do home intelligence services know it is being done and by whom is interesting. Some of the activity will be deliberately less than covert, just to send the message that this is what we are up to. Some activity, will have more effort put in to the misdirection of the origins And probably some activity, we are all blissfully unaware of.
The challenge facing the intelligence services is the target audience, i.e all the social media addicts and those who only care for themselves are ever more hungry for self validation and ever more ignorant to the world around them. Influencing the ignorant to believe an alternate reality is not really that hard in the short term (see TrumPet), the hostile actors have a longer term goal which is being drip fed to many and the audience is ever increasing.
The challenge facing the intelligence services is the target audience, i.e all the social media addicts and those who only care for themselves are ever more hungry for self validation and ever more ignorant to the world around them. Influencing the ignorant to believe an alternate reality is not really that hard in the short term (see TrumPet), the hostile actors have a longer term goal which is being drip fed to many and the audience is ever increasing.
What surprised me when they leaked the various tools and stuff used by the NSA, it was the surprise by people that they existed.
And if the NSA had them, I bet they are not the only ones. Same networks and methods exist across the world, there are bound to be others developing nefarious tools for dodgy dealings.
And if the NSA had them, I bet they are not the only ones. Same networks and methods exist across the world, there are bound to be others developing nefarious tools for dodgy dealings.
4x4Tyke said:
The reality is there are many ways of leaking info and as many attacks as IT security researchers looking at it. Traffic analysis, language and timezone encodings, browser fingerprinting, posting patterns to name a few.
They could and probably will improve their counter-measures, they still will not remain completely hidden from dedicated IT security researchers.
My point is the Russian state and their various agents are going to know all this and more. They will have their own state supported researchers, probably with even less legal or moral oversight than 'our' guys. If need be I'm sure they have many players to easily initiate attacks from physically inside the target country, in the right language, at the right times using the right browsers etc... I'm just not sure why we're so quick to believe the 'we have traced this activity to Russian hackers' line, do we believe much else the CIA tells us? The Russians aren't the ones who had all their hacking tools stolen and publicised; so I assume they are better at this than 'we' are. The question in my mind is if they are good then who left the breadcrumbs to Russia if there are any? China? NK? Or b) it really was the Russians and they just don't care about getting caught. They could and probably will improve their counter-measures, they still will not remain completely hidden from dedicated IT security researchers.
Plausible deniability and keeping your powder dry.
If a state actor uses all of the tools available to them to conduct activities which are not countering an immediate threat to state, then when the need for such tools arises, they will not be a secret and countermeasures will have been developed.
Better to outsource the activity to a troll farm, which is not directly linked to the state government and if/when a discovery is made, the state uses the old line of, we are not in control of all internet patriots.
If a state actor uses all of the tools available to them to conduct activities which are not countering an immediate threat to state, then when the need for such tools arises, they will not be a secret and countermeasures will have been developed.
Better to outsource the activity to a troll farm, which is not directly linked to the state government and if/when a discovery is made, the state uses the old line of, we are not in control of all internet patriots.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff