How deep is the rabbit hole?

Author
Discussion

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
Conspiracy peddling and who believes it -

https://www.vox.com/2017/11/15/16649292/hannity-co...

4x4Tyke

Original Poster:

6,506 posts

131 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all

AWS is the Amazon platform mentioned earlier

"Massive US military social media spying archive left wide open in AWS S3 buckets"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/17/us_milita...

Crooks are also getting into the game for their own reasons.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/17/fake_news...

4x4Tyke

Original Poster:

6,506 posts

131 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
Breadvan72 said:
Conspiracy peddling and who believes it -

https://www.vox.com/2017/11/15/16649292/hannity-co...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory

jmorgan

36,010 posts

283 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
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....
Tipping points and all that. Not the size of the thing but how it is best applied. Both parties in the us threw obscene amounts of money at it for 55% turnout?

Bit of clever marketing after the person you want to win in key area’s remembering this is online not in person on a jet, not as much money needed?

And you want it to be under the radar.

wc98

10,334 posts

139 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
4x4Tyke said:
I work in IT, specifically with teams that build very large scale websites, a bank, gaming(betting), a supermarket. There are a few privacy holdouts but they are few and far between. Everybody is leaking information online every day and it is being used to manipulate you. This happens commercially with advertising, it is inevitable that this will be used politically. It is important that more people understand how this happens.

You openly tell them your interests every time you type something into a search engine.

All the big internet brands Google, Facebook, Twitter provide tool kits that are used to develop most websites, these track everybody across the sites you visit. There are intermediates like Amazon and Cloudflare that provide much of the infrastructure, that can do the same. We are each a number (technically called unique hash) with a bunch of data attached. This page for example, uses Google Analytics, most commercial sites do. You are not a customer, you are ultimately a sales lead.

They see every site address, every page, the time, where you came from (source IP address), subject of the page, each time we visit a web page with Analytics we leak a little more information about ourselves.

In a short time we are linked to family, friends and colleagues, sometimes by location, sometimes using the same internet connection. At some point you leaked your email and other personal details like name, DOB, address, details of companies you have accounts with.

That only scratches the surface, the reality is orders of magnitude more insidious, it is largely hidden from the public consciousness and hideously complex.

The net result is you are targeted with highly focused marketing information, this happens commercially now, it should be no surprise to see this used politically. We will need to accept that is how it will be and arm ourselves with the knowledge to see past it.

Leavers for example like HP sauce, it is their favourite brand. That link itself is meaningless, except to reveal the level of detail they have about people. They can target just about anything and we need to be wise to it.
i think most people will realise this happens, to a greater or lesser degree anyway. what are the actual problems it creates for the individual ? i don't do facebook, twitter or any of the similar platforms . i only visit a few specialist interest websites and have never knowingly purchased anything as a result of targeted advertising . i don't mind a third party knowing my online browsing habits ,it is useless information as far as i am concerned.

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
Excellent topic.

I have read into the whole social media/bots/fake news thing quite a lot recently and my answer to how deep is 'Very'.

Seen has how Brexit was mentioned, it has been shown this week that Russian bots/accounts/sources went into overdrive in an attempt to push the Brexit message as hard as possible.

Because, of course, it is within Putin's interest to destabilise and break up the EU as much as possible, and encouraging Brexit is a great step in the right direction.

The tweet/Facebook post that many people saw and shared encouraging them to "Make June the 23rd our Independence Day" was from, you've guessed it, a Russian account.

Repulsive tweets, posts and photos full of lies about about immigration, Europe, terrorists, asylum seekers, ISIS, terror attacks, muslims, Eastern Europeans etc that the Russians have spread all over social media, have sadly been lapped up and gleefully shared in the UK my mouth breathing morons.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/russia-use...

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/brexit-russia-influ...

I see blatantly fake or intentionally disruptive 'news articles' shared on a daily basis by many people who really should be know better, it is a massive problem now.

The issue is that people seek out and share articles or posts that reinforce their views, however false that article may be, but by sharing it, they are potentially encouraging others to be taken in by it.

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
The answer to the question in the thread title is “deep, and it’s getting deeper”. There are some excellent articles floating around about Cambridge Analytica. Well worth anyone’s time to dig out and read.

4x4Tyke

Original Poster:

6,506 posts

131 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
wc98 said:
i think most people will realise this happens, to a greater or lesser degree anyway. what are the actual problems it creates for the individual ? i don't do facebook, twitter or any of the similar platforms . i only visit a few specialist interest websites and have never knowingly purchased anything as a result of targeted advertising . i don't mind a third party knowing my online browsing habits ,it is useless information as far as i am concerned.
I have the same hope, that most people will realise but I have big doubts raised daily, both online and IRL. There was a recent thread in CG&S about a very obvious phishing/scam email. The OP and most contributors to the thread simply did not get it, a small minority did and called it out, only to receive responses along the lines of 'I think that is ok', blah blah gut feelings, vs knowledge. I have friends that are canny wheeler dealers/horse traders when face to face, but absolutely clueless to online scams.

Your post shows more awareness than those posts, however..

You say i don't do facebook, twitter or any of the similar platforms. Most if not all of those other sites you visit will use the tools provided by some of those companies. I already mentioned that PH uses Google Analytics and nearly every site on the web does. PH also uses Amazon's AWS platform. So that is two of those organisations that will be tracking the you. If you have a smart phone, that is two more, your network provider and Apple or Google, same with SmartTV(Manufacturer) or STB(Sky).

You say you've 'never knowingly purchased anything as a result of targeted advertising' the key word there is knowingly. I would bet good money you have, but it would be impossible to prove one way or another. I cannot explain in any detail, the psychology of sales, marketing, propaganda. What I do know, having been party to the metrics/statistics, is that it works.

An example. Generic marketing to existing customers by email has very low conversion rates in the region of a few percent at the very best. A targeted email offering a deal on something they've previously searched/viewed, the conversion rate is much higher, offering a similar alternative also has high conversion rate. e.g. Playstation for people that viewed X-Boxes.


hairyben

8,516 posts

182 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
The real problem is the amount of intellectual dishonesty in play today. Without that, all the social media manipulation possible would be worthless, but you can see it right here in this thread how people think fake news is something only the "other side" are bad with and if you point out fake news they're buying into it's just brushed off as kind of different and kind of okay, because we're the good guys right?

CrutyRammers

13,735 posts

197 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
hairyben said:
The real problem is the amount of intellectual dishonesty in play today. Without that, all the social media manipulation possible would be worthless, but you can see it right here in this thread how people think fake news is something only the "other side" are bad with and if you point out fake news they're buying into it's just brushed off as kind of different and kind of okay, because we're the good guys right?
Yes. Complaining that "the other side" is lead by fake news to reinforce your belief that "your side" is superior is just another example of confirmation bias at work.

768

13,601 posts

95 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
essayer said:
whole farms of Twitter accounts posting during Russia office hours
I've mentioned this before on unrelated topics, but I've previously spent a very short amount of time looking at obscuring country of origin from timestamps.

It takes about a nanosecond to realise that you wouldn't use office hours for the country you want to obscure. It doesn't take much longer to realise you need to hide state holidays, cultural differences in length of a working day, time spent on lunch breaks, changes in daylight saving or the lack of, etc. And the best way of obscuring that data is to make it mimic another.

Russia is a very capable state when it comes to electronic communications. If this is even from Russia I just can't see it being state sponsored. Covert it is not.

As for anyone thinking these accounts are swinging national results, I'm with the guy they had on the Daily Politics - that's for crackpots.

Oakey

27,523 posts

215 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
CrutyRammers said:
hairyben said:
The real problem is the amount of intellectual dishonesty in play today. Without that, all the social media manipulation possible would be worthless, but you can see it right here in this thread how people think fake news is something only the "other side" are bad with and if you point out fake news they're buying into it's just brushed off as kind of different and kind of okay, because we're the good guys right?
Yes. Complaining that "the other side" is lead by fake news to reinforce your belief that "your side" is superior is just another example of confirmation bias at work.
If they tried to influence Brexit, did they try to influence the General Election? And if they did, in which direction?

There's already been suggestions in the past Russia are behind a lot of anti-fracking propaganda because they have a vested interest, so what else are they meddling in?

grumbledoak

31,499 posts

232 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
williamp said:
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??
That would make the Russians just over 29,000 times smarter in their campaigning than the Democrats. hehe

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
grumbledoak said:
williamp said:
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??
That would make the Russians just over 29,000 times smarter in their campaigning than the Democrats. hehe
I guess it depends entirely on how that 48k was spent by Russia.

If the political parties in the USA spent 48k they might get a TV advert and a couple of billboards.

If Russia spent 48k it would probably be able to fund 50 people sitting in a room for 12 hours a day doing nothing but flooding social media with propaganda for weeks on end.

I'm fairly sure the social media propaganda would have the far greater 'bang for your buck' these days.

I'm not saying that's what the Russians spent their 48k on, but merely making a comparison.

Atomic12C

5,180 posts

216 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
Manipulation of information and skewing of 'the facts' has been something that has happened since day one of rulers and governments.

Social media is simply highlighting the fact in the modern era.

Misinformation/fake news happens not only in rulers/governments but also happens in business/trade and any form of competition.

If we all know about it and accept it, then at least a rational mind can steer through it.




powerstroke

10,283 posts

159 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
what would we do without Russia ?? we do too much trade with China and no one thinks North Korea is much of threat , so Russia is the bogey man ...

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
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.

hairyben

8,516 posts

182 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
Atomic12C said:
Manipulation of information and skewing of 'the facts' has been something that has happened since day one of rulers and governments.

Social media is simply highlighting the fact in the modern era.

Misinformation/fake news happens not only in rulers/governments but also happens in business/trade and any form of competition.

If we all know about it and accept it, then at least a rational mind can steer through it.
To a degree.

The sad thing is the internet represents an unprecedented wealth of information that should empower people, but a great many people seem to prefer limiting themselves.

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
The internet contains all the clever but it also contains all the stupid. Many people only see the latter.

Randy Winkman

16,017 posts

188 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
quotequote all
wc98 said:
4x4Tyke said:
I work in IT, specifically with teams that build very large scale websites, a bank, gaming(betting), a supermarket. There are a few privacy holdouts but they are few and far between. Everybody is leaking information online every day and it is being used to manipulate you. This happens commercially with advertising, it is inevitable that this will be used politically. It is important that more people understand how this happens.

You openly tell them your interests every time you type something into a search engine.

All the big internet brands Google, Facebook, Twitter provide tool kits that are used to develop most websites, these track everybody across the sites you visit. There are intermediates like Amazon and Cloudflare that provide much of the infrastructure, that can do the same. We are each a number (technically called unique hash) with a bunch of data attached. This page for example, uses Google Analytics, most commercial sites do. You are not a customer, you are ultimately a sales lead.

They see every site address, every page, the time, where you came from (source IP address), subject of the page, each time we visit a web page with Analytics we leak a little more information about ourselves.

In a short time we are linked to family, friends and colleagues, sometimes by location, sometimes using the same internet connection. At some point you leaked your email and other personal details like name, DOB, address, details of companies you have accounts with.

That only scratches the surface, the reality is orders of magnitude more insidious, it is largely hidden from the public consciousness and hideously complex.

The net result is you are targeted with highly focused marketing information, this happens commercially now, it should be no surprise to see this used politically. We will need to accept that is how it will be and arm ourselves with the knowledge to see past it.

Leavers for example like HP sauce, it is their favourite brand. That link itself is meaningless, except to reveal the level of detail they have about people. They can target just about anything and we need to be wise to it.
i think most people will realise this happens, to a greater or lesser degree anyway. what are the actual problems it creates for the individual ? i don't do facebook, twitter or any of the similar platforms . i only visit a few specialist interest websites and have never knowingly purchased anything as a result of targeted advertising . i don't mind a third party knowing my online browsing habits ,it is useless information as far as i am concerned.
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.