-
Propaganda, harder than it looks
A poor effort at “black propaganda” The success or failure of black propaganda depends on the receiver’s willingness to accept the credibility of the source and the content of the message. Care has to be taken to place the sources and messages within a social, cultural, and political framework of the target audience. If the… Read more
-
Useful idiots indeed
#blog/disinformation It was the media’s poor handling of the leaked documents that had the most impact. In late June ‘16 @lorenzofb @pwnallthethings and I had proved Guccifer 2.0 was not “a Romanian hacker” but rather more than one Russian engaged in an information operation to aid the Trump campaign. Collected contemporary evidence here. There was… Read more
-
Second Mover Advantage
Russian online disinformation has predominantly been focussed on amplifying existing narratives. It almost always uses “conspiracy theories,” or other fringe false narratives, invented by elements of the target audience. The reason is simple: it is cheap and effective. Amplifying existing narratives developed by the members of the target audience is cheaper than paying for experts… Read more
-
Modern Mass Media and Info War
This is fascinating… the 3rd largest media company, after Disney and Warner, is The Soul Publishing, and they’re pure online only. They produce dedicated content designed for Facebook and YouTube algorithms. Why is that interesting? Well, for one, their content is lies (seriously, the debunking videos are hilarious: “wow, that cleaning solution made those sneakers… Read more
-
Zoom + Keybase
There is an opportunity here to signal that Zoom is not a Chinese asset. Zoom can effectively remove itself from the board by completely mitigating passive surveillance. When no state’s intelligence agency benefits from a home field advantage with Zoom, then its value as a strategic cyber asset is massively reduced. If Zoom eliminates the… Read more
-
A Map of 0day Deaths
Collection Bias This map does not show what FireEye claim it shows. Israel, 1 0day? 8200 be slacking not hacking Australia, 0 0days? ASD Aussie Slacker Directorate. This is a map of 0day deaths where the death is attributed. Nothing more. A map of attributed 0day deaths. It doesn’t even reflect operational methodology because Chinese… Read more
-
Forgotten Tricks of Trench Warfare
Razzle Dazzle everywhere The German sandbags were a variety of colors, black, pink, yellow, beige, green, etc. They were not arranged in orderly patterns, but scattered haphazardly throughout the parapet. The belief was that the cacophony of contrasting colors made it harder for the human visual processing system to make sense of what it saw.… Read more
-
Iran in the membrane
Iranian retaliation for killing soleimani It is hard to see the assassination of Soleimani as anything but an act of war. Killing the second most important politician, and top military leader, of a foreign state outside of a war zone is essentially a de facto declaration of war. The saving grace here is that the… Read more
-
Books I read and recommend. 2019
In no particular order, here are some of the books I read over the last year. Fiction (sci-fi fantasy noir) Dope by Sara Gran jade war cry pilot the first stone the city in the middle of the night every heart a doorway a memory called empire Goshawk squadron The friends of Eddie coyle Mole… Read more
-
DPRK 2020
Intro https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/iranian-official-denies-plans-interfere-us-election-65929393 Trump asks for foreign interference Republicans are fine with Trump’s Ukraine collusion. Preventing foreign states from interfering with the 2020 US presidential election is a lost battle. There is no reason for any of them to stay out, and many are even incentivised to control the outcome regardless of the repercussions. DPRK 2020… Read more