Putin's Internet Trolls Are Stoking The Vitriolic Fire By Posing As Trump Supporters
from the disinformation-nation dept
Over the last year we've repeatedly noted how Putin's Internet propaganda efforts go well beyond flinging insults in news story comment sections. Thanks to whistleblowing by the likes of Lyudmila Savchuk, we learned how Putin employs multiple factories operated by a rotating crop of shell companies whose sole purpose is to fill the internet with Putin-friendly drivel twenty-four-hours a day. Early reports noted how these efforts focused on what you'd expect from Putin: discrediting reporters, distorting Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, or opposing Finland's entry into NATO.
But a little more than a year ago, New York Times Magazine's Adrian Chen decided to see just how deep that particular rabbit hole went.
What he uncovered was a global, not-at-all subtle disinformation network of well-constructed hoaxes, heavily-produced YouTube videos, fake Wikipedia entries, and tens of thousands of bogus social media accounts -- many of which were designed to pollute the global discourse pool here in the States. The report went so far as to highlight one disinformation effort where Putin-paid trolls posed as Americans online, directing users to a fully-realized museum in Chelsea, Manhattan professing to show the "other side" of the Ukranian conflict (you say invasion, I say tomahto).
That Putin's trolls have extended these tactics to the US election is more than likely. In fact, in an accompanying podcast discussing his story, Chen notes that he also discovered that a number of Putin's disinformation pugilists have been posing as Trump supporters for some time -- something New Yorker contributor Ben Taub was quick to highlight this week just as the DNC e-mail hack hysteria began to peak:
Obviously this insight begins to carry new meaning as Russia's involvement in the DNC hack becomes clearer. Many of course have spent significant calories trying to suggest a direct Putin to Trump connection; that's certainly the narrative being pushed by a DNC with a vested interest in avoiding any real conversation about what the e-mails actually say. But it's equally possible that Putin's simply using Internet propaganda to pour gasoline on a rolling dumpster fire that's already veering out of control.
This level of propaganda is something the United States -- already effectively at war with itself -- is not only very good at, but incredibly susceptible to. As a nation we're already prone to over-reaction in tech policy (ban all encryption!), adore responses that make already bad situations worse (immediately launch a cyberattack on Russia!), have an echo-chamber media for whom fact checking is often optional, and an ongoing, passionate relationship with cybersecurity hypocrisy.
During election season we're additionally susceptible to this type of attack; sportsmen in our color-coded onesies and ear plugs -- ready to pounce at the faintest suggestion that our preferredpunishment candidate has anything other than the noblest of intentions. We're wading into some very dangerous and ugly territory during what's already been one of the most divisive years on record. Enter the latest expanded claims that the DNC hacker was likely under Putin's employ:
We're already up to our necks in our own marketing, political disinformation and propaganda, leaving us incapable of differentiating Russian disinformation from home grown vitriol. We're barely coordinated enough to agree on what cybersecurity should mean -- much less differentiate hostile Russian propaganda from the vanilla rancor and bile pervading the internet on any given afternoon. Ill-prepared, poorly informed and confused as hell, there's numerous possible responses from the United States here. Given our history with abysmal cybersecurity policy and even worse media dysfunction -- none of them are likely to be any good.
Welcome to the post-truth era's disinformation wars, ladies and gentlemen. Team "level headed" is going to need all the help it can get.
But a little more than a year ago, New York Times Magazine's Adrian Chen decided to see just how deep that particular rabbit hole went.
What he uncovered was a global, not-at-all subtle disinformation network of well-constructed hoaxes, heavily-produced YouTube videos, fake Wikipedia entries, and tens of thousands of bogus social media accounts -- many of which were designed to pollute the global discourse pool here in the States. The report went so far as to highlight one disinformation effort where Putin-paid trolls posed as Americans online, directing users to a fully-realized museum in Chelsea, Manhattan professing to show the "other side" of the Ukranian conflict (you say invasion, I say tomahto).
That Putin's trolls have extended these tactics to the US election is more than likely. In fact, in an accompanying podcast discussing his story, Chen notes that he also discovered that a number of Putin's disinformation pugilists have been posing as Trump supporters for some time -- something New Yorker contributor Ben Taub was quick to highlight this week just as the DNC e-mail hack hysteria began to peak:
Here's the relevant piece of transcript, from 2015: https://t.co/yVbzyziDHF pic.twitter.com/wXh3Hunx1I
— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) July 25, 2016
This level of propaganda is something the United States -- already effectively at war with itself -- is not only very good at, but incredibly susceptible to. As a nation we're already prone to over-reaction in tech policy (ban all encryption!), adore responses that make already bad situations worse (immediately launch a cyberattack on Russia!), have an echo-chamber media for whom fact checking is often optional, and an ongoing, passionate relationship with cybersecurity hypocrisy.
During election season we're additionally susceptible to this type of attack; sportsmen in our color-coded onesies and ear plugs -- ready to pounce at the faintest suggestion that our preferred
"The researchers, at Arlington, Va.-based ThreatConnect, traced the self-described Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 back to an Internet server in Russia and to a digital address that has been linked in the past to Russian online scams. Far from being a singly, sophisticated hacker, Guccifer 2.0 is more likely a collection of people from the propaganda arm of the Russian government meant to deflect attention away from Moscow as the force behind the DNC hacks and leaks of emails, the researchers found."Given countries are busy hacking each other every god damned day, Russia's involvement here -- if true -- shouldn't be a shock. Neither should Russia's use of propaganda and hybrid warfare, a response it believes is justified retaliation to decades of this country's own information warfare efforts. Enter the U.S. media stage left, not only hysterically surprised that nation states hack each other, but immediately losing the forest for the trees; happily insisting the actual content of the e-mails are meaningless -- when they're not busy pushing op-eds advocating all out cyber war. If this is a test of things to come, it's one the press is already failing.
“These are bureaucrats, not sophisticated hackers,” Rich Barger, ThreatConnect’s chief intelligence officer, told The Daily Beast. In blog posts and in interviews with journalists, Barger said, Guccifer 2.0 has made inconsistent remarks and given a version of how he penetrated the DNC networks that technically don’t make sense. For instance, the hacker claims to have used a software flaw that didn’t exist until December 2015 in order to break into the DNC networks last summer.
We're already up to our necks in our own marketing, political disinformation and propaganda, leaving us incapable of differentiating Russian disinformation from home grown vitriol. We're barely coordinated enough to agree on what cybersecurity should mean -- much less differentiate hostile Russian propaganda from the vanilla rancor and bile pervading the internet on any given afternoon. Ill-prepared, poorly informed and confused as hell, there's numerous possible responses from the United States here. Given our history with abysmal cybersecurity policy and even worse media dysfunction -- none of them are likely to be any good.
Welcome to the post-truth era's disinformation wars, ladies and gentlemen. Team "level headed" is going to need all the help it can get.
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When being totally cynical actually seems sensible.
I can't wait until this shit backfires in a very ugly way.
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Chen: I don't know (and then he goes on to say other things)
If it was Russia, wouldn't they expect this to come to light, and when it does come to light, will put Trump in a bad light? So if it was Russia, was it done not to support Trump, but make him look bad?
Either way, seems Hillary and the DNC doesn't do a good job of protecting email.
All the talk now is about the aftermath, not what was actually in the emails. Two thoughts here, Hillary used a private server for her emails to keep the public from being able to know what she is doing and to subvert the FOI process. The DNC worked against a candidate to subvert the democratic process.
These are people we should support?
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If the alternative is the guy Putin wants as President of the USA, then probably yes, we should support these people. The real question is why in a country of 300+ million do we have to choose between these two?
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Is this the best use of taxpayer resources?
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Psychologic Subterfuge
"We're already up to our necks in our own marketing, political disinformation and propaganda, leaving us incapable of differentiating Russian disinformation from home grown vitriol. We're barely coordinated enough to agree on what cybersecurity should mean -- much less differentiate hostile Russian propaganda from the vanilla rancor and bile pervading the internet on any given afternoon. Ill-prepared, poorly informed and confused as hell, there's numerous possible responses from the United States here. Given our history with abysmal cybersecurity policy and even worse media dysfunction -- none of them are likely to be any good."
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...this country's own information warfare efforts.
Meanwhile, various elements of the US government (FBI director Comey, et al) are doing everything they can to make US citizens *more* susceptible to hackers, especially of the state-sponsored type. It almost makes one wonder if Comey himself is on Putin's payroll.
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As for hurting Trump. Lol, nothing really hurts Trump, which is why he is where he is. People with sections of completely contradictory ideologies, including those that conflict with Trump's personal behaviors, love him. You could show him palling around with Bin Laden and hugging him, post 2001-09-11, and people would say it just proves that the terrorist attacks were false flag ops.
Not that we don't put up with all sorts of atrocious behavior from nearly every politician ever.
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Re: ...this country's own information warfare efforts.
further, doesnt hillborg not only have her own legions of online shills, have not they alresdy employed mercenary posters to burnish their image, doesnt she have several libtard 'news' sites like huffpoo running anti-trump bullshit 24/7 and pro- hillbot bullshit ?
but releasing REAL emails that are less than flattering, but REAL, is the sin, here ? NOT the anti-democratic actions of the dem'rats ?
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Didn't exist or wasn't discovered until December 2015? That is a very big difference.
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Re: We're barely coordinated enough to agree
HRC is to the Internet as Trump is to illegal aliens. If they make this a popular topic to vector hate at the Russians the fallout is going to be on the DOMESTIC tech sector, and it will be oh so unpleasant.
So please put down the can of gasoline and the lighter. I don't know what motivated you to set this fire. But if you agree with the other positions that TD takes, you really, really, don't want to do what you are doing by posting what you just posted.
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A significant omission
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Re: ...this country's own information warfare efforts.
No need to toss around unlikely maybes when the more likely answer is much simpler:
Comey wants to undermine encryption and public safety and security not because he's on someone's payroll, but because he doesn't give a damn what happens to anyone but himself and weakened encryption makes his job easier. It's likely that simple, weaker/broken encryption means he has access to more information with less work, and since he isn't likely to be directly harmed by the fallout he doesn't care in the slightest what damage will result from broken encryption.
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hostile Russian propaganda
It's not as if they were trying to win the world for communism anymore.
In other words why do you think Russia doesn't like the west and - equally what is there about them to dislike?
After all Russia's interest in what it regards as its own backyard (ie Ukraine - incidentally Kiev was the original capital of Russia) is really no different from the US meddling in South and central America and the Caribbean ( Chile and Grenada spring to mind in an instant.
Also why do we complain about Russia's actions in Ukraine whilst turning a 40 year blind eye to Turkey's blatant military invasion of North Cyprus, Saudi Arabia's bombing of Yemen etc etc etc
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Re: Re: ...this country's own information warfare efforts.
I know better but here goes (and this would apply to 'leaked' emails/communications affecting either side):
How do you know they are REAL and not doctored? How would you YOU prove that you didn't send an email with unsavory/'crooked' content within the timewindow of the hack? Say the hacker released a doctored/invented message from 'you' which reveals you plotting insurrection in conjunction with known terrorists? How would YOU prove that you did not do that? Quick, quick, quick!!!! The press is doorstepping you, your career is getting vaposized, your kids are being threatened at school, your wife got fired, your name is mud. Quick - prove you didn't do it !!
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Re: Re: ...this country's own information warfare efforts.
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And the other shoe drops...
Yes, really. Go watch the video, if you didn't see it live.
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Re: ...this country's own information warfare efforts.
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About that invasion.
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Re: Re: Re: ...this country's own information warfare efforts.
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Doesn't that Venn diagram just look like a circle?
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Re: About that invasion.
Anyhow.
Russia has not invaded the Ukraine.
I know that it is pure sophistry & fig leaves in my explanation but at this level of diplomacy that is all that counts.
So the US instigated the coup in the Ukraine. Don't ask me why, they'd gotten everything (what they lost by starting that coup, that is the control of the gascrossing of Europe and the ability to kick the Russians out of Sebastopol) in the elections coming up a month or two later.
Russia retaliated by suggesting that Crimea hold a referendum. Pointed towards what happened during Bill Clintons term in the Balkans (oh yes the US gave this trick a veneer of legality) as showing that both the referendum and their response to it was legal. Then they used the twenty thousand or so soldiers they were by treaty entitled to have in Crimea to follow the will of the people of Crimea.
Still bothers me that the US didn't wait until the elections in the Ukraine though; They didn't spend billions for nothing on making sure that the only people electable would be moderately to enthusiastically in favor of relations with the US & the EU while wanting to get rid of the relations with Russia.
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Well
It was defeated in the cold war so why doesn't it behave like a defeated nation. You know like the Europeans do who basically follow any diktat coming from Washington (See what happened to Evo Morales during the Snowden hubhub).
And then the hubris of Russia of daring to diplomatically intervene in US business. It is the US who owns the world and it didn't say you (Russia) is allowed to play on it's stage. That mindset has been in effect since the end of the cold war. I remember that Russia made some treaties with a spec of dust sized post USSR nation, which was rabidly pro Russia since it's big neighbor was rabidly pro US and eying to annex said spec of dust, the US basically threw a tantrum about the Russian not having asked the US permission for concluding those treaties.
And that mindset is still in full force.
You could basically hear the group of people, who instead of walking softly while carrying a big stick are looking for a dog to beat with, go: "fuck they tricked us" when Russia managed to get Iran back into the diplomatic game then kept the US honest. And you could almost hear Kerry whine that Russia should stay the hell out of US business in Syria (after the rebels used chemical weapons) instead of stopping the planned invasion.
So yes Russia is the bad guy for not listening to the diktats coming from Washington and actively interfering with US interests internationally when it, Russia, thinks it suits its own interests.
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Re: And the other shoe drops...
I mean don't they already HAVE the entire content of the personal e-mail server?
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Aside from behaving friendly. You know things like I can talk to Putin on the same level, he's a good buddy. There is the notion that Trump seems to want to go slightly isolationist meaning removing sections of the armed forces back to the US & stopping this one up manship of which US president can invade more countries.
This compared to Clinton who is inherently hostile to the Russians. Her, and the clique she is part of, greatest setbacks are courtesy of Russia. Some of which were very public. And she holds a grudge. Further she's never met an invasion of a country she would not support. Or take over a proxy war to do the real fighting with US soldiers when the proxy can't make progress. That last one is what worries the Russians a bit seeing the current proxy war in the Ukraine (there is an unspoken agreement that the US & Russia NEVER fight directly with each other since that is the start of WW3).
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