U.S. 2018 elections 'under attack' by Russia - U.S. intelligence chief

[Khun Han]

19 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Not cheap or simple; trolls can breed cockroaches faster than cockroaches can be caught.  Shutting down the trolls is a better option, even if it is a temporary fix.  Regardless, it would require the cooperation of the social media companies.  The big ones are reluctant to assist, and the small ones refuse.

 

The simple solution is for people to exercise a degree of rational skepticism and look into sources and motives for the "OMG" things they see on the internet.  Unfortunately many people love their OMG moments and don't ask questions when they find a good one.

 

But it would be cheap and simple if they have identified and are monitoring the trolls. This would also address the issues raised in your last paragraph. And co-operation from social media networks isn't required. Are these US-based networks going to mass-delete honest posts from US government agents? I don't think so.

[heybruce]

25 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

But it would be cheap and simple if they have identified and are monitoring the trolls. This would also address the issues raised in your last paragraph. And co-operation from social media networks isn't required. Are these US-based networks going to mass-delete honest posts from US government agents? I don't think so.

"But it would be cheap and simple if they have identified and are monitoring the trolls."

 

Have they identified all the trolls?  Every time there is a new estimate of the number of toll posts from Russia in the last election the number goes up, with no claim that all have been identified.  I expect new trolls and the same old trolls with new names, all going through different proxy servers, to be in action. 

 

Are you an expert on trolling and how the internet works?  If I identified a troll who was active in the 2016 election, how would you identify all his new posts and new identities?

[Khun Han]

8 minutes ago, heybruce said:

"But it would be cheap and simple if they have identified and are monitoring the trolls."

 

Have they identified all the trolls?  Every time there is a new estimate of the number of toll posts from Russia in the last election the number goes up, with no claim that all have been identified.  I expect new trolls and the same old trolls with new names, all going through different proxy servers, to be in action. 

 

Are you an expert on trolling and how the internet works?  If I identified a troll who was active in the 2016 election, how would you identify all his new posts and new identities?

 

The experts are allegedly the US security services. If it's difficult to keep up with the trolls for the purpose of countering their misinformation, it's going to be doubly difficult (and then some) to keep up with and eradicate them. Putting the counter-message out there on social media in a big way is the cheapest, simplest and most effective solution.

[heybruce]

3 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

The experts are allegedly the US security services. If it's difficult to keep up with the trolls for the purpose of countering their misinformation, it's going to be doubly difficult (and then some) to keep up with and eradicate them. Putting the counter-message out there on social media in a big way is the cheapest, simplest and most effective solution.

They have put counter-messages out there which apply to past, present and future trolls spreading disinformation with the intent to influence elections and destabilize society. That is what their past and current messages about Russian interference are about.

 

They just haven't attempted to take on every troll post/cockroach spreading and reproducing through bots and gullible idiots.  That would be nearly impossible.

[jcsmith]

1 hour ago, heybruce said:

Largely agree, except:

"there are many legitimate bots who simply retweet or share things"

A lot of "news" tracking sites for genre specific areas do this. Like for example, in video games it used to be gamers would go to news web sites to keep track of new releases, patch information, guides, things of that nature. Those often had a small amount of original data and a lot of stuff which was basically just referring people to news on the web related to whatever sub-site it was in. With social media a lot of those types of web sites have begun struggling as many people prefer to just get that information on social media. The bots basically will just monitor either hashtags or other sites which post articles, and then check for a date if it was within the past few hours they retweet it. It's completely automated. They also tend to automate finding people to follow, following people back, etc. 

 

Hashtags generally are a good thing, though have been badly exploited by malicious users. But for example if you put out a product and you are trying to get it some attention sending out a post with a hashtag gives it a chance to get out there, not only because users sometimes search those, but more importantly because the bots generally sit on certain hashtags related to their content. So like using the gaming angle again since that is my industry, if an indie developed game comes out it isn't likely to get press on the larger magazines or publications. However they can use hashtags like #indiegame #rts #newsteamrelease etc and the news will get picked up by a good number of bots and retweeted, which is a popular way to market, not just in gaming but in many industries. 

 

Of course the problem is when legitimate fake news and content exploits that system. If you want to get a fake news tweet about something out into political circles using a hashtag like #politics #politicalnews #donaldtrump #democrats or whatever will automatically get it retweeted by a lot of those same bots if they aren't filtering the sites that they get their news from (and many don't). With proper design of the bot you can have it retweet stuff only from sources you approve of, but a lot of users simply buy off the shelf software and aren't programmers so they just use default templates which often have no filtering at all. 

 

The other area that bots are really a major issue right now is that it's easy enough to have them monitor certain keywords and then add a comment which is just something random. You see a lot of those. In fact if you go to like youtube and monitor chat when watching a political news channel, a lot of that is bots, as well. But like if you wanted to make a bot that would just say something generic to trash or support donald trump for example you could have it monitor anything with the #donaldtrump hashtag or donald trump in the text, then have it automate a comment like, "this guy is a nazi" or, "#MAGA we love you Trump". Or even worse to put something racist or otherwise hateful in the comments, and a lot of that happens. By doing that or by up/downvoting stuff it's easy to paint the perception of users who don't realize that this is largely automated. Up/Downvoting also weights post importance so it can drive news off peoples front pages. It's easy to build detection on the quotes if someone keeps saying the same things, or if a group of people are saying the same things. It's tougher though with guys who have skill, and it's very tough to detect up/downvoting being automated.

[Khun Han]

25 minutes ago, heybruce said:

They have put counter-messages out there which apply to past, present and future trolls spreading disinformation with the intent to influence elections and destabilize society. That is what their past and current messages about Russian interference are about.

 

They just haven't attempted to take on every troll post/cockroach spreading and reproducing through bots and gullible idiots.  That would be nearly impossible.

 

I was referring to direct rebuttals on social media, not general warnings in the msm. Sure, they're not going to reply to every troll. But replying to as many as possible would be far easier and more effective than trying to get each individual account shut down (only for a new account to spring up immediately).

[heybruce]

25 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

I was referring to direct rebuttals on social media, not general warnings in the msm. Sure, they're not going to reply to every troll. But replying to as many as possible would be far easier and more effective than trying to get each individual account shut down (only for a new account to spring up immediately).

You think it's more productive to have an army of intelligence people chasing after dozens of trolls generating hundreds of  troll posts each which are reposted thousands of times by bots. 

 

I think it's better to identify the trolls, and the centers where these trolls are located, to the general public and social media businesses.  Let the businesses decide if they want to let their reputations be dragged down by collusion with the trolls, and expect them to shut down posts from trolls or be publicly named and shamed.  Let the public identify and comment on the troll posts.

 

In short, the businesses will have to take some responsibility, and the public will have to think for themselves.  That is better than expecting the intelligence agencies to protect us from every piece of malicious information targeted at the country.  Although it is undeniable that some people will not think for themselves, at least not in a logical, evidence driven manner.

 

Edit:  Of course lost in all this pointless "why don't they" debate is a much more important point:  Why doesn't the US government impose sanctions on the governments that host and support these trolls?   Oh yeah....Trump.

Edited February 14, 2018 by heybruce

[heybruce]

39 minutes ago, jcsmith said:

A lot of "news" tracking sites for genre specific areas do this. Like for example, in video games it used to be gamers would go to news web sites to keep track of new releases, patch information, guides, things of that nature. Those often had a small amount of original data and a lot of stuff which was basically just referring people to news on the web related to whatever sub-site it was in. With social media a lot of those types of web sites have begun struggling as many people prefer to just get that information on social media. The bots basically will just monitor either hashtags or other sites which post articles, and then check for a date if it was within the past few hours they retweet it. It's completely automated. They also tend to automate finding people to follow, following people back, etc. 

 

Hashtags generally are a good thing, though have been badly exploited by malicious users. But for example if you put out a product and you are trying to get it some attention sending out a post with a hashtag gives it a chance to get out there, not only because users sometimes search those, but more importantly because the bots generally sit on certain hashtags related to their content. So like using the gaming angle again since that is my industry, if an indie developed game comes out it isn't likely to get press on the larger magazines or publications. However they can use hashtags like #indiegame #rts #newsteamrelease etc and the news will get picked up by a good number of bots and retweeted, which is a popular way to market, not just in gaming but in many industries. 

 

Of course the problem is when legitimate fake news and content exploits that system. If you want to get a fake news tweet about something out into political circles using a hashtag like #politics #politicalnews #donaldtrump #democrats or whatever will automatically get it retweeted by a lot of those same bots if they aren't filtering the sites that they get their news from (and many don't). With proper design of the bot you can have it retweet stuff only from sources you approve of, but a lot of users simply buy off the shelf software and aren't programmers so they just use default templates which often have no filtering at all. 

 

The other area that bots are really a major issue right now is that it's easy enough to have them monitor certain keywords and then add a comment which is just something random. You see a lot of those. In fact if you go to like youtube and monitor chat when watching a political news channel, a lot of that is bots, as well. But like if you wanted to make a bot that would just say something generic to trash or support donald trump for example you could have it monitor anything with the #donaldtrump hashtag or donald trump in the text, then have it automate a comment like, "this guy is a nazi" or, "#MAGA we love you Trump". Or even worse to put something racist or otherwise hateful in the comments, and a lot of that happens. By doing that or by up/downvoting stuff it's easy to paint the perception of users who don't realize that this is largely automated. Up/Downvoting also weights post importance so it can drive news off peoples front pages. It's easy to build detection on the quotes if someone keeps saying the same things, or if a group of people are saying the same things. It's tougher though with guys who have skill, and it's very tough to detect up/downvoting being automated.

Ok, so maybe bots are used for other than nefarious purposes--to feed news on specific topics to people who don't want to look for news themselves.  I'm not convinced this is a social good. 

 

I think the damage done by bots far outweighs any benefits.  Even those bots that are not being used for malicious purposes are cluttering up the internet.  I've stopped "like"ing anything remotely political on Facebook, it just prompts a flood of unwanted echo-chamber posts that I don't want.

Edited February 14, 2018 by heybruce

[rockingrobin]

31 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

I was referring to direct rebuttals on social media, not general warnings in the msm. Sure, they're not going to reply to every troll. But replying to as many as possible would be far easier and more effective than trying to get each individual account shut down (only for a new account to spring up immediately).

Every rebuttal will be perceived as an admission, and will itself further disseminate the troll message

[lannarebirth]

3 hours ago, heybruce said:

The difference between advertising and propaganda is that advertisers don't hide their identities and motives, propagandists do.

 

2 hours ago, jcsmith said:

It certainly will happen because the government is doing nothing to stop it, has no interest in doing so... Wonder why that is?

 

With regards to stopping bots, that is easier said than done. You can go through proxies or VPNs to try to mask their location, and there are many legitimate bots who simply retweet or share things, follow/unfollow which they really don't want to get rid of. The problem is a lot of bots retweet by hashtags and that becomes easily exploited by malicious bots. Certainly the social media sites can do more here, but it's not as easy as it sounds. It can all be traced but it's not an easily automated thing to do as there are many legitimate proxy/VPN/bot users, as well.

 

The easy solution is to punish the offenders. But when the offenders got said president elected, and he's shown absolutely no desire to punish them and has done the opposite, trying to ease sanctions and relationships... well good luck with getting that through. His own party participated in forcing him to impose stronger restrictions on Russia and he waited until the final day to impose them and balked at it, said it wasn't needed. If Trump doesn't take this seriously, it will happen again. And there is no indication that he intends to.

 

Here's a solution. Make the medium provider responsible for the content they publish. No more of this "we're just a platform" BS as they bank every check, no matter the source.

[Khun Han]

42 minutes ago, heybruce said:

You think it's more productive to have an army of intelligence people chasing after dozens of trolls generating hundreds of  troll posts each which are reposted thousands of times by bots. 

 

I think it's better to identify the trolls, and the centers where these trolls are located, to the general public and social media businesses.  Let the businesses decide if they want to let their reputations be dragged down by collusion with the trolls, and expect them to shut down posts from trolls or be publicly named and shamed.  Let the public identify and comment on the troll posts.

 

In short, the businesses will have to take some responsibility, and the public will have to think for themselves.  That is better than expecting the intelligence agencies to protect us from every piece of malicious information targeted at the country.  Although it is undeniable that some people will not think for themselves, at least not in a logical, evidence driven manner.

 

Edit:  Of course lost in all this pointless "why don't they" debate is a much more important point:  Why doesn't the US government impose sanctions on the governments that host and support these trolls?   Oh yeah....Trump.

 

I think your solution of having an army of operatives trying to shut down troll operations is just flogging a dead horse.

[Khun Han]

32 minutes ago, rockingrobin said:

Every rebuttal will be perceived as an admission, and will itself further disseminate the troll message

 

Why so?

[heybruce]

13 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

I think your solution of having an army of operatives trying to shut down troll operations is just flogging a dead horse.

So you still maintain it's easier to chase after every individual cockroach than the sources that each initiate thousands of cockroaches.

[stevenl]

4 hours ago, heybruce said:

So, instead of finding and shutting down the source of countless cockroaches, you think it's better to chase after each cockroach?

And these days the cockroaches move at lightning speed.

[heybruce]

59 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

 

 

Here's a solution. Make the medium provider responsible for the content they publish. No more of this "we're just a platform" BS as they bank every check, no matter the source.

Agreed. Make the businesses that profit from the platform responsible for policing it.

[stevenl]

3 hours ago, Khun Han said:

 

But it would be cheap and simple if they have identified and are monitoring the trolls. This would also address the issues raised in your last paragraph. And co-operation from social media networks isn't required. Are these US-based networks going to mass-delete honest posts from US government agents? I don't think so.

You really and clearly have no idea how this works.

[Khun Han]

1 hour ago, heybruce said:

So you still maintain it's easier to chase after every individual cockroach than the sources that each initiate thousands of cockroaches.

 

I maintain that it's futile to try to shut down the sources (unless you kill the people behind them), because they will just pop back up again straight away.

[Khun Han]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

You really and clearly have no idea how this works.

 

Great, detailed retort. Not.

[stevenl]

1 minute ago, Khun Han said:

 

Great, detailed retort. Not.

You're too far off for that.

[Khun Han]

2 minutes ago, stevenl said:

You're too far off for that.

 

Too far off what?

[heybruce]

15 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

I maintain that it's futile to try to shut down the sources (unless you kill the people behind them), because they will just pop back up again straight away.

Do you have any concept?  The choice is to chase down dozens of trolls, or tens of thousands of troll posts.  Yes, the trolls will reappear under a different name, after they've taken steps to hide their identity.  But if you don't shut down the trolls, even briefly, they will continue to generate troll posts without interruption. The numbers make it an easy choice; go after the trolls.

 

A much better solution is painful sanctions against the countries that harbor and support these trolls.  However that would require Trump to acknowledge there is a problem, and he won't do that.

[Khun Han]

11 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Do you have any concept?  The choice is to chase down dozens of trolls, or tens of thousands of troll posts.  Yes, the trolls will reappear under a different name, after they've taken steps to hide their identity.  But if you don't shut down the trolls, even briefly, they will continue to generate troll posts without interruption. The numbers make it an easy choice; go after the trolls.

 

A much better solution is painful sanctions against the countries that harbor and support these trolls.  However that would require Trump to acknowledge there is a problem, and he won't do that.

 

Your solution is ridiculous. Shutting them bown, and keeping them shut down would be (to coin an old adage) like braiding mist.

 

We're talking about Russia, aren't we? Extensive sanctions are already in place. Not stopping the trolls though, are they?

[punchjudy]

a little poetic justice after all the election meddling the USA has done over the years

[SOUTHERNSTAR]

Presented to you without actual proof. Modern day internet news/justice, "an unnamed source said" or "a high ranking FBI agent said" or "a CIA source". Its getting very boring for outsiders. If anyone belief that the Russians can sway 130 million voters through so called fake news (which I may add was used by both sides) in such a way that HC won the popular vote but lost the election, take some reality pills. The US is starting to look more and more like a bananna republic whose population is so polarised that they hate each other. Get your house in order or face your ultimate demise. A divided country cant lead the world.

[Jingthing]

51 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

Your solution is ridiculous. Shutting them bown, and keeping them shut down would be (to coin an old adage) like braiding mist.

 

We're talking about Russia, aren't we? Extensive sanctions are already in place. Not stopping the trolls though, are they?

"trump" refuses to put the passed sanctions into effect. 

[Jingthing]

2 minutes ago, SOUTHERNSTAR said:

Presented to you without actual proof. Modern day internet news/justice, "an unnamed source said" or "a high ranking FBI agent said" or "a CIA source". Its getting very boring for outsiders. If anyone belief that the Russians can sway 130 million voters through so called fake news (which I may add was used by both sides) in such a way that HC won the popular vote but lost the election, take some reality pills. The US is starting to look more and more like a bananna republic whose population is so polarised that they hate each other. Get your house in order or face your ultimate demise. A divided country cant lead the world.

The election was decided by the electoral college in a few states by rather small margins. Yes, most certainly, a hostile foreign power could have influence at that kind of targeted situation. 

[Jingthing]

14 minutes ago, punchjudy said:

a little poetic justice after all the election meddling the USA has done over the years

I get it. Many hostile people are partying that the USA, it's democracy, and presidency has sunk into the gutter. I can't relate to that. 

[sirineou]

11 minutes ago, SOUTHERNSTAR said:

Presented to you without actual proof. Modern day internet news/justice, "an unnamed source said" or "a high ranking FBI agent said" or "a CIA source". Its getting very boring for outsiders. If anyone belief that the Russians can sway 130 million voters through so called fake news (which I may add was used by both sides) in such a way that HC won the popular vote but lost the election, take some reality pills. The US is starting to look more and more like a bananna republic whose population is so polarised that they hate each other. Get your house in order or face your ultimate demise. A divided country cant lead the world.

 They don't need to sway 130 million ann they need to do is sway a small percentage at some key states.

All countries , covertly or overtly cry to affect the political process of other countries. The US being chief   among them.  That does not mean that those countrie should not defend themselves with all means available to them. 

Why isn't the US using all means available to as, to protect our political process? Or do you think we are?

You said :"A divided country cant lead the world. "

Never mind" Lead the world" how about leading ourselves to a better place with health care. education, and better infrastructure for all. Has any president in modern history, has ever done more to divide the  country than Trump?

 

[Morch]

4 hours ago, rockingrobin said:

Every rebuttal will be perceived as an admission, and will itself further disseminate the troll message

 

Indeed. Often phrased as "don't feed the troll".

[Khun Han]

42 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

"trump" refuses to put the passed sanctions into effect. 

 

That's the latest sanctions, which Trump says (apparently correctly) are unconstitutional.

 

www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/08/trump_says_the_russia_sanctions_bill_is_unconstitutional_he_s_mostly_right.html