4 ms·

I would assume that once a photo hits any social media, the Chinese and other adversaries (and allies) have already scraped it.

tablespoon 5y ago
> I would assume that once a photo hits any social media, the Chinese and other adversaries (and allies) have already scraped it. Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk? It's definitely impossible to contain something once it's all over a bunch of blogs like this, but it might be possible to contain some things if caught early enough. There's also the private message angle: something shared through PM on a US social network may be able to be contained to the US, while anything shared on a foreign network may be able to be accessed by a foreign intelligence service, regardless of sharing settings.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk When you can throw unlimited developers and real humans at it, it's not so hard to scrape. I'd be willing to bet money that there are Chinese affiliated agents (possibly based in the USA or other countries) in every military related Facebook group.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Additionally, there's corporate tools that can do this. We use one at work that monitors mention of our brand names etc so that our customer care can reply. It's called Sprinklr. It does all the major platforms. In fact there's dozens of tools just like it. I'm not sure whether they're scraping the platforms or get legitimate access. But whichever it is, it's dozens of companies to infiltrate and get a link into their feeds. Trivial for a nation state actor.
- fragmede 5y ago
  Facebook makes it difficult, but this where the question of "who's your adversary?" comes in. It's one thing to have to change user agent away from curl and rate limit, but when you're a nation-state and can afford to pay teams of people to do nothing else but collect information on your adversaries (in this case, the US military), having an actual person (so the traffic looks organic - because it is) who's full time job it is to just refresh that one Facebook group (never mind actually automating it), paying for a US Visa, a house, an ISP, all of their food needs. Against that level of advarsary (never mind trying to get your spies hired at Facebook as senior engineers), what sort of countermeasures do you imagine is possible by Facebook?
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Additionally, how much efffort does Facebook spend on this, given the abundance of bots, Cambridge Analytica data debacle, etc.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Like, FB is the largest information platform in the world. Even if they are 99% successful at removing these kinds of content, that 1% is gonna fuel a lot of stories like this.
- slavboj 5y ago
  Every large US social media site has employees who are Chinese intelligence assets.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    Make sense. Probably Tik-Tok (etc) has employees who are US intelligence assets too, safe to assume seems like. Now I wonder if every large US social media company also has employees who are intelligence assets of US agencies. I'm not going to say 'safe to assume', theoretically America likes to think of itself as having that kind of domestic secret policing, but I wonder.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      I feel it's pretty safe to assume. All a US agency needs to gain an "asset" in a tech company is find an employee with the right blend of patriotism and trust in the intelligence agencies. They might not have full-time undercover spies, but they almost certainly have assets.
    - slavboj 5y ago
      I mean Google/Alphabet has an entire division whose job is essentially to be an adjunct of the US State Department. Searching for job postings requiring security clearances at any BigCo always yields some interesting data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company)

tablespoon 5y ago

> I would assume that once a photo hits any social media, the Chinese and other adversaries (and allies) have already scraped it. Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk? It's definitely impossible to contain something once it's all over a bunch of blogs like this, but it might be possible to contain some things if caught early enough. There's also the private message angle: something shared through PM on a US social network may be able to be contained to the US, while anything shared on a foreign network may be able to be accessed by a foreign intelligence service, regardless of sharing settings.

Johnny555 5y ago
Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk When you can throw unlimited developers and real humans at it, it's not so hard to scrape. I'd be willing to bet money that there are Chinese affiliated agents (possibly based in the USA or other countries) in every military related Facebook group.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Additionally, there's corporate tools that can do this. We use one at work that monitors mention of our brand names etc so that our customer care can reply. It's called Sprinklr. It does all the major platforms. In fact there's dozens of tools just like it. I'm not sure whether they're scraping the platforms or get legitimate access. But whichever it is, it's dozens of companies to infiltrate and get a link into their feeds. Trivial for a nation state actor.
fragmede 5y ago
Facebook makes it difficult, but this where the question of "who's your adversary?" comes in. It's one thing to have to change user agent away from curl and rate limit, but when you're a nation-state and can afford to pay teams of people to do nothing else but collect information on your adversaries (in this case, the US military), having an actual person (so the traffic looks organic - because it is) who's full time job it is to just refresh that one Facebook group (never mind actually automating it), paying for a US Visa, a house, an ISP, all of their food needs. Against that level of advarsary (never mind trying to get your spies hired at Facebook as senior engineers), what sort of countermeasures do you imagine is possible by Facebook?
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Additionally, how much efffort does Facebook spend on this, given the abundance of bots, Cambridge Analytica data debacle, etc.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Like, FB is the largest information platform in the world. Even if they are 99% successful at removing these kinds of content, that 1% is gonna fuel a lot of stories like this.
slavboj 5y ago
Every large US social media site has employees who are Chinese intelligence assets.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  Make sense. Probably Tik-Tok (etc) has employees who are US intelligence assets too, safe to assume seems like. Now I wonder if every large US social media company also has employees who are intelligence assets of US agencies. I'm not going to say 'safe to assume', theoretically America likes to think of itself as having that kind of domestic secret policing, but I wonder.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    I feel it's pretty safe to assume. All a US agency needs to gain an "asset" in a tech company is find an employee with the right blend of patriotism and trust in the intelligence agencies. They might not have full-time undercover spies, but they almost certainly have assets.
  - slavboj 5y ago
    I mean Google/Alphabet has an entire division whose job is essentially to be an adjunct of the US State Department. Searching for job postings requiring security clearances at any BigCo always yields some interesting data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(company)