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>>Western world wide open for study and manipulation I have long since held the opinion that blogs and online publishing would yield an avenue for foreign infl

>>Western world wide open for study and manipulation I have long since held the opinion that blogs and online publishing would yield an avenue for foreign influence and cognitive attacks on our way of life. For what it is worth, I do believe that the government and our intelligence agencies are fundamentally good and are staffed by mostly non-partisan, non-extremist patriots who I have tremendous respect for. We are, presently, a government for the people by the people and of the people. I do, however, fear that our intelligence agencies and politicians exist with a high degree of arrogance derived from a faith in the superiority of our messaging. I share their faith that our way of life and methods of dealing with each other is superior to that of communist or authoritarian societies, but I do not share their same level of arrogance. I am more inclined to think that the internet should be modified so as to ensure that the emergent dialogue, the emergent narrative of history and events, is one that came about naturally from our citizens speaking with one another. For starters, comment sections should be siloed or firewalled nationally. Media entities of significance that wish to portray themselves as reputable news media should be required to have a registration with the government. Their comment sections should be limited to an anonymized walled-garden of citizens of our country only. Removing foreign influence operatives from the comment sections of CNN, WashingtonPost, and Fox News would do a lot to heal the national divide and quell the brewing extremism. I would go much further than that and would do tons of experiments if I was in charge of a department handling such a push at the government level. I think all of these troll attacks on our republic fall under the umbrella term "cognitive attacks" and I think it is time we make an effort to apply network security concepts to our national, internal dialogue.

pjc50 5y ago
> Removing foreign influence operatives from the comment sections of CNN, WashingtonPost, and Fox News Even if it didn't fail the first amendment test, and the difficulty of identifying the real identity and nationality of posters, this would be easily addressed by paying some Americans to be propagandists. Or just signing up to existing domestic propaganda organisations and "steering" them a bit. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/26/maria-butina-sentenced-18-months-russia-nra https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/26/maria-butina...
- champagnois 5y ago
  It is unclear what you are saying here. Are you saying (1) "This update to the system's defenses would be circumvented by attackers using this alternative method."? or are you saying, (2) "An easier solution is for the department of defense to inject their own commenters into the comment sections so that truth combats the noise our adversaries bombard us with."? Replying to (1): This suggestion of yours would involve foreign adversaries having to recruit Americans to be traitors in a way that is (A) easily tracked to their personal identity and (B) risks imprisonment. It is true that they could try this method, but I doubt their success. Few people would betray their nation and community in such a transparent way. That severely handicaps the efforts of our adversaries who are currently waging a war for the minds of some of our most vulnerable and unstable citizens. Replying to (2): The DOD already does this. I know of several such operations of pretty cool levels of sophistication. I think the efforts are made with good intentions, but I think this whole effort falls short and doesnt stop the problem at the source. It also makes it so that comment sections everywhere appear "crazy" and enemy efforts still succeed from time to time at programming our citizens against the state. A useful idiot (Russian term) programmed by an adversary to doubt the truth will often times see the government's sincere efforts to spread the truth as evidence that the government is corrupt. These idiots will seek refuge in news media ran by adversaries like RT dot com. A useful idiot will also find themselves accused of being a foreign shill. By being accused of working for a foreign government while knowing they are just a normal citizen, these useful idiots immediately begin to believe that there are no foreign shills and that they are, in fact, all Americans who are being oppressed by a corrupt government. It is this state of "foreign programmed useful-idiocy" that renders an idiot to become a pawn to our adversaries who will then go around spreading anti-western civilization misinformation. We should just prevent all of this outright, I think #2 is simply not enough.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    I'm having a very hard time with your suggestions. You begin with, "For starters, comment sections should be siloed or firewalled nationally. Media entities of significance that wish to portray themselves as reputable news media should be required to have a registration with the government. Their comment sections should be limited to an anonymized walled-garden of citizens of our country only." Which limits the visibility of comments to those who are identifiably citizens. (How often have you seen a comment like, "Things are actually much (better|worse) than what is being reported" on an international story?) Then, "This suggestion of yours would involve foreign adversaries having to recruit Americans to be traitors in a way that is (A) easily tracked to their personal identity and (B) risks imprisonment. It is true that they could try this method, but I doubt their success. Few people would betray their nation and community in such a transparent way." You declare anyone who violates that barrier to be a traitor subject to imprisonment. That seems to me to be, at best, using a sledgehammer as a fly-swatter: it'll do a lot of damage and really won't hurt the fly. And I say that as someone who is not all that fond of internet anonymity.
webdoodle 5y ago
> Removing foreign influence operatives from the comment sections of CNN, WashingtonPost, and Fox News would do a lot to heal the national divide and quell the brewing extremism. No one in Operation Mockingbird even so much as got a sternly written letter when they were caught implanting CIA agents within national news agencies. They got the message loud and clear though, it was only a problem if the U.S. government directly coordinated the propaganda directly. The CIA immediately privatized the whole operation and hid it behind the curtain in Allen and Co's Sun Valley conference, where they still meet every year (for 37 years now), to coordinate the national narrative.
- champagnois 5y ago
  The government of the people, by the people, for the people is able to talk to the press and control the media through various means. This is true. This is also fundamentally good when the government is a Western Liberal Democracy. The issue I am trying to discuss is the comment sections which are being leveraged as an attack vector. In addition to that, there is the issue of attackers leveraging abstracted comment sections like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and even HackerNews. The adversaries are everywhere. They are even embedded in tech companies under false identities.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "They are even embedded in tech companies under false identities." "The commies are among us!" seems to historically have done more damage to us than it did to them.

pjc50 5y ago

> Removing foreign influence operatives from the comment sections of CNN, WashingtonPost, and Fox News Even if it didn't fail the first amendment test, and the difficulty of identifying the real identity and nationality of posters, this would be easily addressed by paying some Americans to be propagandists. Or just signing up to existing domestic propaganda organisations and "steering" them a bit. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/26/maria-butina-sentenced-18-months-russia-nra https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/26/maria-butina...

champagnois 5y ago
It is unclear what you are saying here. Are you saying (1) "This update to the system's defenses would be circumvented by attackers using this alternative method."? or are you saying, (2) "An easier solution is for the department of defense to inject their own commenters into the comment sections so that truth combats the noise our adversaries bombard us with."? Replying to (1): This suggestion of yours would involve foreign adversaries having to recruit Americans to be traitors in a way that is (A) easily tracked to their personal identity and (B) risks imprisonment. It is true that they could try this method, but I doubt their success. Few people would betray their nation and community in such a transparent way. That severely handicaps the efforts of our adversaries who are currently waging a war for the minds of some of our most vulnerable and unstable citizens. Replying to (2): The DOD already does this. I know of several such operations of pretty cool levels of sophistication. I think the efforts are made with good intentions, but I think this whole effort falls short and doesnt stop the problem at the source. It also makes it so that comment sections everywhere appear "crazy" and enemy efforts still succeed from time to time at programming our citizens against the state. A useful idiot (Russian term) programmed by an adversary to doubt the truth will often times see the government's sincere efforts to spread the truth as evidence that the government is corrupt. These idiots will seek refuge in news media ran by adversaries like RT dot com. A useful idiot will also find themselves accused of being a foreign shill. By being accused of working for a foreign government while knowing they are just a normal citizen, these useful idiots immediately begin to believe that there are no foreign shills and that they are, in fact, all Americans who are being oppressed by a corrupt government. It is this state of "foreign programmed useful-idiocy" that renders an idiot to become a pawn to our adversaries who will then go around spreading anti-western civilization misinformation. We should just prevent all of this outright, I think #2 is simply not enough.
- mcguire 5y ago
  I'm having a very hard time with your suggestions. You begin with, "For starters, comment sections should be siloed or firewalled nationally. Media entities of significance that wish to portray themselves as reputable news media should be required to have a registration with the government. Their comment sections should be limited to an anonymized walled-garden of citizens of our country only." Which limits the visibility of comments to those who are identifiably citizens. (How often have you seen a comment like, "Things are actually much (better|worse) than what is being reported" on an international story?) Then, "This suggestion of yours would involve foreign adversaries having to recruit Americans to be traitors in a way that is (A) easily tracked to their personal identity and (B) risks imprisonment. It is true that they could try this method, but I doubt their success. Few people would betray their nation and community in such a transparent way." You declare anyone who violates that barrier to be a traitor subject to imprisonment. That seems to me to be, at best, using a sledgehammer as a fly-swatter: it'll do a lot of damage and really won't hurt the fly. And I say that as someone who is not all that fond of internet anonymity.

webdoodle 5y ago

> Removing foreign influence operatives from the comment sections of CNN, WashingtonPost, and Fox News would do a lot to heal the national divide and quell the brewing extremism. No one in Operation Mockingbird even so much as got a sternly written letter when they were caught implanting CIA agents within national news agencies. They got the message loud and clear though, it was only a problem if the U.S. government directly coordinated the propaganda directly. The CIA immediately privatized the whole operation and hid it behind the curtain in Allen and Co's Sun Valley conference, where they still meet every year (for 37 years now), to coordinate the national narrative.

champagnois 5y ago
The government of the people, by the people, for the people is able to talk to the press and control the media through various means. This is true. This is also fundamentally good when the government is a Western Liberal Democracy. The issue I am trying to discuss is the comment sections which are being leveraged as an attack vector. In addition to that, there is the issue of attackers leveraging abstracted comment sections like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and even HackerNews. The adversaries are everywhere. They are even embedded in tech companies under false identities.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "They are even embedded in tech companies under false identities." "The commies are among us!" seems to historically have done more damage to us than it did to them.