class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide # Dirty Wars ## Information Warfare and Disinformation ### Jack McDonald --- class: inverse # Lecture Outline .pull-left[ How does free speech online lead to new, or transformed, national security problems? How and why do states exploit free speech for political purposes? ] .pull-right[ - Free Speech Online - Information Warfare - Covert Action - Attribution and Deterrence - Conclusions and Connections ] ## Main Points We are still only beginning to understand the social and political impact of near-zero cost digital communications technologies Digital communications networks have transformed older practices of information warfare, covert action, and disinformation These techniques pose particular problems for democracies that seek to preserve free speech while also combating disinformation ??? asd --- class: inverse # Part 1: Free Speech Online --- # Communication Technology and Social Mobilisation .pull-left[ The web was premised upon freely available information, that didn't scale Internet applications have many different applications - Broadcast - Horizontal communication - Real-time communication The easier it is to generate social movements, the more fragile they become ] .pull-right[ ![Tufecki book](img/r8/tufecki.jpg) ] ??? --- # Ideology and Alienation > Crypto anarchy effectively allows people to pick and choose which laws they support, at least in cyberspatial contexts. It empowers people to break the local bonds of their majoritarian normative systems and decide for themselves which laws are moral and which are bullshit. Timothy C. May, _The Cyphernomicon_ > It seems that the end trajectory for every type of online radical is ultimately “the black pill”. The network itself works to individuate and isolate everyone; each user is an island. All roads eventually lead to nihilism. Joshua Citarella, _Politigram and the Post-Left_ ??? --- # Inchoate Radicals Online > The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Ted Kaczynski, _The Unabomber Manifesto_ .pic60[![Meme](img/r8/meme.png)] .pull-left[ ![Meme](img/r8/racc.jpg) ] .pull-right[ ![Meme](img/r8/cc.jpg) ] ??? --- # The Monopoly and Regulation of Violence .left-column[ ![AR-15](img/r8/ar15.jpg) ![Cody Wilson](img/r8/cody.jpg) ![Ghost Gunner](img/r8/ghost.jpg) ] .right-column[ > What we did as a speech act, as a template of thought and even the legal prescience that might come of it, they have so much more gravity than what might happen to me Cody Wilson > No prior CNC knowledge or experience is required to manufacture from design files. Legally manufacture unserialized AR-15's in the comfort and privacy of your home. Ghost Gunner ] ??? --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[Do you think that viewing, downloading, or circulating all terrorist manifestoes should be legal? If some are to be banned, on what grounds would you ban them?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 2: Information Warfare ??? --- # The Information Environment > ICTs are creating the new informational environment in which future generations will live most of their time. Previous revolutions in the creation of wealth, especially the agricultural and the industrial ones, led to macroscopic transformations in our social and political structures and architectural environments, often without much foresight, normally with deep conceptual and ethical implications. The information revolution—whether understood as a third one, in terms of wealth creation, or as a fourth one, in terms of a reconceptualization of ourselves—is no less dramatic. We shall be in serious trouble, if we do not take seriously the fact that we are constructing the new physical and intellectual environments that will be inhabited by future generations. Luciano Floridi, _The Fourth Revolution_ ??? --- # Information Warfare > Slicing, dicing, and boiling the various manifestations of information warfare produces a lumpy stew. Information takes in everything from gossip to supercomputers. Warfare spans human activities from by-the-rules competition to to-the-death conflict. Some forms of warfare use the human mind as the ultimate battleground; others work just as well even if people go home. Information warfare, in some guises, almost seems to predate organized societies; in other guises, it may continue long after human society has evolved to transcend today's organization whatsoever. Martin C. Libicki, _What is Information Warfare?_ ??? --- # Digital Information Warfare ![Information warfare from 1995, Martin C. Libicki chart](img/2020/libickiinfowar.png) Note that many of the features of contemporary information warfare/cybersecurity are articulated here, but the definition/importance seems dated ??? --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[What differentiates something like Radio Free Europe and Russia Today from state-sponsored active dissemination of false/misleading information on social media networks? Does either count as information warfare?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 3: Covert Action ??? --- # Why Do It? > Covert action is interference in the affairs of another state or non-state actor in an unacknowledged or plausibly deniable manner. The outcomes are visible, and may include the death of a leader, a coup, or an insurrection; but they-theoretically at least-cannot be traced back to the sponsor. Rory Cormac, _Disrupt and Deny_ ??? Cormac quote p.2 --- # Propaganda and Disinformation > This modern era of disinformation began in the early 1920s, and the art and science of what the CIA once called "political warfare" grew and changed in four big waves, each a generation apart... The first wave of disinformation started forming in the interwar years, during the Great Depression, in an era of journalism transformed by the radio, newly cutthroat and fast-paced... In the second wave, after World War II, disinformation became professionalized... The CIA now called its blend of covert truthful revelations, forgeries, and outright subversion of the adversary "political warfare," a sprawling and ambitious term... The third wave arrived in the late 1970s, when disinformation became well-resourced and fine-tuned, administered by a vast and well-oiled bureaucratic machine... The fourth wave of disinformation slowly built and crested in the mid 2010s, with disinformation reborn and reshaped by new technologies and internet culture. The old art of slow-moving, highly skilled, close-range, labor-intensive psychological influence had turned high-tempo, low-skilled, remote, and disjointed. Thomas Rid, _Active Measures_ ??? pp. 6-7 --- # Modern Election Interference .pull-left[ Information operations: alter the behaviour of a target by altering the information that they perceive We might consider government cover-ups to be an example of shaping perception by denying information, and weaponised leaks an example of shaping perception by providing (sometimes altered/faked) information Key modern example: Russian efforts to undermine integrity of 2016 US elections via weaponised leaks, etc ![Trump tweet about Hilary Clinton emails](img/2020/trumpemails.png) ] .pull-right[ ![FBI Wanted poster](img/2020/fbiwanted.jpg) ] ??? --- # Measuring Utility .pull-left[ ![Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Russia Report](img/2020/intelreport.png) ] .pull-right[ ![Ben Nimmo scale for measuring influence opeartions](img/2020/nimmoscale.png) ] > An IO reaches Category Six if it triggers a policy response or some other form of concrete action, or if it includes a call for violence... > For example, the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was a Category Six operation because the subsequent leaks led to the resignation of several senior DNC staff, including chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz... > Conspiracy theories can also tip over into Category Six if they come with the credible risk of violence. The “Pizzagate” theory that led an armed American to “self-investigate” a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., and the various anti-5G theories that led British arsonists to attack mobile-phone towers, fall into this category. Ben Nimmo, _The Breakout Scale: Measuring the Effect of Influence Operations_ ??? --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[ How should journalists treat information gained by manifestly unlawful methods in election periods? ] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 4: Attribution and Deterrence ??? --- # The Attribution Problem ![Q model by Thomas Rid and Ben Buchanan](img/2020/qmodel.jpeg) ??? --- # Can Democracies Defend? .pull-left[ > The United States should communicate to adversaries that it will view an attack on its election infrastructure as a hostile act, and we will respond accordingly. The U.S. Government should not limit its response to cyber activity; rather, it should create a menu of potential responses that will send a clear message and create significant costs for the perpetrator. Report of the Select Committe on Intelligence United States Senate on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election ] .pull-right[ Problems: - Deterrence - Commensurable action - Private actors - Free speech ] ??? --- # Platforms in the Middle .left-33[ ![Facebook removes political ads](img/2020/fbads.png) ] .right-33[ ![Twitter removes russian accounts](img/2020/twitterremove.png) Modern influence campaigns target social networks using the inbuilt features of the platforms themselves (Targeted advertising, Free-to-use business model) How do you regulate platforms to prevent them being used to enable threats to national security? How do you do so without impairing the freedoms, rights, and security of the users? How do you do so without crippling the business models of companies? ] ??? --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[ Do you think deterrence is the right way to approach the problem of modern election interference? ] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 5: Conclusions and Connections ??? --- # Key Issues Free speech at scale collapses social contexts, and cannot be neatly separated from other forms of information communication Information warfare is a slippery concept with significant political consequences Modern election interference is one way of understanding the wider problem of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns ??? --- # Key Questions Is it possible to ban lying? How might you keep the internet safe for teenagers and adolescents? How should governments approach platform regulation, with the possibility of information warfare in mind? ???