Collaborate Disseminate
Fireeye is reporting that a hacking group called Ghostwriter broke into the content management systems of Eastern European news sites to plant fake stories. From a Wired story: The propagandists have created and disseminated disinformation since at least March 2017, with a focus on undermining NATO and the US troops in Poland and the Baltics; they’ve posted fake content on… Continue reading Fake Stories in Real News Sites
A personal account of someone who was paid to buy products on Amazon and leave fake reviews. Fake reviews are one of the problems that everyone knows about, and no one knows what to do about — so we all try to pretend doesn’t exist…. Continue reading A Peek into the Fake Review Marketplace
The New York Times is reporting on state-sponsored disinformation campaigns coming out of China: Since that wave of panic, United States intelligence agencies have assessed that Chinese operatives helped push the messages across platforms, according to six American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss intelligence matters. The amplification techniques are alarming to officials because the… Continue reading Chinese COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign
Interesting analysis of the possibility, feasibility, and efficacy of deliberately fake scientific research, something I had previously speculated about…. Continue reading The Threat of Fake Academic Research
Influence operations are elusive to define. The Rand Corp.’s definition is as good as any: "the collection of tactical information about an adversary as well as the dissemination of propaganda in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent." Basically, we know it when we see it, from bots controlled by the Russian Internet Research Agency to Saudi attempts to… Continue reading Influence Operations Kill Chain
When the next pandemic strikes, we’ll be fighting it on two fronts. The first is the one you immediately think about: understanding the disease, researching a cure and inoculating the population. The second is new, and one you might not have thought much about: fighting the deluge of rumors, misinformation and flat-out lies that will appear on the internet. The… Continue reading Fake News and Pandemics
When the next pandemic strikes, we’ll be fighting it on two fronts. The first is the one you immediately think about: understanding the disease, researching a cure and inoculating the population. The second is new, and one you might not have thought mu… Continue reading Fake News and Pandemics
The term "fake news" has lost much of its meaning, but it describes a real and dangerous Internet trend. Because it’s hard for many people to differentiate a real news site from a fraudulent one, they can be hoodwinked by fictitious news storie… Continue reading Fraudulent Academic Papers
The term "fake news" has lost much of its meaning, but it describes a real and dangerous Internet trend. Because it’s hard for many people to differentiate a real news site from a fraudulent one, they can be hoodwinked by fictitious news stories pretending to be real. The result is that otherwise reasonable people believe lies. The trends fostering fake… Continue reading Fraudulent Academic Papers
To better understand influence attacks, we proposed an approach that models democracy itself as an information system and explains how democracies are vulnerable to certain forms of information attacks that autocracies naturally resist. Our model combi… Continue reading Defending Democracies Against Information Attacks