Misinformation and Cyber Warfare
“By inserting disinformation in publications, advocating extremist ideas, inciting racist and xenophobic flash-mobs, conducting interstate computer attacks on critical infrastructure targets that are vital for the functioning of a society, it is possible to ‘heat up’ the situation in any country, all the way up to the point of social unrest.” (Major General Igor Dylevsky, deputy chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).
Does that sound at all familiar? Try this one for size:
“All warfare is based primarily on deception of an enemy. Fighting on a battlefield is the most primitive way of making war. There is no higher art than to destroy your enemy without a fight – by subverting anything of value in the enemy’s country.” (Sun Tzu. Chinese general and philosopher, 500BCE).
Both quotations are chapter lead ins from ‘Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s secret plan to defeat America’ by Rebekah Koffler. It is an interesting book and there are so many deja vu moments as I read through it.
Consider the misinformation around the QAnon movement, the bullshit around the various conspiracy theories regarding vaccinations, undermining Dr Fauci’s task during Covid, the attack on our freedoms and resistance to social distancing, lockdowns and mask wearing, election interference, white supremacy forums, the rise of Black Lives Matter as a result of blatant racism in police forces throughout the USA… oh and could there possibly be a link to Australia here and the incarceration rate of First Nations people?
The internet and social media platforms have opened up a huge Pandora’s Box with information which used to take at least several days to become headlines in mainstream press or a snippet on the evening news now circles the earth in a matter of seconds, questioning the credibility of political leaders and respected journals and institutions.
It’s not just Putin’s Playbook, it is also Xi Jinping’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s.
The objectives are to break down trust in government and political systems and create civil disorder, so that the fight is between us, no need to strike a single blow, no need to kill anyone, let the discord destroy the social fabric.
So much there means knowing the enemy, knowing the hot buttons to push and when to push them, and finding useful idiots to push the agenda.
With social media the internet becomes a valuable cyber tool to disseminate misinformation and conspiracy theories. Little drops of misinformation, let’s call them breadcrumbs, work very nicely to undermine credibility, to fracture any inkling of trust there may be, especially in a growing culture which scorns mainstream media.
Freedom and democracy are important to the way Americans and we in Australia live our lives, and that freedom and trust in government and the rules-based living that we have are fundamental. Knowing this, the easiest way to upset the comforts of people living in ostensibly free, democratic societies is to break down their trust in the systems which allow the sense of freedom and trust.
Misinformation and conspiracy theories are key elements which have been used time and again. Today I purchased a battery for my Ukulele tuner, the lady asked me pay the $10 in cash, I didn’t have cash, so she talked about how ‘they’ were seeking to have absolute control over us, besides, it costs so much more with fees and charges, as she processed the purchase and I tapped the phone on the machine to complete the transaction.
The conspiracy theory includes the ‘THEY’ as though we all know exactly who ‘they’ are.
A good definition of a conspiracy theory is ‘The belief that an organisation made up of individuals or groups was or is acting covertly to achieve some malevolent end.’
To achieve a level of distrust, breadcrumbs are dropped as it were, little bits of misinformation here and there, in this case that the ‘THEY’ are out to destroy our finances.
Think of all the little breadcrumbs that littered our lives during Covid. Our freedoms were being assailed, we had to wear masks when meeting with people or even just to walk the dog, we had to be sure there was distance between us when we met, we couldn’t travel more than a few kilometres from home, had to work from home, OH MY GOD my freedom was completely destroyed.
And China spread the virus to undermine the freedoms we have in the west; they want to absolutely control every aspect of our lives.
And so it went. Oh dear, I forgot the number one, all-time greatest enemy, the producer of all those dangerous vaccines. Dr Anthony Fauci. What an evil man he is, doesn’t even deserve the title Doctor, he is/was leading the big pharmaceutical companies to poison everyone, and if we didn’t get the needles we were to be locked away!
Another little breadcrumb was that of the danger of Genetically Modified Organisms. Even today I see my favourite protagonist tell me of the evils of GMO, especially those in the vaccines we had to have, and did you know they cause autism and all sorts of other things?
I did ask my favourite protagonist whether he eats bread made from flour milled from wheat. And did he know that wheat as we know it today is a far cry from the wheat of many centuries ago, that genetic modification changed it to make it a more reliable crop with different strains to suit different climatic regions and to make different foods? He changed the subject.
So many breadcrumbs to deal with, so many clouds of misinformation to negotiate. So many reasons to be fearful of those we elect to govern us.
A freedom we cherish most is the freedom of speech. We have (although we don’t in the same way that Americans do) the absolute right to speak freely on just about any topic we like. In America it is enshrined in the First Amendment to their Constitution. Should there be, or are there limits to freedom of speech?
Can, for example, anyone vilify a person or group they don’t much like, for example, black people, homosexuals, political lefties? Am I free to say whatever I like, whenever I like, to whoever I choose?
I remember when the internet was young I participated in some forums, and at first they were interesting until I noticed that a particular person started criticising using inflammatory language, calling names, not addressing my argument but attacking me personally. That, unfortunately, is most prevalent on social media today, names are not used, but name calling is. A person who disagrees or argues from a different perspective is either ignorant, WOKE, dumb, an idiot, and they are the less inflammatory definitions. To call someone out for that apparently attacks their freedom of speech. And so distrust breaks down into inflammatory language, insults and nastiness, hatred, making people feel unsafe, and when directed at a particular group, such as coloured people or immigrants, Islamists, Jews, and so the list grows, can lead to bloody confrontations.
A very pertinent example is the state of politics in America since the last Presidential Election. There is no need to bring an army in to fight Americans, the seeds of distrust have grown so large that the very seat of government was attacked on 6 January 2020.
There were calls for the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives to be killed. That war still rages, simmering as the next election looms. If Donald Trump does not win there is the distinct possibility that violence will erupt again.
Little breadcrumbs grow exponentially. All an ‘enemy’ need do is drop a little trail of them and all hell can break loose.
We see that here and elsewhere with the demonstrations regarding the Gaza conflict, the nascent violence, the inflammatory language, the heavy hand of authorities trying to close down the demonstrations.
Other forms of cyber warfare include the hacking of computer systems used in everyday transactions. I worked for the last fifteen years in a transport company which suffered a ransomware attack. It crippled the company for a short while, cost millions in lost revenue because the accounting system no longer operated, caused mayhem in pick up and deliveries. The company was owned at that time by a large foreign investor, the losses suffered ultimately led to the company being broken up and sold off bit by bit but at much reduced prices. The value of the business had been severely undermined. Trust in the company took a long time to re-establish. The impact on the supply chain of everyday commodities, such as food in supermarkets as well as the impact on industries such as mining interrupted all aspects of our economy.
The Medibank hack of 2022 by a Russian operative, Alexandr Ermakov saw personal data of Australian citizens, their health records made available through the internet, and trust in the system was shattered.
The OPTUS data breach showed how vulnerable our economy is when we are so reliant on cyber connectivity for basic every day dealings for individuals, but how dramatic the losses are for businesses reliant on electronic payment for sales, and that is just about every business we all use every day, from the cafe for the morning coffee to the doctor’s surgery, to the supermarket for the weekly groceries, to the service station when filling up the fuel tank.
Cyber attacks are an important weapon in waging a war of deception, waging a war of wearing down an enemy’s population to breaking point, where trust is so undermined, where internal conflicts become street battles, where the rule of law breaks down to a point of disintegration.
When we buy into conspiracy theories which so undermine the very foundations of who we are as a nation, we become the attacker’s useful idiots.
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16 comments
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Canguro -
Steve Davis -
Steve Davis -
Bert -
Andrew Smith -
Steve Davis -
B Sullivan -
Bert -
Steve Davis -
Bert -
Clakka -
corvusboreus -
Bert -
corvusboreus -
Steve Davis -
Bert
Return to home pageBert, re. “It’s not just Putin’s Playbook, it is also Xi Jinping’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s.”, to that I’d add it’s also America’s, Britain’s, and likely any other executive power that wants a seat at the table. It’s no secret that the CIA have their boys embedded within the American MSM – papers & television – playing a role in massaging the message, similarly British spy agencies are wont to put out false narratives for their own purposes. The dark arts of misinformation & cyber-warfare are an utterly egalitarian phenomenon.
Q: Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines?
A: America.
Q: Who did Sleepy Joe say did it?
A: The Russians.
Q: Who ordered the destruction?
A: Sleepy Joe.
(Hahaha… as if the Russians would destroy their own infrastructure! Just goes to show how the Americans take the rest of the world for fools.)
Canguro, thank you, the sentence you quoted hit me like a brick also.
And to add to your questions about the Nord Stream pipelines, the US still cannot tell us who blew them up two years later, but they knew within 15 minutes who was responsible for the Moscow entertainment centre blast.
And to show that all this freaking out about cyber security is for public consumption, the German outlet DW reports that despite fighting a proxy war against Russia, and sanctions packages you couldn’t jump over, “US purchases of uranium from Russia reach annual maximum. In May the US bought enriched uranium from Russia for 209.5 million euros.”
As that great philosopher Frank Zappa once said, US politics is merely the entertainment division of the military/industrial complex.
Yes, all play the power game…. interesting with the Russian spy thing happening, again listed among Putin’s Playlist items and the book was a reference, and yes, all play the game in one way or another.
Good article, one is struck by the narcissism of many conspiracy theorists, those who promote them e.g. US blew up NordStream (Seymour Hersh citing one anonymous source) and underestimating Ukraine, which allegedly did it, plus gaslighting anyone who disagrees with their conspiracy; see Trump, Orban, Erdogan, Putin, RW MSM on climate et al.. and ‘don’t trust experts’ etc.
The answer, at least a credible explanation, is in plain sight according to offshore media it now looks like Ukraine, which wasn’t supposedly capable:
‘Media investigation finds Ukrainian officer coordinated Nord Stream pipelines sabotage. A Ukrainian special forces commander played a key role in sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September last year, reports said Saturday. A joint investigation by The Washington Post newspaper and German outlet Der Spiegel singles out Roman Chervinsky, a 48-year-old who served in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces.’
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20231112-media-investigation-finds-ukrainian-officer-played-key-role-in-nord-stream-pipelines-attack
Bit like those ignoring Koch-TRump Project 2025 in Oz, and e.g. Wikileaks being the heroes of transparency, journalism and freedom of speech (not imo), but Wikileaks II ended up being a ‘Kremlin cutout’ in service to Putin and Trump; same ecosystem as Abbott, Downer, Orban, Farage et al; too easy.
Andrew Smith’s capacity to accept “look over there” articles from the Western media is mind-boggling. Check out the linked article he provided. It’s about as flimsy as a “report” can be.
He believes it’s credible that Ukrainian special forces pulled off a spectacular sabotage operation without knowing what the reaction would be from any of the major players, but Germany in particular.
The shock of the sabotage to Germany’s economy was enormous and ongoing. They are in all sorts of strife, with business closures continuing apace. This is simply not sustainable.
Germany’s reaction was completely unpredictable, and could have had dire consequences for Ukraine.
Once again, Andrew comes out as a defender of US interests.
“ A good definition of a conspiracy theory is ‘The belief that an organisation made up of individuals or groups was or is acting covertly to achieve some malevolent end”.
No. A good definition of a conspiracy theory is ‘A theory that more than one person is involved’. One lone gunman acts alone, two gunmen make the act a conspiracy. Malevolent end? Would a successful conspiracy to remove Hitler from power be considered a malevolent end? Nor is secrecy a necessary requirement to define a conspiracy. A conspiracy is a shared aspiration pursued with at least one other participant.
The merits of the theory are what counts. This blanket dismissal of the worth of any conspiracy theory simply because it is a conspiracy theory is not warranted. This article is really an excuse to push more and more of the relentless anti Russian propaganda we keep being fed that we are supposed to blindly accept instead of scrutinising with critical thinking and reasoning.
When I see the chaos which is the USA today, the erosion of trust in their political system, when I see the hacking of the Medibank data and when I see witnessed the near collapse of a major transport company through a ransomware attack and read the opening quotations to the article, I sort of see a connecting line.
While I mention Putin, Xi Jinping and Netanyahu, using the ‘playbook’ as suggested in the book, it is not just those players who use those games. And if it seems that is what I said, I apologise for not clarifying that, but the distrust of governments and breakdown of social norms are linked to the spread of disinformation and the role of social media in formenting the discontent.
Seeking to undermine governments is part of the game plan, and the arrest of alleged Russian spies is part of the playbook, again, spying is not an exclusively Russian or Chinese strategy, but spying is part of the attempts at destabalising to gain advantage.
B Sullivan, On the definition of conspiracy theory, I sought several definitions from respected dictionaries and they all came up with meanings like the one used in the article. Feel free to agree or disagree.
Just opened the Guardian and I see there appears to have been an assassination attempt in the US. Trump has survived, but the the shambolic political situation has hit another low point . The gunman has been killed and another person has also died. The ex President is alive and well. Who ever has spread the breadcrumbs of distrust must be feeling pretty bloody good this morning.
Bert, thanks for mentioning the arrest of alleged Russian spies being part of the playbook.
Could be justified, or could be a setup, but it’s all part of entertainment for the masses as Albo’s faux outrage at Russia’s comments clearly showed. They don’t seem to realise how revealing body language and insincerity can be.
And the price they pay for these games was on display today with the shooting.
Yes Steve, agreed.
There is a perception that Putin wants Trump to be President, but according to the author of the book Putin’s Playbook, he couldn’t care less who wins, so long as the process is shambolic and trust in democracy is eroded.
An assassination actually advances his cause, throwing the whole election system into disarray.
As far as the spy thing here is concerned, all we need now is for Dutton to lay blame at Albo’s feet for opening up eligibilty criterai for joining the ADF.
I guess at the end of the day, we have little choice but to inform ourselves, and run all the information, combined with our experiences, through our ‘risk and safety valve’. There’s much blah blah about things like ‘cognitive bias’, but so what? Although I might move forward with doubt readily at hand, I also proceed on the basis of trusting myself and my judgement, some may call it out as ‘cognitive bias’ (or ‘confirmation bias’), so what, it seems to me, in the main, such a call-out is a fall back attempt to divert from the real issues being discussed or argued – an attack on the person, rather than consideration of issues. At least, it’s more pointed than the stupid accusation, ‘woke’, which is frequently accompanied by the stupid attribution to the ubiquitous ‘they’.
Nevertheless, freedom to harvest information, and freedom of speech by which to discuss it, or anything else for that matter, regardless of laws, is seriously curtailed in innumerable ways, and always has been. To that extent, I just love the line of Groucho Marx, “I don’t wanna belong to any club that would accept me as a member.” It was a most famous line, more than likely because the majority recognized the dual problems of knowing oneself and also those with whom one might associate. At one particularly grueling stage in my younger years I took it as my mantra. It begs the question, at what stage in one’s life is one able to trust one’s own judgement, and the judgement of others one might seek to harvest information from or enter into debate with? I guess it’s hard to know unless one goes on a fishing expedition, or as my old mate Greg was fond of saying, “I just rely on the reaction of my inner tweety bird.”
Surely though there are many that don’t afford themselves the time to think, or perhaps just don’t have the capacity. They seem to either hold a party line, or adopt a belief by reaction. There are the ‘ostriches’ and ‘chamaelions’ and those that just want to hit a ball or something. It doesn’t take long to suss them out, and make a decision on how to proceed, if at all.
Then, ah, there’s the advertisers, the media and the didacts, incessantly pumping it out, harvesting dollars, loyalty, adherence, and fame or infamy. Today, there’s no holds barred in seeking to hold everyone to ransom in their quest. To have everyone become a ‘talking head’. They seem to happily corrupt via conflation of self-interest, news, academic debate, philosophy and entertainment. Do we use the same person-to-person methods to suss them out?
Shortly after I started writing this, news broke (approx 9am 14July aest) of the ‘shooting’ incidence at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania USA. After seeing the vids and obtaining the gist, I turned it off, as the screech of sensation, alarm, proposition and theory reached fever pitch. For me, it’s absolutely pointless to take a reactionary position and to ascribe blame.
As for Bert’s line, “It’s not just Putin’s Playbook, it is also Xi Jinping’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s.”, it may be that the count of three, may be out by not just several magnitudes, but by extrapolation, billions. As Jimmy Durante said, “Everybody wants to get into the act.”. Whilst we are prone to putting world political leaders at the top, and understand that alsorans, bit players and idiots abound, we ought not forget the notorious dark masters lurking in the shadows. About one of our infamous favorites here’s something to digest
Clakka, ,
I guess it comes down to the ability to own up to blind spots or bullshit when factual errors are pointed out within ones own prior declarations.
Here at the AIMN, i was recently called out on an erroneous statement I made claiming that the ICC had no power of enforcement, on account of me confusing/conflating it with the ICJ.
I checked, accepted error and corrected.
I also recently saw a claim from the same ‘fact-checker’ that the ‘persecuted ethnic Russians’ in the Donbass/Luhansk regions had been subjected to “incessant shelling” by Ukrainian forces immediately prior to the Russian invasion in 2022.
I checked.
Civilian casualties in those specified areas had been documented as <100 overall civilian dead for the period 2018-2022 (predominantly from small arms), whilst the figures then experienced a massive spike following the Russian invasion.
As in, over 3000 civilian deaths confirmed to have been incurred during the first 4 weeks of the Russian ‘SMO’ into Ukraine in the Donbass/Luhansk regions alone.
After initially rejecting my linked citations of credible and detailed reports compiled by online NGO humanitarian agencies, the “incessant bombardment” claimant then, without skipping a beat to acknowledge prior error,
immediately switched narrative to a claim that the 3 year cessation of “incessant bombardment” was likely an indicator that Ukraine had actually likely only been conserving their shells for 3 years in preparation for a possi-probable campaign of anti-Russian “ethnic cleansing”, thus making Putin’s invasion not only a ‘military masterstroke’ but a pre-emptive act of humanitarian triumph.
As an added touch, the multi-divisional combined-arms Russian invasion of Ukraine , the largest active deployment of hostile force in Europe since the end of WW2, with a conservative civilian deathtoll of multiple thousands within the first few weeks alone, was concurrently dismissed by the same person as “little more than a skirmish”, although this was, upon evidential refutation, this declaration was flippantly ditched as a mere “throwaway line”.
<100 civilian casualties in 3 years = “incessant shelling”.
“I am not a military man”, he unapologetically declared.
No shit, Sherlock.
Difficult to maintain discipline of dialogue within such an opinion-rich, information-adverse environment.
On the game plan being used by Xi and Netanyahu, it is explained in the book I referenced that these get to know the enemy, they are reliant on on the ground informants more so than the Americans do, and so are better equipped to target their misinformation of cyber hacking.
For Xi, all Chinese people are Chinese, whether they are citizens of a host country or not, Israeli Mossad personnel are embedded in Gaza and on the West Bank, looking like, acting like being like Palestinians.
Yes, all nations glean information and try to influence other people, but it seems Russia, China and Israel pretty good at it, seemingly better than the rest. accordingf to Rebecca Koffler, and she worked in that area for the US in senior positions for quite a few years.
“international diplomacy is a multi-table poker game where every single player is seeking to leverage some advantage through various means of cheating.”
I’m on tenterhooks.
I cannot wait to find out who the mysterious “fact-checker” is who upset corvy so much.
Could it actually be me?
Is it me that he does not have the courage to name?
Or whose name he cannot bear to see in print?
Perhaps it is.
The items to which he refers are somewhat familiar.
Check out the comments at https://theaimn.com/nato-provoked-putin-stoltenberg-comes-clean/
You’ll need an hour or so, but it will be worth it just to watch a position disintegrate. And to see me hit with little gems like this — “ You’re welcome, you delusional narcissist ingrate”
Ah Corvusboreus, some people play by different rules, and those mentioned are good at that apparently.
The effect of nuclear weapons and the MAD, mutually assured destruction which would be the result of a nuclear war has been a good safety valve when tensions get really strained, we, so far have only ever had two cities virtually obliterated by these weapons, so different means have to be employed to defeat a perceived enemy. As we witness the destruction of Gaza, we could be forgiven for thinking how much more a nuclear explosion about 100 metres above the old city would have been, over a million dead Palestinians, a second in the south and the Palestinian problem would have been forever solved, but the fear of using such weaponry means that other ways of destroying an enemy must be employed. Those who cherish FREEDOM are easily distracted, enforce a mask mandate at a time of a deadly virus, use mass vaccinations to save lives, despite the very real risk of developing some sort of autism or other, or perhaps in fifty years dying because of the vaccination instead of dying next week because the vaccine was not administered., or spread around some other theory of the evils of something or other, race is a good one to use, incite hatred based on the colour of skin, or as the classroom game used to described how hatred works, use the colour of eyes, blue eyes are for smarter people, brown eyes are for chocolate brained people, and perhaps we can get lucky and see people killing each other in the streets, or even a political candidate killed while seeking office.
Then rules of the game change according to what weapons are chosen, and as the opening quotes of the article indicate, was is best fought when distrust is built in the enemy camp. The Russians and Chinese and the Israelis have tight control over their populations and so are harder to deceive, are harder to cause to fight among themselves. The information feeds they have are controlled so misinformation and conspiracy theories are not as easily activated.
So yes, all play, but nat all use the same rules or employ the same tactics.