Russian Interference Is Not Logical and Designed to Be That Way
"Logic is the beginning of wisdom ... not the end." - Spock
I was speaking to a very intelligent person this morning. I always get so much from our conversations in that he knows how analytical I am. We were discussing how Trump's tweets about Baltimore are being perceived.
I gave my opinion from an information operations standpoint. And we had differing opinions. I like differing opinions because if everyone agrees with me, I am not pushing myself hard enough.
I did get a comment that threw me a bit. That I didn't understand because I was thinking "logically". To me, it is a compliment, but also that I need to look at things more from the perspective of the target. I like to observe information influence so I need to be logical. You need to be as impartial as possible to understand what is happening.
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INFORMATION OPERATIONS ARE NOT DOING WHAT YOU THINK THEY ARE DOING
When you say Russian "meddling", people think about the 2016 election. That is the surface of what is happening. Underneath, the motive was to sow discord in American society. To get Americans to distrust elections, distrust the news and to distrust reality.
Russian influence operations have been going on for decades. With the advent of social media, it has become much more efficient, targeted and scary. Same stuff, different platform.
INFORMATION OPERATIONS ARE BASED ON WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE, NOT REALITY
If someone has a message of feeling to convey, it has to be conveyed in a way that the participant. Understands, This holds for marketing, politics, and communication in general.
If your target believes that Trump is racist, then start your message from that point. If your audience believes that Trump is not racist, then start from that point of view. One has to understand that perception is reality.
DESIGNED TO GET PEOPLE TO DISBELIEVE REALITY
The Russian objective is to have Americans distrust what is right in front of them. And the result is a segment of the public that is illogical. That does not believe reasoned argument, logic or civil discussion.
One of my favorite examples comes from the 2016 Republican primary. This is a scene that happened during the primary in Indiana. Donald Trump was about to push Ted Cruz out of the race. While in Indiana, ran into a group of Trump supporters. Ted Cruz tried to rationally discuss Donald Trump with them.
Instead, the Trump supporter said everything Ted Cruz said was a lie. Yelling “Lyin’ Ted” over and over at one point. No room for discussion, discourse or conversation. This is the true target of Russian influence operations, the American public in a perpetual state of denial.
You can watch the encounter here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWve5GXquqk
News You Can Use
Massive IoT DDOS from the Mirai ( or lookalike Botnet ) https://www.imperva.com/blog/imperva-blocks-our-largest-ddos-l7-brute-force-attack-ever-peaking-at-292000-rps/
Russia targeted election systems and infrastructure in all 50 states in the run-up to the 2016 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf
US attorney general William Barr says Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/23/william-barr-consumers-security-risks-backdoors/
Louisiana Declares Emergency After Malware Attacks http://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/EmergencyProclamations/115-JBE-2019-State-of-Emergency-Cybersecurity-Incident.pdf
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The Author
Gregory Coleman likes all things tech, especially big data and cloud computing. https://scholar.harvard.edu/greg