DC's Doomsday Clock #8 Leaked Thanks to... Vladimir Putin?; Comic Book Resources, November 30, 2018

Vincent Pasquill, Comic Book Resources; DC's Doomsday Clock #8 Leaked Thanks to... Vladimir Putin?

[Kip Currier: Read the two sentences excerpted below from an 11/30/18 Comic Book Resources article about a soon-to-be-released comic book published by DC Comics...

"In Russia, all media depicting President Vladimir Putin has to be passed through the government for approval before publishing. As President Putin appears in the issue, DC reportedly submitted it for review to the Russian government."

and then let it sink in how fortunate we are to have freedom of expression and intellectual freedom in this country. The right to think and say what we want. The right to read what we want. The right to read a comic book of our choosing!

Read the article's first sentence again:

"In Russia, all media depicting President Vladimir Putin has to be passed through the government for approval before publishing."

That is as extraordinary to learn, as appalling as it is to contemplate. The idea that the head of a sovereign nation would be so threatened, so afraid of what might be said about him in a comic book--in any writing, for that matter--that "chilling effects" advance review--censorship--is mandated.

That is the quintessence of weakness and cowardice.

That is the essence of totalitarianism, the default position of autocrats and tyrants the world over.

We must never forget, sadly, that the vast majority of this world's citizens do NOT enjoy freedom of speech or expression, precious rights enshrined in our U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment. This story is a stark reminder of how exceptional freedom of expression is, how priceless yet vulnerable its hopeful spark is, and how it must be safeguarded and nurtured.

And how important it is to champion freedom of expression for others around the world, as well as for those of us who can exercise this cherished and singular civil liberty. "We the people", indeed.]

Once again, Putin gives us a lesson on the usefulness of the blatant lie; The Washington Post, September 14, 2018

Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post; Once again, Putin gives us a lesson on the usefulness of the blatant lie

"Why did she bother? Or, more accurately: Why was she told to bother? Because the production of blatant lies is useful."

Russia is better at propaganda than we are; CNN, September 14, 2018

James Ball, CNN; Russia is better at propaganda than we are

"It's a playbook NATO is so aware of that it's produced a handbook setting out the Russian model -- "dismiss, distort, distract, dismay" -- in detail.

It's a playbook that prospers by using the tools of a democracy -- open disagreement, tolerance of fringe groups and crucially mainstream and social media -- against us. And there is so far no sign that its efficacy is diminishing.

Simply put, Russia is better at misinformation than its opponents. It understands better how information -- good or bad -- is spread. Everyone else needs to get better at dealing with it."

From Mountain of CCTV Footage, Pay Dirt: 2 Russians Are Named in Spy Poisoning; The New York Times, September 5, 2018

Ellen Barry, The New York Times;

From Mountain of CCTV Footage, Pay Dirt: 2 Russians Are Named in Spy Poisoning

[Kip Currier: Fascinating example of good old-fashioned, "methodical, plodding" detective work, combined with 21st century technologies of mass surveillance and facial recognition by machines and gifted humans.

As I think about the chapters on privacy and surveillance in the ethics textbook I'm writing, this story is a good reminder of the socially-positive aspects of new technologies, amid often legitimate concerns about their demonstrated and potential downsides. In the vein of prior stories I've posted on this blog about the use, for example, of drones for animal conservation and monitoring efforts, the identification of the two Russian operatives in the Salisbury, UK poisoning case highlights how the uses and applications of digital age technologies like mass surveillance frequently fall outside the lines of "all bad" or "all good".]

"“It’s almost impossible in this country to hide, almost impossible,” said John Bayliss, who retired from the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, in 2010. “And with the new software they have, you can tell the person by the way they walk, or a ring they wear, or a watch they wear. It becomes even harder.”

The investigation into the Skripal poisoning, known as Operation Wedana, will stand as a high-profile test of an investigative technique Britain has pioneered: accumulating mounds of visual data and sifting through it...

Ceri Hurford-Jones, the managing director of Salisbury’s local radio station, saluted investigators for their “sheer skill in getting a grip on this, and finding out who these people were.”

It may not have been the stuff of action films, but Mr. Hurford-Jones did see something impressive about the whole thing.

“It’s methodical, plodding,” he said. “But, you know, that’s the only way you can do these things. There is a bit of Englishness in it.”"

The Chinese threat that an aircraft carrier can’t stop; The Washington Post, August 7, 2018

David Ignatius, The Washington Post; The Chinese threat that an aircraft carrier can’t stop

"America’s vulnerability to information warfare was a special topic of concern. One participant recalled a conversation several years ago with a Russian general who taunted him: “You have a cybercommand but no information operations. Don’t you know that information operations are how you take countries down?”"

My terrifying deep dive into one of Russia's largest hacking forums; The Guardian, July 24, 2018

Dylan Curran, The Guardian; 

My terrifying deep dive into one of Russia's largest hacking forums

[Kip Currier: I had a similar reaction to the author of this article when I attended a truly eye-opening 4/20/18 American Bar Association (ABA) Intellectual Property Law Conference presentation, "DarkNet: Enter at Your Own Risk. Inside the Digital Underworld". One of the presenters, Krista Valenzuela with the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell in West Trenton, New Jersey, did a live foray into the Dark Web. The scope of illicit activities and goods witnessed in just that brief demo was staggering and evoked a feeling that scenes of "black market" contraband and "bad actors" endemic to dystopian sci-fi fare like Blade Runner 2049 and Netflix's Altered Carbon are already part of the present-day real-world.]
 
"It’s fascinating to see how this community works together to take down “western” systems and derive chaos and profit from it. Typically, hackers in first-world countries are terrified to work together due to the multiplicative risk of a group being caught. In Russia, however, the authorities don’t seem to care that these hackers are wreaking havoc on the west. They are left to their own devices, and most users on this forum have been regular members for over six years.

A lot of the information on this forum is incredibly worrying, even if a lot of it is harmless 15-year-olds trying to be edgy and hack their friend’s phones. In any case, it’s important to know these communities exist. The dark underbelly of the internet isn’t going anywhere."

Stop calling it ‘meddling.’ It’s actually information warfare.; The Washington Post, July 17, 2018

Brian Klaas, The Washington Post; Stop calling it ‘meddling.’ It’s actually information warfare.

"“And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!” That’s the catchphrase that comes at the end of “Scooby-Doo” cartoons, always right at the moment when some monster turns out to just be a creepy old man in a mask. The zany adventures are over — until the next episode.

That’s the appropriate use of the word “meddling.” It is not, however, an appropriate word to use when referring to the ongoing Russian attacks on American democracy that gained prominence in the 2016 presidential election and will accelerate as we head into the November midterms. This isn’t “Scooby-Doo.” The stakes couldn’t be higher, and the monsters we face are real...

But that phrase is woefully inadequate. These continuing attacks are neither meddling nor “interference,” another euphemism. They’re a part of gibridnaya voyna — Russian for “hybrid warfare.” The best term for what we’re talking about would be “information warfare.

One of the jarring realizations of the 21st century is that democratic governments are only as good as the quality of information that their voters receive. Influence the information flow voters receive, and you’ll eventually influence the government."

A 12-Year-Old Girl Gives the Cruel Russian Version of ‘The Bachelor’ a Dose of Her Own Feminist Reality; The Daily Beast, January 25, 2018

Anna Nemtsova, The Daily Beast; 

A 12-Year-Old Girl Gives the Cruel Russian Version of ‘The Bachelor’ a Dose of Her Own Feminist Reality

"Anna Rivina from the Nasiliyu.net (No to Violence) project of women struggling against domestic violence welcomes Anastasia’s campaign. Rivina believes that it shows that the younger generation of Russians are ready to say no to hypocrisy. “When I see bright young people like Anastasia, I want them to ignore hypocritical moralists who should have stayed with their opinions in the last century,” Rivina told The Daily Beast. “It is very important for our people to learn how to respect themselves.” Anastasia’s campaign means to teach Russia to respect women as much as men, and to be kind.

Happily, Anastasia did not lose friends as a result of the public humiliation. A group of her mostly male classmates supported her in the video address. Thousands of random people have joined her.

“So far I have not seen any reaction from Channel One,” Anastasia told The Daily Beast. “But I am pleased to realize that people of different ages and political views support my campaign.

“What the show’s presenters did to me was real cyberbullying,” Anastasia told The Daily Beast. She said she does not want to position her campaign anywhere on the political spectrum. “I have my entire life ahead of me.” Anastasia stresses that her campaign has a very specific target. “For 10 years, Let’s Get Married presenters have been publicly humiliating children, their mothers, older women, even kids with autism—this is unacceptable.”"

Trump risks US being seen as 'kleptocracy', says ex-ethics chief Walter Shaub; Guardian, July 31, 2017

David Smith, Guardian; Trump risks US being seen as 'kleptocracy', says ex-ethics chief Walter Shaub

"The former head of the US government ethics watchdog has warned that Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest put the country at risk of being seen as a “kleptocracy”.

Speaking to the Guardian, Walter Shaub, who quit this month as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), condemned the president for using his hotels and other properties for government business in what is in effect a free advertising campaign.

“His actions create the appearance of profiting from the presidency, and the appearance here is everything because the demand I’m making is so much more than ‘have a clean heart’. It’s ‘Have a clean heart and act appropriately,’” Shaub said.

“The fact that we’re having to ask questions about whether he’s intentionally using the presidency for profit is bad enough because the appearance itself undermines confidence in government.”

He added: “It certainly risks people starting to refer to us as a kleptocracy. That’s a term people throw around fairly freely when they’re talking about Russia, fairly or unfairly, and we run the risk of getting branded the same way. America really should stand for more than that.”"

Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays; New York Times, April 24, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays

[Kip Currier: I was recently thumbing through a file folder of comic strips and Op-Eds I've bookmarked over the years and came across this one by the brilliant political cartoonist Rob Rogers, featured frequently in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The cartoon is from 2007 but is eerily timely, and reminiscent of recent statements by Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his administration, denying the very existence of gays, while euphemistically threatening "such people" with death. Frank Bruni's Food, Sex and Silence trenchantly points out "how often oppression is an act of omission rather than commission". Chilling first-hand reports from Chechen gay men and human rights groups show how oppression is also waged through both strategies.] 

[The Guardian, April 21, 2017] "Previously, Kadyrov’s spokesman Alvi Karimov denied the reports of the purge, saying there were no gay people in Chechnya. “If there were such people in Chechnya, law enforcement agencies wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning,” he said."

[The New York Times Editorial Board, April 24, 2017] 

"The crimes in Chechnya have presented the Trump administration with its first major test on this issue on the international stage. Last Monday, Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, issued a strong statement calling for a prompt investigation and accountability for the culprits.

“We are against all forms of discrimination, including against people based on sexual orientation,” Ms. Haley said. “When left unchecked, discrimination and human rights abuses can lead to destabilization and conflict.”

It would be encouraging to see Ms. Haley take on this cause with as much passion and perseverance as her predecessor, Samantha Power. Without American leadership, forging a global consensus that gay rights are human rights will take longer. Time is not on the side of gay people living in terror in places like Chechnya."

Russia Bans ‘Extremist’ Image Of Putin In Makeup; Huffington Post, April 5, 2017

Nick Robins-Early, Huffington Post; 

Russia Bans ‘Extremist’ Image Of Putin In Makeup

"Russia has added a digitally altered image of President Vladimir Putin in heavy makeup to its list of banned extremist materials, saying the picture suggests Putin is gay. 

The Russian Ministry of Justice last week added the photo to its index of extremist materials ― a list that now includes more than 4,000 images that are illegal to share. The offending image is number 4,071, which the ministry describes a “man resembling the president” whose makeup “hints at the Russian president’s allegedly nonstandard sexual orientation.”"

The EU Is Fighting A Lopsided Battle Against Russian Disinformation; Huffington Post, March 3, 2017

Nick Robins-Early, Huffington Post; 

The EU Is Fighting A Lopsided Battle Against Russian Disinformation

"The Lisa case is an extreme example of what analysts say is a sprawling campaign of Russian disinformation that seeks to influence European Union politics and sow discord among voters. It’s a problem that European governments are increasingly concerned about, but one they are struggling to produce an effective way to counter...

The EU vowed this year to expand its efforts to defend against false reports, as upcoming elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands raise the stakes on misinformation influencing voters. In November, the European Parliament passed a motion that called on the EU and member states to do more to counter Russian “disinformation and propaganda warfare.” Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the bloc of trying to silence dissenting opinions.

But the European Union views the threat of disinformation as a serious challenge. In January, EU politicians pledged to give more funding for an 11-person task force set up in 2015 called East Stratcom, which aims to address Russian disinformation and highlight its distortions. The task force issues weekly newsletters on disinformation campaigns, makes viral-style explainer videos on how false reports spread and fact checks suspect news stories." 

Russia Heats Up Its Infowar With the West; Daily Beast, March 3, 2017

Ilan Berman, Daily Beast; Russia Heats Up Its Infowar With the West

"[Russia's information operations] objective is clear and unequivocal: to obscure objective facts through a veritable “firehose of falsehood,” thereby creating doubt in Western governments, undermining trust in democratic institutions, and garnering greater sympathy for the Russian government (or, at least, greater freedom of action) for its actions abroad.

Last month, in a presentation before the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu formally unveiled the establishment of a new military unit designed to conduct “information operations” against the country’s adversaries. The goal of the new initiative, according to Vladimir Shamanov, head of the Duma’s defense committee, is to “protect the national defense interests and engage in information warfare.”"

The Russification of America; New York Times, February 21, 2017

Roger Cohen, New York Times; 

The Russification of America

"I’m skeptical of Trump ever running a disciplined administration. His feelings about Europe are already clear and won’t change. The European Union needs to step into the moral void by standing unequivocally for the values that must define the West: truth, facts, reason, science, tolerance, freedom, democracy and the rule of law. For now it’s unclear if the Trump administration is friend or foe in that fight."

'This is the new reality': Panelists speak for Pitt cyber security institute; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/3/17

Chris Potter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 

'This is the new reality': Panelists speak for Pitt cyber security institute:

[Kip Currier: This was a fascinating and informative panel at the University of Pittsburgh on February 2, 2017, discussing cyberhacking, efforts to identify hackers and hacker-sanctioning actors/nation states, and responses to hacking threats and incidents.

Two comments (which I'll paraphrase below, without benefit of a transcript) by panelist and Russian journalist Andrei Soldatov, stood out for me:

1. Vladimir Putin's Russia has deftly understood and exploited the distinction between "cybersecurity" and "information security" (the West, Soldatov contends, has focused more on the former).

2. Under Stalin, technical training in Soviet universities and technical institutes did not include study of ethics and the humanities (largely relegated to those in medical professions).]

"The precise identity and motivations of the hackers who leaked sensitive Democratic emails during last year’s presidential election may never be known. But they left fingerprints that were familiar to Andrei Soldatov, a journalist who has written about Russia’s security state for the past 20 years.

Like much of the propaganda back home, Mr. Soldatov said at a University of Pittsburgh panel discussion Thursday, “It’s not about building the positive narrative, it’s about building the negative narrative. … To say everyone is corrupt and no one can be trusted — people will accept this.”

Mr. Soldatov was one of four panelists convened by Pitt’s fledgling Institute of Cyber Law, Policy, and Security and its new director, former U.S. Attorney David Hickton. The discussion drew a few hundred people to the first public event for the center, which focuses on cybercrime and cybersecurity."

Russia’s radical new strategy for information warfare; Washington Post, 1/18/17

David Ignatius, Washington Post; Russia’s radical new strategy for information warfare

"Krutskikh’s comments may have been a precursor of a new doctrine for information operations announced publicly by the Kremlin in December. The senior administration official described the Russian strategy: “They think of information space as a domain of warfare. In the U.S, we tend to have a binary view of conflict — we’re at peace or at war. The Russian doctrine is more of a continuum. You can be at different levels of conflict, along a sliding scale.”...

In Russia’s view, America is pushing just as aggressively in the information space, but denies it. “Things we perceive as free speech, they perceive as aggressive behavior from the West,” noted the senior U.S. official."

Russia waging information war against Sweden, study finds; Guardian, 1/11/17

Jon Henley, Guardian; 

Russia waging information war against Sweden, study finds

"Sweden’s most authoritative foreign policy institute has accused Russia of using fake news, false documents and disinformation as part of a coordinated campaign to influence public opinion and decision-making in the Scandinavian country.

The Swedish Institute of International Affairs said in a comprehensive study that Sweden had been the target of “a wide array of active measures” aimed at “hampering its ability to generate public support in pursuing its policies”...

“We believe it demonstrates an intent to influence decision-making,” Martin Kragh, one of the report’s authors, told Dagens Nyheter newspaper...

It also identified “troll armies” targeting journalists and academics, hijacked Twitter accounts and pro-Kremlin NGOs operating in Sweden as further weapons in what it said amounted to a Russian information war."

Russians No Longer Dispute Olympic Doping Operation; New York Times, 12/27/16

Rebecca R. Ruiz, New York Times; Russians No Longer Dispute Olympic Doping Operation:

"Russia is for the first time conceding that its officials carried out one of the biggest conspiracies in sports history: a far-reaching doping operation that implicated scores of Russian athletes, tainting not just the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi but also the entire Olympic movement.

Over several days of interviews here with The New York Times, Russian officials said they no longer disputed a damning set of facts that detailed a doping program with few, if any, historical precedents.

“It was an institutional conspiracy,” Anna Antseliovich, the acting director general of Russia’s national antidoping agency, said of years’ worth of cheating schemes, while emphasizing that the government’s top officials were not involved."

In today’s world, the truth is losing; Washington Post, 11/29/16

David Ignatius, Washington Post; In today’s world, the truth is losing:

"How should citizens who want a fact-based world combat this assault on truth? Stengel has approved State Department programs that teach investigative reporting and empower truth-tellers, but he’s right that this isn’t really a job for Uncle Sam.

The best hope may be the global companies that have created the social-media platforms. “They see this information war as an existential threat,” says Stengel. The tech companies have made a start: He says Twitter has removed more than 400,000 accounts, and YouTube daily deletes extremist videos.

The real challenge for global tech giants is to restore the currency of truth. Perhaps “machine learning” can identify falsehoods and expose every argument that uses them. Perhaps someday, a human-machine process will create what Stengel describes as a “global ombudsman for information.”"

WikiLeaks Isn’t Whistleblowing; New York Times, 11/4/16

Zeynep Tufekci, New York Times; WikiLeaks Isn’t Whistleblowing:

"Demanding transparency from the powerful is not a right to see every single private email anyone in a position of power ever sent or received. WikiLeaks, for example, gleefully tweeted to its millions of followers that a Clinton Foundation employee had attempted suicide; news outlets repeated the report.

Wanton destruction of the personal privacy of any person who has ever come near a political organization is a vicious but effective means to smother dissent. This method is so common in Russia and the former Soviet states that it has a name: “kompromat,” releasing compromising material against political opponents. Emails of dissidents are hacked, their houses bugged, the activities in their bedrooms videotaped, and the material made public to embarrass and intimidate people whose politics displeases the powerful. Kompromat does not have to go after every single dissident to work: If you know that getting near politics means that your personal privacy may be destroyed, you will understandably stay away.

Data dumps by WikiLeaks have outed rape victims and gay people in Saudi Arabia, private citizens’ emails and personal information in Turkey, and the voice mail messages of Democratic National Committee staff members. Dissent requires the right to privacy: to be let alone in our vulnerabilities and the ability to form our thoughts and share them when we choose. These hacks undermine that crucial right."