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A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

theguardian.com

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Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#11

Post by bink »

sph wrote: post #2

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial…

What's even more scary to me is that there are several groups out there openly advertising the fact that they have exploits that can compromise all major cell phone brands, undetectably.

These groups, some commercial and some governmental inside the US, Israel, Italy, and elsewhere, can hack the phones and mobile devices of Presidents/Prime Ministers, member of Congress/Parliament, Supreme Court justices, and the military. This presents the risk of blackmail/extortion being used to control critical decisions and actions made by these people every day. They are not shy about advertising these capabilities and the rules they put in place to limit damage mostly concern damage to the hacking groups, not to countries or people.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#12

Post by mjfl »

sph wrote: post #2

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial…

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#13

Post by readthenotes1 »

dariosalvi78 wrote: post #3

this kinda proves how pointless social media are for public discussion. You either follow profiles you trust (friends, public figures) or you can flat-out disregard the rest as utter rubbish.

Why should i believe you?

:)

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#14

Post by mjfl »

user3939382 wrote: post #10
sph wrote: post #2

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial…

You missed the update where it was proven that the "Russian meddling" story was fake. The meddling in our elections was the social media companies suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the election, which the media also claimed was "Russian ops" while Hunter since admitted it was his laptop (full of emails detailing the corruption in his family). The amount of propaganda and lies that is fed to the A…

[flagged]

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#16

Post by honkler »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #13
dariosalvi78 wrote: post #3

this kinda proves how pointless social media are for public discussion. You either follow profiles you trust (friends, public figures) or you can flat-out disregard the rest as utter rubbish.

Why should i believe you? :)

don't need to. Free to waste your time and life over pointless interactions on "social" media.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#17

Post by ianai »

r721 wrote: post #15

Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34803779

Better article than this.

The sad thing is we’re probably trivially close to the tech needed for direct democracy, but the powers that be use tech to confuse and supplant democratic institutions and propose their authoritarian rule.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#18

Post by SimianSci »

rossdavidh wrote: post #9

"Given their expertise in subterfuge, it is perhaps surprising that Hanan and his colleagues allowed themselves to be exposed by undercover reporters." Surprising, unless the guys are actually just good at lying to potential customers, to fleece them of as much $$ as possible. I'm not saying they don't use sock puppet social media accounts, etc. but really, how would any of their customers know if it was at all effec…

The Venn diagram overlap between grifters, and mercenary hacker groups is very close to a single circle. Any group with slight competence will find their client an easier and more profitable target than their intended quarry. Do some bare-minimum intelligence work while simultaneously inflating the results with fabricated evidence.

I don't see how the realities of such an industry wouldn't be a race to the bottom

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#19

Post by olivermarks »

arealaccount wrote: post #8
sph wrote: post #2

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial…

Russia didn’t have a “major hand” in western elections.

It sounds as though Israel might have though...

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#20

Post by alisonatwork »

rossdavidh wrote: post #9

"Given their expertise in subterfuge, it is perhaps surprising that Hanan and his colleagues allowed themselves to be exposed by undercover reporters." Surprising, unless the guys are actually just good at lying to potential customers, to fleece them of as much $$ as possible. I'm not saying they don't use sock puppet social media accounts, etc. but really, how would any of their customers know if it was at all effec…

One of the tropes of spy novels is you can never trust a spy, and I think it'd be fair to say you can never trust a hacker or disinformation merchant either. Nevertheless, intelligence agencies and organized crime continues to exist, because the people employing said sources make their own risk assessments and incorporate that into the cost benefit analysis. And it appears that there is still at least some perceived benefit in trying to manipulate the outcomes of democracy on a grander scale than was previously achievable due to vulnerabilities of modern communication platforms.

A more interesting question is why haven't governments - or even the platforms themselves - worked hard to shut down these known vulnerabilities? Doesn't it undermine the trust of the users to know that there are professional organizations actively creating thousands of fake accounts that deliberately spread (at best) partisan propaganda and (at worst) outright disinformation? Doesn't it work against the lofty ideals of social media being a community space where real people can engage with one another? The fact the companies are so unresponsive to removing abusers shows their incentives are not aligned with those of their users.

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