Page 22 - FCW, Sept/Oct 2018

Cybersecurity
Now those agencies are exploring the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify coordinated influence campaigns online and trace them back to their sources.
“Pretty soon, we should be able to very accurately predict when disinformation campaigns are coming based on tracking and mapping the troll factories,” said Shawn Powers, executive director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy at the State Department. “We will be able to actually identify these campaigns within maybe even 24 hours of when they start, which then gives us a chance to get really proactive instead of reactive.”
company officials claimed they displayed “coordinated” and “inauthentic” behavior reminiscent of an influence campaign. Although Facebook officials declined to make a firm attribution, they said the campaign bore similarities to the activity of the Russia-based Internet Research Agency tracked during the 2016 election, with adjustments such as the use of virtual private networks and third-party ad buyers to further obfuscate the locations and identities of users.
However, the fallout from Facebook’s actions highlights just how tightly tethered influence operations can be to online discourse and how perilous it can be for companies or governments to enter the fray. The day after Facebook made its announcement, Americans involved as organizers
Bots or free speech?
Although many of the nontechnical aspects of State’s program have been around for decades, a department spokesperson told FCW that the technological component is still in its infancy and is aimed at countering disinfor- mation campaigns in other countries, not the United States. Accord- ing to the spokesperson, the department is relying on a mix of commercial products and a machine learning algorithm devel- oped in-house that can monitor social media activity and content, identify trends in con- versations, flag botnets and identify false per- sonas online.
“This is a real protest in Washington, D.C.
It is not George Soros, it is not Russia, it is just us.”
or administrators of the 32 closed accounts and pages complained that Facebook had censored them without notice and unfairly painted their legitimate groups and movements as puppets of a foreign- backed influence campaign because of the actions of a few people.
One of the groups posted on Twitter shortly after the ban, saying, “We’ve since created a new Face- book event, but we know real organizing comes from talking with our neighbors and that this is a real protest in Washing- ton, D.C. It is not
State is also cultivating relationships with technology companies to strengthen its technical capabilities. However, the program has already presented officials with logistical and ethical dilemmas related to free speech and privacy.
“As you dig into the problem, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s not as easy [to expose these operations] as it might otherwise seem,” the State Department spokesperson said. “There are people who use these things for legitimate reasons or conceal their identities not for nefarious reasons but for privacy.”
The concerns are more than hypothetical. In July, Facebook shut down 32 accounts, pages and groups tied to mostly progressive and left-wing political causes because
George Soros, it is not Russia, it is just us.” Investigations by U.S. intelligence agencies and Congress have found that Russian troll factories, like the Internet Research Agency, have latched onto groups and movements that already have a presence within the American political ecosystem. In many cases, those entities sought to gain access to audiences and influence voting behavior by infiltrating online groups largely focused on issues such as fracking, genetically modified food and campaign finance corruption.
Who should go public?
Justice’s new Cyber-Digital Task Force released its policy for disclosing foreign influence operations and the various factors officials must consider. The policy states that “it may
18 September/October 2018 FCW.COM