Illustrative Example of The Effect of Misinformation from News Sites

Just added an illustrative example to my previous blog on Social Engineering Threat and HBGary’s Fake Social Media Persona Propaganda tools for the U.S. Government. This example look at how repetitive lies and corrupted journalist could affect voters sentiments.

As an example of how repetitive lies can influence public opinion. There are times when people would express opinion based on what they perceive as true because it was heard repeatedly. Say person A would tell his friend that Mr. Smith is a racist or Billy is a “leftie”. But if challenged to prove it and forced to pause and think, all he could think of was lots of people posting comments at a news site said so. Upon thinking further, he realized he does not know any facts and was just relying on hearsay. A lot of people would just go with perceived popular opinion. If so many people think so then it must be true.

Nowadays, lots of news outlets and networks get their news from one source (e.g. Canadian Press, Associated Press, etc). You can read the same sentence paragraph or whole news article with exactly the same content repeated and presented under different newspaper, TV network and news website. So if the news is corrupted at the source, then the false news will just propagate down different news outlets giving it an air of legitimacy. The whole news agency does not have to be corrupted, it just take one journalist working for that agency injecting a misleading news at the critical moment of election or history making event.

Recommend this post (Progressivebloggers.ca)

G20 – T.O. Police or Mubarak’s Security Forces?

Just finished watching CBC’s Fifth Estate’s feature on the violent police crackdown against peaceful G20 protesters. There were lots of footage that I have not seen before. Pretty disgusting. Are we living in a democratic country or a police state? I know it is not as bad as Egypt with sniper firing on protesters. But the violent crackdown gave me a flashback of Mubarak’s security forces attacking protesters.

I would say that the innocent people who were assaulted by the police, without provocation, should file class action suit. But then the taxpayers are the one who would end up paying and the politicians and police would just get away with it anyway. Even a guy with prosthetic leg whose leg got pulled off have allegedly not been shown any mercy, even after the police got his severed prosthetic leg.

Not too long ago, I was observing how we are lucky here in Canada that when we see a police officer we feel safe and respect them. In other countries, when you are in trouble and was a victim of a crime, you are afraid of approaching the very corrupted police, fearful that you would just get into more trouble. We should keep our police force respectable. Any politicians who use them as a political tool should be incriminated. Any police officer who have violent tendency and have a wife-beating demeanor should be banned from the police service.

Glad to see that investigative journalism is still alive, at least at CBC’s Fifth Estate.

Full video @ youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXQ06Q55u1k

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2010-2011/youshouldhavestayedathome/

For more extensive video, including the Black Bloc instigating violence, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxkAn-g4Xo I did not know there was a horse charging moment tramping on a fallen person similar to the Egyptian’s camel attack. There were also plain clothes police officer. Isn’t there a law that requires police to be clearly identifiable?

My previous related blogs:

Toronto Cop Charged with Assault on G20 Protester Adam Nobody

Recommend this post (progressivebloggers.ca)

Three Pillars For A Better & More Democratic Government

Government’s Business is People’s Business

The three pillars for a better and more democratic government are:

I. Open Government of the People

Government are NOT the boss. The people/voters are the boss and thus have the right to supervise and monitor government officials activities. Make open government an integral part of a modern democracy. Allow people to easily access government information with just a click of a button without having to ask and wait.

II. Leadership of Equals

A principle of round table leadership council of equals. One person is in charge. But the leader does not dictates. There is no dominating leader. A good leader harness the equally talented ideas from the people whose views are promulgated by their representatives. The representatives are the voices of the people in his riding/district, and NOT the voices of special interest group, campaign contributors, or their party whip. A rule by consensus through working cooperatively, instead of adopting a confrontational approach.

III. Well-Informed and Learned Voters

A well-informed voters can easily be achieved with an open government system where information are not needlessly concealed. A learned voters can be achieved through voters education. Educate voters to ensure they do not easily fall for tricks and dirty politics. Provide them with the ability to reject divisive and hate promoting tactics.

Voters should be educated (e.g. as part of the curriculum for senior secondary level) to promote independent thinkers able to independently verify facts. Able to think critically without being cynical. Avoid being enamored with a leader. This often lead to blindly taking a hardline stand and adjusting of their truth to defend their esteemed leader. A voter should be able to do away with bandwagon mentality.

The third pillar is crucial for a genuine democracy to succeed. There are enough lessons from history to learn from to prevent deceptive and manipulative tactics.

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I have added a separate page / tab on top called “Better Government”. It contains compilation of previous blogs dealing with the topic of a better government for the information age. It provides some specific examples for promoting a better system.

Recommend this Post (progressivebloggers.ca)

Winnipeg Joining Day of Action Against UBB

Winnipeg will be joining the rest of Canada for a day of action against UBB. Meeting place is at 1 pm in Portage Place.

Here is the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=132054333528377&index=1#

And to check the Stop the Meter Day of Action in your local area:

http://openmedia.ca/local

Prankcall Lands Wisconsin’s Gov. Walker in Possible Criminal Probe

Wisconsin Governor talked candidly to what he thought was David Koch on the other end of the phone. David Koch is a Libertarian and Conservative fundraiser. He is said to be linked to Tea Party. During the prank call, Governor Scott Walker claimed he thought of infiltrating the peaceful protesters with troublemakers. That comment have lead Madison Police Chief to seek clarification on exactly what plan of infiltration he was thinking of.  The person on the other line was actually Ian Murphy, editor of the Buffalo Beast.

Madison Police chief said:

“I spent a good deal of time overnight thinking about Governor Walker’s response, during his news conference yesterday (Wednesday), to the suggestion that his administration ‘thought about’ planting troublemakers among those who are peacefully protesting his bill,” Wray said in a statement issued this morning. “I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members.

“I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers. Our department works hard dialoging with those who are exercising their First Amendment right, those from both sides of the issue, to make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure they can demonstrate safely.

A Liberal Campaign Watchdog is also asking for a criminal probe against Walker for possible illegal fundraising activity. Responding to the question, from who he thought was his campaign supporter billionaire David Koch, on “Now what else could we do for you down there?” He respond:

The coming days and weeks and months ahead, particularly in some of these more swing areas, a lot of these guys are gonna need, they don’t necessarily need ads for them, but they’re gonna need a message out reinforcing why this was a good thing to do for the economy and a good thing to do for the state. So to the extent that that message is out over and over again, that’s obviously a good thing.

David Donnelly, national campaign director for the Public Campaign Action Fund claim that

“If Wisconsin law forbids coordination with political donors similar to federal law, Gov. Scott Walker is not just in political trouble, but in legal hot water,”

Libyan Fought With Hands and Won Against Gadhafi’s Forces

CBC reported that Libyan in eastern area of the country have fought Gaddafi’s “elite troops” with bare hands until they managed to grab some looted weapon later. The dictator’s forces then use helicopter gun ship and bombing from the air to attack the rebels. But the rebels eventually won and drove out Gadhafi’s forces.Whole area is now safely in oppositions control.

Libya’s Interior Minister have resigned and told CNN about 300 bare hands protesters being killed in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city. Soon after, Libya’s state TV reported that he have been kidnapped. The Guardian reported how the battle was won.

All day defecting troops and officers were lugging in thousands of pounds of ammunition to a courtyard inside the secret police headquarters on Bengazi’s waterfront. By the day’s end an arsenal that could easily supply an army brigade was piled up. There were plastic explosives, rockets, machine guns and even the anti-aircraft weapon that was used to mow down demonstrators as they assaulted the military base on Sunday.   ……

This was a savage rampage on both sides, a blood and guts revolution, fuelled by decades of repression, neglect and rage. There has been nothing peaceful about it. …

Gaddafi’s reported use of mercenaries appears to have tipped the hand of many protesters and armed forces. “That is why we turned against the government,” said air force major Rajib Feytouni. “That and the fact that there was an order to use planes to attack the people.”

Pressuring Libya’s Dictator

Trying to influence an irrational dictator might be difficult. But international community should make them aware that there will be severe consequences to their actions and illustrate explicitly what those consequences will be.

Just to clarify my earlier post tonight, which compares U.S. reaction on Iraq to current Middle Eastern and Libya’s crisis. I am not proposing an Iraq-like invasion of Libya. I don’t believe that will alleviate the situation. I’ve pointed out Iraq to show how far U.S. was prepared to go back then. I’ve mentioned establishing a no-fly zone just as one possible consideration following reports of air strike against protesters. Emphasis should be made on threatening the Libyan leader with war crime charges and freezing of his assets. A strong statement backed by concrete steps of action to be taken should also be made against anyone giving order to shoot unarmed protesters. The person giving orders on the ground should have no doubt that international community is going to come after them if they participate in carrying out these atrocities.

Iraq Liberation vs M.E. & Libya’s “Concern” Statement

Why is it that invasion of Iraq to liberate them from a dictator is the right thing to do while Middle East pro-democracy protester only get “concern” statement from U.S.? If report coming from Libya is true, then there is a clear and present danger of civilians being massacred. Libyan pilot who flew to Malta, and is seeking asylum, claimed they were ordered to bomb the protesters. Several Libyan ambassadors have defected and their U.N. ambassador have called for establishing a no-fly zone over Libya. Al Jazeera is now reporting about air strikes and live shots being fired into the protesters. This is information U.S. intelligence can easily verify.

Just because Britain have close business ties with Libya established during Tony Blairs time, and Petro-Canada paid Libya $1 billion for oil contracts, does not mean it should cause the Western Allies to be indecisive and twiddle their thumbs while pro-democracy protesters are being massacred. A no-fly zone should be considered if there is an immediate threat of massive deaths in the hands of what appears to be a vicious dictatorial regime.

U.S. should make it clear without ambiguity that Gaddafi will be responsible for war crime if he massacre his people. The slow elevation of concern statement to “deep concern”, “unacceptable” and “outrage” is not going to stop the bloodshed. U.S. have shown they are capable of establishing a no-fly zone in an attempt to overthrow a dictator in Iraq, so why is it different now? NATO waged “humanitarian war” in Kosovo. What needs to happen before international intervention in Libya would be justified? An urgent discussion of possible action should at least be considered apart from the “concern” statements.

Social Engineering Threat – Your Personal & Financial Information; Voters Manipulation

Social Engineering relates to the practice of deceiving people or manipulating public opinion through misrepresentation. The perpetrators usually pretend to be someone they are not. In terms of stealing your personal information, Social Engineers use all kinds of low tech tricks to get information out of you. Politically, Social Engineers use various ways to manipulate public opinion. With the wide use of social media nowadays, social engineering for political purposes has adopted new means to take advantage of this new medium. The new methods that can be used are illustrated below.

STEALING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

A wide misconception of how to protect your privacy and personal information is that you need to protect your computer and saved data. However, Social Engineers do not need to hack into your account. Techniques used by Social Engineers are nothing new. Famous social engineers and former computer criminal Kevin Mitnick claim that it is easier to trick someone into giving a password than it is to spend the effort to hack a system.

Survey or Research Fraud– One technique used to make people reveal their personal information is by phone call saying they are conducting survey on behalf of your financial institution or as part of a research. Sometimes they will promise you a gift. Once the question starts rolling in, they could ask question like your birthday, address, income and employer. That information can then be used to apply for a credit card or apply for credit using your name.  Other low tech method would be a smooth talking con chatting with you on a bar to get some personal information out of you.

Social Networks – One instance of social engineering involves a simple google search of a victim’s e-mail address. It then gave the perpetrator lots of personal information such as phone numbers and address. Most user also have their personal information readily available on Facebook. A lot of uninformed Facebook users unsuspectingly shared their personal information with third-party app developer.

Phishing scam – this technique uses e-mail or instant messaging to fool people into providing personal information by making themselves appear legitimate. It is with this method that foreign hackers were able to hack into Government of Canada’s Finance Department and Treasury Board’s computer network.

Those are just a few of the examples. A good general rule of thumb is never give out your password or personal information that you normally use to authenticate your financial account.

MANIPULATING VOTERS

After the media’s excitement about Egypt’s “Facebook revolution”, I’ve warned against overhyping social media. It is just another tool that those who seek to manipulate information would adopt and use to its advantage before long.

Unauthorized Access

A malicious government don’t need to put much effort into social engineering. They can just access your census, passport information or personal information. They can then tailored their appeal to you based on your ethnicity and religion. Measures needs to be in place such that user id of any officials accessing personal private information is logged.

Canada’s government was mired in controversy when they mailed out Jewish Rosh Hashanah greeting cards in 2007 and 2008. On both occasions, some of the recipients expressed serious concerns.

“I was a little alarmed at the idea that the government might have some list of Canadian Jews, whether or not they’re using that for benevolent or malevolent or cynical reasons,” Mr. Terkel said. “It doesn’t seem my religion should be the business of any federal government.” – Jonathan Terkel (Reported by Canada.com)

The government claim they got their names from local community. But several recipients disputed that, expressing similar claim as Jonathan Terkel.

He says he subscribes to no Jewish publications and doesn’t give to any specifically Jewish causes, so he isn’t sure how the PMO got his name.

It is not clear where the government got the people’s religious information from and it might very well not be as I described above. However, a government that single out a specific group based on religion or ethnicity is just a bit unnerving.

Political Army of Internet Posters

A political party could try to influence public opinion by creating an illusion of popular opinion. This can be done by staffing their war room or campaign strategy central with armies of posters who populate internet forum and news sites comments section with their talking points. This employ the “Big Lie” technique where

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

Plus people are vulnerable to the bandwagon effect. Where they are more likely to adopt what they perceive as popular opinion. A desire to belong to what is popular and what is hip.

Social Media

Just as I was preparing to write about social engineering and how it could be a threat to democracy, when voters are manipulated through orchestrated misinformation, a developing story came out about the internet activist group called “Anonymous” and their war with security firm HBGary Inc.

HBGary Inc is a digital security firm with close ties to U.S. government officials from Air Force, CIA, FBI, etc. Anonymous reportedly used SQL injection vulnerability in HBGary’s system to attack them along with the use of social engineering technique. Anonymous gained access to the site and troves of HBGary’s e-mails which have since been posted at Torrent’s site.

Some e-mail revelation includes HBGary working with the Bank of America’s Law Firm and the U.S. government to undermine Wikileaks, and helping U.S. Chamber of Commerce to campaign against Progressive Bloggers. They are also said to be working on a new rootkit for windows that will be undetectable. But the real revelation for me pertaining to social engineering is the fact that HBGary plan to develop a software for the U.S. government that would allow them to have control over a large numbers of virtual social media profile (i.e. fake personas). Such large amount of virtual profiles could be used to propagate fake opinion and false news.

Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms. The service includes a user friendly application environment to maximize the user’s situational awareness by displaying real-time local information.(TechDirt)

During the Egyptian’s revolution, Twitter played an important role in providing up to the second update from the grassroot level. Foiling attempts by Egyptian government to block out news and instigate violence to create excuse for crackdown. I thought at that time that future authoritarian regime could use Twitter to spread false information and put fake posters claiming to support the dictator. But then I thought with a popular uprising the scale of Egypt, the army of government posters would easily be outnumbered.

But that has changed with HBGary revelation. Their plan is to allow the capability for one person to control 10 personas. That way they don’t need to outnumber the real dissenters. They need 10 times less than the amount of real people. It is not inconceivable that the numbers could easily be increased to more than 10 per one controlling person. When such tool is used in a democratic election, it would lead to propagation of false information and undermine fair election.

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Added February 27, 2011 2:00 pm EST

An illustrative example of how repetitive lies and corrupted media can influence voters sentiments.

As an example of how repetitive lies can influence public opinion. There are times when people would express opinion based on what they perceive as true because it was heard repeatedly. Say person A would tell his friend that Mr. Smith is a racist or Billy is a “leftie”. But if challenged to prove it and forced to pause and think, all he could think of was lots of people posting comments at a news site said so. Upon thinking further, he realized he does not know any facts and was just relying on hearsay. A lot of people would just go with perceived popular opinion. If so many people think so then it must be true.

Nowadays, lots of news outlets and networks get their news from one source (e.g. Canadian Press, Associated Press, etc). You can read the same sentence paragraph or whole news article with exactly the same content repeated and presented under different newspaper, TV network and news website. So if the news is corrupted at the source, then the false news will just propagate down different news outlets giving it an air of legitimacy. The whole news agency does not have to be corrupted, it just take one journalist working for that agency injecting a misleading news at the critical moment of election or history making event.

What is a Pirate?

The above video is an unofficial video created in support of the Pirate Party of Canada. A new Federal Political Party registered with Election Canada. Quite a unique name for a political party with a unique perspective on improving democracy for the information age, through the use of Open Source philosophy to bring about an Open and Transparent Government.

We live at a time where government are increasingly intransigent and a CRTC who is trying to force UBB and false news law, with total disregards for strong objection voiced during public consultation. Pirate Party seeks to transform the way government businesses are conducted by putting accountability and transparency front and center. Thereby ensuring an enhanced democratic process.

Fight for a better government for the information age, for Net Neutrality, improve private citizen’s privacy, and a better copyright and patent law.

Check out Pirate Party of Canada website at www.pirateparty.ca

Video available in HD and also in mobile version (i.e. IPod and most Smartphones). Just add request to comment if interested.