American Intelligence and Election Hacking

07 Nov 2018 11:05 #61 by ScienceChic

FredHayek wrote: This international election meddling on social media will be a problem most likely forever. The only way I see to stop it is to make sites like Facebook and Twitter country sensitive. So they only posts an American would see would be American. I think this is a horrible solution. I have FB and Twitter people from all over the world in my network. Maybe we just have to accept it as a continuing problem. For decades foreign governments like Saudi Arabia and Canada have bought influence in DC with lobbyists, why not also permit it through our media and social media? I read British and European papers, Al Jazeera bought a media company through Al Gore. The world is getting smaller, just live with it.

One huge problem with your idea FH, I have My Mountain Town set that it will not open outside of North America (not even Europe); I still have foreign accounts joining, trying to join and/or hack this site every day (India, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan, etc). It's a breeze for them to use proxy servers here in the U.S. and, as evidenced by the Russian interference in our 2016 elections and documented in the OSC's indictments, their agents will even physically come here and set up work space on our own soil and use our servers. You cannot prevent the malicious use of social media/the internet by foreign hostiles.

What you can do is regulate the social media and search engine companies so that they are more transparent with the paid content they allow and adhere to their terms of service more rigorously. They absolutely must be devoting more resources to tracking and booting bots and trolls. Facebook needs to be broken up, it's a monopoly and has repeatedly demonstrated a horrific lack of concern for its users data and shitty oversight, non-existent data protection policies, and crappy customer service.

As for lobbyists, I don't want to get rid of them for they serve an important function in helping to educate our representatives. However, the money that corrupts the practice of lobbying must be removed. No gifts, no money to campaigns, they can only meet with Congress critters in their offices (no restaurants, hotels, ski trips, etc) for a set amount of time so everyone has an equal opportunity to get in front of the representative. Lobbying should be fair, transparent, and no quid pro quo.

Back to election hacking, this report was just released by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office and I'm still working my way through it. I highly recommend reading at least the Summary Report at the beginning (it's not letting me quote it here). Below is a screen shot of some posts by the reporter from whom I found this.
Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns
A report to Parliament
6 November 2018



"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
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07 Nov 2018 14:09 #62 by FNP
SC,

This UK report referenced in the original is more to the point. ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/22593...disrupted-110718.pdf

Another consideration is that the Data Protection Laws from 1998 to 2018 in the UK are far more stringent than those in the US. So much so that Cambridge Analytica probably could not have been prosecuted under US laws. Even the UK data permission scheme is reversed from ours. In the UK you have to "opt in". Permission is not assumed or implied.

Given the present "balkanized" data protection and use laws [ an amalgamation of state and federal laws] the US has to come from way behind in recognizing that the individual should control personal data collection and its use.

As for "hacking elections" via social media goes, in the US, individuals and corporations can push Free Speech pretty far before it falls under legal constraints. Free Speech rights ensure some very unsavory speech will be public as long as social norms no longer moderate our public discourse.

Federal election laws prohibit most of what everyone is concerned about with respect to foreign influence of our elections in social media. However, social platforms are not held legally responsible for content published on their sites. Until they are held accountable to some degree, things won't change.

Here's a few excerpts from Facebook's terms of service:
1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
2. You will not create more than one personal profile.
3. If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission.

Unfortunately the raison d'etat of Facebook and other social platforms is profit. Far too often they turn "Nelson's Blind Eye" to their terms of service if it impacts the bottom line ... unless their actions are illegal.

So in the US, how far should we go in holding social media platforms responsible for the content on their respective sites and if we elect to modify our election laws to include speech from foreign entities where does free speech stop and election influencing begin?

We are suffering from the anonymity provided by the internet and social media. If we actually knew who was "speaking" or paying for the "speech" many of these problems would disappear.

As things stand, we have to be smart enough to spot the hacks on social media.

"An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people." Thomas Jefferson

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08 Nov 2018 08:51 #63 by parkcobound
Thomas Jefferson was a smart man.... unfortunately I know a lot of people who do not spend much time keeping themselves informed or educated.

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08 Nov 2018 09:00 #64 by driver8

parkcobound wrote: Thomas Jefferson was a smart man.... unfortunately I know a lot of people who do not spend much time keeping themselves informed or educated.


Unfortunately, we have 34% +/- of our voting population that get their 'information', aka propaganda from fox, infowars, brietbart and the oarnge baffon himself. One only needs to spend 3 minutes on any trump supporters feed you will see just how far detached from reality they really are. IMHO, this false narrative alone is a grave detriment to the survival of our democracy.

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08 Nov 2018 10:54 #65 by homeagain
"an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people".......this succinct statement is all there is to say.... jmo
The following user(s) said Thank You: parkcobound

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08 Nov 2018 16:41 #66 by FredHayek
Interesting to hear that foreign visitors are attempting to hack into here. So if the Russians are influencing elections and want Trump to win, why did they permit the House to go back to the control of Nancy Pelosi? (Kidding!)

Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.

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08 Nov 2018 17:00 #67 by homeagain

FredHayek wrote: Interesting to hear that foreign visitors are attempting to hack into here. So if the Russians are influencing elections and want Trump to win, why did they permit the House to go back to the control of Nancy Pelosi? (Kidding!)

Fred.....why would you be so surprised of hacking this site.....it is,after all a social media site and ANY social media site is fertile ground to incite, influence or persuade the participants.

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08 Nov 2018 20:45 #68 by ScienceChic
Interesting? No, it's rather annoying. Since January of 2017, I've had to ban over 2,400 new accounts and we have 100-150 attempts to hack the site every day and that's with having the site blocked to outside the U.S. and Canada. I don't even want to imagine what happens with government websites, financial institutions, healthcare systems, etc. by hackers every day.

The Russians aren't interfering in our elections by changing the vote tallies as far as anyone knows at the moment - there's been no evidence of them hacking into voting machines to mess with votes. Hacking into election sites to get info on voters, yes, but not change votes. Not to say that they couldn't because as has been extensively documented, far too many states don't have adequate security, or auditing processes in place to prevent that kind of tampering. No, the interference has come by influencing voters through propaganda and misinformation.

"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill

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08 Nov 2018 21:27 #69 by Blazer Bob
That has been happening since before there was an internet. Before there was television.

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09 Nov 2018 06:32 #70 by homeagain

Blazer Bob wrote: That has been happening since before there was an internet. Before there was television.


Pretty simplistic view.....the problem is MORE PROLIFIC AND DANGEROUS. The flip side of the "good" of the web. When 12 years olds can HACK ANYTHING.......we have a dangerous
paradigm JMO

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