my website at https://anirudh.fi
Disinformation post
Signed-off-by: Anirudh Oppiliappan <x@icyphox.sh>
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Disinformation demystified
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<a href="/">home</a>
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<code>2019-09-10</code>
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<h1>Disinformation demystified</h1>
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<h2>Misinformation, but deliberate</h2>
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<p>As with the disambiguation of any word, let’s start with its etymology and definiton.
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According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation">Wikipedia</a>,
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<em>disinformation</em> has been borrowed from the Russian word — <em>dezinformatisya</em> (дезинформа́ция),
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derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>To fully understand disinformation, especially in the modern age, we need to understand the
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key factors of any successful disinformation operation:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>creating disinformation (what)</li>
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<li>the motivation behind the op, or its end goal (why)</li>
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<li>the medium used to disperse the falsified information (how)</li>
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<li>the actor (who)</li>
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</ul>
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<p>At the end, we’ll also look at how you can use disinformation techniques to maintain OPSEC.</p>
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<p>In order to break monotony, I will also be using the terms “information operation”, or the shortened
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forms – “info op” & “disinfo”.</p>
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<h3 id="creating-disinformation">Creating disinformation</h3>
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<p>Crafting or creating disinformation is by no means a trivial task. Often, the quality
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of any disinformation sample is a huge indicator of the level of sophistication of the
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actor involved, i.e. is it a 12 year old troll or a nation state?</p>
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<p>Well crafted disinformation always has one primary characteristic — “plausibility”.
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The disinfo must sound reasonable. It must induce the notion it’s <em>likely</em> true.
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To achieve this, the target — be it an individual, a specific demographic or an entire
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nation — must be well researched. A deep understanding of the target’s culture, history,
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geography and psychology is required. It also needs circumstantial and situational awareness,
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of the target.</p>
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<p>There are many forms of disinformation. A few common ones are staged videos / photographs,
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recontextualized videos / photographs, blog posts, news articles & most recently — deepfakes.</p>
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<p>Here’s a tweet from <a href="https://twitter.com/thegrugq">the grugq</a>, showing a case of recontextualized
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imagery:</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true" data-theme="dark" data-link-color="#00ffff">
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Disinformation.
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<br><br>
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The content of the photo is not fake. The reality of what it captured is fake. The context it’s placed in is fake. The picture itself is 100% authentic. Everything, except the photo itself, is fake.
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<br><br>Recontextualisation as threat vector.
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<a href="https://t.co/Pko3f0xkXC">pic.twitter.com/Pko3f0xkXC</a>
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</p>— thaddeus e. grugq (@thegrugq)
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<a href="https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/1142759819020890113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a>
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</blockquote>
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<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<h3 id="motivations-behind-an-information-operation">Motivations behind an information operation</h3>
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<p>I like to broadly categorize any info op as either proactive or reactive.
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Proactively, disinformation is spread with the desire to influence the target
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either before or during the occurence of an event. This is especially observed
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during elections.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-1"><a href="#fn-1">1</a></sup>
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In offensive information operations, the target’s psychological state can be affected by
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spreading <strong>fear, uncertainty & doubt</strong>, or FUD for short.</p>
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<p>Reactive disinformation is when the actor, usually a nation state in this case,
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screws up and wants to cover their tracks. A fitting example of this is the case
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of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), which was shot down while flying over
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eastern Ukraine. This tragic incident has been attributed to Russian-backed
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separatists.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-2"><a href="#fn-2">2</a></sup>
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Russian media is known to have desseminated a number of alternative & some even
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conspiratorial theories<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-3"><a href="#fn-3">3</a></sup>, in response. The number grew as the JIT’s (Dutch-lead Joint
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Investigation Team) investigations pointed towards the separatists.
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The idea was to <strong>muddle the information</strong> space with these theories, and as a result,
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potentially correct information takes a credibility hit.</p>
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<p>Another motive for an info op is to <strong>control the narrative</strong>. This is often seen in use
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in totalitarian regimes; when the government decides what the media portrays to the
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masses. The ongoing Hong Kong protests is a good example.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-4"><a href="#fn-4">4</a></sup> According to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751039100/china-state-media-present-distorted-version-of-hong-kong-protests">NPR</a>:</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Official state media pin the blame for protests on the “black hand” of foreign interference,
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namely from the United States, and what they have called criminal Hong Kong thugs.
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A popular conspiracy theory posits the CIA incited and funded the Hong Kong protesters,
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who are demanding an end to an extradition bill with China and the ability to elect their own leader.
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Fueling this theory, China Daily, a state newspaper geared toward a younger, more cosmopolitan audience,
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this week linked to a video purportedly showing Hong Kong protesters using American-made grenade launchers to combat police.
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…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<h3 id="media-used-to-disperse-disinfo">Media used to disperse disinfo</h3>
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<p>As seen in the above example of totalitarian governments, national TV and newspaper agencies
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play a key role in influence ops en masse. It guarantees outreach due to the channel/paper’s
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popularity.</p>
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<p>Twitter is another, obvious example. Due to the ease of creating accounts and the ability to
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generate activity programmatically via the API, Twitter bots are the go-to choice today for
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info ops. Essentially, an actor attempts to create “discussions” amongst “users” (read: bots),
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to push their narrative(s). Twitter also provides analytics for every tweet, enabling actors to
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get realtime insights into what sticks and what doesn’t.
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The use of Twitter was seen during the previously discussed MH17 case, where Russia employed its troll
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factory — the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency">Internet Research Agency</a> (IRA)
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to create discussions about alternative theories.</p>
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<p>In India, disinformation is often spread via YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Political parties
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actively invest in creating group chats to spread political messages and memes. These parties
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have volunteers whose sole job is to sit and forward messages.
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Apart from political propaganda, WhatsApp finds itself as a medium of fake news. In most cases,
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this is disinformation without a motive, or the motive is hard to determine simply because
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the source is impossible to trace, lost in forwards.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-5"><a href="#fn-5">5</a></sup>
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This is a difficult problem to combat, especially given the nature of the target audience.</p>
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<h3 id="the-actors-behind-disinfo-campaigns">The actors behind disinfo campaigns</h3>
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<p>I doubt this requires further elaboration, but in short:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>nation states and their intelligence agencies</li>
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<li>governments, political parties</li>
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<li>other non/quasi-governmental groups</li>
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<li>trolls</li>
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</ul>
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<p>This essentially sums up the what, why, how and who of disinformation. </p>
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<h3 id="personal-opsec">Personal OPSEC</h3>
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<p>This is a fun one. Now, it’s common knowledge that
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<strong>STFU is the best policy</strong>. But sometimes, this might not be possible, because
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afterall inactivity leads to suspicion, and suspicion leads to scrutiny. Which might
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lead to your OPSEC being compromised.
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So if you really have to, you can feign activity using disinformation. For example,
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pick a place, and throw in subtle details pertaining to the weather, local events
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or regional politics of that place into your disinfo. Assuming this is Twitter, you can
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tweet stuff like:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>“Ugh, when will this hot streak end?!”</li>
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<li>“Traffic wonky because of the Mardi Gras parade.”</li>
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<li>“Woah, XYZ place is nice! Especially the fountains by ABC street.”</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Of course, if you’re a nobody on Twitter (like me), this is a non-issue for you.</p>
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<p>And please, don’t do this:</p>
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<p><img src="/static/img/mcafeetweet.png" alt="mcafee opsecfail" /></p>
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<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>
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<p>The ability to influence someone’s decisions/thought process in just one tweet is
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scary. There is no simple way to combat disinformation. Social media is hard to control.
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Just like anything else in cyber, this too is an endless battle between social media corps
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and motivated actors.</p>
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<p>A huge shoutout to Bellingcat for their extensive research in this field, and for helping
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folks see the truth in a post-truth world.</p>
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<div class="footnotes">
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<hr />
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<ol>
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<li id="fn-1">
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<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ev3zmk/an-expert-explains-the-many-ways-our-elections-can-be-hacked">This</a> episode of CYBER talks about election influence ops (features the grugq!). <a href="#fnref-1" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-2">
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<p>The <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/category/resources/podcasts/">Bellingcat Podcast</a>’s season one covers the MH17 investigation in detail. <a href="#fnref-2" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-3">
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<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Conspiracy_theories">Wikipedia section on MH17 conspiracy theories</a> <a href="#fnref-3" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-4">
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<p><a href="https://twitter.com/gdead/status/1171032265629032450">Chinese newspaper spreading disinfo</a> <a href="#fnref-4" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-5">
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<p>Use an adblocker before clicking <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/tech/fake-whatsapp-message-of-child-kidnaps-causing-mob-violence-in-madhya-pradesh-2252015.html">this</a>. <a href="#fnref-5" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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</ol>
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</div>
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</div>
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<hr />
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<p class="muted">Questions or comments? Open an issue at <a href="https://github.com/icyphox/site">this repo</a>, or send a plain-text email to <a href="mailto:x@icyphox.sh">x@icyphox.sh</a>.</p>
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<footer>
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<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">
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<img src="https://licensebuttons.net/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/80x15.png">
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</html>
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<title>
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Picking the FB50 smart lock (CVE-2019-13143)
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</title>
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<script src="//instant.page/1.1.0" type="module" integrity="sha384-EwBObn5QAxP8f09iemwAJljc+sU+eUXeL9vSBw1eNmVarwhKk2F9vBEpaN9rsrtp"></script>
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···
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<div class="content">
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<div align="left">
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<p> 2019-08-05 </p>
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<h1> Picking the FB50 smart lock (CVE-2019-13143) </h1>
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<h2> … and lessons learnt in IoT security </h2>
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<code>2019-08-05</code>
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<h1>Picking the FB50 smart lock (CVE-2019-13143)</h1>
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<h2>… and lessons learnt in IoT security</h2>
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<p>(<em>originally posted at <a href="http://blog.securelayer7.net/fb50-smart-lock-vulnerability-disclosure">SecureLayer7’s Blog</a>, with my edits</em>)</p>
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<h3 id="the-lock">The lock</h3>
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</image>
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<language>en-us</language>
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<copyright>Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0</copyright>
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<item><title>Setting up my personal mailserver</title><description><![CDATA[<p>A mailserver was a long time coming. I’d made an attempt at setting one up
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<item><title>Disinformation demystified</title><description><![CDATA[<p>As with the disambiguation of any word, let’s start with its etymology and definiton.
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According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation">Wikipedia</a>,
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+
<em>disinformation</em> has been borrowed from the Russian word — <em>dezinformatisya</em> (дезинформа́ция),
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+
derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department.</p>
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<blockquote>
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+
<p>Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive.</p>
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+
</blockquote>
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+
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<p>To fully understand disinformation, especially in the modern age, we need to understand the
24
+
key factors of any successful disinformation operation:</p>
25
+
26
+
<ul>
27
+
<li>creating disinformation (what)</li>
28
+
<li>the motivation behind the op, or its end goal (why)</li>
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+
<li>the medium used to disperse the falsified information (how)</li>
30
+
<li>the actor (who)</li>
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+
</ul>
32
+
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+
<p>At the end, we’ll also look at how you can use disinformation techniques to maintain OPSEC.</p>
34
+
35
+
<p>In order to break monotony, I will also be using the terms “information operation”, or the shortened
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+
forms – “info op” & “disinfo”.</p>
37
+
38
+
<h3 id="creating-disinformation">Creating disinformation</h3>
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+
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<p>Crafting or creating disinformation is by no means a trivial task. Often, the quality
41
+
of any disinformation sample is a huge indicator of the level of sophistication of the
42
+
actor involved, i.e. is it a 12 year old troll or a nation state?</p>
43
+
44
+
<p>Well crafted disinformation always has one primary characteristic — “plausibility”.
45
+
The disinfo must sound reasonable. It must induce the notion it’s <em>likely</em> true.
46
+
To achieve this, the target — be it an individual, a specific demographic or an entire
47
+
nation — must be well researched. A deep understanding of the target’s culture, history,
48
+
geography and psychology is required. It also needs circumstantial and situational awareness,
49
+
of the target.</p>
50
+
51
+
<p>There are many forms of disinformation. A few common ones are staged videos / photographs,
52
+
recontextualized videos / photographs, blog posts, news articles & most recently — deepfakes.</p>
53
+
54
+
<p>Here’s a tweet from <a href="https://twitter.com/thegrugq">the grugq</a>, showing a case of recontextualized
55
+
imagery:</p>
56
+
57
+
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true" data-theme="dark" data-link-color="#00ffff">
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+
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Disinformation.
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+
<br><br>
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+
The content of the photo is not fake. The reality of what it captured is fake. The context it’s placed in is fake. The picture itself is 100% authentic. Everything, except the photo itself, is fake.
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+
<br><br>Recontextualisation as threat vector.
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+
<a href="https://t.co/Pko3f0xkXC">pic.twitter.com/Pko3f0xkXC</a>
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+
</p>— thaddeus e. grugq (@thegrugq)
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+
<a href="https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/1142759819020890113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a>
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+
</blockquote>
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+
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+
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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+
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+
<h3 id="motivations-behind-an-information-operation">Motivations behind an information operation</h3>
70
+
71
+
<p>I like to broadly categorize any info op as either proactive or reactive.
72
+
Proactively, disinformation is spread with the desire to influence the target
73
+
either before or during the occurence of an event. This is especially observed
74
+
during elections.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-1"><a href="#fn-1">1</a></sup>
75
+
In offensive information operations, the target’s psychological state can be affected by
76
+
spreading <strong>fear, uncertainty & doubt</strong>, or FUD for short.</p>
77
+
78
+
<p>Reactive disinformation is when the actor, usually a nation state in this case,
79
+
screws up and wants to cover their tracks. A fitting example of this is the case
80
+
of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), which was shot down while flying over
81
+
eastern Ukraine. This tragic incident has been attributed to Russian-backed
82
+
separatists.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-2"><a href="#fn-2">2</a></sup>
83
+
Russian media is known to have desseminated a number of alternative & some even
84
+
conspiratorial theories<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-3"><a href="#fn-3">3</a></sup>, in response. The number grew as the JIT’s (Dutch-lead Joint
85
+
Investigation Team) investigations pointed towards the separatists.
86
+
The idea was to <strong>muddle the information</strong> space with these theories, and as a result,
87
+
potentially correct information takes a credibility hit.</p>
88
+
89
+
<p>Another motive for an info op is to <strong>control the narrative</strong>. This is often seen in use
90
+
in totalitarian regimes; when the government decides what the media portrays to the
91
+
masses. The ongoing Hong Kong protests is a good example.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-4"><a href="#fn-4">4</a></sup> According to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751039100/china-state-media-present-distorted-version-of-hong-kong-protests">NPR</a>:</p>
92
+
93
+
<blockquote>
94
+
<p>Official state media pin the blame for protests on the “black hand” of foreign interference,
95
+
namely from the United States, and what they have called criminal Hong Kong thugs.
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+
A popular conspiracy theory posits the CIA incited and funded the Hong Kong protesters,
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+
who are demanding an end to an extradition bill with China and the ability to elect their own leader.
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+
Fueling this theory, China Daily, a state newspaper geared toward a younger, more cosmopolitan audience,
99
+
this week linked to a video purportedly showing Hong Kong protesters using American-made grenade launchers to combat police.
100
+
…</p>
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</blockquote>
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+
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<h3 id="media-used-to-disperse-disinfo">Media used to disperse disinfo</h3>
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<p>As seen in the above example of totalitarian governments, national TV and newspaper agencies
106
+
play a key role in influence ops en masse. It guarantees outreach due to the channel/paper’s
107
+
popularity.</p>
108
+
109
+
<p>Twitter is another, obvious example. Due to the ease of creating accounts and the ability to
110
+
generate activity programmatically via the API, Twitter bots are the go-to choice today for
111
+
info ops. Essentially, an actor attempts to create “discussions” amongst “users” (read: bots),
112
+
to push their narrative(s). Twitter also provides analytics for every tweet, enabling actors to
113
+
get realtime insights into what sticks and what doesn’t.
114
+
The use of Twitter was seen during the previously discussed MH17 case, where Russia employed its troll
115
+
factory — the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency">Internet Research Agency</a> (IRA)
116
+
to create discussions about alternative theories.</p>
117
+
118
+
<p>In India, disinformation is often spread via YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Political parties
119
+
actively invest in creating group chats to spread political messages and memes. These parties
120
+
have volunteers whose sole job is to sit and forward messages.
121
+
Apart from political propaganda, WhatsApp finds itself as a medium of fake news. In most cases,
122
+
this is disinformation without a motive, or the motive is hard to determine simply because
123
+
the source is impossible to trace, lost in forwards.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-5"><a href="#fn-5">5</a></sup>
124
+
This is a difficult problem to combat, especially given the nature of the target audience.</p>
125
+
126
+
<h3 id="the-actors-behind-disinfo-campaigns">The actors behind disinfo campaigns</h3>
127
+
128
+
<p>I doubt this requires further elaboration, but in short:</p>
129
+
130
+
<ul>
131
+
<li>nation states and their intelligence agencies</li>
132
+
<li>governments, political parties</li>
133
+
<li>other non/quasi-governmental groups</li>
134
+
<li>trolls</li>
135
+
</ul>
136
+
137
+
<p>This essentially sums up the what, why, how and who of disinformation. </p>
138
+
139
+
<h3 id="personal-opsec">Personal OPSEC</h3>
140
+
141
+
<p>This is a fun one. Now, it’s common knowledge that
142
+
<strong>STFU is the best policy</strong>. But sometimes, this might not be possible, because
143
+
afterall inactivity leads to suspicion, and suspicion leads to scrutiny. Which might
144
+
lead to your OPSEC being compromised.
145
+
So if you really have to, you can feign activity using disinformation. For example,
146
+
pick a place, and throw in subtle details pertaining to the weather, local events
147
+
or regional politics of that place into your disinfo. Assuming this is Twitter, you can
148
+
tweet stuff like:</p>
149
+
150
+
<ul>
151
+
<li>“Ugh, when will this hot streak end?!”</li>
152
+
<li>“Traffic wonky because of the Mardi Gras parade.”</li>
153
+
<li>“Woah, XYZ place is nice! Especially the fountains by ABC street.”</li>
154
+
</ul>
155
+
156
+
<p>Of course, if you’re a nobody on Twitter (like me), this is a non-issue for you.</p>
157
+
158
+
<p>And please, don’t do this:</p>
159
+
160
+
<p><img src="/static/img/mcafeetweet.png" alt="mcafee opsecfail" /></p>
161
+
162
+
<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>
163
+
164
+
<p>The ability to influence someone’s decisions/thought process in just one tweet is
165
+
scary. There is no simple way to combat disinformation. Social media is hard to control.
166
+
Just like anything else in cyber, this too is an endless battle between social media corps
167
+
and motivated actors.</p>
168
+
169
+
<p>A huge shoutout to Bellingcat for their extensive research in this field, and for helping
170
+
folks see the truth in a post-truth world.</p>
171
+
172
+
<div class="footnotes">
173
+
<hr />
174
+
<ol>
175
+
<li id="fn-1">
176
+
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ev3zmk/an-expert-explains-the-many-ways-our-elections-can-be-hacked">This</a> episode of CYBER talks about election influence ops (features the grugq!). <a href="#fnref-1" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a></p>
177
+
</li>
178
+
179
+
<li id="fn-2">
180
+
<p>The <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/category/resources/podcasts/">Bellingcat Podcast</a>’s season one covers the MH17 investigation in detail. <a href="#fnref-2" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩</a></p>
181
+
</li>
182
+
183
+
<li id="fn-3">
184
+
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Conspiracy_theories">Wikipedia section on MH17 conspiracy theories</a> <a href="#fnref-3" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.">↩</a></p>
185
+
</li>
186
+
187
+
<li id="fn-4">
188
+
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/gdead/status/1171032265629032450">Chinese newspaper spreading disinfo</a> <a href="#fnref-4" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.">↩</a></p>
189
+
</li>
190
+
191
+
<li id="fn-5">
192
+
<p>Use an adblocker before clicking <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/tech/fake-whatsapp-message-of-child-kidnaps-causing-mob-violence-in-madhya-pradesh-2252015.html">this</a>. <a href="#fnref-5" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.">↩</a></p>
193
+
</li>
194
+
</ol>
195
+
</div>
196
+
]]></description><link>https://icyphox.sh/blog/disinfo</link><pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://icyphox.sh/blog/disinfo</guid></item><item><title>Setting up my personal mailserver</title><description><)
8
8
9
-
2019-08-15 — [Setting up my personal mailserver](/blog/mailserver)
9
+
`2019-09-10` — [Disinformation demystified](/blog/disinfo)
10
10
11
-
2019-08-06 — [Picking the FB50 smart lock (CVE-2019-13143)](/blog/fb50)
11
+
`2019-08-15` — [Setting up my personal mailserver](/blog/mailserver)
12
12
13
-
2019-06-06 — [Return Oriented Programming on ARM (32-bit)](/blog/rop-on-arm)
13
+
`2019-08-06` — [Picking the FB50 smart lock (CVE-2019-13143)](/blog/fb50)
14
14
15
-
2019-13-05 — [My Setup](/blog/my-setup)
15
+
`2019-06-06` — [Return Oriented Programming on ARM (32-bit)](/blog/rop-on-arm)
16
16
17
-
2019-02-08 — [Python for Reverse Engineering #1: ELF Binaries](/blog/python-for-re-1/)
17
+
`2019-13-05` — [My Setup](/blog/my-setup)
18
+
19
+
`2019-02-08` — [Python for Reverse Engineering #1: ELF Binaries](/blog/python-for-re-1/)
18
20
+160
pages/blog/disinfo.md
+160
pages/blog/disinfo.md
···
1
+
---
2
+
template: text.html
3
+
title: Disinformation demystified
4
+
subtitle: Misinformation, but deliberate
5
+
date: 2019-09-10
6
+
---
7
+
8
+
As with the disambiguation of any word, let's start with its etymology and definiton.
9
+
According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation),
10
+
_disinformation_ has been borrowed from the Russian word --- _dezinformatisya_ (дезинформа́ция),
11
+
derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department.
12
+
13
+
> Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive.
14
+
15
+
To fully understand disinformation, especially in the modern age, we need to understand the
16
+
key factors of any successful disinformation operation:
17
+
18
+
- creating disinformation (what)
19
+
- the motivation behind the op, or its end goal (why)
20
+
- the medium used to disperse the falsified information (how)
21
+
- the actor (who)
22
+
23
+
At the end, we'll also look at how you can use disinformation techniques to maintain OPSEC.
24
+
25
+
In order to break monotony, I will also be using the terms "information operation", or the shortened
26
+
forms -- "info op" & "disinfo".
27
+
28
+
### Creating disinformation
29
+
30
+
Crafting or creating disinformation is by no means a trivial task. Often, the quality
31
+
of any disinformation sample is a huge indicator of the level of sophistication of the
32
+
actor involved, i.e. is it a 12 year old troll or a nation state?
33
+
34
+
Well crafted disinformation always has one primary characteristic --- "plausibility".
35
+
The disinfo must sound reasonable. It must induce the notion it's _likely_ true.
36
+
To achieve this, the target --- be it an individual, a specific demographic or an entire
37
+
nation --- must be well researched. A deep understanding of the target's culture, history,
38
+
geography and psychology is required. It also needs circumstantial and situational awareness,
39
+
of the target.
40
+
41
+
There are many forms of disinformation. A few common ones are staged videos / photographs,
42
+
recontextualized videos / photographs, blog posts, news articles & most recently --- deepfakes.
43
+
44
+
Here's a tweet from [the grugq](https://twitter.com/thegrugq), showing a case of recontextualized
45
+
imagery:
46
+
47
+
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true" data-theme="dark" data-link-color="#00ffff">
48
+
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Disinformation.
49
+
<br><br>
50
+
The content of the photo is not fake. The reality of what it captured is fake. The context it’s placed in is fake. The picture itself is 100% authentic. Everything, except the photo itself, is fake.
51
+
<br><br>Recontextualisation as threat vector.
52
+
<a href="https://t.co/Pko3f0xkXC">pic.twitter.com/Pko3f0xkXC</a>
53
+
</p>— thaddeus e. grugq (@thegrugq)
54
+
<a href="https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/1142759819020890113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a>
55
+
</blockquote>
56
+
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
57
+
58
+
### Motivations behind an information operation
59
+
60
+
I like to broadly categorize any info op as either proactive or reactive.
61
+
Proactively, disinformation is spread with the desire to influence the target
62
+
either before or during the occurence of an event. This is especially observed
63
+
during elections.[^1]
64
+
In offensive information operations, the target's psychological state can be affected by
65
+
spreading **fear, uncertainty & doubt**, or FUD for short.
66
+
67
+
Reactive disinformation is when the actor, usually a nation state in this case,
68
+
screws up and wants to cover their tracks. A fitting example of this is the case
69
+
of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), which was shot down while flying over
70
+
eastern Ukraine. This tragic incident has been attributed to Russian-backed
71
+
separatists.[^2]
72
+
Russian media is known to have desseminated a number of alternative & some even
73
+
conspiratorial theories[^3], in response. The number grew as the JIT's (Dutch-lead Joint
74
+
Investigation Team) investigations pointed towards the separatists.
75
+
The idea was to **muddle the information** space with these theories, and as a result,
76
+
potentially correct information takes a credibility hit.
77
+
78
+
Another motive for an info op is to **control the narrative**. This is often seen in use
79
+
in totalitarian regimes; when the government decides what the media portrays to the
80
+
masses. The ongoing Hong Kong protests is a good example.[^4] According to [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751039100/china-state-media-present-distorted-version-of-hong-kong-protests):
81
+
82
+
> Official state media pin the blame for protests on the "black hand" of foreign interference,
83
+
> namely from the United States, and what they have called criminal Hong Kong thugs.
84
+
> A popular conspiracy theory posits the CIA incited and funded the Hong Kong protesters,
85
+
> who are demanding an end to an extradition bill with China and the ability to elect their own leader.
86
+
> Fueling this theory, China Daily, a state newspaper geared toward a younger, more cosmopolitan audience,
87
+
> this week linked to a video purportedly showing Hong Kong protesters using American-made grenade launchers to combat police.
88
+
> ...
89
+
90
+
91
+
### Media used to disperse disinfo
92
+
93
+
As seen in the above example of totalitarian governments, national TV and newspaper agencies
94
+
play a key role in influence ops en masse. It guarantees outreach due to the channel/paper's
95
+
popularity.
96
+
97
+
Twitter is another, obvious example. Due to the ease of creating accounts and the ability to
98
+
generate activity programmatically via the API, Twitter bots are the go-to choice today for
99
+
info ops. Essentially, an actor attempts to create "discussions" amongst "users" (read: bots),
100
+
to push their narrative(s). Twitter also provides analytics for every tweet, enabling actors to
101
+
get realtime insights into what sticks and what doesn't.
102
+
The use of Twitter was seen during the previously discussed MH17 case, where Russia employed its troll
103
+
factory --- the [Internet Research Agency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency) (IRA)
104
+
to create discussions about alternative theories.
105
+
106
+
In India, disinformation is often spread via YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Political parties
107
+
actively invest in creating group chats to spread political messages and memes. These parties
108
+
have volunteers whose sole job is to sit and forward messages.
109
+
Apart from political propaganda, WhatsApp finds itself as a medium of fake news. In most cases,
110
+
this is disinformation without a motive, or the motive is hard to determine simply because
111
+
the source is impossible to trace, lost in forwards.[^5]
112
+
This is a difficult problem to combat, especially given the nature of the target audience.
113
+
114
+
### The actors behind disinfo campaigns
115
+
116
+
I doubt this requires further elaboration, but in short:
117
+
118
+
- nation states and their intelligence agencies
119
+
- governments, political parties
120
+
- other non/quasi-governmental groups
121
+
- trolls
122
+
123
+
This essentially sums up the what, why, how and who of disinformation.
124
+
125
+
### Personal OPSEC
126
+
127
+
This is a fun one. Now, it's common knowledge that
128
+
**STFU is the best policy**. But sometimes, this might not be possible, because
129
+
afterall inactivity leads to suspicion, and suspicion leads to scrutiny. Which might
130
+
lead to your OPSEC being compromised.
131
+
So if you really have to, you can feign activity using disinformation. For example,
132
+
pick a place, and throw in subtle details pertaining to the weather, local events
133
+
or regional politics of that place into your disinfo. Assuming this is Twitter, you can
134
+
tweet stuff like:
135
+
136
+
- "Ugh, when will this hot streak end?!"
137
+
- "Traffic wonky because of the Mardi Gras parade."
138
+
- "Woah, XYZ place is nice! Especially the fountains by ABC street."
139
+
140
+
Of course, if you're a nobody on Twitter (like me), this is a non-issue for you.
141
+
142
+
And please, don't do this:
143
+
144
+
145
+
146
+
### Conclusion
147
+
148
+
The ability to influence someone's decisions/thought process in just one tweet is
149
+
scary. There is no simple way to combat disinformation. Social media is hard to control.
150
+
Just like anything else in cyber, this too is an endless battle between social media corps
151
+
and motivated actors.
152
+
153
+
A huge shoutout to Bellingcat for their extensive research in this field, and for helping
154
+
folks see the truth in a post-truth world.
155
+
156
+
[^1]: [This](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ev3zmk/an-expert-explains-the-many-ways-our-elections-can-be-hacked) episode of CYBER talks about election influence ops (features the grugq!).
157
+
[^2]: The [Bellingcat Podcast](https://www.bellingcat.com/category/resources/podcasts/)'s season one covers the MH17 investigation in detail.
158
+
[^3]: [Wikipedia section on MH17 conspiracy theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Conspiracy_theories)
159
+
[^4]: [Chinese newspaper spreading disinfo](https://twitter.com/gdead/status/1171032265629032450)
160
+
[^5]: Use an adblocker before clicking [this](https://www.news18.com/news/tech/fake-whatsapp-message-of-child-kidnaps-causing-mob-violence-in-madhya-pradesh-2252015.html).
+183
-1
pages/blog/feed.xml
+183
-1
pages/blog/feed.xml
···
11
11
</image>
12
12
<language>en-us</language>
13
13
<copyright>Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0</copyright>
14
-
<item><title>Setting up my personal mailserver</title><description><![CDATA[<p>A mailserver was a long time coming. I’d made an attempt at setting one up
14
+
<item><title>Disinformation demystified</title><description><![CDATA[<p>As with the disambiguation of any word, let’s start with its etymology and definiton.
15
+
According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation">Wikipedia</a>,
16
+
<em>disinformation</em> has been borrowed from the Russian word — <em>dezinformatisya</em> (дезинформа́ция),
17
+
derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department.</p>
18
+
19
+
<blockquote>
20
+
<p>Disinformation is false information spread deliberately to deceive.</p>
21
+
</blockquote>
22
+
23
+
<p>To fully understand disinformation, especially in the modern age, we need to understand the
24
+
key factors of any successful disinformation operation:</p>
25
+
26
+
<ul>
27
+
<li>creating disinformation (what)</li>
28
+
<li>the motivation behind the op, or its end goal (why)</li>
29
+
<li>the medium used to disperse the falsified information (how)</li>
30
+
<li>the actor (who)</li>
31
+
</ul>
32
+
33
+
<p>At the end, we’ll also look at how you can use disinformation techniques to maintain OPSEC.</p>
34
+
35
+
<p>In order to break monotony, I will also be using the terms “information operation”, or the shortened
36
+
forms – “info op” & “disinfo”.</p>
37
+
38
+
<h3 id="creating-disinformation">Creating disinformation</h3>
39
+
40
+
<p>Crafting or creating disinformation is by no means a trivial task. Often, the quality
41
+
of any disinformation sample is a huge indicator of the level of sophistication of the
42
+
actor involved, i.e. is it a 12 year old troll or a nation state?</p>
43
+
44
+
<p>Well crafted disinformation always has one primary characteristic — “plausibility”.
45
+
The disinfo must sound reasonable. It must induce the notion it’s <em>likely</em> true.
46
+
To achieve this, the target — be it an individual, a specific demographic or an entire
47
+
nation — must be well researched. A deep understanding of the target’s culture, history,
48
+
geography and psychology is required. It also needs circumstantial and situational awareness,
49
+
of the target.</p>
50
+
51
+
<p>There are many forms of disinformation. A few common ones are staged videos / photographs,
52
+
recontextualized videos / photographs, blog posts, news articles & most recently — deepfakes.</p>
53
+
54
+
<p>Here’s a tweet from <a href="https://twitter.com/thegrugq">the grugq</a>, showing a case of recontextualized
55
+
imagery:</p>
56
+
57
+
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true" data-theme="dark" data-link-color="#00ffff">
58
+
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Disinformation.
59
+
<br><br>
60
+
The content of the photo is not fake. The reality of what it captured is fake. The context it’s placed in is fake. The picture itself is 100% authentic. Everything, except the photo itself, is fake.
61
+
<br><br>Recontextualisation as threat vector.
62
+
<a href="https://t.co/Pko3f0xkXC">pic.twitter.com/Pko3f0xkXC</a>
63
+
</p>— thaddeus e. grugq (@thegrugq)
64
+
<a href="https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/1142759819020890113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a>
65
+
</blockquote>
66
+
67
+
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
68
+
69
+
<h3 id="motivations-behind-an-information-operation">Motivations behind an information operation</h3>
70
+
71
+
<p>I like to broadly categorize any info op as either proactive or reactive.
72
+
Proactively, disinformation is spread with the desire to influence the target
73
+
either before or during the occurence of an event. This is especially observed
74
+
during elections.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-1"><a href="#fn-1">1</a></sup>
75
+
In offensive information operations, the target’s psychological state can be affected by
76
+
spreading <strong>fear, uncertainty & doubt</strong>, or FUD for short.</p>
77
+
78
+
<p>Reactive disinformation is when the actor, usually a nation state in this case,
79
+
screws up and wants to cover their tracks. A fitting example of this is the case
80
+
of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), which was shot down while flying over
81
+
eastern Ukraine. This tragic incident has been attributed to Russian-backed
82
+
separatists.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-2"><a href="#fn-2">2</a></sup>
83
+
Russian media is known to have desseminated a number of alternative & some even
84
+
conspiratorial theories<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-3"><a href="#fn-3">3</a></sup>, in response. The number grew as the JIT’s (Dutch-lead Joint
85
+
Investigation Team) investigations pointed towards the separatists.
86
+
The idea was to <strong>muddle the information</strong> space with these theories, and as a result,
87
+
potentially correct information takes a credibility hit.</p>
88
+
89
+
<p>Another motive for an info op is to <strong>control the narrative</strong>. This is often seen in use
90
+
in totalitarian regimes; when the government decides what the media portrays to the
91
+
masses. The ongoing Hong Kong protests is a good example.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-4"><a href="#fn-4">4</a></sup> According to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/14/751039100/china-state-media-present-distorted-version-of-hong-kong-protests">NPR</a>:</p>
92
+
93
+
<blockquote>
94
+
<p>Official state media pin the blame for protests on the “black hand” of foreign interference,
95
+
namely from the United States, and what they have called criminal Hong Kong thugs.
96
+
A popular conspiracy theory posits the CIA incited and funded the Hong Kong protesters,
97
+
who are demanding an end to an extradition bill with China and the ability to elect their own leader.
98
+
Fueling this theory, China Daily, a state newspaper geared toward a younger, more cosmopolitan audience,
99
+
this week linked to a video purportedly showing Hong Kong protesters using American-made grenade launchers to combat police.
100
+
…</p>
101
+
</blockquote>
102
+
103
+
<h3 id="media-used-to-disperse-disinfo">Media used to disperse disinfo</h3>
104
+
105
+
<p>As seen in the above example of totalitarian governments, national TV and newspaper agencies
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play a key role in influence ops en masse. It guarantees outreach due to the channel/paper’s
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popularity.</p>
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<p>Twitter is another, obvious example. Due to the ease of creating accounts and the ability to
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generate activity programmatically via the API, Twitter bots are the go-to choice today for
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info ops. Essentially, an actor attempts to create “discussions” amongst “users” (read: bots),
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to push their narrative(s). Twitter also provides analytics for every tweet, enabling actors to
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get realtime insights into what sticks and what doesn’t.
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The use of Twitter was seen during the previously discussed MH17 case, where Russia employed its troll
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factory — the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency">Internet Research Agency</a> (IRA)
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to create discussions about alternative theories.</p>
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<p>In India, disinformation is often spread via YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Political parties
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actively invest in creating group chats to spread political messages and memes. These parties
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have volunteers whose sole job is to sit and forward messages.
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Apart from political propaganda, WhatsApp finds itself as a medium of fake news. In most cases,
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this is disinformation without a motive, or the motive is hard to determine simply because
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the source is impossible to trace, lost in forwards.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-5"><a href="#fn-5">5</a></sup>
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This is a difficult problem to combat, especially given the nature of the target audience.</p>
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<h3 id="the-actors-behind-disinfo-campaigns">The actors behind disinfo campaigns</h3>
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<p>I doubt this requires further elaboration, but in short:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>nation states and their intelligence agencies</li>
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<li>governments, political parties</li>
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<li>other non/quasi-governmental groups</li>
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<li>trolls</li>
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</ul>
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<p>This essentially sums up the what, why, how and who of disinformation. </p>
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<h3 id="personal-opsec">Personal OPSEC</h3>
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<p>This is a fun one. Now, it’s common knowledge that
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<strong>STFU is the best policy</strong>. But sometimes, this might not be possible, because
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afterall inactivity leads to suspicion, and suspicion leads to scrutiny. Which might
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lead to your OPSEC being compromised.
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So if you really have to, you can feign activity using disinformation. For example,
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pick a place, and throw in subtle details pertaining to the weather, local events
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or regional politics of that place into your disinfo. Assuming this is Twitter, you can
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tweet stuff like:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>“Ugh, when will this hot streak end?!”</li>
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<li>“Traffic wonky because of the Mardi Gras parade.”</li>
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<li>“Woah, XYZ place is nice! Especially the fountains by ABC street.”</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Of course, if you’re a nobody on Twitter (like me), this is a non-issue for you.</p>
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<p>And please, don’t do this:</p>
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<p><img src="/static/img/mcafeetweet.png" alt="mcafee opsecfail" /></p>
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<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>
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<p>The ability to influence someone’s decisions/thought process in just one tweet is
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scary. There is no simple way to combat disinformation. Social media is hard to control.
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Just like anything else in cyber, this too is an endless battle between social media corps
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and motivated actors.</p>
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<p>A huge shoutout to Bellingcat for their extensive research in this field, and for helping
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folks see the truth in a post-truth world.</p>
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<div class="footnotes">
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<hr />
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<ol>
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<li id="fn-1">
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<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ev3zmk/an-expert-explains-the-many-ways-our-elections-can-be-hacked">This</a> episode of CYBER talks about election influence ops (features the grugq!). <a href="#fnref-1" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-2">
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<p>The <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/category/resources/podcasts/">Bellingcat Podcast</a>’s season one covers the MH17 investigation in detail. <a href="#fnref-2" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-3">
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<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Conspiracy_theories">Wikipedia section on MH17 conspiracy theories</a> <a href="#fnref-3" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-4">
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<p><a href="https://twitter.com/gdead/status/1171032265629032450">Chinese newspaper spreading disinfo</a> <a href="#fnref-4" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn-5">
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<p>Use an adblocker before clicking <a href="https://www.news18.com/news/tech/fake-whatsapp-message-of-child-kidnaps-causing-mob-violence-in-madhya-pradesh-2252015.html">this</a>. <a href="#fnref-5" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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</ol>
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</div>
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]]></description><link>https://icyphox.sh/blog/disinfo</link><pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate><guid>https://icyphox.sh/blog/disinfo</guid></item><item><title>Setting up my personal mailserver</title><description><![CDATA[<p>A mailserver was a long time coming. I’d made an attempt at setting one up
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around ~4 years ago (ish), and IIRC, I quit when it came to DNS. And
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I almost did this time too.<sup class="footnote-ref" id="fnref-1"><a href="#fn-1">1</a></sup></p>
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