Game over or game on?
Sep 21, 2017, 6:33 AM | Updated: 7:58 am
As I was surfing CSPAN recently, I happened to hear a rather disturbing comment from a cybersecurity expert.
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“And they have already won. It is over folks. They have already won.”
It was Clint Watts — West Point graduate, former FBI agent, and national security analyst — talking about Russia’s ongoing hack of the social media audience.
Watts launched a website called “Hamilton 68” in August. The website, named for Alexander Hamilton, is designed to fight back and expose how Russian social media influence works.
“The first thing you do is you infiltrate the audience and you do that by mimicking them. You use their own organic content to amplify divisions inside that electorate; social issues, religion, whatever divides people up …”
The site monitors 600 Russian-controlled Twitter accounts to expose the storylines Russia is trying to push.
Currently, it’s pushing the “Deep State” concept: the idea that an embedded DC establishment is trying to undermine President Trump and also deliberately trying to make Russia look bad.
Watts is also working on a real-time truth widget for news sites that rates information and alerts the user to how much is true and how much is false.
He compares it to a nutrition label.
“Where if you choose to read junk information and you get mind fat, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”
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