Social media off to war with propaganda posts

Social media posts which lure readers with the promise of illegal, amoral or forbidden products and services may become a cold war cyber weapon, according to Kaspersky Labs CEO Eugene Kaspersky. Speaking to The Register in Sydney yesterday Kaspersky said the usual suspects – Duqu, Stuxnet, whatever happened in Estonia and the …

[Don Jefe]

Cyber Warfare?

The scenario described (which is plausible) is not cyber warfare; it is cyber propoganda & that's for population control.

[FrankAlphaXII]

>>New Zealand doesn’t need disinformation to demoralise Australia: that’s what the All Blacks are for.

So they could just change it to "Maori raiders behead and cannibalize 15 innocent Wallabies". Happens damn near every year. Im quite sure Australia's gotten used to it, so again, its not saying much that way either.

[Anonymous Coward]

errr - why is my drug pusher informing me of current affairs? He must be a reputable source!

Hrrmmm no, I can't take any of those examples seriously.

[TeeCee]

"Hrrmmm no, I can't take any of those examples seriously."

Try lowering your intelligence to the level of a facebook luser. Makes perfect sense then.

[Craig Foster]

Hello, meeeeeeee!

I guess Eugene's bleating about AV on iOS got laughed into obscurity and he's looking for more angles to get another 15 minutes of fame...

Besides, if the All Blacks were any good, we'd just claim 'em for our own like we do your musicians and artists ^_^

[Anonymous Coward]

It has already started

Since when are smut providers amoral?

Doesn't "amoral" relate to entities without the faculty to make judgements regarding morality? Simply choosing to go against societal or religious norms does not make you amoral.

Oh I see, he doesn't want to alienate pron-viewing potential clients by labeling them as immoral.

Newspeak/propaganda is already at work. Companies are amoral (they have no thought processes), the people who run them are moral/immoral, though corporate structure tends to reward immorality as the company grows since individual responsibility is reduced and the scope for great reward from incrementally small evil expands.

[Adam White]

And Mr Kaspersky can sell me some software which will prevent this? Will it work on Fox News as well?

[Uncle Siggy]

attacks will be fought through dodgy posts to social networks

How can I tell the difference between a dodgy post on a social network from a normal one?

[I think so I am?]

Re: attacks will be fought through dodgy posts to social networks

The one spelled correctly will be the propaganda post.

[Arctic fox]

"demoralise or agitate"

Too late, the very thought of the existence of FarceBook has that effect on me already.

[Nights_are_Long]

Isn't he just talking about basic propaganda but just distributed over the net? Isn't there a protocol for that POIP, Propaganda Over Internet Protocol.

[Chuckl]

'killed several Australians'

Justifiable homicide, clearly.

[Great Bu]

Social Network Fragmentation

As usual, this new system is feeding the already over-fragmented social network situation (facebook, twitter, google+, pinterest etc etc etc).

Why can't they set it up from the outset so I can download all my smut, order drugs and get politically brainwashed on one site with one log-in ?

Surely it's better that way.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Oh look, the war has started already

Kaspersky’s theory is that states will create handles on social networks that initially post information about illegal (dodgy OSs or Apple), amoral (AV peddlers) or forbidden products (AV on iOS) in order to attract an audience. Once followers or friends have been won, the feeds will turn to dispensing propaganda. Messages of this sort won’t be explicit, Kaspersky said, but will instead represent an attempt at mass manipulation.

“A post could say ‘Eugene Kaspersky frustrated by Apple’s iOS AV ban’ he said. The cumulative effect of such posts, he feels, could demoralise or agitate a population in ways that advance the agendas of AV sellers..

“You poison them, and little by little and you will have a huge conflict between manufacturers of fruity hardware and fanbois” he says.