Cyberwar

Maria D. White, this us incredibly helpful and informative.

Deep down inside we all know it's going on, our U.S. elections certainly opened our awareness up that that. But to hear that Twitter could be as much as 50% cyborg hacking would certainly open up it's followers to the reality of their information and how easily our opinions as well as emotions are being manipulated.

Eventually social media will be as outwardly dangerous as we inwardly know and refuse to recognize.

Changing passwords and factory resets of phones is getting old especially when those are little people, small scale efforts to think we can feel safer online.

It's entire communication,  security, and all computer controlled systems from dams to operating rooms and hospitals to traffic lights. We create our own downfall in so many ways.

Posted by: Maria D White

I definitely sense a huge amount of political confusion next year in the US, and propaganda is going to be a big part of that.

Russia and China are aiming to break the American spirit by separating people in two camps that don't talk to each other, and they look close to their target to me.

Thank you for this post, Maria.  I wanted to understand more about what Putin was trying to do and what he might do to the Midterms, and found this article:  https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/russias-troll-factory-impersonates-americans-to-sow-political-chaos

Two takeaways:

1. Voter suppression: The Russians may add to the fear that votes will be suppressed thus discouraging people from bothering to vote. People have to get out the vote and ignore that threat, and if they are worried then vote early and with a paper ballot. 

2. Disinformation that tries to break our spirit.  We should fact check before we pass along questionable information, especially if it comes from social media or twitter.  There was even a fake Guardian site. There are several reliable fact check sites. If in doubt check with one (Snopes is good) before passing along any news we read. 

What else are they up to and what cane we do to protect ourselves? 

I'm glad more and more people are aware of Russians (and others) attempting to manipulate Americans via social media. I first came to that scary realization in late 2016, after seeing an ungodly number of posts from unrealistic profiles (few friends, no "real" profile pictures, no "real life," profiles only created to the run-up of the election, often posting disinformation) who promoted Trump, and dissed Clinton. Some were even "pro-Bernie Sanders" profiles, but after he (and, earlier, Warren) endorsed Clinton, became "Pro-Jill Stein" profiles and started dissing the latter two as "traitors."

This was back when most of the "Russia" focus was on the hacked Podesta emails from the Clinton camp. I wanted to yell, "NO! There's something far more insidious going on! They're trying to manipulate us!" I found a news article about the troll farms, and it all made sense, though I had a panicking, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach: I had to warn people about it, even if I looked crazy. So I posted that article and the "troll/bot warning signs" everywhere I went online. I was relieved when I saw other people copying what I said. And a few months later, the "Russian troll farms" news stories finally became mainstream knowledge. Did I help with that? I guess I'll never know for sure, but I'm just relieved more people know about it now.

Besides posting fact checks all over the place and spreading awareness of trolls/bots/cyborgs, what else can we do?

Oh shoot! I hate that I missed this thread when it was first posted. Thanks for making it, Maria.

Jeanne, regarding your number one takeaway: I heard on either Maddow or NPR that Gwinnett County, Georgia (the most racially diverse in the state) is already reporting widespread abuses of their early mail-in ballots for the upcoming Midterms. Officials have reportedly been throwing out a high percentage of those paper ballots.

As for Maria's hypothesis that "Russia and China are aiming to break the American spirit by separating people in two camps that don't talk to each other..." I'd say mission already accomplished.

Not sure if you guys saw it, but I posted elsewhere (September 2018 Upcoming Prediction thread, I think?) about a vision I first had around 2012 which involved seeing 3 nations or groups spread around the world, organizing in a longterm plan for large-scale cyber attack (think infrastructure). The first image was a clear representation of Iran on the map. Then I saw the North Korean military uniform and what appeared to be many young men working in a windowless room in front of computers. The third group was more hidden but very powerful. I believe it was a combination of Putin's oligarchy, certain other world dictators (ex, I saw the colors of Venezuela), and at least two family heads of drug cartels. 

I also saw a Saudi connection to financial exchange, as well as international arms dealing. I believe this could be how they're funding operations and possibly relaying status reports.

Someone in the thread had mentioned their belief that a cyber attack against the U.S. wouldn't require a large amount of money. I don't work in IT or electronics like you, Maria, but I was raised by someone who worked in both. I'm also passionate about understanding how this might go down, and my understanding is that it would actually take a great deal of organization and billions of dollars to successfully strike and cripple our electrical grid or other infrastructure. I'm not talking about corporate or banking targets (though something on the scale of last night's global YouTube outage certainly has the potential to impact markets). If an entity were to target the FBI, CIA, NSA, Pentagon, etc., or American military or weapons systems, again, I believe they'd need many years, and billions of dollars.

Cash would hardly be a problem for the groups I saw, at least. None of their leaders appear to care enough about their own people to prioritize their nation's economies. I first saw them six years ago and in that time, Putin and Assad have made a veritable ash heap of Mesopotamia, without regard for her people or her historical legacy. 

Why? Because war is hands down the most profitable business to be in—if you're a warlord.   

But I personally am not yet seeing a timeline for widespread successful attack. Sometime in 2019, I see a possible solar event or other (possibly weather-plus-manmade) issue. It feels like a large energy surge, but I can't identify its nature. Power may be effected in sections of the country (possibly the west? can't say) but for now it appears to be coming back online relatively quickly. I'm not feeling the energy of mass death in relation to this event, which is why I feel power comes back quickly, but again, this isn't yet a stable timeline, or at least not for me.