Why we're still not ready for 'like-war'

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.cyberscoop.com/like-war-p-w-singer-social-media-disinformation/

By Sean Lyngaas
CyberScoop
OCT 9, 2018

American social media companies simply weren't prepared for what hit them 
in 2016: a barrage of accounts spewing disinformation in an unrelenting 
influence operation against the U.S. presidential election.

It was a subversion of Silicon Valley's altruistic intent, a turning of 
America’s digital openness against itself. It was, as Peter Singer and 
Emerson Brooking explain in their eponymously titled book, "like-war." [1]

"If cyberwar is the hacking of the networks, 'like-war' is the hacking of 
the people on the networks by driving ideas viral through likes and lies," 
Singer said in an interview. While the Russian campaign to interfere in 
U.S. democracy involved plenty of hacking, "it was the 'like-war' side, 
the influence operation side, that gave it its impact," he added.

Tech companies may have been ready to defend their networks from hacking, 
but they were blindsided by the disinformation offensive, according to 
Singer, a senior fellow at New America, a D.C.-based think tank. "[The 
companies were] looking for people hacking accounts," he added. "They 
[were] not looking for mass buying of ads or people posing as false 
customers.'

[1] https://www.amazon.com/LikeWar-Weaponization-P-W-Singer/dp/1328695743/infosecnews-20

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