Google is returning to China with a browser that will censor what the Chinese want. That has made the news in several places. What is absent from this discussion is that China did not want Google to just censor in China. Some of you remember that China asked Google to censor everywhere in the world, and that was why Google said no. China must have modified that ridiculous position and come down to earth. It is one thing to require a company to censor what its China audience sees, and another to get them to censor outside China.
Google doesn't have the resources to censor everything in China without a lot of help. Software alone can't do the job. The Chinese are too clever about getting around those kinds of controls. What software knows what a burning candle or a chair on the beach means? We shall see what China demands in the way of support for this project.
The referenced article above mentions the employees of Google being hell bent to stop working on a U.S. government AI project for drones, while teaming in China for AI in a joint lab. What do they think that AI will be used for? Now they want to go back to China and support censorship. That is not the Google most of us remember.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Social Media Does Not Look Good in Hearings
Wired has a good article on the hearings going on right now on Russian manipulation of social media still going on today. The Russians have not stopped manipulation of US perceptions in social issues being discussed on social media. Some of their observations don't track well with what I know of Russian Intelligence Services.
It is clear Congress wants to blame the Russians for these attacks, citing the numbers and types of ads and social contacts made for the purpose of disruption more than political influence. But that may not be such a good idea, since it is unlikely that the Russians are the only ones trying to influence election results by such nefarious means. Focusing on the Russians, and the techniques used in the last election is not going to be very useful in finding and erasing similar attempts in the future. This is like fighting the next war with the methods of the previous one. As slow as the Russians have been to change their attack vectors and launch points, they will eventually get around to using something other than the Internet Research Agency to run these campaigns, and switch targets to some lesser known organizations. Facebook says they found 370 accounts from that one agency, but said little about the other two that were involved. They certainly won't pay in rubles anymore either.
Terms of Service for the social media giants did not address these types of campaigns. This is the "not my problem" solution that was adopted by television and radio before self-censorship evolved. Given the state of those two mediums today, you might not know what self-censorship is. There needs to be a lot more conversation about this because I'm not sure they are responsible for the content of their media, nor would we like the system that allowed them to control that content. This goes to Diane Feinstein's comment that if social media "doesn't control its own misuse, then we will." That is a pipe dream that looks good in a video clip but has no chance of actually happening.
What needs to be done is to allow the social media to do what they do and stop the Russians from using them to work their magic. That is a role of intelligence operation(s) that undermine the capacity and function of these social media campaigns and make them pay for their continued operations. Let social media do what they do, and intelligence services do the rest.
It is clear Congress wants to blame the Russians for these attacks, citing the numbers and types of ads and social contacts made for the purpose of disruption more than political influence. But that may not be such a good idea, since it is unlikely that the Russians are the only ones trying to influence election results by such nefarious means. Focusing on the Russians, and the techniques used in the last election is not going to be very useful in finding and erasing similar attempts in the future. This is like fighting the next war with the methods of the previous one. As slow as the Russians have been to change their attack vectors and launch points, they will eventually get around to using something other than the Internet Research Agency to run these campaigns, and switch targets to some lesser known organizations. Facebook says they found 370 accounts from that one agency, but said little about the other two that were involved. They certainly won't pay in rubles anymore either.
Terms of Service for the social media giants did not address these types of campaigns. This is the "not my problem" solution that was adopted by television and radio before self-censorship evolved. Given the state of those two mediums today, you might not know what self-censorship is. There needs to be a lot more conversation about this because I'm not sure they are responsible for the content of their media, nor would we like the system that allowed them to control that content. This goes to Diane Feinstein's comment that if social media "doesn't control its own misuse, then we will." That is a pipe dream that looks good in a video clip but has no chance of actually happening.
What needs to be done is to allow the social media to do what they do and stop the Russians from using them to work their magic. That is a role of intelligence operation(s) that undermine the capacity and function of these social media campaigns and make them pay for their continued operations. Let social media do what they do, and intelligence services do the rest.
Xi Lets up on On-Line Critics
It was a little surprising to see, but there was an article in the South China Morning Post today that said Chairman Xi gave a speech at a cyber security conference, and in it he said critics should get some slack from censors as long as the critique was "well intended". It falls at a time Xi and the Central Government were getting comments from a lot of people hurt by trade policies on both the US and Chinese side. Xi had previously said not to lay all the trade dispute problems on the US and not to mention President Trump in their criticisms.
As good as that might sound, turning China's huge censorship engine is not as easy as just talking about it. It is like a giant oil tanker that slugs along just fine until it gets near port. It needs a lot of steering help in tight quarters. It will be days before any loosening actually occurs, and weeks before there is much comment about those occurrences. Only the Chinese may notice the difference in discussions.
As good as that might sound, turning China's huge censorship engine is not as easy as just talking about it. It is like a giant oil tanker that slugs along just fine until it gets near port. It needs a lot of steering help in tight quarters. It will be days before any loosening actually occurs, and weeks before there is much comment about those occurrences. Only the Chinese may notice the difference in discussions.
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