Podcast appearances and mentions of Thomas Rid

In this episode of the Contested Ground podcast, hosts Major General (Ret'd) Dr Marcus Thompson, Phil Tarrant and Liam Garman discuss the application of cyber and information in the modern threat environment, and how the White House is changing voting behaviours across the West. They begin the podcast by unpacking Thomas Rid's Cyber War Will Not Take Place, discussing the intricacies of cyber operations and how cyber continues to adhere to the Clausewitzian principles describing the political and physical dimensions of conflict. The conversation then moves across the cyber spectrum to information operations and how cyber is a carriage of information that can be used to destabilise populations. MAJGEN (Ret'd) Dr Thompson and Tarrant unpack Australia's response to global political uncertainty and the threat of tariffs, and how the White House administration is impacting elections across the globe. The podcast wraps up looking at how democracies can use truth as a competitive advantage in the information space. Enjoy the podcast, The Contested Ground team

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 43: Director of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies Thomas Rid joins the show for a deep-dive into the philosophical and ethical considerations surrounding AI consciousness and anthropomorphism. We dig into the multifaceted implications of AI technology, particularly focusing on data privacy, national security, and the philosophical questions surrounding AI consciousness and rights. Plus, TP-Link under US government investigation and the broader issues of consumer trust in hardware security, the need for regulation and inspectability of technology, and the struggles with patching network devices. Cast: Thomas Rid (https://sais.jhu.edu/users/trid2), Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade (https://twitter.com/juanandres_gs) and Ryan Naraine (https://twitter.com/ryanaraine). Costin Raiu (https://twitter.com/craiu) is away this week.

In this episode of the Contested Ground podcast, hosts Major General (Ret'd) Dr Marcus Thompson, Phil Tarrant and Liam Garman discuss the application of cyber and information in the modern threat environment, and how the White House is changing voting behaviours across the West. They begin the podcast by unpacking Thomas Rid's Cyber War Will Not Take Place, discussing the intricacies of cyber operations and how cyber continues to adhere to the Clausewitzian principles describing the political and physical dimensions of conflict. The conversation then moves across the cyber spectrum to information operations and how cyber is a carriage of information that can be used to destabilise populations. MAJGEN (Ret'd) Dr Thompson and Tarrant unpack Australia's response to global political uncertainty and the threat of tariffs, and how the White House administration is impacting elections across the globe. The podcast wraps up looking at how democracies can use truth as a competitive advantage in the information space. Enjoy the podcast, The Contested Ground team

In early September, the U.S. Justice Department released a trove of information about the Russian influence campaign known as “Doppelganger”—a Kremlin-backed effort that created faux versions of familiar news websites and seeding them with fake material. Just a few weeks later, the German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that it had received a tranche of hacked materials from inside the Doppelganger operation. Thomas Rid, a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and the founding director of the school's Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies, got an inside look at those documents. In a new article in Foreign Affairs, “The Lies Russia Tells Itself,” he examines the “granular operational insight” that this material provides into the active measures campaign. He joined the Lawfare Podcast to talk with Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic about his findings—and why he believes the documents show that “the biggest boost the Doppelganger campaigners got was from the West's own anxious coverage of the project.”To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The leadup to voting this November will renew fears in the United States about Russian malign influence. That means more paranoia from politicians, more alarming op-eds and white papers from the institutes created and funded to draw attention to foreign disinformation, and more mutual suspicions among ordinary people on social media, where journalists and pundits often draw their anecdotal conclusions about popular opinion. This week, for a skeptical view of the foreign disinformation threat in America, The Naked Pravda welcomes Gavin Wilde, an adjunct faculty member at the Alperovitch Institute, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a former director for Russia, Baltic, and Caucasus Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council. Together with Olga Belogolova, Lee Foster, and Thomas Rid, Wilde recently coauthored “Don't Hype the Disinformation Threat: Downplaying the Risk Helps Foreign Propagandists — but So Does Exaggerating It” in Foreign Affairs. About a month earlier, he also wrote an article in the Texas National Security Review, titled “From Panic to Policy: The Limits of Foreign Propaganda and the Foundations of an Effective Response.” In this week's episode, Wilde talked about both of these essays. Timestamps for this episode: (3:51) Talking to those who believe that foreign disinformation threatens to undo U.S. democracy (7:32) The profit incentives behind counter-disinformation work (10:43) Shifting geopolitical adversaries in counter-disinformation work (13:26) Cognitive information threats (16:56) Deconversion from the ‘Period of Panic' (20:12) Hard-science methodologies and ontologies (22:49) When does downplaying foreign disinformation become dangerous? (25:23) The challenges of U.S. partisan subjectivityКак поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

One topic we come back to again and again on this podcast is disinformation. In many episodes, we've discussed various phenomena related to this ambiguous term, and we've tried to use science to guide the way.But the guests in this episode suggest that in the broader political discourse, the term is more than over used. Often, they say, lawmakers and other elites that employ it are crossing the line into hyping the effects of disinformation, which they say only helps propagandists and diminishes trust in society. To learn more Justin Hendrix spoke with Gavin Wilde, Thomas Rid, and Olga Belogolova, who with Lee Foster are the authors of an essay in the publication Foreign Affairs titled "Don't Hype the Disinformation: Downplaying the Risk Helps Foreign Propagandists, But So Does Exaggerating It."

Original Air Date: March 22, 2021 Johns Hopkins scholar and “Active Measures” author Thomas Rid on the DNI report on Russian meddling and how 2020 is different from 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Original Air Date: March 22, 2021 Johns Hopkins scholar and “Active Measures” author Thomas Rid on the DNI report on Russian meddling and how 2020 is different from 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Willem de Witte in gesprek met Sebastiaan Crul en Pim Korsten van Freedom Lab over de steeds verder virtualiserende wereld waarin wij leven. Bronnen en links bij deze uitzending: Freedom lab: https://www.freedomlab.com/ Het gesprek tussen Lex Fridman en Mark Zuckberg in the Metaverse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVYrJJNdrEg Het gedicht 'All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace' van Richard Brautigan: https://allpoetry.com/All-Watched-Over-By-Machines-Of-Loving-Grace De Apple Macintosh-reclame uit 1984: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I Een trailer van 'Ready player one': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48 'Snow crash' van Neal Stephenson: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40651883-snow-crash 'Neuromancer' van William Gibson: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6088007-neuromancer?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_11 'Rise of the machines: A cybernetic history' van Thomas Rid: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34068514-rise-of-the-machines?ref=nav_sb_ss_3_20 Een gesprek met Marleen Stikker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjc7T6ynic Waag futurelab, waar Marleen Stikker de oprichter en directeur van is: https://waag.org/nl/marleen-stikker/ Een gesprek met Douwe Lycklama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsmun6ohi-o Nog een gesprek met Douwe Lycklama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVDOQuoKdUY Decentraland: https://decentraland.org/ Een trailer van 'Dumb money': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmr8YmwnZ3w

Jamaica, Cuban Revolution, Castro, Anti-Castro Cubans, Operation 40, Brigade 2506, Alpha 66, anti-Castro Cuban terror, the role of anti-Castro Cubans in the drug trade, Meyer Lansky, the Syndicate, offshoring, Felix Rodriquez, Guyana, US intrigues in Guyana, Jonestown, the Dominican Republic, US-sponsored coups in Guyana & the Dominican Republic during the 1960s, Angola, South Africa, Cubans in Angola, how the Angolan War played out in the Caribbean, Jamaica's history of smuggling, pirates, Sir William Stephenson, the World Commerce Corporation (WCC), the WCC presence in Jamaica after WWII, Ian Fleming, British elites in Jamaica, James Bond, Jamaican politics, Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), People's National Party (PNP), socialism in Jamaica, Edward Seaga, Michael Manley, organized crime in Jamaica, criminal links to the JLP and PNP, the Shower Posse, the Shower Posse's possible CIA links, disinformation, Philip Agee, Counterpunch, Thomas RId, the Shower Posse's CIA links, Jamaica's 1976 election, CIA efforts to destabilize Jamaica in the run up to the election, the aftermath of the election, cocaine in Jamaica during the 1980s, the crack epidemic, Bob Marley, the 1976 attempt to assassinate Bob Marley, criminal links to Jamaica's recording industry, roots vs dance hallMusic by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/ Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Rid is a Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Aric Toler is the Director of Research and Training at Bellingcat. Both have been writing about the latest megaleak out of the U.S. national security establishment, a story that the New York Times reported on last week and that gets weirder and weirder every day that passes. Rid has been tweeting about the subject, and Toler is the author of a major investigation for Bellingcat on it.Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with them to talk about the strange details of the leak: the Discord servers, the Minecraft servers, the weird group of gamers who are by their own account a bit racist, the huge damage to both U.S. and Ukrainian national security interests, and that the leak appears to be a big win for Russia, even though Russia doesn't appear to be behind it. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

La recensione di questa settimana riguarda il libro di Tomas Rid, "Misure attive", pubblicato nel 2022 e dedicato alla storia della disinformazione. Si tratta di un libro molto corposo, dedicato (anche) a una ricognizione storica dell'idea di falso, di fake news, di contro-informazione e disinformazione.  L'ultima parte del volume è riservata al tema della guerra dell'informazione nella società digitale. 

On July 29, the Justice Department announced the indictment of Aleksandr Ionov, a Russian national and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia. Ionov is charged with “conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government”—and the Justice Department alleges that he was essentially running a years-long influence operation within the United States on behalf of the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency. The indictment is a wild ride, with a number of Americans listed as unindicted co-conspirators.To discuss, Quinta Jurecic sat down with Thomas Rid—professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and author of a book on Eastern bloc influence operations called “Active Measures”—and Brandon Van Grack, a partner and co-chair of the National Security and Crisis Management practices at the law firm Morrison and Foerster and a former official at the Justice Department, where—among other things—he served as senior assistant special counsel to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. They talked through what to make of the allegations against Ionov: are they alarming, or evidence of clumsiness and incompetence on the part of Russia? What can we say about the Justice Department's strategy in bringing this case and where the investigation might go?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cyberpolitik: Invasion and Infektion— Prateek WaghreIn a recent edition of The Information Ecologist, I had referred to the activity around the IStandWithRussia and IStandWithPutin hashtags that seemed to include a number of accounts associated with India.The second India subplot is the presence of seemingly India-associated accounts in Twitter trends such as ‘IStandWithRussia’ and ‘IStandwithPutin’. See this thread by @NovelSci and these threads by (1,2) by @MarcOwenJones.Since then, we’ve had more investigations looking into this aspect. A DFR Lab investigation observed [Jean Le Roux - DFRLab]:The Top 12 most retweeted tweets belonged to accounts with low follower counts. Despite this, they seemed to gain very few followers. In some cases, accounts started sharing some of these tweets within minutes of their creation (an example in Jean Le Roux’s post references an account that shared 3 of the top 12 tweets within 2 minutes of being created) even though they didn’t follow any of these accounts. If you head over to the post and look at the collage of these tweets, many of the handles appear to have ‘Indian-sounding’ names.“A large portion of the sampled accounts appeared to originate in India”. How? (one should bear in mind that OSINT analysis often requires making a lot of educated guesses)Language cues, tweets about local sports and politics, early follows (likely region-based suggestions), and the time zone in which the accounts were most active all pointed towards India as the origin of many of the accounts in the network.And that a “large proportion” of the accounts were created this year, and Feb 24th and Mar 2nd were the dates on which the most accounts were created. Let’s revisit the ‘appeared to originate in India’ aspect.While Marc Owen Jones’ sample of 20000 tweets referenced India as a frequently appearing user-reported location (though, in that sample, it wasn’t right on top), he cautions that just because a location is reported does not mean it is accurate. Last week, the New York Times published an investigation based on data from Marc Owen Jones (I assume more data was collected since the article mentions a 2-week period) [Kate Conger, Suhasini Raj - NYTimes]. (emphasis added, I also wish there were fewer blues, it was hard to differentiate between the other countries)Users who said they were from India made up nearly 11 percent of the hashtag trend in the two weeks after the invasion. Just 0.3 percent were from Russia and 1.6 percent from the United States during that time.Around the time Technopolitik 21 went out, Carl Miller posted a network map which indicated that many replies/mentions were directed at accounts in India (if you zoom in, you’ll see accounts of some minsters, Indian embassies, opposition figures and media houses). Worth noting that this map appeared to be account-specific and not hashtag-specific. Aside 1: One of the network maps on Jean Le Roux’s post did mention Indian and Russian diplomatic accounts (image link).About 10 days later, Carl Miller posted a map that sub-categorised them based on language clusters, followed by a white paper on March 25th.Aside 2: If you’re wondering why I was sketching out a timeline, it is because there was a minor subplot developing. Both the tweets I’ve included here reference an information operation. However, researchers like Shelby Grossman (tweet) and Emerson Brooking (replies) pointed out that they provide no evidence of a coordinated information operation.The white paper, when it came out, didn’t call it a single information operation, either. However, it did make for an interesting analysis. It also highlighted that the information ecosystem is a couple of degrees more complex than we assume and that the way we answer questions like ‘who is winning the information war?’ are influenced heavily by who is asking and what part of it they’re looking at (like the parable about the visually challenged people and the elephant).While I can’t speak authoritatively about the research methodology and the clustering of accounts based on linguistic similarities, I’ve included an image with some of my notes from the white paper. Two dates pop up frequently, 24th February (the day the invasion began) and 2nd March (the date of the UN General Assembly vote and ultimately a resolution which “demand[ed] that Russia ‘immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.’” [UN.org])Here’s what the white paper said about the mixed Hindi/English cluster.We also observe that Russia-related message decreases sharply after the UN vote, but overall volumes of messaging does not. Our speculation is that many of the RED accounts are members of a ‘paid to engage’ spam network that can be rented to supply amplification to a number of different clients, and has over our time of study been used to amplify BJP politics, a commercial cinema release and also the invasion of Ukraine.This is not surprising. It still doesn’t answer the question of who paid, of course, which would require a tremendous amount of investigative work to establish a clear money trail.Do friends target friends with information operations?While we may never find who paid for the Indian-language clusters’ amplification of pro-invasion messaging, it is worth taking a queue from Mike Caulfied’s tweet thread and looking at history.Chapter 22 of Thomas Rid’s Active Measures references a Soviet Active Measure trying to create the narrative that AIDS was a bio-weapon created by the US (that should sound familiar for many reasons) that had an Indian connection. As per the source material he cites, it was, at some point, code-named Operation INFEKTION by the HVA (the foreign intelligence branch of East Germany’s Ministry for State Security).“AIDS may invade India: mystery disease caused by U.S. lab experiments.” So read the sensational first-page headline in Patriot, an Indian newspaper, on July 16, 1983. Patriot, under a picture of five smiling girls, printed an anonymous letter from a “well-known American scientist and anthropologist.” There was no name in the byline, only “New York.”The Patriot letter was a masterfully executed disinformation operation: comprising about 20 percent forgery and 80 percent fact, truth and lies woven together, it was an eloquent, well-researched piece that gently led the reader, through convincing detail, to his or her own conclusion.He points out that The Patriot had been funded by the Soviet Union, when it opened in 1962, “for the explicit purpose of circulating Soviet-friendly stories and publishing disinformation”. And while the article did not seem to have any direct impact (Rid notes that neither was it picked up in India, nor was it noticed in Europe and the US), it did play a role later:In KGB's efforts to further a narrative in coordination with partners code-named Denver (in 1985).The point of departure of the planned active measures campaign, as the KGB told its Soviet bloc partners, was the “factual” article published in Patriot. The KGB then instructed its partners to help spread the theory that AIDS was U.S.-made to “party, parliamentary, social-political, and journalistic circles in Western countries and the developing world.” The “facts” published in the Indian press offered the blueprintIn October 1985 - it was attributed as a source in another article that, as per Rid, would prove to be consequential in the future.On October 30, Literaturnaya Gazeta ran the headline “Panic in the West: or, What Is Hiding Behind the Sensation Surrounding AIDS.”23 The paper was the KGB’s “prime conduit in the Soviet press for propaganda and disinformation,” according to Oleg Kalugin. The piece that relaunched the DENVER campaign closely mirrored the earlier measure in the Indian press. Its author, Vitaly Zapevalov, accurately cited details about the new disease and its spread in American cities over the past two years, basing his analysis on authoritative U.S. news reports.“Why,” he asked ominously, would AIDS “appear in the USA and start spreading above all in towns along the East Coast?” Next, the Gazeta piece outlined several covert American biological warfare programs, again based on verifiable public sources. Zapevalov also cited accurate details about Fort Detrick. The author then referred to the two-year-old Patriot forgery to connect the dots. “All of this information, taken together with the AIDS mystery, leads to serious considerations. The solid newspaper Patriot, published in India, for instance, openly expressed an assumption that AIDS is the result of similar inhuman Washington experiments.”I’ve just quoted specific sections here, I recommend reading the complete chapter (and perhaps the whole book).So, do friends target friends with information operations? As my colleagues Nitin Pai and Pranay Kotasthane will tell you - there are no friends in international relations, only interests.Antariksh Matters: Russia, Ukraine & Space Entanglement— Aditya RamanathanRussia’s war with Ukraine is testing a key feature of any state’s military space strategy: entanglement. Entanglement or intertwining is the act of relying on domestic or foreign civilian space assets to conduct military operations. Days after the war broke out, Ukraine pleaded with commercial satellite operators to share their imagery, especially those from synthetic aperture radars (SAR). In a letter later made public, Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, wrote that his country “badly needed the opportunity to watch the movement of Russian troops, especially at night”. The minister’s letter made four specific requests:“Provide high-resolution satellite imagery in the real time to Armed Forces of Ukraine; Provide data from synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, satellites in the [sic] real time to Armed Forces of Ukraine; Cooperate with EOS Data Analytics and Max Polyakov as our representative for data processing and analytics; Stop other types of activities that may support military operations of Russian and Belarus government.” According to later reporting by The Washington Post, five private companies have already begun sharing such data.A more stark example of entanglement comes from SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet constellation. Following a tweet from Fedorov, SpaceX’s Elon Musk made arrangements for Starlink to go live in Ukraine and began supplying the country with thousands of antennas. It has since emerged that Ukrainian forces are using Starlink to facilitate communications and coordinate attacks against Russian forces. As The Telegraph of London reported: “Drone teams in the field, sometimes in badly connected rural areas, are able to use Starlink to connect them to targeters and intelligence on their battlefield database. They can direct the drones to drop anti-tank munitions, sometimes flying up silently to Russian forces at night as they sleep in their vehicles.”For Russia, Starlink embodies the dilemmas of entanglement. If this civilian satellite-based communication system is being used for military purposes, does it become a legitimate target? After all, it’s reasonable to argue that, in this case, Ukrainian forces have failed to separate themselves from civilian infrastructure.  There are, of course, practical reasons for Russia not to target Starlink. It is obviously not going to use kinetic weapons such as ASAT missiles against a US-owned target. Even lower-order options like cyber capabilities may either not be feasible, may take weeks or months to develop, or contain escalatory potential that Russia seeks to avoid. For the moment at least, Russia is apparently limiting itself to jamming Starlink signals where possible. In the years to come, other states may face Russia’s entanglement dilemma, perhaps in starker form. If the Russia-Ukraine war sets a precedent of impunity - essentially leaving space alone as some sort of ‘sanctuary’ - it could encourage other spacefaring states to deepen their own entanglements and share those capabilities with other states at war. If you enjoy the contents of this newsletter, please consider signing up for Takshashila’s Graduate Certificate in Public Policy(GCPP) Programmes.Click here to know moreMatsyanyaaya: Can Crafty Fintech help De-Dollarise— Aditya PareekUnprecedented sanctions, restrictions and export controls are inflicting enormous costs on Russia’s economy in the wake of the ongoing conflict. As many large Russian banks have been cut off from SWIFT and conducting business in the US dollar, there is a lot of buzz around the prospects of a new de-Dollarising nexus emerging between Russia and China. In a recent research note, Anupam Manur and I explored the question if Central Bank Digital Currencies(CBDC)s can help them circumvent and cushion the blow of US sanctions.Russia and China have both sought to ban and discourage the use and mining of private cryptocurrencies, citing both financial stability and security concerns. The two have instead chosen to adopt blockchain technologies for their central bank-issued-and-regulated digital currencies. These Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)s have no inherent advantage compared to electronically transferred denominated sums in paper fiat currency counterparts as far as international trade is concerned. As a tool to circumvent sanctions, CBDCs could be theoretically effective in avoiding the US banking system. However,the willingness of another party to accept the CBDC may not always be certain. The value of a currency,whether it be digital or paper,comes from it being widely accepted, which is an uncertain variable at this juncture.Furthermore, holding CBDCs issued by an isolated and sanctioned nation may not be a desirable prospect. The pariah status of the sanctioned states limits the holder of the CBDC to only conducting transactions with either the issuing states or a small number of other states who might also accept it.  Depending on the international political environment, the holders and accommodators of the pariah nation’s CBDCs could also be at the receiving end of secondary sanctions by the international community, further reducing their desirability. The exchange rate volatility and other associated risks will still apply to Russian and Chinese or any other CBDCs, thus, they make little sense in revolutionising the paradigm of international trade in their current form. The CBDCs could be used to settle a limited set of transactions, for instance,India’s defence deals with Russia, which are not a regular day on day or month on month feature.Furthermore, even if fintech solutions and alternatives exist to some problems, cooperation between Russia and China has always been lopsided, benefiting China above and beyond.A clear example of this lopsided cooperation is the adoption rate of China’s payments messaging service Cross Border Interbank Payments System (CIPS),to which over 23 Russian banks have subscribed. Meanwhile, only one Chinese bank has signed up for Russia’s equivalent System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS). China is also likely to insist on conducting the transactions and any financing predominantly in the Yuan, as a key strategic goal for China is to make Renminbi a reserve currency alongside the US Dollar.To know more about how a de-dollarising nexus between Russia and China may be a mirage, check out the full text of the research note here.Our Reading Menu[Report] Secure World Foundation’s Annual Global Counterspace Capabilities Report[Report] CSIS’s Space Threat Assessment 2022 report[Report] Arms control in outer space: Status, timeline, and analysis By Jessica West and Lauren Vyse[Opinion] Charting a course for India’s Arctic engagement by Aditya Pareek and Ruturaj Gowaikar who are also contributors to this newsletter This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Putin's de-nazification narrative, weaponized biolabs, and conspiracy theories about the atrocities in Bucha are just a few examples of the Russian disinformation campaign that a shocking number of Americans on the left and right are falling for. National security expert Thomas Rid joins us to explain the history of Russian propaganda and the current tactics used by the Putin regime to commit disinformation and political warfare. Dr. Thomas Rid is the author of "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare" and the Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Follow him on Twitter at @RidT.

Cyberwar is here, proclaims Thomas Rid, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in a New York Times op-ed last week entitled, “Why You Haven't Heard About the Secret Cyberwar in Ukraine.” While some cyber warfare experts expected massive cyberattacks against Ukraine before Russia invaded in February of this year, Rid suggests in his op-ed that significant cyberattacks have occurred, but they are more covert and insidious in nature, and we're not focusing on them. Stephanie Pell spoke with Rid about the kinds of cyber operations and attacks we have seen in Ukraine, how we might compare and contrast them, along with some of his insights about the use of leaks and disinformation in this conflict.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth miniseries on disinformation, Quinta Jurecic and Alina Polyakova spoke with Thomas Rid about his new book, "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare." Yesterday's episode of the Lawfare Podcast featured a conversation between Thomas and Jack Goldsmith about the book, focusing on the early history of disinformation through the 1980s. In this episode, Alina and Quinta follow up with a discussion with Thomas on disinformation in the digital age, along with some questions about what it's like to interview former KGB and Stasi officials about their influence campaigns. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cyberpolitik #1: France’s Influence Operations Doctrine— Prateek WaghreIn October, France announced a new doctrine for Information Warfare. This development has received surprisingly little attention in English-language discourse over the last three weeks. It was initially reported by Francesco Busseletti, who highlighted: Objective: to counter the growing spread of fake news and disinformation, aimed at weakening the image of Paris and weakening its armed forces, especially abroad such as the Sahel. Considering that its adversaries no longer hesitate to use the weapon of social media against its military operations, France intends to “win the war before the war”. Its strategy boils down to “being on the offensive” …The Defence Minister Florence Parly’s speech also highlighted this aspect of the “war before the war”. Here’s an excerpt from a google-translated version of her speech.“When used wisely, the weapon of information allows you to win without fighting.”What does the doctrine say?The doctrine identifies six characteristics of the “informational layer of cyberspace”:Contraction of space and time.Ability to conceal/falsify origin due to anonymity.Difficulty with erasing information since it can be duplicated, moved, and re-used without the original context.Any individual can produce and broadcast information. (The minister’s speech seems to have gone as far as stating these individual and anonymous actors are at par with media organisations)The point is that social networks have an equalizing power: on Twitter, the voice of an anonymous user counts as much as that of a major media whose essential function is to inform (sic).Continuous innovation such as deepfakes, AI, AR/VR, etc.The presence of operators who impose their own regulations. A challenge for law enforcement as the space is ‘dematerialised.It defines two types of actors that threaten armed forces:Noting that information war is already an everyday reality for the military, it goes on to say that ‘mastery’ in the information field is now a pre-condition for ‘operational superiority’. And that cyberspace offers opportunities to create effects in ‘both information and physical environments’. The document is peppered with many important statements about Lutte Informatique D’influence (L2I).Definition:military operations conducted in the informational layer of cyberspace to detect, characterize and counter attacks, support StratCom, provide information or (perform) deception, independently or in combination with other operations.L2I stands at “the confluence of cyber defence and influence”. And that it requires skills in common with LID (defensive cyber operations) and LIO (offensive cyber operations).L2I offers opportunities for ‘intelligence gathering’ and ‘deception' operations’. (The minister’s speech defined some boundaries explicitly)the French armies will not conduct an information operation (within) the national territory. The French armies … will not destabilize a foreign state through information actions that would target, for example, its electoral processes.As future challenges, the doctrine identifies the need to build skills and tools, as well as cooperation with firms that specialise in the field and coalitions with allies to coordinate responses.Operationally, this would fall within the purview of the Chief of Staff of the armed forces, who would further rely on the Cyber Defense Commander (COMCYBER) and specialised military units.Two more questionsFor France to come out and explicitly state its doctrine is undoubtedly a significant step. But this also raises two broader questions.What should other democracies do?What will DCN operators do?Camille Francois rightly points out that it raises the question of what democracies can/should do in this space and the possibility of gaining a better understanding of techniques used by countries not named - Russia, China, or Iran.Thomas Rid, in his book Active Measures, argues that liberal democracies cannot be good at disinformation. “For liberal democracies in particular, disinformation represents a double threat: being at the receiving end of active measures will undermine democratic institutions—and giving in to the temptation to design and deploy them will have the same result. It is impossible to excel at disinformation and at democracy at the same time. The stronger and the more robust a democratic body politic, the more resistant to disinformation it will be—and the more reluctant to deploy and optimize disinformation. Weakened democracies, in turn, succumb more easily to the temptations of active measures.”Then, there’s the question of Digital Communication Networks which have become the battlefield for such operations. As Lukasz Olenik notes in his overview of the French doctrine, Facebook has taken action against Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour it identified originating from a network with links to the French Military in December 2020:We found this activity as part of our internal investigation into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior in Francophone Africa. Although the people behind it attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with French military.Now that France has explicitly stated its doctrine (and maybe others will follow), will platforms act more aggressively, considering they are already under fire for either enabling or not doing enough to mitigate the fallout from influence operations? Or, will there be wink-wink-nudge-nudge arrangements between them and a particular set of states?Note: Google Translate was used for French to English translations.If you enjoy this newsletter please consider taking our 12 week Graduate Certificate Programmes in Technology & Policy, Public Policy, Defence & Foreign Affairs and Health & Life Sciences. Click here to apply and know more. You can also get a gift coupon worth ₹1000 every time you successfully refer a friend to our programmes.Siliconpolitik #1: AI Chips — Arjun GargeyasWhat are They?One of the emerging applications of semiconductor devices is the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips. With new and emerging technologies cropping up, there is an increased need for chipsets with increasing computational power and capabilities. Technologies like Machine Learning and Deep Neural Networks, which are part of the AI ecosystem, have a tremendous workload that cannot be fulfilled by traditional chipsets. AI algorithms work on parallel processing or parallelism, which is the ability to multitask and simultaneously run different computational processes. AI chips, in recent years, have tried to incorporate the needs of AI algorithms into chipsets that can be used both in the cloud as well as at network edges (in smartphones, tablets, and other consumer devices).The diverse applications of AI chips have increased its role in the global economy with companies from various industries all looking to maximise the benefits of AI chip technology. Robotics and autonomous driving, for example, need AI algorithms for efficient and effective working, with the computational power of the chipsets needing incredibly fast processing speeds. This has evolved the role of chipsets with AI capabilities from only being used in the cloud or servers to being used in consumer products at the network edges. However, applications such as Biometrics and Image Recognition need AI chips in the cloud or servers for maintaining a large amount of data. The use of AI chips remains integral in data centers which eventually reduces operational costs and improves information management. Why They MatterThe market for AI chips has consistently increased in the last decade with AI chipsets projected to account for 22% of the global AI revenue by 2022. A strong compounded annual growth rate of 54% has been projected for the AI chips market with technologically advanced regions like the Americas and Europe dominating the market in the future. AI chips also rely on a variety of companies, ranging from smartphone manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, to traditional chip designers like Qualcomm and MediaTek, to intellectual property (IP) license providers like ARM. With most of the major semiconductor companies across the world in the business, AI chips look to be the next big thing for the industry. Semiconductor companies have already thrown their hats in the AI ring with the development of advanced AI chips like Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). NVIDIA has a dedicated application programming language called CUDA used in parallel computing on GPUs. Other targeted AI chips like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) are developed for specific applications of AI technology. Companies like Microsoft and Google have also invested in the manufacture of these chipsets keeping in mind specific needs such as the speech processing unit of Google Assistant.With increasing global economic revenue and a large market ripe for capture, the presence of China in the AI chips has also been increasing. AI chip funding activity in China has been driven by the hope of creating industry-leading capabilities in machine learning, deep compression, pruning, and system-level optimization for neural networks. Chinese technology companies like Alibaba and Huawei have invested heavily in the manufacture of AI chips for smartphones and other devices. Some Bitcoin mining equipment manufacturers are also getting into the AI optimization game. With domestic AI research in China still playing catch up to the capabilities of Western countries like the United States, these local manufacturing companies have relied on tweaking existing algorithms to create modified AI models. But increased investments along with state support and financing, similar to the semiconductor industry in China, has made AI chips an important technology worth pursuing in technologically adept states. The race for the domination of the global AI chips markets is something to watch out for in the very near future. Cyberpolitik #2: Are Norms Possible?— Sapni G KSince the last edition of this newsletter, much has happened on cyberspace and international action for establishing norms for its operation and regulation. The United States of America joined the Paris Call for Trust and Security in the cyberspace. The 2018 Call led by the French, proposes a multi-stakeholder model for laying down norms for activity in cyberspace during peacetime. This includes, but is not limited to cybersecurity and the concerns of systemic harms to individuals and critical infrastructure. The Call details nine principles that are open for states, local governments, companies, and civil society organizations to support.  Protect individuals and infrastructureProtect the internet Defend electoral processes Defend intellectual propertyNon-proliferation Lifecycle security Cyber hygiene No private hack back International norms They incorporate norms of international law, including the ideas put forth by the UDHR, customary international law, and state laws on the governance of information and communication technologies. This operates as a non-binding, non-enforceable set of principles that are to guide the supporters of the Call and their actions. Most major US tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook Inc (now Meta) are already supporters of the Call and have engaged closely with the various associated working groups. However, the US officially supporting the Call signals that it is no longer holding back in international norm-setting in cyberspace. This could also be read as a furtherance of the USA’s reinvigorated interest in cyber norms, both in peacetime and military applications, as evidenced by recent documents such as the 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance and the recent report by the Department of Defense. However, it is noteworthy that the US has not yet made any concrete steps to sign up to the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, an effort led by research institutes in the Netherlands and Singapore with the support of the French, Dutch, and Singapore governments,  which is also engaged in drawing out international norms for cyberspace during peacetime and armed conflict. China, Russia, Israel, and Iran are other major actors in cyberspace that have not supported the call yet. This is indicative of the fissures in international norm-setting on cyberspace, particularly when China is marching ahead creating a regulatory environment that can have ripple effects internationally. India has not officially supported the Call, but several Indian enterprises and the Karnataka Centre of Excellence of Cybersecurity have joined the Call. It is a proposal worth consideration for the Indian government. An early head start can give India a definitive say in the development of doctrines as well as import legislative principles that can be beneficial to the many millions of Indians who go online every day.  Siliconpolitik #2: US-China-Chips — It’s Complicated— Pranay KotasthaneThree recent news reports have turned the world's attention back to the links between the US and China in the semiconductor domain. Until now, the commonplace understanding is that the US is focused on constraining China's progress in the semiconductor domain, a weak link in China's otherwise impressive technology stack. These news reports contest this narrative by suggesting the constraints don't seem to be working, as many US investors and firms are still flocking to China.WSJ reports that between 2017 and 2020, many US companies, including Intel, have invested in Chinese design companies. The number of deals (58) has more than doubled when compared to the 2013-2016 period.Bloomberg reports Intel wanted to start a manufacturing plant in Chengdu, but the White House officials discouraged it.These reports come on the heels of another big claim in mid-October, when Alibaba unveiled a 5nm server chip, making many heads turn. This news seemed to indicate that China's pursuit of semiconductor self-sufficiency is bearing fruit despite the geopolitical headwinds.Connecting the DotsIntel seems to be interested in China a lot. While the WSJ report showed that Intel is among the active investors in a Chinese Electronic Design Automation (EDA) firm, the Bloomberg report points out that Intel also wants to build a fab in Chengdu. It’s notable that both these stages of the semiconductor value chain are precisely where the US had planned to restrict Chinese access during the Trump administration. Reportedly, the US NSA Jake Sullivan and a few senators, want to change the investment screening methods to prevent such deals in the future.Why are US companies still rushing to China?The supply side: The Chinese government's incentives are 'crowding in' investments from Chinese firms and global semiconductor players alike.The demand side: A significant number of customers of chip makers are based in China - laptop manufacturers, phone manufacturers, servers etc. Companies still want a piece of that pie because homegrown alternatives in China are not enough, yet. It's a mouth-watering market, still.My initial assessmentThe number of investment deals between 2017-20 (58) doesn't sound that big in the overall scheme of things. They also mostly appear to be in chip design firms. What this does suggest is like many industrial policies, there is a crowding-in of capital. When a player the size of the Chinese government throws big money at a problem (starting the Chip Fund in 2014), this is expected to happen. There will be national champions and duds, both. The question really is, how long such subsidies can be sustained.The time period 2017-2020 suggests that the US companies rushed into China before the Trump administration tightened the export controls.Intel's investment in a Chinese EDA firm and a possible fab is indeed worrying. Although, the tone of the Chengdu fab proposal suggests it is more a tactic to get the CHIPS Act passed in the US, which will guarantee big subsidies for the likes of Intel back home. The report had no numbers, or plans, just a few unnamed sources.The demand side question is an important one. As long as China remains the hub for electronics Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), chip makers will find it attractive to sell their products to China. Solving this will require a plurilateral effort to move electronics manufacturing -- and not leading-edge chip manufacturing alone -- out of China.Finally, the Alibaba server chip news report has many unknowns. Unveiling a chip is different from being able to produce it. Manufacturing at 5nm is not possible in China. They must rely on TSMC (and now Samsung) for this purpose. Moreover, the processor IP is still ARM, something that Alibaba hasn't been able to displace.The reportage of the kind WSJ, Bloomberg is putting out is indicative of the change in mindset in the US. A few years ago, no one would have even cared about such investments. These are front-page news items now.I expect some more export controls and more subsidies from the US government, both.Our Reading Menu1. [Full Text] of the Paris Call for Trust and Security in the cyberspace2. [Full Text] 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance of the White house 3. [Policy Study] Principles for Content Policy and Governance by Chris Riley, R Street 4. [Article] by Oleg Shakirov discussing the US-Russia rapprochement on Information and Cyber Security5. [Blog] by Oleg Shakirov explaining why US-Russia cooperation on countering Ransomware threats makes sense This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Thomas Rid, a political scientist and professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, discusses the history of disinformation with Aspen Digital's Director for Cyber Initiatives Garrett Graff. Rid's book, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare, examines Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election in the US. This session is part of a series of expert briefings on mis and disinformation hosted by the Aspen Institute in tandem with our Commission on Information Disorder to help make sense of the various facets of the information crisis. They are designed as a resource for the commissioners and the broader public. To learn more about Aspen Digital's Commission on Information Disorder, visit www.AspenInfoCommission.org and follow us on Twitter @AspenDigital.

Johns Hopkins scholar and “Active Measures” author Thomas Rid on the DNI report on Russian meddling and how 2020 is different from 2016.

Information in its many forms has become a significant component of national power—the primary medium of competition between the United States and its adversaries. Our guests in this episode tackle that subject. Lt. Gen. Lori Reynolds is the US Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for information and Dr. Thomas Rid is a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University’ School of Advanced International Studies. Both are experts in their respective fields, each looking at this competition from opposing perspectives—one as a practitioner focused on the employment of military information power toward US national security goals, the other as a political scientist and historian who has investigated the strategic use of disinformation against the United States. Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa Outro music: "Launch" by Ketsa CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

If You Like what we do support us here, https://anchor.fm/pbliving/support Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare Book by Thomas Rid Russians Among Us Book by Gordon Corera From Russia with Blood: The Kremlin's Ruthless Assassination Program and Vladimir Putin's Secret War on the West by Heidi Blake The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020 Book by Tim Weiner --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pbliving/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pbliving/support

On October 14, the New York Post began publishing what it touted as a series of blockbuster articles on emails and photos obtained from a laptop mysteriously abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop—emails and photos that, the Post announced, belonged to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. The materials had been provided to the tabloid by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. And from there, it only gets weirder. In the eyes of many commentators, this looked like a continuation of Giuliani’s 2019 efforts to smear Joe Biden by claiming falsely that, while vice president, Biden had intervened to protect a Ukrainian company for which Hunter was working from investigation by Ukrainian law enforcement. That didn’t add up then, and it doesn’t now—the elder Biden’s work in Ukraine was aimed at combating corruption, not enabling it. But nevertheless, Trump and other Republicans are seizing on the Post’s stories—and complaining about efforts by social media companies to limit distribution of the stories on their platforms. To get some perspective on what’s been going on, Quinta Jurecic spoke with Thomas Rid, a Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and the author of the book “Active Measures,” and Evelyn Douek, cohost of Lawfare’s Arbiters of Truth podcast series on disinformation and a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

0.00: Een nieuw hoofdpijndossier voor Twitter en Facebook. De bedrijven beperken de verspreiding van een artikel van een Amerikaanse krant over vermeende corruptie door de Amerikaanse presidentskandidaat Joe Biden. Volgens de sociale media is de bron van het verhaal te schimmig, het kamp van president Trump noemt het censuur. 14.34: De site infectieradar.nl is weer in de lucht, nadat ‘ie eerder dit jaar offline ging vanwege een datalek. Is de site nu wel helemaal waterdicht? 20.33: Er komen rond deze tijd van het jaar een hoop nieuwe telefoons op de markt, en het lijkt erop dat de felste strijd tussen telefoonmakers dit jaar niet speelt bij de toptoestellen, maar juist bij de subtoppers. En als je voor het eerst een selfie maakt op je nieuwe telefoon is dat misschien even schrikken. 37.48: Tips Zou je mee willen doen aan ons luisteraarsonderzoek? Het invullen duurt minder dan 2 minuten en het helpt ons enorm om meer te weten over wat jij graag wilt horen. Je vind de enquête op www.techpodcast.nl Artikel met achtergrondinformatie over de Bidens in Oekraïne: https://nos.nl/collectie/13788/artikel/2303619-trump-wilde-dat-oekraine-de-bidens-onderzocht-hoe-zit-dat Twitterdraadje van desinformatie-onderzoeker Thomas Rid: https://twitter.com/RidT/status/1316363540421316609 Tip van Stephan: https://openrct2.org/ Gasten: Joost Schellevis, Nando Kasteleijn, Raquel Schilder, Stephan Vegelien Presentatie: Casper Meijer

Yascha Mounk speaks with Thomas Rid, Professor of Strategic Studies at John Hopkins University SAIS about the operations of secret services around the world and the misinformation campaigns that shape international competition.  Email: goodfightpod@gmail.com Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk Website: https://www.yaschamounk.com/ Podcast production by John T. Williams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prof. Thomas Rid -Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare...with TRE's Giles Brown

In Episode 140 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Thomas Rid, Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies about active measures, the history of disinformation, and political warfare. We live in the age of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. As a renowned expert on technology and national security, Thomas Rid was one of the first to sound the alarm. More than four months before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was “carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign" to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the post-Russian Revolution clash between communism and capitalism, which would come to define the Cold War. In this conversation about active measures, Rid reveals startling intelligence and security secrets from materials written in more than ten languages across several nations, and from interviews with current and former operatives. He exposes the disturbing yet colorful history of professional, organized lying, tracks the rise of leaking, and shows how spies began to exploit emerging internet culture many years before WikiLeaks. Finally, he sheds new light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous “troll farm” in St. Petersburg as well as a much more harmful attack that unfolded in the shadows.   During a period of heightened emotions, extreme politics, and dangerous precedents, this conversation will help listeners to understand how we got here and what we can do in order to make it safely through the other side. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Episode Recorded on 05/25/2020

Septinioliktame laidos epizode kalbėsiu apie Aktyvias Priemones, kurias aparašė Thomas Rid. Tai knyga apie dezinformaciją ir jos pavojų. Jei jums patinka „Tobulėk su Knyga“ podkastas tai pasidalinkite juo su draugais arba sekite mus „SoundCloud“, „iTunes“, „Spotify“ ar „Twitter“ platformose. Ačiū!

Naikon has returned from four years in the shadows to snoop around the shores of the South China Sea. Tencent trains censorship algorithms on WeChat. Snake ransomware is back, making its way through the healthcare sector. Seeing Charming Kitten's pawprints in World Health Organization networks. Voting security during (or even after) a pandemic. Malek Ben Salem from Accenture on their Technology Vision report, our guest is Thomas Rid from Johns Hopkins University on his book, Active Measures. And unemployed workers are offered gigs as money mules. For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief: https://thecyberwire.com/issues/issues2020/May/CyberWire_2020_05_08.html

In this episode of Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth miniseries on disinformation, Quinta Jurecic and Alina Polyakova spoke with Thomas Rid about his new book, "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare." Yesterday’s episode of the Lawfare Podcast featured a conversation between Thomas and Jack Goldsmith about the book, focusing on the early history of disinformation through the 1980s. Today, Alina and Quinta follow up with a discussion with Thomas on disinformation in the digital age, along with some questions about what it’s like to interview former KGB and Stasi officials about their influence campaigns.

Jack Goldsmith spoke with Thomas Rid about Rid’s new book, "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare." The book is about the history of information operations and influence campaigns, and we’re bringing you a two-part Lawfare Podcast to discuss it in detail. On this episode, Jack and Thomas discuss the history of disinformation from the beginning of the 20th century through the 1980s. Tomorrow on the Lawfare Podcast’s “Arbiters of Truth” miniseries on disinformation, Alina Polyakova and Quinta Jurecic will be sharing their discussion with Thomas about his research starting at the beginning of the internet age.

The DNC hack. It was a tale of espionage and intrigue. But behind closed doors, Russian intelligence knew just how to play the media in a liberal democracy. And that is a tale as old as time.Thomas Rid, a world renowned academic on national security and intelligence, wrote a new book called Active Measures tracing secret history psychological warfare over a century. On this week's episode we have him on the show. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The DNC hack. It was a tale of espionage and intrigue. But behind closed doors, Russian intelligence knew just how to play the media in a liberal democracy. And that is a tale as old as time.Thomas Rid, a world renowned academic on national security and intelligence, wrote a new book called Active Measures tracing secret history psychological warfare over a century. On this week’s episode we have him on the show. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Author Thomas Rid discusses disinformation in the time of COVID-19

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down (remotely) with professor Thomas Rid to discuss the history of disinformation, and his new book, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare.

Thomas Rid is a Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and author of ACTIVE MEASURES *Follow him on Twitter: @RidT, on disinformation campaigns in the age of the Coronavirus.

In this episode, I interview Thomas Rid about his illuminating study of Russian disinformation, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. It lays out a century of Soviet, East European, and Russian disinformation, beginning with an elaborate and successful operation against the White Russian expatriate resistance to Bolshevik rule in the 1920s. Rid has dug into recently declassified material using digital tools that enable him to tell previously untold tales – the Soviets' remarkable success in turning opposition to US nuclear missiles in Europe into a mass movement (and the potential shadow it casts on the legendary Adm. Hyman Rickover, father of the US nuclear navy), the unimpressive record of US disinformation compared to the ruthless Soviet version, and the fake American lobbyist (and real German agent) who persuaded a German conservative legislator to save Willy Brandt's leftist government. We close with two very different predictions about the kind of disinformation we'll see in the 2020 campaign. In the news, David Kris, Nick Weaver, and I trade perspectives on the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari on the question when it's a crime to access a computer “in excess of authority.” I predict that the Justice Department's reading of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act will lose, but it's far from clear what will replace the Justice Department's interpretation. Remember when the House left town without acting on FISA renewal? That's looking like a worse and worse decision, as Congress goes weeks without returning and Justice is left unable to use utterly uncontroversial capabilities in more and more cases. Matthew Heiman explains. In Justice Department briefs, all the most damaging admissions are down in the footnotes, and it looks like that's true for the inspector general's report on the Carter Page FISA. Recently declassified footnotes from the report make the FBI's pursuit of the FISA order look even worse, in my view. But at the end of the day, the footnotes don't add much to suspicions of a partisan motivation in the imbroglio. Speaking of IG reports, the DOD inspector general manages to raise the possibility of political skullduggery in the big DOD cloud computing award and then to offer a way to stick it to Amazon anyway. Meanwhile, the judge overseeing the bid protest gives the Pentagon a chance for a do-over.  Matthew covers intel warnings about China-linked ‘Electric Panda' hackers and that the Syrian government is spreading surveillance malware via coronavirus apps. And David notes that a Zoom zero-day is being offered for $500,000.Nick and I mix it up, first over the Gapple infection tracing plan and their fight with the UK National Health Service and then over Facebook's decision to suppress posts about demonstrations that protest the lockdown by violating the lockdown. Download the 312th Episode (mp3). You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets.

Paul Sherman (Institute for Justice) on occupational licensing & the virus * Prof Thomas Rid: "Active Measures: The Secret History of Misinformation..."

For the past several weeks, a group of us has been working on a project to tell the story of the Mueller Report in an accessible form. The Mueller Report tells a heck of a story, a bunch of incredible stories, actually. But it does so in a form that’s hard for a lot of people to take in. It’s very long. It’s legally dense in spots. It’s marred with redactions. It’s also, shall we say, not optimized for your reading pleasure. Various folks have made efforts to make the document easier to consume: the report is now an audiobook; it’s been staged as a play; there have been live readings. We took a different approach: a serialized narrative podcast. The extended network of writers, experts, lawyers, and journalists around Lawfare represents a unique body of expertise in the public conversation of the issues discussed in the report. So we teamed up with Goat Rodeo, a podcast production group in Washington, to use that group of people as a lens through which to tell the story contained in the report. The first episode, entitled “Active Measures,” is now out and covers the Russian social media campaign and the activities of the Internet Research Agency. It features Alina Polyakova, Clint Watts, John Sipher, and Thomas Rid.

Podcast: Digital BondEpisode: Unsolicited Response Podcast: Cyber War & Cyber Weapons with Author Thomas RidPub date: 2013-08-12Thomas Rid of Kings College has a book out with the provocative title: Cyber War Will Not Take Place. Most of the discussion around this book has focused on the assertion in the title, and we cover this in the last third of the podcast. Thomas stresses words matter and gives examples why whether an […]The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dale Peterson, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

In our latest episode, Usha Sahay and Ryan Evans were joined by Thomas Rid, Michael Sulmeyer, and a mystery guest (ok, ok, it's Corinna Fehst) to talk about cyber-security, election meddling, reports about U.S. intel agencies buying back pilfered hacking tools, going dark, legislatures as the vulnerable soft cyber underbelly of democracies, and the different threats posed by Russia and China.   Also, "Password1" is not a good password according to our guests. So you should probably change that.     Produced by: Tre Hester

Max Hoppenstedt, Thomas Rid, Joseph Cox Russia's likely interference in the US election; the hacking of extramarital affairs site Ashley Madison; a huge dump of internal documents and emails from Italian surveillance company Hacking Team. The list of prominent data breaches carried out by pseudonymous groups is long and ever growing. But there is another story that sits in between the hacks themselves, and the articles that you read: how journalists verify and attribute data breaches, and decide what to publish, and what to redact. In this panel we will explain how this delicate process, which is rarely seen by the public, plays out: what happens when a hacker approaches a journalist, how journalists verify hacked data, how much do a hacker's motivations influence a story, and how can journalists link a hack to a particular actor when attribution can be difficult? This job becomes even more important, and potentially complicated, when dealing with stories of massive political significance, like the recent, and likely Russian-driven, campaign around the US election. And as commentators expect more activity around French and potentially German elections, reporting any future incidents as ethically and responsibly as possible has a renewed sense of urgency. Never before has hacking held such a political weight; governments, societies, and the press need to lay down the groundwork for dealing with the fallout of serious data breaches.

On Friday, March 31st, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held its first open hearing in its investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election on "Disinformation: A Primer in Russian Active Measures and Influence Campaigns." The experts before the committee, including Eugene Rumer, Roy Godson, Clint Watts, Kevin Mandia, General Keith Alexander, and Thomas Rid, gave a useful rundown of the scope and mechanics of Russian influence. There's just one problem: their testimony ran five hours long. So once again, we've cut down the hearing to a snappy two hours, bringing you just the good parts. 

SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Thomas Rid, professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and the author of Rise of the Machines. The book tells the sweeping story of how cybernetics, a late-1940s theory of machines, came to incite anarchy and war half a century later.

Thomas Rid, professor in the department of War Studies at King's College London, joins the Cybersecurity Podcast to talk about his new book, "Rise of the Machines," a sweeping history of mankind's growing dependence on technology. He also discusses the challenges of attributing cyberattacks and ways to deter Russian information warfare as hackers target American political interests.    Also on this episode, podcast cohost Sara Sorcher, deputy editor of Passcode at the Christian Science Monitor, discusses the emerging private etiquette questions as more people bring personal assistant technology such as Amazon's Alexa into their homes. Podcast cohost Peter Singer, strategist and senior fellow at New America, discusses his recent trip to Sweden, where officials are viewing cybersecurity threats in military terms. 

As gadgets become more intelligent, should we embrace smart devices or fear them? Thomas Rid, a professor at King's College and author of a new book, Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History, talks to our editors Kenneth Cukier and Edward Lucas See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As gadgets become more intelligent, should we embrace smart devices or fear them? Thomas Rid, a professor at King's College and author of a new book, Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History, talks to our editors Kenneth Cukier and Edward Lucas See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Thomas Rid, Professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, joins Ryan Naraine on the podcast to discuss his new book, the lack of nuance in the crypto debate and the future of global cyber conflict.

With the increasing frequency, complexity and sophistication of cyber attacks - such as Stuxnet, the Sony Hack - how is attribution done? This podcast is an interview with Ben Buchanan about a paper he recently published with Thomas Rid, Professor of Security Studies at Kings College, London on Attributing Cyber Attacks The paper can be found in the Journal of Strategic Studies. Additional information about the various reports mentioned in the podcast are linked throughout the transcript. This podcast was produced and is hosted by Adriene Lilly.   Adriene Lilly: With the increasing frequency of cyber attacks in the media I think it's worth taking a few minutes to try and understand how attribution is done - how do we find out who is doing it, why, how, and where from.  What exactly is attribution in the cyber context, why do we try to attribute attacks? How is it different than it's offline equivalent in criminal investigations? Where does data and forensic evidence come from? And who – be it the government or private companies – is actually involved in the process of attribution? Today I'm talking to Ben Buchanan.... Ben Buchanan: good to be with you Adriene. So I'm Ben Buchanan, I'm a PHD Candidate at Kings College London. AL: He's recently published a paper with Thomas Rid in the Journal of Strategic Studies called “Attributing Cyber Attacks” their paper attempts to get to the essence of attribution in cyber crime and sets up a model that they hope can help streamline the process. Before we begin though, there are a number of major cyber attacks that have popped up in the media over the past couple of years. So just in case you're like me and may need a refresher, let's start with a few of those stories. Let's begin back in 2010 with the discovery of Stuxnet. Stuxnet was a piece of malware – or malicious software – that is generally cited as being one of the most if not they most sophisticated computer viruses to date. And while no one has officially taken credit for it, best guesses it's a product of the US and Israeli governments. The software was specifically designed to target a uranium enrichment facility in Iran by subtly changing how some of the mechanical structures in the facility operated. Specifically the spinning speed of a number of centrifuges. Stuxnet was designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. It's significant for a number of reasons, but the one that I want to emphasize here is the complexity and sophistication of the operation.. here's Ben.. AL: Ok, now your brought up the centrifuges in Iran so I'm assuming you're talking about Stuxnet.. BB: Sure, so Stuxnet was a long cyber operation against Iranian centrifuges that by some reports involved building a replica of the Iranian nuclear facility and testing the code against this model before it was deployed against Iran. That's an operation that probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars when you consider all the physical expenses. It's believed to have been conduced by the US, likely working in partnership with Israel, and it had the effect of manipulating the centrifuges in a number of ways over a number of years in an attempt to slow down the Iranian nuclear program. AL: Who discovered it and who did it? BB: So the tech side of the operation was discovered by researches who were alerted when a computer in Iran kept restarting for unknown reasons. They looked in the code and they discovered that it was what looked like a cyber weapon against the Iranian nuclear facility. People immediately assumed, or guessed, that it was the US or Israel but there was no concrete proof for quite awhile. And in that case, what is today the most credible attribution of the Stuxnet attack came from a reporter, came from David Sanger at the New York Times who working inside the beltway of sources found out that it was in fact likely a US or Israeli operation and then further reporting seems to indicate that's the case,

In our fifty-first episode of the Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast, Stewart Baker, Michael Vatis, Jason Weinstein, and Ed Krauland discuss: more details emerging on the secret DEA phone log database; in the wake of the attacks the EU wants to force internet and phone companies to turn over encryption keys and asks tech firms to remove more EU content; cellphone companies avoid some wiretap claims in multidistrict litigation case involving Carrier IQ; another setback for LabMD in its challenge to the FTC; the US eases restrictions on telecom, Internet, and related financial services for Cuba; and shocking poll shows that the NSA is holding its own in public confidence. In our second half we have an interview with Thomas Rid, Professor of Security Studies at King’s College London and author of ‘Cyber War Will Not Take Place,’ and Jeffrey Carr, CEO of Taia Global. They debate cyberattack attribution. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.

Dr Thomas Rid, Reader in the Department, talks about the relaunch of the King's of War blog. Our MA student Sudhir Selvaraj talks to Professor Hilton Root, currently vising professor in the Department of Political Economy, about his new book 'Dynamic About Nations'. Jayne Peake provides details of next week's events. You can also watch (or listen to) some of our previous events on our YouTube channel. Presented by Dr Peter Busch DISCLAIMER: Any information, statements or opinions contained in this podcast are those of the individual speakers. They do not represent the opinions of the Department of War Studies or King's College London.

Is cyber war really coming? Renowned scholar Thomas Rid of the Department of War Studies at Kings College London argues that the focus on war distracts from the real challenge of cyberspace: non-violent confrontation that may rival or even replace violence in surprising ways. In this provocative talk, the author will trace the most significant hacks and attacks and explore some key questions: What are cyber weapons? How have they changed the meaning of violence? How likely and how dangerous is crowd-sourced subversive activity? Why has there never been a lethal cyber-attack against a country's critical infrastructure? How serious is the threat of cyber-espionage? And who is most vulnerable in the cyber realm? This event took place on September 10, 2013 .http://www.spymuseumstore.org/

Dr Thomas Rid, Reader in the Department of War Studies, talks about his new Foreign Affairs article 'Cyberwar and Peace'. More about Dr Rid here. You can follow Dr Rid on twitter: @RidT Jayne Peake provides details of next week's events. Presented by Dr Peter Busch DISCLAIMER: Any information, statements or opinions contained in this podcast are those of the individual speakers. They do not represent the opinions of the Department of War Studies or King's College London.

Elizabeth Pearson speaks to Thomas Rid, a Reader in War Studies at King’s College, London, and he and colleague Peter McBurney recently wrote about cyberweapons for the RUSI Journal, setting out some pioneering new ideas about their use. I met Thomas Rid at King's to find out more.. and began by asking him if cyberweaponry was any easier to define than cyberwar..  Thomas Rid, Reader in War Studies at King's College London. Listen next time when I'll be finding out how corruption is risking global security.. and why the solution doesn't lie with the military or politicians alone