TechLetters #180 Elections disinformation did not happen. Governments, make backups. DMA activities.
Snap elections in the UK and France had a positive side-effect. It is very difficult, if not impossible to set upwell-designed and prepared disinformation operations. At least t foreign forces (not including domestic factors such as legal political agitation/expression). Similarly, there was apparently no significant disinformation/information operations prior to the elections to the European Parliament in 2024. There was also no in such activities prior to the previous EU elections in 2019. Both despite strong public warnings.
Security
Government data backups, or their lack in Indonesia. Most data affected by a recent ransomware cyberattack on Indonesia government data center was not backed up. >230 public agencies, including ministries affected. 98% of the data stored in one of the two compromised data centres had not been backed up.
Leaked Russian foreign intelligence (SVR) strategies & tactics of information operations/warfare. Propaganda approach: “systematic, targeted and active, offensive in nature.” They consider using multiple channels like social media and online ads. All of these are rather typical influence/lobby campaign, reusing well known tools and technologies (unsurprisingly; tools must exist and be effective to be used…). I describe them in my upcoming book.
Technology Policy
EU Commission is probing Meta Pay-or-Consent scheme. Asserting it violates the DMA by not offering users a less personalized yet equivalent option without requiring data consent. Last week I spoke about DMA & technology, including impacts on cybersecurity in privacy.
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