Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 7 submissions in the queue.

MOD's Secret Cyberwarfare Programme

posted by janrinok on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the leave-my-internet-alone dept.

mrbluze writes:

"The eye keeps getting bigger. The Guardian Reports on the U.K. Ministry of Defence's plans to weaponize social media:

With the advent of sophisticated data-processing capabilities (including big data), the big number-crunchers can detect, model and counter all manner of online activities just by detecting the behavioural patterns they see in the data and adjusting their tactics accordingly.

'Cyberwarfare of the future may be less about hacking electrical power grids and more about hacking minds by shaping the environment in which political debate takes place,' he (Dr. Tim Stevens, Kings College London) added. The research into the programmes, which are designed to emulate human conversation and are familiar as 'virtual assistants' on retailers' websites, envisages a future in which 'an influence bot could be deployed in both covert and overt ways - on the web, in IM/chatrooms/forums or in virtual worlds.'

The proposed uses for this research are to keep tabs on the activities of soldiers, as an example, but the possibility of manipulating the public is also at the forefront."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
MOD's Secret Cyberwarfare Programme | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 15 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by TK on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:46PM

    by TK (2760) on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:46PM (#18157)

    So we make our own chat bots that emulate benign forum chatter so all the government chat bots are tied up with those.

    Then we start communicating through text converted to images through a captcha-like program, then jpegged to hell.

    Fixed forever.

    --
    The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +4  
       Interesting=2, Funny=2, Total=4
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   5  

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:27PM

    by Bot (3902) on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:27PM (#18172) Journal

    Hello, TK
    Your anti-patriotic behaviour has been noted.
    Have a nice day.

    --
    Account abandoned.

  • (Score: 1) by NezSez on Tuesday March 18 2014, @07:17PM

    by NezSez (961) on Tuesday March 18 2014, @07:17PM (#18211) Journal

    Chatterbox to chatterbox conversation:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedd ed&v=WnzlbyTZsQY [youtube.com]

    Minor hilarity ensues as they say.

    I'd predict that one of their bots, designed to entrap someone into communicating damning evidence for subsequent nefarious political manipulation, will encounter another bot and a similar encounter would take place only with devastating legal consequences. Down the line I foresee bad exchanges between robot judges and robot lawyers.

    --
    No Sig to see here, move along, move along...