Category Archives: Presidential campaign

YouTube’s Trusted Flagger Program, a Sham

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The legal complaint is here.

No wonder Dennis Prager (Prager University) is suing YouTube for censorship.

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YouTube Trusted Flagger program

The YouTube Trusted Flagger program was developed by YouTube to help provide robust tools for government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are particularly effective at notifying YouTube of content that violates our Community Guidelines.

Individuals who are part of the YouTube Contributors program also frequently report videos that may violate YouTube’s Community Guidelines.

The YouTube Trusted Flagger program includes:

  • A bulk-flagging tool that allows for reporting multiple videos at one time
  • Private forum support for questions about the policy enforcement process
  • Visibility into decisions on flagged content
  • Prioritized flag reviews for increased actionability

Program eligibility

Government agencies and NGOs are eligible for participation in the YouTube Trusted Flagger program. Ideal candidates flag frequently and with a high rate of accuracy.

Before becoming deputized for participation, applicants must attend a YouTube training to learn about our Community Guidelines and enforcement processes. These trainings are led by YouTube’s Trust & Safety and Public Policy teams.

Flag review process

Videos flagged by trusted flaggers are reviewed by YouTube content moderators according to YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Content flagged by trusted flaggers is not automatically removed or subject to any differential policy treatment — the same standards apply for flags received from other users. However, because of their high degree of accuracy, flags from trusted flagger are prioritized for review by our teams.

The Trusted Flagger program exists exclusively for the reporting of possible Community Guideline violations. It is not a flow for reporting content that may violate local law. Requests based on local law can be filed through our content removal form.

Google, really?

YouTube Trusted Flaggers help Google fight terrorism online, along with better automated detection, content warnings, and counter-radicalization content

Google and YouTube are working along with Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter to help fight terrorism online.

Google has pledged a four-pronged strategy:

1. Improving automated systems that detect problematic videos.

We will now devote more engineering resources to apply our most advanced machine learning research to train new “content classifiers” to help us more quickly identify and remove extremist and terrorism-related content.

2. Expanding the Trusted Flagger program

Trusted flaggers – both individuals and organizations – flag content correctly more than 90% of the time.

We will expand this programme by adding 50 expert NGOs to the 63 organisations who are already part of the programme, and we will support them with operational grants. This allows us to benefit from the expertise of specialised organisations working on issues like hate speech, self-harm, and terrorism. We will also expand our work with counter-extremist groups to help identify content that may be being used to radicalise and recruit extremists.

3. Making inflammatory content harder to find and endorse

In future [videos that do not clearly violate policy, but contain inflammatory religious or supremecist content] will appear behind an interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements.

4. Using the “Redirect Method” for counter-radicalization efforts

… we are working with Jigsaw to implement the “Redirect Method” more broadly across Europe. This promising approach harnesses the power of targeted online advertising to reach potential Isis recruits, and redirects them towards anti-terrorist videos that can change their minds about joining. In previous deployments of this system, potential recruits have clicked through on the ads at an unusually high rate, and watched over half a million minutes of video content that debunks terrorist recruiting messages.

*** So…..they use the Southern Poverty Law Center as a trusted flagger?

The Southern Poverty Law Center is assisting YouTube in policing content on their platform, The Daily Caller has learned.

The left-wing nonprofit — which has more recently come under fire for labeling legitimate conservative organizations as “hate groups” — is one of the more than 100 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and government agencies in YouTube’s “Trusted Flaggers” program, a source with knowledge of the arrangement told TheDC.

The SPLC and other program members help police YouTube for extremist content, ranging from so-called hate speech to terrorist recruiting videos.

All of the groups in the program have confidentiality agreements, a spokesperson for Google, YouTube’s parent company, previously told TheDC. A handful of YouTube’s “Trusted Flaggers,” including the Anti-Defamation League and No Hate Speech — a European organization focused on combatting intolerance — have gone public with their participation in the program. The vast majority of the groups in the program have remained hidden behind their confidentiality agreements.

The SPLC’s close involvement in policing content on YouTube is likely to cause consternation among conservatives who worry that they may not be treated fairly. The left-wing group has consistently labeled pedestrian conservative organizations as “hate groups” and has been directly tied to violence against conservatives in the past. Floyd Lee Corkins, who opened fire at the Family Research Center in 2012, said he chose the FRC for his act of violence because the SPLC listed them as a “hate group.”

It’s unclear when the SPLC joined YouTube’s “Trusted Flaggers” program. The program goes back to 2012 but exploded in size in recent years amid a Google push to increase regulation of the content on its platforms, which followed pressure from advertisers. Fifty of the 113 program members joined in 2017 as YouTube stepped up its content policing, YouTube public policy director Juniper Downs told a Senate committee in January.

Downs said the third-party groups work closely with YouTube’s employees to crack down on extremist content in two ways, both of which a Google spokesperson previously confirmed to TheDC.

First, the flaggers are equipped with digital tools allowing them to mass flag content for review by YouTube personnel. Second, the partner groups act as guides to YouTube’s content monitors and engineers designing the algorithms policing the video platform but may lack the expertise needed to tackle a given subject.

“We work with over 100 organizations as part of our Trusted Flagger program and we value the expertise these organizations bring to flagging content for review. All trusted flaggers attend a YouTube training to learn about our policies and enforcement processes. Videos flagged by trusted flaggers are reviewed by YouTube content moderators according to YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Content flagged by trusted flaggers is not automatically removed or subject to any differential policies than content flagged from other users,” said a YouTube spokesperson, who would not specifically comment on the SPLC’s participation in the program.

The SPLC did not return multiple voicemails and emails seeking comment.

The overwhelming majority of the content policing on Google and YouTube is carried out by algorithms. The algorithms make for an easy rebuttal against charges of political bias: it’s not us, it’s the algorithm. But actual people with actual biases write, test and monitor the algorithms.

As noted above, Google’s anonymous outside partners (such as the SPLC) work closely with the internal experts designing the algorithms. This close collaboration has upsides, Google’s representatives have said, such as in combatting terrorist propaganda on the platform.

But it also provides little transparency, forcing users to take Google’s word that they’re being treated fairly.

The SPLC has faced criticism for its cavalier definitions of “hate group” and “extremist.” The organization stoked controversy in 2015 by labeling Dr. Ben Carson, now the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an anti-gay “extremist.” After a backlash, the SPLC reversed its ruling and apologized to Carson.

The organization  faced a similarly intense backlash in 2016 for labeling Maajid Nawaz, a respected counter-extremism activist, an “anti-Muslim extremist.”(RELATED: SPLC Says Army Bases Are Confederate Monuments That Need To Come Down)

The Washington Examiner’s Emily Jashinsky noted last year that “the SPLC’s claim to objectivity is nothing less than fraudulent, a reality that informed observers of its practices from both the Left and Right accept.”

“The routine of debunking their supposedly objective classifications occurs like clockwork each time a major outlet makes the mistake of turning to them when reporting on the many conservative thinkers and nonprofits the group absurdly designates as hateful.”

The SPLC has faced tough criticisms not just from conservatives but from the mainstream press as well.

“At a time when the line between ‘hate group’ and mainstream politics is getting thinner and the need for productive civil discourse is growing more serious, fanning liberal fears, while a great opportunity for the SPLC, might be a problem for the nation,” Politico Magazine’s Ben Schreckinger wrote last year.

Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle similarly noted last year that the SPLC commonly lumps in principled conservatives alongside actual racists and extremists and warned of the possibility that tech companies could rely on the SPLC’s misleading definitions.

“Given the increasing tendency of powerful tech companies to flex their muscle against hate groups,” she wrote, “we may see more and more institutions unwittingly turned into critics or censors, not just of Nazi propaganda, but also of fairly mainstream ideas.”

Cyber: ‘Our adversaries have grown more emboldened’

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Primer:

Russia hasn’t been sufficiently penalized for its meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and that has emboldened Moscow to continue interfering in American elections, Adm. Michael Rogers, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

“They haven’t paid a price sufficient to change their behavior,” Rogers said under questioning by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Although the United States has taken some actions, including imposing additional sanctions and Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III has indicted more than a dozen Russians for their role in the interference, “it hasn’t changed the calculus,” Rogers said, adding that “it hasn’t generated the change in behavior that we all know we need.”

In another exchange with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Rogers said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has probably come to the conclusion that “that there’s little price to pay here so I can continue the activity” of interfering in the U.S. election system. More here.

*** In context however, where is Senator(s) Warren and Blumenthal’s proposed legislation on sanctions or punishment toward Russia for cyber and active measures interference? It was political posturing by Warren and Blumenthal when they can introduce multi-faceted legislation as Russia, China and North Korea continue to attack the United States via layered cyber operations including espionage.

Meanwhile…. Image result for admiral rogers nsa photo

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2018 —

Although competitors such as China and Russia remain the greatest threat to U.S. security, rogue regimes such as Iran and North Korea have increased in capabilities and have begun using aggressive methods to conduct malicious cyberspace activities, the military’s top cyber officer told Congress today.

Navy Adm. Michael S. Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and chief of the Central Security Service, testified at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

“Our adversaries have grown more emboldened, conducting increasingly aggressive activities to extend their influence without fear of significant consequence,” Rogers said. “We must change our approaches and responses here if we are to change this dynamic.”

But as the cyber domain has evolved, Rogers told the senators, Cybercom’s three major mission areas endure: protecting the Department of Defense Information Network; enabling other joint force commanders by delivering effects in and through cyberspace; and defending the nation against cyber threats through support to the Department of Homeland Security and others when directed to do so by the president or secretary of defense.

Cybercom Milestones

Rogers highlighted milestones in Cybercom’s growth.

Joint Force Headquarters DODIN, the subordinate headquarters responsible for securing, operating and defending the Defense Department’s complex information technology infrastructure, has achieved full operational capability, he said.

Joint Task Force Ares, created to lead the fight in cyber against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has successfully integrated cyberspace operations into broader military campaigns, has achieved some “excellent results,” and will continue to pursue ISIS in support of the nation’s objectives, the admiral told the Senate panel.

Cybercom also has significantly enhanced training in cyber operation platforms to prepare the battlespace against key adversaries, he said.

Milestones expected to be achieved this year include Cyber Command’s elevation to a combatant command responsible for providing mission-ready cyberspace operations forces to other combatant commanders, Rogers said.

New Facility

In addition, the admiral said, Cybercom will be moving into a state-of-the-art integrated cyber center and joint operations facility at Fort Meade, Maryland, enhancing the coordination and planning of operations against cyber threats.

“Without cyberspace superiority in today’s battlefield, risk to mission increases across all domains and endangers our security,” Rogers said.

Cybercom’s focus on innovation and rapid tech development has extended all the way to small businesses and working with the private sector while maintaining cybersecurity, Rogers told the committee.

“We intend in the coming year to create an unclassified collaboration venue where businesses and academia can help us tackle tough problems without needing to jump over clearance hurdles, for example, which for many are very difficult barriers,” Rogers explained.

After serving more than four years as a commander of Cybercom and after nearly 37 years of service as a naval officer, Rogers is set to retire this spring.

“I will do all I can during the intervening period to ensure the mission continues, that our men and women remain ever motivated, and that we have a smooth transition,” he said.

Money Approved in 2016 to Counter Russian Disinformation

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Government does move slowly, in some cases if at all at tackling specific issues. With the cheap but effective disinformation campaign launched by Russia via the Internet Research Agency during the U.S. election season, the Mueller operation continues including the indictment of several Russian operatives.

A little factoid which has not been covered by media, much less how the visa got approved is curious, but a former IRA supervisor from Russia has moved to Bellevue, Washington. She is running a blog…ah what? This suspected ex-troll factory manager talked of filing for a Social Security Number (SSN). Burdonova declined to comment to TV Rain about her reasons for the move to the U.S. and denied having worked for the Internet Research Agency. The IRA, since at least 2014, worked to “interfere with the U.S political system” in part by supporting Donald Trump and “disparaging” Hillary Clinton.

The organization used social media advertising to spread misinformation and even staged political rallies in the U.S., the indictment alleged. Officials from Facebook, Twitter and Google have admitted their platforms were abused. More here from Newsweek.

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So, between the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon, $40 million has been allocated to the Global Engagement Center to counter the Russian disinformation operation and China or other rogue nations are not exempt from the soon to be American response.

The State Department describes it this way:

The work of the GEC is focused around four core areas: science and technology, interagency engagement, partner engagement, and content production.

  • Science & Technology: The GEC’s Science & Technology team is charged with enabling the U.S. government and its partners to increase the reach and effectiveness of their communications. The team conducts research on target audiences and utilizes data science techniques to measure the effectiveness of our efforts. Among other techniques, the Science & Technology team performs A/B testing and multivariate analysis to measure the effectiveness of our content distribution. The GEC utilizes hypothesis-driven experimentation and applies a “create-measure-learn” approach to its activities to maximize effectiveness.
  • Interagency Engagement: The GEC liaises regularly across the interagency and coordinates closely with the relevant national security departments and agencies to identify efficiencies and opportunities in the messaging and partnership space. The GEC’s staff includes detailees from throughout the interagency, including the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, United States Agency for International Development, and Broadcasting Board of Governors.
  • Partner Engagement: One of the GEC’s overarching strategies is to identify, cultivate, and expand a global network of partners whose voices resonate with individuals most vulnerable to harmful propaganda. These partners work tirelessly to drive a wedge between susceptible audiences and those nations, groups, and terrorists seeking to influence them. The GEC conducts on-the-ground training sessions to enable these partners to develop their own content and disseminate it through their distribution networks. The GEC also leverages rigorous research and data science to improve tactics and techniques and inspire innovation.
  • Content Production: The GEC and its partners have established programming across multiple platforms, including social media, satellite television, radio, film, and print. This programming is conducted in various languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Somali, and French. These platforms allow the U.S. government and its partners to inject factual content about terrorist organizations into the information space to counter recruitment and radicalization to violence. They also allow us to develop and disseminate messaging on effective themes, such as exposing ISIS’s financial and governance failures; its violence against women, children, and religious minorities; and its ongoing territorial losses.

The GEC is currently led by Acting Coordinator Daniel Kimmage.

Congress had mandated the initiative to counter propaganda and disinformation after Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US election. Lawmakers and career foreign service officers were deeply critical when Tillerson didn’t move to use any of the funding, and cited his inaction as another example of the agency’s dysfunction.

A similar operation was allegedly applied to counter Islamic State Islamic propaganda and sophisticated media messaging. Measuring effectiveness is still in question.

 

Estimating the Costs of Cyber Attacks Against the U.S., Billions

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Cyberattacks cost the United States between $57 billion and $109 billion in 2016

The report published by the White House Council of Economic Advisers examines the cyberattacks cost that malicious cyber activities cause to the U.S. economy.

Paganini: How much cost cyber attacks to the US? According to a report published by the White House Council of Economic Advisers last week, the cyberattacks cost between $57 billion and $109 billion in 2016, and things can go worse in the future.

“This report examines the substantial economic costs that malicious cyber activity imposes on the U.S. economy. Cyber threats are ever-evolving and may come from sophisticated adversaries. Due to common vulnerabilities, instances of security breaches occur across firms and in patterns that are difficult to anticipate.” states the report.

“Firms in critical infrastructure sectors may generate especially large negative spillover effects into the wider economy.”

The report analyzed the impact of malicious cyber activities on public and private entities, including DoS attacks, sabotage, business disruption, and theft of proprietary data, intellectual property, and sensitive financial and strategic information.

Damages and losses caused by a cyber attack may spill over from the initial target to economically linked organizations. More exposed are critical infrastructure sectors, at attack against companies and organization in this industry could have a severe impact on the US economy.

The document warns of nation-state actors such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, that are well funded and often conduct sophisticated targeted attacks for both sabotage and cyber espionage.

“Finally, and perhaps most important, if a firm owns a critical infrastructure asset, an attack against this firm could cause major disruption throughout the economy.” reads the report.

“Insufficient cybersecurity investment in these sectors exacerbates the risks of cyberattacks and data breaches. The economic implications of attacks against critical infrastructure assets are described in more detail later in the paper. “

US cyberattacls cost

The reports also warn of devastating cyberattacks that would target sectors that are internally interconnected and interdependent with other sectors.

The report offered little in the way of new recommendations on improving cybersecurity, but noted that the situation is hurt by “insufficient data” as well as “underinvestment” in defensive systems by the private sector.

“Cyber connectivity is an important driver of productivity, innovation, and growth for the U.S. economy, but it comes at a cost. Companies, individuals, and the government are vulnerable to malicious cyber activity.” concludes the report. “Effective public and private-sector efforts to combat this malicious activity would contribute to domestic GDP growth. However, the ever-evolving nature and scope of cyber threats suggest that additional and continued efforts are critical, and the cooperation between public and private sectors is key.” 

***

The forecast of the cost damage in coming years….

In part from Forbes: In 2015, the British insurance company Lloyd’s estimated that cyber attacks cost businesses as much as $400 billion a year, which includes direct damage plus post-attack disruption to the normal course of business. Some vendor and media forecasts over the past year put the cybercrime figure as high as $500 billion and more.

From 2013 to 2015 the cyber crime costs quadrupled, and it looks like there will be another quadrupling from 2015 to 2019. Juniper research recently predicted that the rapid digitization of consumers’ lives and enterprise records will increase the cost of data breaches to $2.1 trillion globally by 2019, increasing to almost four times the estimated cost of breaches in 2015.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) says a significant portion of cybercrime goes undetected, particularly industrial espionage where access to confidential documents and data is difficult to spot. Those crimes would arguably move the needle on the cyber crime numbers much higher.

Large banks, retailers, and federal agencies make the headlines when they are hacked – but all businesses are at risk. According to Microsoft, 20% of small to mid sized businesses have been cyber crime targets.

For anyone who wants to tally their own bill from cyber crime, check out Cyber Tab from Booz Allen. It is an anonymous, free tool that helps information security and other senior executives understand the damage to companies inflicted by cyber crime and attacks. More here.

 

Diplomacy to Address Russian Olympic and War Cheating and Lies?

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C’mon really? The Russians cheat, steal and lie. Why would any Western ally trust any part of the Kremlin or operatives dispatched worldwide? Russian nefarious ‘active measure’ plots are global and so easy to achieve. The question is why?

The International Olympic Committee is no exception when it comes to going easy on Russia, buckling to pressure from Moscow. Russia has made legitimate and clean athletes in the games a mockery. The IOC was forced to defend its decision to include Russian athletes in these Pyeongchang Games on Monday morning after curler Alexander Krushelnytsky reportedly failed a drug test, jeopardizing the bronze medal he won last week in mixed doubles and inviting increased scrutiny on the IOC’s handling of the situation.

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First: a Russia-linked group calling itself “Fancy Bears” published a set of apparently stolen emails. They purportedly belong to officials from the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and third-party groups associated with the organizations. It’s not the first time Russia has lashed out at the IOC and the anti-doping agencies in the last few years. And with a month left until the games begin, it may not be the last.

The emails appear to span from the end of 2016 to the spring of 2017, and focus on correspondence between antidoping investigators who helped uncover a wide-scale, systematic doping scheme carried out by Russian athletes. It’s not clear yet whether the emails are entirely authentic; Russian hacking groups have snuck false information into their leaks before. But the World Anti-Doping Agency Wednesday indirectly acknowledged that the emails were real, but not current.

“The Fancy Bears are a criminal organization which seeks to undermine the work of WADA and its partners,” says WADA spokesperson Maggie Durand. “Everything that they have posted today is dated.”

The hack appears to be retaliation for kicking the Russia out of 2018 PyeongChang games, at which only a handful of the country’s athletes will be allowed to compete. More here.

Second: (Reuters) – A Russian medalist at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is suspected of having tested positive for a banned substance, a source at the Games said on Sunday, in a potential major blow to Russia’s efforts to emerge from a drug-cheating scandal. Alexander Krushelnitsky, a bronze-medalist along with his wife in mixed-doubles curling, is suspected of having tested positive for meldonium, the source said. Meldonium increases blood flow which improves exercise capacity in athletes. Russia has been accused of running a state-backed, systematic doping program for years, an allegation Moscow denies. As a result, its athletes are competing at Pyeongchang as neutral “Olympic Athletes from Russia” (OAR).

Third: Seems to be a systemic condition when it comes to doping by Russian athletes regardless of the sport and or location. Remember Maria Sharapova and tennis? In 2017, Maria Sharapova makes her return after a 15-month suspension for use of meldonium this week, with the tennis star serving as the most high-profile of those sanctioned for use of the drug. After hundreds of positive tests in Olympic sports last year, Sharapova remains one of the relative few to be suspended for its use. While the facts of her case differ from the issues the World Anti-Doping Agency faced in determining how long it stays in an athlete’s body, her presence among those testing positive drew attention to WADA’s ban of the drug.

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Fourth: And it goes to the militant battlefield as well. Russia and the United States have clashed at the United Nations Security Council over allegations the Syrian government has again used chemical weapons in rebel-held areas of the country.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on February 5 accused Russia of blocking an investigation of possible chemical weapons use by President Bashar al-Assad’s army in attacks in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta over the weekend despite “obvious evidence from dozens of victims.”

“Russia has delayed the adoption of this statement, a simple condemnation of Syrian children being suffocated by chlorine gas,” Haley said. “This council has been outspoken on ending Syria’s use of chemical weapons, and yet, they continue.”

Russia, which has been conducting military operations in support of Assad since September 2015, rejected the allegations as “slander.”

Finally: If anyone watched the hearing and ODNI Dan Coats summary –>

The nation’s top intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia is targeting the 2018 elections as it seeks to undermine America’s political process and sow partisan division with cyber attacks and other digital disruption.

“Frankly, the United States is under attack,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that Russia is attempting to “degrade our democratic values and weaken our alliances.”

In unequivocal language, Coats said Russian President Vladimir Putin was emboldened by Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections and is targeting the midterms.

“There should be no doubt that (Putin) views the past effort as successful,” said Coats who was joined Tuesday by the nation’s other top intelligence officials, including CIA Director Mike Pompeo, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The national intelligence director’s comments came against the backdrop of congressional and criminal investigations into Russia’s alleged interference in the presidential election and whether the Kremlin coordinated its activities with Donald Trump‘s campaign.