Category Archives: Russia

Not an Inch of the US is Safe, Consider This…

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Equifax hacked, NSA hacked, active shooters, stolen identity, bad legislation being signed by presidents, townhalls being disrupted by activists, leaked classified material, nefarious people roaming Elm Street and violence on college campuses…..not a complete list but even top people in Washington DC are not protected either.

Check this out…

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John Kelly’s personal phone has been compromised for months

White House tech support discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to tech support staff this summer.

White House officials believe that chief of staff John Kelly’s personal cell phone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December, according to three U.S. government officials.

The discovery raises concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on Kelly’s phone while he was secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and after he joined the West Wing.

Tech support staff discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to White House tech support this summer complaining that it wasn’t working or updating software properly.

Kelly told the staffers the phone hadn’t been working properly for months, according to the officials.

White House aides prepared a one-page September memo summarizing the incident, which was circulated through the administration.

A White House official, speaking for the administration, said Kelly hadn’t used the personal phone often since joining the administration. This person said Kelly relied on his government-issued phone for most communications.

The official, who did not dispute any of POLITICO’s reporting on the timeline of events or the existence of the memo, said Kelly no longer had possession of the device but declined to say where the phone is now.

Kelly has since begun using a different phone, one of the officials said, though he relies on his government phone when he’s inside the White House.

Several government officials said it was unclear when – or where – Kelly’s phone was first compromised. It is unclear what data may have been accessed, if any.

Kelly’s travel schedule prior to joining the administration in January is under review. The former Marine general retired in 2016 as chief of U.S. Southern Command.

Staffers reviewed the cell phone for several days and tried to decipher what had happened to it, the officials said. Many functions on the phone were not working.

The IT department concluded the phone had been compromised and should not be used further, according to the memo.

The document triggered concern throughout the West Wing about what information may have been exposed, one of the officials said.

The revelation comes amid an internal probe at the White House into personal email use. Senior officials, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, have at times used personal email for government business, POLITICO has reported.

Additional storage lockers were recently added in the West Wing for personal devices and aides have been warned to limit personal cell phone use in the building.

Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow with the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, said the worst-case scenario would be “full access,” where an attacker would be able to essentially control a device, including its microphone and camera.

“The [attackers] I would be most worried about are nation-states or other actors who may have access to resale of commercial spyware sold to nation-states,” he said.

“The average user won’t notice anything at all. Really the only way to pick up on that is to do forensics on the phone,” he added.

This article was reported in coordination with the Project On Government Oversight, a nonprofit investigative watchdog organization.

NSA Data Stolen via Russian Anti-Virus Software

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The Department of Homeland Security recently barred federal agencies from using Kaspersky Lab products due to security concerns but has been tight-lipped about what intelligence linked the popular, Moscow-based computer security firm to specific intelligence operations.

Kaspersky Lab denied any knowledge of any role in the attack, but decried “news coverage of unproven claims continu[ing] to perpetuate accusations about the company” in a written statement.

“As a private company, Kaspersky Lab does not have inappropriate ties to any government, including Russia, and the only conclusion seems to be that Kaspersky Lab is caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight,” the company said. More here.

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Russian hackers stole classified data from NSA contractor

Russian government hackers stole data about how the US penetrates foreign computer networks and defends against cyberattacks after a National Security Agency contractor removed highly classified material and stashed it on his home computer, a new report said Thursday.

The hackers apparently targeted the contractor after identifying the files through the contractor’s use of an anti-virus software made by the Russia-based Kaspersky Lab, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the hacking.

Experts told the paper the hack was one of the most serious security breaches in years, and that it provided insight into how Russian intelligence exploits commercial software products to spy on the US.

The incident occurred in 2015 but wasn’t discovered until spring of last year, the sources told the WSJ.

The stolen material included details about how the NSA penetrates foreign computer networks, the computer code it uses for that kind of spying and how it defends American networks, the sources said.

The information could help the Russians guard their own networks, making it more difficult for American spooks to surveil Russia.

The breach was believed to be the first time that Kaspersky software, which is sold in the US, was exploited by Russian hackers as they spied on the US.

The revelation comes as special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the US election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

The president has called Russian hacking a “hoax” and “fake news” and slammed Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt.”

A spokesman for the NSA would not comment on the security breach.

“Whether the information is credible or not, NSA’s policy is never to comment on affiliate or personnel matters,” the spokseman told the paper.

In a statement, Kaspersky said it “has not been provided any information or evidence substantiating this alleged incident, and as a result, we must assume that this is another example of a false accusation.”

The NSA contractor in the Kaspersky incident was not known, and the company he worked for was not identified.

Sources told The Journal he is believed to have taken home numerous documents and other materials from NSA headquarters, possibly to continue working beyond his normal office hours.

The man apparently did not knowingly work for a foreign government, but knew that removing classified information without authorization was a violation of NSA policies and potentially a criminal act, the sources said.

 

Russian Ad: Black Woman Brandishing a Rifle

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Facebook is expected today to provide the US Congress with evidence concerning 2016 election ads purchased by Russia’s Internet Research Agency. Bots have become more visibly active in social media; their tendency has been to exacerbate conflict without much discernible interest in conflict’s outcome. US Senator Warner (D-Virginia), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, thinks social media have now become decidedly weaponized.

Congressional investigators could combine Facebook’s data with that which Twitter has pledged to provide. This includes data on 201 accounts suspected of having engaged in misinformation campaigns on Twitter, and $274,100 in spend on U.S. ads in 2016 by Russian government-linked news outlet Russia. More here.

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One of the 2016 election ads that Facebook sold to Russia-linked accounts showed the image of a black woman brandishing a rifle, an apparent attempt to stoke racial tensions in the U.S., according to The Washington Post.

The ad is among those that Facebook is handing over to Congress as part of the Russia investigation.

The Post reported that the ad showed the woman “dry firing” a rifle — meaning that she was pulling the trigger while the gun was unloaded.

None of the ads in the trove that Facebook is handing to Congress have been made public, though leaks have suggested that the ads were aimed at playing up divisive issues. More here from The Hill.

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“For the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring us together, I ask forgiveness and I will work to do better” Mark Zuckerberg posted to Facebook tonight on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. Yet first Facebook must redeem itself by recognizing how its dewy-eyed trust in the world can be abused.

Zuckerberg has recently faced stern criticism from liberals over Facebook’s failure to block fake news and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, while simultaneously having Facebook called “anti-Trump” by the President himself.

Today’s statement was met with mixed reactions, with some pointing out that Zuckerberg had listed himself as an atheist until late 2016 when he reaffirmed the Jewish faith in which he’d been raised.

“Oh former atheist Mark Zuckerberg, suddenly so religious now that he’s aiming for the world’s presidency. To make it very clear: no problem in being an atheist whatsoever; the problem is to use religion as a political tool” Brazilian ad platform Boo Box co-founder Marco Gomes tweeted.

“Forgiveness is denied by both. God and humanity, since you & Sheryl knew what was happening, condoned it, & then lied about both its existence and impact” tweeted Matt Ocko, partner at VC fund Data Collective. Journalists from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal cautiously shared Zuckerberg’s post without comment.

Facebook has shown significant progress in thwarting interference in elections in Germany and France, deleting malicious accounts and working closely with election commissions. But as more information about the extent of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential race emerges, Zuckerberg has come under additional fire.

Source: Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency + David Ramos/Getty Images

The company has repeatedly been warned of abuse and its inadequate responses, yet dismissed issues as edge-cases or bugs in its system. Back in 2015, Russian trolls attacked Ukrainian protesters with false reports of inappropriate content, causing their accounts to be taken down. Now news continues to unfold about Russians posting fake news and buying ads to stoke anti-immigrant sentiments in the US, discourage democrat voters, and further divide the country.

Matters worsened when Zuckerberg responded to Trump tweet that “Facebook was always anti-Trump” by saying “Trump says Facebook is against him. Liberals say we helped Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.”

That response derided critics as close-minded and washed over Facebook’s troubles as being inevitable while highlighting Facebook’s positive impacts on the election. It also cowed to Trump’s go-to tactic of bullying his opponents in hopes of receiving softer treatment. Zuckerberg was baited into positioning Facebook as neutral despite Russian election interference coming to the aide of Trump’s campaign.

By saying criticism comes from all-sides with Facebook in the middle instead of directly rebuking the President’s statement, Zuckerberg puts Facebook in a tenuous situation. If its internal investigation into election interference reports the Russians aided Trump, the President can merely dismiss it as the “anti-Trump” sentiment he warned about. More here.

US Shuttering Diplomatic and Tourism Operations in Cuba

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Twenty-one U.S. diplomatic personnel assigned to Cuba have been severely affected by some health condition with the cause still unknown officially. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson has issued travel warnings to Cuba for civilians and has ordered a large number of government personnel to leave the island. Cuba is allegedly cooperating in the investigation and for more than a year, there have been no clues or resolutions. The FBI additionally sent an expert team to Havana to investigate all associated locations including the housing where these attacks have occurred. The housing for diplomatic personnel is provided by Cuba and as with all laws and standards, the host country must provide safe conditions and be approved by the U.S. State Department.

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So, what are the likely explanations for U.S. personnel and Canadian personnel suffering from hearing loss, brain damage and even speech complications?

Well as submitted by former CIA official John Sipher, who has served in some hostile nations does offer some explanation(s) as to what those nations have history done to U.S. facilities.

During my time overseas, I have had personal experience with several of these “attacks.” In the 1980s and 1990s, the Soviet and then Russian intelligence services deployed doses of nitrophenyl pentaden (NPPD) against American diplomats whom they suspected of managing espionage operations against Russian interests. This so-called “spy dust” was an invisible electromagnetic powder with a customized chemical identifier. It was smeared onto door handles, furniture and cars of suspected American spy handlers. It was a tagging agent used by Russian security elements to covertly monitor their own community by revealing unreported (and potentially espionage related) contacts between Russian and American officials. It was somewhat ingenious. After deploying the invisible material on a suspected U.S. intelligence officer, Russian counter-intelligence would snoop after-hours through the offices of Russian government employees looking for traces of the material. Discovery of the powder in the office of someone who had not reported contact with the American provided significant proof of suspicious activity.

What was not ingenious, however, were the threats to human health. There were concerns at the time that the material was carcinogenic and could be harmful to American diplomats. Following studies, the United States determined there was no specific evidence of a threat to the U.S. diplomatic community since it was only used against a handful of people. As someone who was “dusted,” that explanation didn’t really make me feel much better. However, the substance was at least a step up from earlier Russian tracking devices like radioactive nails hammered into the tires of U.S. diplomatic vehicles, allowing Russian surveillance vehicles to hang back unseen and follow along by using special equipment to track targets’ tire residue.

The Russian security services were also known to flood the U.S. embassy in Moscow with electromagnetic radiation. They would beam concentrated microwaves and electronic pulses at the Embassy in an attempt to eavesdrop on U.S. typewriters and conversations. In the 1970s, a U.S. Ambassador contracted and died of a blood disease that many assumed to be a result of the attacks. The State Department detected high levels of radiation in the embassy staff, and provided hazard pay to personnel who worked in Moscow. A variety of electronic attacks continued over the years to include mobile Russian vans that acted as a giant x-ray that could be directed at diplomats all over town. In a similar fashion, high frequency devices can be used to pulse other devices, perhaps turning on or off collection devices in homes or offices.

Similarly, the Russian security services undertook a massive effort to bug the new embassy building in Moscow with all sorts of technical gear, some of which could potentially affect the health of Americans. Indeed, the new embassy construction was even abandoned in 1985 due to the sheer volume and sophistication of electronic eavesdropping equipment that was found throughout the walls, concrete floors and underground. A second attempt to improve the security of the building also faltered when the United States found an equally aggressive and sophisticated attack, which included building listening devices directly into the steel beams holding the building upright. Even the sidewalks and streets throughout the neighborhood were embedded with electronic collection gear which was designed to turn the embassy building into a giant antenna. The United States lost hundreds of millions of dollars trying to fix the problems, and eventually tore off the top several floors of the Embassy and rebuilt it with specially imported materials put together by American-only labor – an effort the U.S. called the “Top Hat” solution. The decades-long process displayed the remarkable expertise of the Russians in the use of technical sensors and surveillance gear. Russian technology was consistently underestimated by the U.S. and often our best scientists had difficulty understanding what the Russians were up to. Full article here.

photo courtesy CBS

Could Mr. Sipher be missing something or omitting something? Yes.

There is something called vibroacoustic syndrome—the effect of infrasonic output not on your hearing but on the various fluid-filled parts of your body, which can affect hearing and loss of balance.

The low frequency of infrasonic sound and its corresponding long wavelength makes it much more capable of bending around or penetrating your body, creating an oscillating pressure system. Depending on the frequency, different parts of your body will resonate, which can have very unusual non-auditory effects. For example, one of the ones that occur at relatively safe sound levels (< 100 dB) occurs at 19Hz. If you sit in front of a very good-quality subwoofer and play a 19Hz sound (or have access to a sound programmer and get an audible sound to modulate at 19Hz), try taking off your glasses or removing your contacts. Your eyes will twitch. If you turn up the volume so you start approaching 110 dB, you may even start seeing colored lights at the periphery of your vision or ghostly gray regions in the center. This is because 19Hz is the resonant frequency of the human eyeball. The low-frequency pulsations start distorting the eyeball’s shape and pushing on the retina, activating the rods and cones by pressure rather than light.* This non-auditory effect may be the basis of some supernatural folklore. In 1998, Tony Lawrence and Vic Tandy wrote a paper for the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (not my usual fare) called “Ghosts in the Machine,” in which they describe how they got to the root of stories of a “haunted” laboratory. People in the lab had described seeing “ghostly” gray shapes that disappeared when they turned to face them. Upon examining the area, it turned out that a fan was resonating the room at 18.98Hz, almost exactly the resonant frequency of the human eyeball. When the fan was turned off, so did all stories of ghostly apparitions. More here.

Going back as far as 1998, the Foreign Military Office at Fort Leavenworth published a short summary of what was described then as ‘wonder weapons’. In part:

A recent edition of U.S. News and World Report highlighted several of these “wonder weapons” (acoustics, microwaves, lasers) and noted that scientists are “searching the electromagnetic and sonic spectrums for wavelengths that can affect human behavior.” 3A recent Russian military article offered a slightly different slant to the problem, declaring that “humanity stands on the brink of a psychotropic war” with the mind and body as the focus. That article discussed Russian and international attempts to control the psycho-physical condition of man and his decision making processes by the use of VHF-generators, “noiseless cassettes,” and other technologies.

An entirely new arsenal of weapons, based on devices designed to introduce subliminal messages or to alter the body’s psychological and data processing capabilities, might be used to incapacitate individuals. These weapons aim to control or alter the psyche, or to attack the various sensory and data-processing systems of the human organism. In both cases, the goal is to confuse or destroy the signals that normally keep the body in equilibrium.

This article examines energy-based weapons, psychotropic weapons, and other developments designed to alter the ability of the human body to process stimuli. One consequence of this assessment is that the way we commonly use the term “information warfare” falls short when the individual soldier, not his equipment, becomes the target of attack.

A 2014 study in the journal Royal Society Open Science found that low-frequency sounds below the audible range could disrupt little whistles made by the ear, called spontaneous optoacoustic emissions, in response to noise. (How that mapped to symptoms, however, wasn’t clear.)

In this instance, one possibility is that the infrasound stimulated the part of the ear not dedicated to hearing — the vestibular system that controls balance, Liberman said. In that instance, the symptoms wouldn’t appear immediately.

“You could imagine them being very slow onset and very persistent,” Liberman said. “It might take days before you even notice any funny sensations.”

Sonic weapons

While the idea of a silent sonic weapon sounds like something out of James Bond, Inspector Gadget or the reject pile of DARPA, the idea of using sound as a weapon has a long history.

For instance, studies show that animals exposed to high-intensity, focused ultrasound can experience lung and brain damage. And a cruise line circling the pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast has taken to using a military-grade “sonic weapon” to deter would-be hijackers, the BBC reported. This long-range device, also known as a sound cannon, can cause permanent hearing loss at distances of up to 984 feet (300 meters), according to the BBC. Other companies have developed a magnetic acoustic device, commonly referred to as a sound laser , that deploys incredibly painful, focused beams of sound to deter people from an area, NPR reported. The Israeli army has also used a device known as “The Scream,” which damages the inner ear, causing nausea and dizziness, Wired reported. More here from FNC.

There is more going on than is being reported. Further, I would be asking all allied nations to Cuba that have access to Cuba what they know and I would be challenging all SIGINT communications on the island…surely there is chatter about this very event. Since there are some Canadian personnel involved, has Canada made any inquiries and launched investigations? Crickets…

 

 

Russia Bought BLM Ads Dupes Were Willing

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This website has published countless articles warning of these operations going back as far as 2014. This site has also warned of Russian hybrid warfare as noted by the Gerasimov Doctrine.

Russian State, Non-State Cyber Intrusions Sway Voting/Political Decisions

Russian Troll Operations Continue, What are You Reading?

During the campaign season, the Obama White House knew more than they were telling or sharing. Furthermore, that same White House refused to take any real action with regard to Russian interference.

Huddled in a private room on the sidelines of a meeting of world leaders in Lima, Peru, two months before Trump’s inauguration, Obama made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously. Unless Facebook and the government did more to address the threat, Obama warned, it would only get worse in the next presidential race.

Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem posed by fake news. But he told Obama that those messages weren’t widespread on Facebook and that there was no easy fix, according to people briefed on the exchange, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of a private conversation. More here.

Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

ChicagoTribune: The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African-American rights groups including Black Lives Matter and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics — also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

These targeted messages, along with others that have surfaced in recent days, highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups already wary of one another.

The nature and detail of these ads has troubled investigators at Facebook, on Capitol Hill and at the U.S. Justice Department, say people familiar with the advertisements who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share matters still under investigation.

The House and Senate Intelligence committees plan to begin reviewing the Facebook ads in coming weeks as they attempt to untangle the operation and other matters related to Russia’s bid to help elect Trump in 2016.

“Their aim was to sow chaos,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “In many cases, it was more about voter suppression rather than increasing turnout.”

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said he hoped the public would be able to review the ad campaign.

“I think the American people should see a representative sample of these ads to see how cynical the Russian were using these ads to sow division within our society,” he said, noting that he had not yet seen the ads but had been briefed on them, including the ones mentioning “things like Black Lives Matter.”

The ads which Facebook found raise troubling questions for a social networking and advertising platform that reaches two billion people each month and offer a rare window into how Russian operatives carried out their information operations during an especially tumultuous period in U.S. politics.

Investigators at Facebook discovered the Russian ads in recent weeks, the company has said, after months of trying in vain to trace disinformation efforts back to Russia. The company has said it had identified at least $100,000 in ads purchased through 470 phony Facebook pages and accounts. Facebook has said this spending represented a tiny fraction of the political advertising on the platform for the 2016 campaign.

The previously-undisclosed ads suggest that Russian operatives worked off of evolving lists of racial, religious, political and economic themes. They used these to create pages, write posts and craft ads that would appear in user’s news feeds — with the apparent goal of appealing to one audience and alienating another. In some cases, the pages even tried to organize events.

“The idea of using Facebook to incite anti-black hatred and anti-Muslim prejudice and fear while provoking extremism is an old tactic. It’s not unique to the United States and it’s a global phenomenon,” said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, California. and the executive director for the Center for Media Justice. Social media companies “have a mandate to standup and take deep responsibility for how their platforms are being abused.”

Facebook declined to comment on the contents of the ads being turned over to congressional investigators, and pointed to a Sept. 6 statement by Alex Stamos, the company’s chief security officer, who noted that the vast majority of the ads run by the 470 pages and accounts did not specifically reference the U.S. presidential election, voting or any particular candidate.

“Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the idealogical spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights,” Stamos said at the time.

Moscow’s interest in U.S. race relations date back decades.

In Soviet times, operatives didn’t have the option of using the Internet, so they spread their messages by taking out ads in newspapers, posting fliers and organizing meetings.

Much like the online ads discovered by Facebook, messages spread by Soviet-era operatives were meant to look as though they were written by bonafide political activists in the United States, thereby disguising the involvement of an adversarial foreign power.

Russian information operations didn’t end with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After a lull in tensions, Russia’s spy agencies became more assertive under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin. In recent years, those services have updated their propaganda protocols to take advantage of new technologies and the proliferation of social media platforms.

“Is it a goal of the Kremlin to encourage discord in American society? The answer to that is yes,” said former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. “More generally, Putin has an idea that our society is imperfect, that our democracy is not better than his, so to see us in conflict on big social issues is in the Kremlin’s interests.”

Clinton Watts, part of a research team that was among the first to warn publicly of the Russian propaganda campaign during the 2016 election, said that identifying and exploiting existing social and cultural divisions are common Russian disinformation tactics dating back to the Cold War.

“We have seen them operating on both sides” said Watts, a fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a former FBI agent.

When Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his college dorm room in 2004, no one could have anticipated the company would become an advertising juggernaut worth almost half a trillion dollars — the largest online advertising company in the world after Google. Roughly a third of the world’s population now log in monthly.

As Facebook’s user base rapidly expanded, it wrote the playbook for digital targeting in the smartphone era — and for the type of micro-targeting that has become critical to modern political campaigns.

The social network invested heavily in building highly-sophisticated automated advertising tools that could target specific groups of people who had expressed their preferences and interests on Facebook, from newlyweds who studied at Dartmouth College to hockey enthusiasts living in a particular zip code in Michigan.

The migration from traditional personal computers to smartphones and tablets also helped Facebook gain a major edge: The company pioneered techniques to help advertisers reach the same user on their desktop and mobile devices, leading Facebook to grow seven-fold in its value since it went public in 2012. Today, advertisers who want to target Facebook users by demographics or interests have tens of thousands of categories to choose from, and they are able to flood users with ads wherever they go on the Internet.

Unlike most websites, where ads appear alongside content, ads on Facebook have directly appeared in people’s newsfeeds since 2012. If users like a page, the administrators of that page can pay for ads and post content that will then appear in the cascade of information from publishers and friends that users see right away when they log onto Facebook.

Since the 2012 presidential election, Facebook has become an essential tool for political campaigns that wish to target potential voters. During the height of election season, political campaigns are among the largest advertisers on Facebook. Facebook has built a large sales staff of account executives, some of whom have backgrounds in politics, that are especially trained to assist campaigns in spreading their messages, increasing engagement, and getting immediate feedback on how they are performing.

The Trump campaign used these tools to great effect, while Clinton’s campaign preferred to rely on its own social media experts, according to people familiar with the campaigns.

Since taking office, Putin has on occasion sought to spotlight racial tensions in the United States as a means of shaping perceptions of American society.

Putin injected himself in 2014 into the race debate after protests broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an African-American, by a police officer who was white.

“Do you believe that everything is perfect now from the point of view of democracy in the United States?” Putin told CBS’ 60 Minutes. “If everything was perfect, there wouldn’t be the problem of Ferguson. There would be no abuse by the police. But our task is to see all these problems and respond properly.”

In addition to the ads described to The Post, Russian operatives used Facebook to promote anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim messages. Facebook has said that one-quarter of the ads bought by the Russian operatives identified so far were targeted to a particular geographic area.

While Facebook has downplayed the impact of the Russian ads on the election, Dennis Yu, chief technology officer for BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that focuses on Facebook ads, said that $100,000 worth of Facebook ads could have been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

“$100,000 worth of very concentrated posts is very, very powerful,” he said. “When you have a really hot post, you often get this viral multiplier. So when you buy this one ad impression, you can get an extra 20- to 40-times multiplier because those people comment and share it.”

Watts, the Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow, has not seen the Facebook ads promised to Congress, but he and his team saw similar tactics playing out on Twitter and other platforms during the campaign.

Watts said such efforts were most likely to have been effective in mid-Western swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, where Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders had beaten Clinton. Watts said the disinformation pushed by the Russians includes messages designed to reinforce the idea that Sanders had been mistreated by the Democratic Party and that his supporters shouldn’t bother to vote during the general election in November.

“They were designed around hitting these fracture points, so they could see how they resonate and assess their effectiveness,” Watts said. “I call it reconnaissance by social media.”