Clint Watts -- Messing with the enemy
=======================================

There are several important topics packed into "Messing with the
enemy".  (1) There is the account, and a bit of bragging, of Watts's
attempts to understand the intelligence operations of those who are
attempting to combat the U.S.A., to embarrass it, to turn opinion
against it.  (2) There is an evaluation of recent actors in the
U.S.A. government, especially Watts's opinion that those at the
highest levels of the U.S.A. government are incompetent, not very
bright, and bad actors.

Watts begins by trying to prove his "creds": he tells a few tales
that show that his field is intelligence and counter-intelligence,
information and counter-information.  The counter-information aspect
is important, because, later in "Messing with the enemy" he is going
to be advising us about what can and cannot be trusted on the
Internet and on social media and what we can do to avoid being
fooled and tricked.

In addition to learning something from Watts about *how not* to use
the Internet, there is also a good deal to be learned about *how* to
use the internet.  Some terrorist groups have become expert at that,
and it's helpful to learn from them.

Watts is aware of the ideas in "The wisdom of crowds", by James
Surowiecki, but Watts seems to believe that they have valid
application in a restricted set of cases.  He also believes that
those ideas can be used to determine things about the behavior of
terrorists (and others, also, I suppose) and that the Internet can
be very helpful in that kind of detective work.

In fact, "the Internet changes everything", might be a good
sub-title for Watts's book.  For example, according to Watts, more
and more of what used to be considered classified information is
available on the Web.

When you combine the above two (using crowds and using sensitive
information available on the Internet), you get a kind of open
source effort at intelligence counter-intelligence,
counter-information, etc.  There are portions of "Messing with the
enemy" that describe Watts's efforts to trick Internet hackers and
to trick some of the people who spread mis-information and who
influence opinions through the use of fake accounts on social media
Web sites.

Some are already (or belatedly) wising up to the need for all of us
to learn to be more knowledgeable and intelligent in recognizing what
is and isn't bogus on the Web and in social media.  In fact, a New
York Times article described efforts of the French government to
school all or most French children in how to be more intelligent and
skeptical users of the Internet and the Web.  I'm betting that Watts
would be in favor of those kinds of efforts. (see N.Y. Times,
12/14/2018, p. B1)

Behind a good deal of Watts's thinking is an understanding of
biases, what common kinds of biases we're susceptible to, how to try
to counteract them, etc.  Anyone who wants help with this, and we
all should, needs to read "Thinking, fast and slow", by Daniel
Kahneman.  Kahneman has done a good deal of thinking about biases
and how we can try to protect ourselves from them, although he is
not very hopeful that we can.

Watts has plenty of dire warnings about the efforts of Russian
operatives and hackers to influence opinion in the U.S.A. and to
influence elections and to create division, doubt, and distrust of
U.S.A.'s political institutions.  But, he believes that just as
worrisome will be the uses of these mis-information tactics by
political campaigns within the U.S.A.  Our own politicians are sure
to attempt learns lessons from Russian hackers, as are political
operatives who will offer their services to those politicians.

Watts believes that we (the U.S.A.) are not putting enough money
into counterintelligence and counter-information operations; (2)
that the money are resources that we do put into it are being wasted
because we're disorganized and too bureaucratic; (3) that we will
not be able to improve this until we learn what we want to say and
that we will only do that when we learn what we believe; (4) that
those working on these projects are smart but are mostly busy trying
to follow the rules of official projects, in particular are not free
to say and promote what they believe.

Did Trump collude with the Russians?  Watts seems to be saying that
it was not collusion, exactly: Trump's attitudes and opinions align
with the Kremlin on views and policies; Trump is a political (and
other) opportunist and his behavior is consistent with the deal
making that he follows and espouses; and he and those whom he has
surrounded himself with are incompetent and gullible.  But, although
it may not have been blatant "let's make a deal" style of collusion,
the maneuvering in step with the Russians accomplished the same
thing without breaking the law in an overtly visible way.  Trump's
team may not have signed an agreement with the Russians, but they
understood what they needed to do go get the Russians' help to win
the election.  Perhaps the Russians do have incriminating evidence
that they could use to pressure Trump to follow policies that are
favorable to them, but there is really no reason to risk doing so.
A little persuasion and a few hints, gets them what they want from
Trump without exposing themselves.  From the Russian point of view,
Trump is a "useful idiot".

Trump is greedy and dumb.  He is exactly the kind of person that the
Russians want to deal with.  Even better yet from the Russian point
of view is that he surrounds himself with greedy and dumb people.

A good deal of "Messing with the enemy" is a critique and warnings
about what the Internet and social media is doing to us and what it
enables us to do, but that we should not want to be able to do.  The
Internet gives us choices and it divides us.  The Internet supports
confirmation bias, and enables us to believe that we know more than
we really do.  Filter bubbles and communities on the Web and social
media encourage us to block out information that might change our
minds or that would lead us to believe something that disagrees with
our (online) crowd.  These filter bubbles, online communities,
biases, etc. are fragmenting the world and the people in it.  They
make it much more difficult for people who are not in close
agreement to cooperate and compromise.  And, instead of making us
smarter, they are making us dumber.  For more explanation of this,
see "The filter bubble", by Eli Pariser.

Democracy dies in filter bubbles.  Moreover, online media and social
media and mobile phones enable those filter bubbles.

Our politicians in the U.S.A. are exacerbating the effects of filter
bubbles.  Whereas in earlier (better?) times, after winning an
election, our leaders in Congress would seek reconciliation and
would move toward the center.  Now, more often than not, while in
office they each continue to use inflammatory language to pull in
support from their "base" and they act and vote in more extreme
positions in attempts to fend of competition and criticism from the
extremes.  This is especially true of Republicans.

And, we citizens are likely the cause of this movement to the
extremes and the fringe.  Increasingly, we all live in filter
bubbles; we talk and associate only with those who are like us and
who share our values.  We "self-sort".  See "The Big Sort: Why the
Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart", by Bill
Bishop.

Perhaps another way to think of it is that online social media is a
machine that creates confirmation bias: it encourages us to group
together with only those who agree with us; it enables us to avoid
information, arguments and ideas that we disagree with and that
might give us doubts about what we already have decided we want to
believe; it enables us to easily find others who confirm our
beliefs.  It does this by pulling us into digital tribes.  Digital
tribes make decisions based on group-think; tribes block out
alternative view-points, new information, and foreign ideas.

Trump is very capable at playing into and catering to his audience's
preferences.  This works especially well with people who spend their
online lives in a filter bubble.  Trump creates the filter bubble
they want: he promotes what his base wants to hear, regardless of
whether it makes sense from the point of view of governance.  Trump
promotes and encourages doubt and loss of confidence in the U.S.A.
legal system and political system and election system.  The Russians
behind their hacking efforts must be very happy with that.  So, if
you are going to try to avoid being mislead by social media and fake
news, then you have both Trump *and* the Russian working against
you.  You can expect other politicians in the U.S.A.  to follow this
same strategy and path soon.  And, like most things where money is
involved and is available, there will soon be, if there is not
already, an industry engaged in doing this; there will be plenty of
people with experience and skills in conducting mis-information and
online influence campaigns and they will be available or hire.
Moreover, there will be a (hidden) elite willing to pay them for
their services.

Watts has several suggestions for what to do about this problem, for
example: (1) The U.S. Congress should pass regulations that impose
the same requirements on social media and online political messages
as are imposed on political messages on other media (e.g. TV, radio,
newspapers, etc.). And, (2) the U.S. Congress should stop the
rollback of net neutrality.

Watts also has suggestions for how we can try to protect ourselves
online: (1) Spend less time online, or better yet, do not buy a
computer.  (2) Get outside your own filter bubble; look for
alternative points of view; read content that you *disagree* with.
(3) Use what Watts calls CMPP: pay attention to the Competency of
the author; pay attention to the Motivation of the author; be aware
of the Product and the type of media; and attempt to understand the
Process and how the content you read was acquired and produced.

Watts worries that counter-information and hacking techniques are
becoming easier to do.  In fact, some hacking tools have been
open-sourced and made freely available.  Even more alarming: there
are schools for doing this kind of thing.  You can get a college
degree and a job at this.  Currently, in order to get that kind of
education, it helps to move to the Ukraine.  But, I wonder how long
it will be before we have mis-information-hacking boot camps in the
U.S.A.  This is not going to go away; it's not going to get better.
The hope that we can all remain dumb while the social media
platforms implement smart AI tools that save us from our own
stupidity "is a fool's dream".  Hoping that this protection will
happen for us is irresponsible.  As more information and more books
like "Messing with the enemy" become available, and they will, we
can expect to see more of it and to see the capabilities improve, to
become more effective and to become more difficult to defend
against.  Social media "bots" will become more human like, more
realistic, and more difficult to distinguish from real humans.

Watts has given us warnings; it's up to each of us to begin acting
so as to protect ourselves.

For more from Watts, see:

- His blog -- https://twitter.com/selectedwisdom

- His article --
  https://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/

12/21/2018

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