OPINION | In Info Warfare, Common People Are Not Just Victims But Also Weapons

In 2008, centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant started crashing. The breakdown seemed random, some centrifuges spinning too fast and others too slow. This continued over the next two years, affecting nearly 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges which were working on Uranium purification.

It is now common knowledge that this was the result of a secret US and Israeli effort to cripple Iran’s nuclear programme by introducing a worm which affected the centrifuge controllers.

This is considered the first known use of an offensive cyber-weapon by one country against another. The fact that the worm broke loose, and, known as Stuxnet, replicated itself across millions of computers around the world (India was the third-most affected country) shows the difficulty of harnessing and controlling cyber-weapons.

Estonia was blitzed in 2007 by what is known as Web War 1. Computer attacks swamped websites of government ministries, the parliament, newspapers and banks. Considered the most wired country in Europe, Estonia was overwhelmed by nearly 1 million hijacked computers from around the world sending traffic into the country.

Last year, a group of hackers called Shadow Brokers started releasing classified details of cyber-weapons developed by the US National Security Agency, and put them up for auction. Not only has it embarrassed the US government, but has made sophisticated cyber tools available to anyone willing to pay the price.

These incidents show the visible side of cyber-warfare that could shut down power plants or cripple commerce through a massive cyber-attack. This scenario occupies our maximum attention. Computer Emergency Response Teams have been set up, networks air-gapped and organisations created to ensure that critical infrastructure like communications, energy, transportation, military, the government and finance sector is protected. We will get better at this effort as the days go by.

There is also a not so visible face, though equally perilous. It is the vulnerability of people and society to the use of information as a weapon. This information warfare plays out in the minds of the population and has a long term impact on the polity and character of nation states.

In the 2016 US elections, there were allegations of Russia spreading posts on social media to influence voters. Investigations are yet to determine the extent of success of Russian efforts, but it has raised many questions about how cultural faults in a society can be exploited by our adversaries. This is a serious national security threat.

Every time we do any kind of activity on our computers or smartphones, we generate data points that reveal more about ourselves — our characteristics, preferences and desires. Facebook can accurately predict your personality based only on your ‘likes’.

In India, this sensitive personal data is even more vulnerable because of an absence of data privacy laws. We can be quite certain that a lot of it is already in the hands of countries inimical to India.

Information warfare does not require highly sophisticated cyber tools or technically trained experts. Its medium is the social media and its soldiers are not in uniform, but an army of trolls and bots. It exploits the highly advanced algorithms of Facebook and Google to feed targeted messages based on one’s profile. Sometimes all it takes is money.

Facebook has admitted that Russian-backed accounts spent about $100,000 on 3,000 Facebook advertisements intended to spread misinformation during the US elections. These could have been viewed by as many as 146 million Americans. The social media has been ‘weaponised’.

In The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, Robert D. Kaplan writes, “The media amplify presentness, the rage and ecstasy and virtue...of the present moment, for good and for bad. In other words, politics in the mass media age will be more intense than anything we have experienced, because the past and future will have been obliterated.”

It is today’s post, today’s tweet that has an immediate impact. The resultant chain of events which can be sparked off does not even spare eminent personalities like the previous or present Prime Ministers. Come tomorrow and it will a different story, but equally vicious.

There is another unique facet to this warfare. We, the common men and women, are both the victim as well as the weapon. We are victims of disinformation, propaganda, post-truth, fake news, or even real news cloaked in the personal conviction of the news anchor.

We are also the weapon because we help create the Twitter storms without checking the veracity of the information, after adding our own personal opinions. These opinions sometimes take the extreme shape of hate filled messages.

Every society has some divisions in it. The weaponised social media, with our fingers on the trigger, sharpens this divide till it becomes a chasm. Gilad Lotan, in an article titled Fake News Is Not the Only Problem, wrote, “With increased political polarisation, amplified by homophily  —  our preference to connect to people like us — and algorithmic recommender systems, we’re effectively constructing our own realities.”

Social media was meant to connect people, enhance bonds and share joyful memories. It certainly has many positives, but there is also a dark side. Social media is being used for radicalisation, political manipulation, spreading fake news and to deepen divisions in society.

In November 2017, Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice president of Facebook, claimed that the platform was a threat to its users and society. He stated, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works.”

National security is not merely the defence of our borders but the protection of India’s character, values and its people. The government certainly has a role but we must all play our part. We have to live with the reality that social media is now a part of our lives but we can certainly check facts, fight disinformation and not unwittingly become a part of the army of trolls. We also have to banish the beast within us.

(The author is former Northern Commander, Indian Army, under whose leadership India carried out surgical strikes against Pakistan in 2016. Views are personal.)