MayorTroy is not here for the next quarterly earnings report, the inevitable fall of the trump towers, or which of the 23 presidential candidates in the clown car are going to do battle with the conservative dark side of the force.
I’m here to play the long game, and this game involves some information weed control, or as local cryptographer Bruce Schneier puts it, an information operations kill chain.
On a similar note, it’s time to conceptualize the “information operations kill chain.” Information attacks against democracies, whether they’re attempts to polarize political processes or to increase mistrust in social institutions, also involve a series of steps. And enumerating those steps will clarify possibilities for defense.
I first heard of this concept from Anthony Soules, a former National Security Agency (NSA) employee who now leads cybersecurity strategy for Amgen. He used the steps from the 1980s Russian “Operation Infektion,” designed to spread the rumor that the U.S. created the HIV virus as part of a weapons research program. A 2018 New York Times opinion video series on the operation described the Russian disinformation playbook in a series of seven “commandments,” or steps. The information landscape has changed since 1980, and information operations have changed as well.
This isn’t about stamping out bad information sown by our enemies. This is about how our culture and community can grow better information and share it with each other, and most importantly, how do we go about evaluating the information we receive each day.
How does it impact the most important vote that we have, the votes we make every day, with every dollar we spend. Do you know what unconscious bias and hostile propaganda went into that decision on where to buy your food?
While you’re thinking about that, I’ll be working on financing a farm and my next campaign.
Mayor Troy 