Recently, it came in the news that some fake social media accounts, originating from China, have caused a Canadian rare earth mineral supplier a very difficult time. Most of the time, the best way to deal with fake accounts and bots is to ignore them, but this is not a good option this time around. In this short article series, I will try to give an in-depth explanation of how these attacks work, why they matter, and what we can do to protect clean technology from our use.
How the internet is failing us
There’s an old saying, “If it’s on the internet, it must be true.”
Although you can find a lot of good information on the internet, there is also a lot of rubbish. Where are you going to get a lot of the spiritual cyber junk food? Social media. Everyone is an expert, and the real experts do not know what they are talking about. Not only will wind turbines never produce more energy than it takes to build them, but it will cause cancer to start. EVs? They’re all over $ 100k, they can only go 20 miles on a charge, and they run on powdered coal that you throw in their electric gasoline tank. Oh, and if you have to defend yourself, use wasp spray (if you did not know, wasp spray does not work on anything but wasps).
But let’s assume you’re a sophisticated reader (hey, it’s CleanTechnica, so it can happen), and you’re too smart to fall for internet bulls and old woman stories. But you do know that you can get an idea of what the general mood in a society is based on watching people say, right? Even if they are stupid, would you think peeking on social media and seeing what stupid things are said gives you the ability to “read the room”, right?
Unfortunately, there is also a meme (well, actually a cartoon) for it: “On the internet, no one knows you are a dog.”
Fake people with bad intentions
While my cats do occasionally use the internet (mostly to make typos in my articles that I need to correct, or to watch videos of birds and fish that I put on to watch them pop up on my phone), I did never seen a dog used. the internet as I or you would. But, that’s not the point. The point is, you never really know who or what is on the other end of the conversation.
We all like to think we are attractive and cool people. Some of our attractive and cool people are also, without our own fault, kind of lonely and need company. So when a lonely 40-something lady gets a message from a very handsome and attractive 25-year-old major general doing bodybuilding in his spare time, or an aging man gets a message from a 30-year-old woman whose husband just died and left her a million dollars, we would like to think we are good enough to get attention from such impossibly happy and attractive potential mates. And, when they need our help to get plane tickets to meet us, some of us will gladly fork over the dough for true love.
But the people on the other hand are probably young Nigerian men working for a scammer, and they are definitely not going to use that money to buy a plane ticket to meet you. Or, if you’m gay and looking for love, it’s sometimes a violent fanatic who tries to lure you in for a beating or murder. O rower. Or a rapist. Or any other number of fake people with bad intentions.
And it works, over and over and over again, because there is something about the internet that shows us what we want to see instead of questioning everything and seeking better information as we should.
Oddly enough, internet deception is now a weapon of war
“Nobody needs an AR-15!” people on the internet say now. “They are weapons of war! Get them off our streets !!! ” After all, we only had musketeers that could shoot at most 3 shots per minute in 1791, right? They did not suggest a gun that could fire 30+ rounds in seconds, the argument goes.
But chances are good that you’re still holding a weapon of war in your hands, or it’s sitting in front of you on a desk: your phone, tablet, phablet, laptop or computer.
We only had slow and expensive printing presses and spring pens in the day, and what you have in front of you can literally reach millions of people if you use it right. It is a high capacity word throwing machine that is capable of throwing out anywhere from 15 to 200 words every sixty seconds if you know how to type. You can also make emotionally-manipulative videos, podcasts, and all kinds of spiritual treats for people to eat with a little training.
However, I’m not here to make an argument about the Second Amendment. The important point I want to make is older than the internet: the pen can be more powerful than the sword, and our internet-connected devices are all high-capacity assault pins with magic ink.
You have the “AR-15” of communication in your pocket. In the right hands, people can wreak havoc, and they do it every day. But, what would happen if someone assembled an entire army of people doing bad things on their computers and phones?
“The art of war is the art of deception”
There are tons of stupid “Confucius says …” jokes out there, but the above is a true quote by an ancient Chinese, commonly known in English today as Sun Tzu. While most readers will misspell his name, the most important thing to remember is that Sun Tzu wrote an important book called The art of war.
Some people will tell you that reading a bad translation of the book from decades ago will give you secret insight into the inner workings of “Red China” or “those Communist Gentiles”, but that’s a lot of shit. A book from the Warring States Period would be an impossible stupid place to hide state secrets from a government that established itself in 1949, and on top of that, everyone now has a copy, or can read it online for free. But the book gives smart people ideas that they can use not only in warfare but also in other competitive areas of life, such as business. It can also give you some insight into Chinese culture, as it is a very influential book such as the Five Classics and the Four Books, or the Dao De Jing (a fundamental text in Taoism).
Read more in Part 2 …
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