MisinfoSec (The Intersection of Misinformation and InfoSec)
Co-chairs: Sara-Jayne Terp, Christopher R. Walker
Former Co-chair: John Gray
Members: Olya Gurevich, Courtney Crooks, Pablo Breuer, Chau Tong, David Black
The CredCo Misinfosec Working Group (“wg-misinfosec”) aims to develop a framework for the understanding of organized communications attacks (disinformation, misinformation and network propaganda). Specifically we would like to promote a more formal and rigorous treatment of
- Types of information-based attacks; and
- Types of defense from information-based attacks
Among the operating assumptions of the group will that social and cognitive factors can "scale up and down" within the framework -- facilitating some definitional and procedural crossover in both the construction of a framework for understanding these attacks and in their detection. In this sense scales might be formulated as:
- ACTIONS: What are the atomic "actions" in propaganda attacks?
- TACTICS: How do actions combine to form larger events, including more complex actions and "attacks"?
- STRATEGY: How do the instances of attacks and actions combine to form "campaigns".
The main objectives or the group will be to:
Define major terms of art at focal points on the scale, with an emphasis on descriptive or procedural rigor; Outline the state-of-the-art "Blue Team" options for defense and counter-attack
Ratified by acclamation, January 10, 2019
Here are some resources you may find useful.
This blog post from Sara-Jayne does a good job setting the scene.
This blog post tells you where we are in Summer 2019.
Definitions and examples at all scales of the misinfosec domain.
Refine the framework from 30K feet: Are the focal points on the scale correct? Starting from Tim Boucher's medium post on tactics, finalize set ACTIONS to define and propose strawman definitions for each.
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Identify deployments of the defined ACTIONS within more complex ACTIONS and ATTACKS:
Find examples of real ATTACK complexes https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/1067786289871810562 https://www.lawfareblog.com/developing-responses-cyber-enabled-information-warfare-and-influence-operations
Formulate examples of likely, but unseen ATTACK complexes
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Attempt to situate ATTACKS within larger CAMPAIGN types, typically operating over months or years
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Attempt to formulate DEFENSE and COUNTERATTACK tactics and strategies based on: structural properties of the attacks; or successful defenses and counter-attacks exhibited in the wild
More concretely, the working group will produce:
- A text resource consisting of definitions and a strawman framework combining the elements above;
- A blog post highlighting some common attacks in the wild
In addition, the working group may produce:
- A blog post highlighting a successful defense in the wild
- A blog post on the framework documents
This working group is currently scheduled to meet for a 6-month time period: from December 2018 until June 2019; review of scope and extension to timeline will be reviewed in April-May 2019.
Timely delivery of the products mentioned above, participation in working groups, positively contributing to working group discussions and actively sharing findings with the broader CredCo community are indicators of success.
All of our working documents will be publicly accessible via our shared Google Drive folder for the 6 month duration of this working group, though not actively publicized. You should be okay with public attribution of your work in the form of blog posts or publications.
The working group will be holding weekly meetings at the same time. Notes will be taken from each meeting. We also have a Slack channel for regular communications, research brainstorming and sharing of relevant resources.
Any interested new participants can join the group at any time. The purpose and research agenda of the group is defined by this document and will only be changed with the approval of all group members.
Weekly planning meeting occurs Thursday after the CredCo telecon, please contact the co-chairs for more information.
Anyone can join the working group after reviewing and consenting to the working group charter. Any interested new participants can email someone already involved for more information.
