Ejércitos Magazine | Focus

Fake Elon Musk video produced by generative AI

The potential of generative AI as a deception tool

15/03/2024 Josue Exposito

Artificial Intelligence hides enormous potential when it comes to implementing disinformation operations. This is true both for government agencies and, increasingly, for criminal organizations, insurgent groups, and even ordinary citizens. A problem that has multiplied since Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI), capable of creating images and videos from textual content, allows sharing content that is very difficult to discriminate by those who view it. All of which will force the development of new control tools, including the one that will have to be established over companies in the sector. The 21st century has been burdened since its beginning by a strong component of technological development. Especially, the recent evolution experienced by Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI) clearly shows a change of cycle in terms of the improvement of computing capabilities. The unprecedented leap in automation [Keep reading…]

Well-known Soviet propaganda poster in which a proletarian holds a book on "Marxism-Leninism" under a flag bearing the motto "Our union is indestructible." Source - Artpal

Russian books and propaganda

08/11/2023 Christian D. Villanueva López

During the Cold War, periodically, books appeared both in the United States and in the countries of Western Europe - although not only, since the phenomenon also occurred in the Soviet Union, in China and among the non-aligned - that were simply At first glance they seemed serious and rigorous but, after a leisurely analysis, they revealed more malicious intentions. Some of them were the spontaneous work of authors who really had certain beliefs and defended them motu proprio through their pen. Many others, however, had been written and financed by intelligence services on both sides. A practice that for a time fell into relative disuse, but that little by little seems to be returning. On some occasions we have spoken, regarding the Russian conception of Information Warfare, about the concept of "active measures." These were defined in their day by the extinct [Keep reading…]

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Proposal for a disinformation model based on LLM agents

20/07/2023 Juan Luis Chulilla

Large language models (Large Language Model or LLM) allow artificial intelligence (AI) systems to simulate human responses with remarkable competence, to the point that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from those that a real interlocutor would give us. bone. Using an appropriate model, capable of taking advantage of the advantages they offer, LLM agents coordinated by humans could multiply the impact of disinformation campaigns on social networks. Whether or not we are willing to use these tools against our enemies, the one described in this article is, in any case, a fearsome scenario for which we must prepare ourselves... Before starting, we must do a small abstraction exercise and go back in an imaginary spaceship until the digital “Middle Ages”, that is, until the year of our Lord 2017. At that time, some gallant researchers from Facebook FAIR carried out an experiment that, apparently, [Keep reading…]

Demonstration in response to the 17-A attacks. Source - Barcelona City Council.

Design of strategic communication in jihadist attacks: the case of 17-A

08/05/2023 Daniel Pérez García

If communication is a fundamental element of the broad phenomenon of jihadist terrorism, it must also be a fundamental element of the response in anti-terrorist policy. Given that current jihadist organizations have developed a high level of professionalization in their propaganda, not seen before, the planning of strategic communication against terrorism and crisis management in jihadist attacks is becoming more and more important. Through the experience of the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in 2017, we will analyze what the implementation, both preventive and reactive, of this specific area of political and institutional communication in the face of jihadism is like. 1. Introduction The attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils on August 17 and 18, 2017 are part of a wave of jihadist attacks on European soil – initiated after the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015 – and at a time of boom in [Keep reading…]

The risks of digital democracies

23/09/2022 Silas García Rosado

Digital democracies, understood not only as those that are digitizing the voting process, but also as those in which citizens have broad access to the Internet, run the double risk of being attacked both during the holding of the elections themselves, through cyberattacks, such as through disinformation campaigns. Given that digitalization - at least in some aspects - does not seem reversible, protective measures will have to be established to prevent a repeat of what happened in electoral campaigns such as the 2016 US election or the May 2019 elections to the European Parliament. Virtually all electoral systems in democratic countries predate the Internet and social networks, so they were obviously not originally designed to prevent possible external interference. Until just a decade ago it was unthinkable that a State could deploy an influence operation on the electorate of a country. [Keep reading…]

IS-K propaganda

19/08/2022 Daniel Pérez García

A year after the departure of international troops from Afghanistan, the Daesh affiliate in the country and in Central Asia has reinforced its propaganda strategy. To this end, IS-K has launched a new propaganda manual in English about its organization and two new local and regional media. With this, IS-K wants to amplify its agenda to oversize its international information presence and increase the recruitment of new jihadists willing to mobilize to areas of Central Asia to fight for their organization. The rise and expansion of Daesh's proxy in Central Asia allows the organization to pivot between areas of influence and expand its influence towards the Asian continent. As one year passes since the departure of international coalition troops from Afghanistan, the Asian country is once again the focus of attention and analysis of the current situation of jihadism. [Keep reading…]

Disinformation operations in cyberspace

23/06/2022 Silas García Rosado

In the era of communications, where social networks have taken on a particularly relevant role in Western societies, together with the phenomenon of cyberattacks, an even more intangible security vulnerability has been confirmed: the existence of disinformation campaigns in the cyberspace in order to modify public opinion and currents of thought in society. However, despite its new propagation vector in the cyber domain (social networks), the phenomenon of disinformation is not a new tool in conflicts. Already in the 1933th century BC. Chinese General Sun Tzu pointed out that “the art of war is deception.” (Sun Tzu). And closer to our time, between the years 1945 and XNUMX, we could appreciate all the power of disinformation as a weapon of war by studying the figure of Joseph Goebbles, minister for [Keep reading…]

The propaganda wars

18/06/2022 Elena María Labrado Calera

The evolution of international events increasingly places the African continent at the center. Place to which world powers move their struggles for resources, power and influence. Some struggles that require control of the story to improve their results in a hyperconnected and globalized world. This article will give a brief review of how Russia deploys some of its tools and communication campaigns to cement its rise on the continent and how France, the EU and the US seek to confront the propaganda war launched by Russia. . The importance of narrative is nothing new, it dates back to the beginning of civilization. The Bible is just one example. And this is because, as the contemporary American scholar Jonathan Gottschall points out in his book The Story Paradox[1], the human being is an animal that tells stories, which are the [Keep reading…]

Pegasus as a case study

26/05/2022 Silas García Rosado

The governmental and institutional crisis - within the CNI - caused by the "Pegasus case" should serve as a wake-up call. Beyond the political interests behind the case, it is advisable to study in depth how these types of tools are used, the economic costs, but also in terms of security, how they fit within the intelligence cycle and the party that can be obtained from them. obtain. Offering the Government lines of action that allow it to anticipate the adversary's actions, knowing its strategic plans, reducing costs and increasing political or military benefits is the objective that any information service should pursue. Encryption and decryption methods date back to ancient times, with the oldest known encrypted “document” being a clay tablet found in Iraq in the 16th century BC; Towards the 1st century BC, the Roman army used the “Caesar code” to protect [Keep reading…]

Taliban propaganda

11/02/2022 Daniel Pérez García

The return of the Taliban regime to power regained informative and academic interest in its propaganda. However, Afghan jihadists have been developing strong media campaigns with anti-Western narratives for years, especially aimed at the American population. Recently, Taliban propaganda has attempted to distance itself from global jihad by focusing its messages in favor of its local cause, selling itself as a force of liberation in the face of foreign occupation. Now, they effectively combine new technologies and social networks to oversize their real power in the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Classic narratives of Taliban propaganda Contemporary terrorism, and more recently jihadism, undoubtedly draws on the fanaticism of revolutionary philosophical and political currents. This materializes in self-interested reasoning to legitimize their violent action. Thus, by building the feeling of a resistance movement, they project the image of a “weak actor” in front of the “power”. A power against [Keep reading…]