Our picksSpace-based ray guns; bad fire season; Plan B (and C) on Florida guns, and more

Published 22 March 2018

· Facebook haunted by its handling of 2016 election meddling

· Did Cambridge Analytica leverage Russian disinformation for Trump?

· Kaspersky’s “Slingshot” report burned an ISIS-focused intelligence operation

· Pentagon’s new arms-research chief eyes space-based ray guns

· What were we doing in Iraq anyway?

· Fire season could be bad in the pacific northwest

· With no power to pass gun laws, Florida cities prepare Plan B (and C)

· Diplomats, ‘Net greybeards work to disarm USA, China and Russia’s cyber-weapons

Facebook haunted by its handling of 2016 election meddling (Margaret Hartman, New York Magazine)
Days after the 2016 election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that fake news shared on the social-media site influenced the election,
calling it a “pretty crazy idea.” Facebook didn’t publicly acknowledge that its platform might have played a role in Russia’s election meddling until April 2017, when a company release noted that its “data does not contradict” a January 2017 report by the U.S. director of National Intelligence. As indicated in a footnote, that’s a reference to the U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia carried out a vast cybercampaign in an effort to help elect Donald Trump.

Did Cambridge Analytica leverage Russian disinformation for Trump? (Justin Hendrix, Just Security)
In an age of conspiracy theories and internet hoaxes, it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. In the last few days, a number of incredible claims were made about the shadowy firm Cambridge Analytica and its relationship to both Facebook and the Trump campaign that seem like a combination of Black Mirror with Burn After Reading. But drilling down into recent and past reporting shows the likelihood that Cambridge Analytica helped spur the Russian disinformation operation during the 2016 election.

Kaspersky’s “Slingshot” report burned an ISIS-focused intelligence operation (Chris Bing and Patrick Howell O’Neill, Cyberscoop)
The U.S. government and Russian cybersecurity giant Kaspersky Lab are currently in the throes of a nasty legal fight that comes on top of a long-running feud over how the company has conducted itself with regard to U.S. intelligence-gathering operations. A recent Kaspersky discovery may keep the feud alive for years to come.

Pentagon’s new arms-research chief eyes space-based ray guns (Patrick Tucker, Defense One)
Neutral-particle beams, a concept first tried in the 1980s, may get a fresh look under Michael Griffin.

What were we doing in Iraq anyway? (Andrew Exum, Defense One)
Reflections on a war gone wrong.

Fire season could be bad in the pacific northwest (Alec Regimbal, Yakima Herald-Republic)
‘We don’t think of them as fire seasons anymore, we think of them as fire years, because they start earlier and go later.’

With no power to pass gun laws, Florida cities prepare Plan B (and C) (Natalie DelGadillo, Governing)
Florida’s failure to ban assault weapons has angered some local officials, but they have few options for recourse. Some are taking the issue to voters, while others are challenging a state law that bans cities from passing gun laws.

Diplomats, ‘Net greybeards work to disarm USA, China and Russia’s cyber-weapons (Simon Sharwood, The Register)
Because when state attacks blow back, the taxpayers who paid to have them developed pay again