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The Facebook ad dump shows the true sophistication of Russia’s influence operation
The massive trove of Facebook ads House Intelligence Committee Democrats released last Tuesday offers a breathtaking view of the true sophistication of the Russian government’s digital operations during the 2016 presidential election. Many stories have already been written about the U.S. intelligence community’s investigation of the hacking operation Russian intelligence services carried out to influence the election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump. Derek Hawkins writes that the more than 3,000 “incredibly specific and inflammatory” Russian ads released last week allow us for the first time to “have a swath of empirical and visual evidence of Russia’s disinformation campaign.”
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War on fake news could be won with the help of behavioral science
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently acknowledged his company’s responsibility in helping create the enormous amount of fake news that plagued the 2016 election – after earlier denials. Yet he offered no concrete details on what Facebook could do about it. Fortunately, there’s a way to fight fake news that already exists and has behavioral science on its side: the Pro-Truth Pledge project. I was part of a team of behavioral scientists that came up with the idea of a pledge as a way to limit the spread of misinformation online. Two studies that tried to evaluate its effectiveness suggest it actually works.
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Mountain collapsed in North Korea after most recent nuclear test
As North Korea’s president pledges to “denuclearize” the Korean peninsula, scientists published the most detailed view yet of the site of the country’s latest and largest underground nuclear test on 3 September 2017. The new picture of how the explosion altered the mountain above the detonation highlights the importance of using satellite radar imaging, called SAR (synthetic aperture radar), in addition to seismic recordings to more precisely monitor the location and yield of nuclear tests in North Korea and around the world.
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Earthquake science could have predicted North Korea’s nuclear climbdown
Just days after North Korea announced it was suspending its testing program, scientists revealed that the country’s underground nuclear test site had partially collapsed. The collapse may have played a role in North Korea’s change in policy. If correct, and with the hindsight of this research, we might have speculated that the North Koreans would want to make such an offer of peace. This shows how scientific analysis normally reserved for studying natural earthquakes can be a powerful tool in deciphering political decisions and predicting future policy across the globe.
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The past as prologue? Iran’s nuclear weapons project
In a major coup, Israel’s intelligence operatives smuggled tens of thousands of documents from Iran’s nuclear weapons archive – the existence of which Iran had denied – which show the methodical steps Iran took between 199 and 2003 to build nuclear weapons. Two nuclear weapons experts say that the very existence of the archive is proof that Iran not only lied about its past nuclear weapons plans, but also about its future plans.
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3D printing of weapons: A threat to global, national, and personal security
Additive manufacturing – also known as 3D printing — could benefit military adversaries, violent extremists and even street criminals, who could produce their own weapons for use and sale. As this technology further develops, and without proper controls, violent actors might be able to replicate more sophisticated weapons systems, print lethal drones, and even produce jamming devices or cheap decoys that disrupt intelligence collection.
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Countering drones in urban environments
New technology can provide advances in the way we do things, expanding areas previously left unexplored and simplifying previously burdensome tasks. This is true with advancements in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), or drones. Given their rapid technology advancement and proliferation, the public safety and homeland security communities must address the fact that drones can be used nefariously or maliciously to hurt people, disrupt activities and damage infrastructure.
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Israel-Iran clashes: Latest updates
Iranian forces in Syria did not ask the Syrian government for permission, or even notify Syrian leaders, before launching twenty missiles at Israel. Fox News said it had learn from European sources that, “The Iranian major general in charge of the Al-Quds Force in Syria, Qassem Soleimani, launched last night’s attack against Israel without the knowledge or the consent of the Assad regime.” Moreover, Iran launched the twenty missiles at Israel after being warned by Russia not to do so.
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Israel destroyed “nearly all” of Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria
On Wednesday night, in the largest Israeli air campaign against Syria since the 1973 war, and the largest-ever direct clash between the Iranian and Israeli militaries, Israel launched 70 missiles – 60 air-to-ground missiles fired from 28 F-15 and F-16 flying over Syria and Lebanon, and 10 surface-to-surface missiles launched from inside Israel — at key Iranian military targets all across Syria. Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that the Israel had destroyed “nearly all” of Iran’s military infrastructure sites in Syria.
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Assessing the Iran deal pullout
Calling it a “great embarrassment” that fails to “halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” President Trump said Tuesday that he will pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear agreement that the previous administration negotiated to halt that nation’s progress toward atomic weapons. The national security, nuclear, and regional experts at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, who have been assessing the Iran nuclear situation for years, examined the president’s remarks and weighed in on the significance of Washington’s policy change and on what is likely to follow it.
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Parliamentary elections cement Hezbollah’s hold over Lebanon
The Iranian-controlled group Hezbollah and its political allies scored significant gains in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Lebanon, the first to be held in nine years. “Hezbollah will continue to act, to behave as if there is no Lebanese state, as if there is no Lebanese government, as if it is an entirely independent entity,” says one expert.
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Israeli rocket experience shows bomb shelters matter as much as interceptors
The conflict between Israel and Iran emerged from the shadows early Thursday morning. Israel is worried about Iran’s deployment of missiles in Syria – and about Hezbollah’s 100,000 to 150,000 rockets. Other countries face rocket and missile threats too. It’s not surprising then that missile interceptors are in fashion. Israel credited its Iron Dome system with intercepting four rockets on Thursday. Civil defenses like warning sirens and bomb shelters receive less press coverage. Spectacular interceptor launches are more photogenic than concrete block houses. But Israel’s own experience shows civil defenses deserve at least as much attention as interceptors.
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Hostility toward minorities may be contagious
Whether in Bosnia, Liberia, or Rwanda, violent conflicts have suddenly broken out between ethnic groups that have lived peacefully together for a long time. So far, there is no satisfactory scientific explanation as to why aggression can repeatedly develop such a dynamic. In a recent study, researchers report their findings that if people act hostile toward other ethnic groups, they easily find imitators – much more so than when they exhibit hostility toward co-ethnics.
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Russia conducted "unprecedented, coordinated" attacks on U.S. voting systems in 2016: Senate Intelligence Committee
Hackers affiliated with the Russian government conducted an “unprecedented, coordinated” campaign against the U.S. voting system, including successfully penetrating a few voter-registration databases in 2016, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded. The cyberattacks targeted at least eighteen states, and possibly three more. “Russian actors scanned databases for vulnerabilities, attempted intrusions, and in a small number of cases successfully penetrated a voter registration database,” the committee said in an interim report releaed Tuesday.
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As U.S. withdraws from Iran nuclear deal, experts consider fallout
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement reverberated throughout the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere – all the more so because did not say what comes next in U.S. policy toward Iran, leaving a list of questions that experts are rushing to predict: Will Washington seek new negotiations with Tehran? Will Iran resume enriching uranium? Will Israel step up attacks on Iran’s proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, or militias in Syria? Will the U.S. European allies try to coax the Trump administration back to the negotiating table with Tehran? Will U.S. forces in Syria become more of a target for Iranian fighters?
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More headlines
The long view
Preventing Another 'Jan. 6' Starts by Changing How Elections Are Certified, Experts Say
The 2024 presidential election may be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, but preventing a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021 — when false claims of a stolen election promoted by Donald Trump and his allies led to an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol —will be top of mind this election year. Research finds broad support among public for nonpartisan certification commissions.
States Rush to Combat AI Threat to Elections
This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes. Congress has done little to address the issue, but states are moving aggressively to respond — though questions remain about how effective any new measures to combat AI-created disinformation will be.
Chinese Government Hackers Targeted Critics of China, U.S. Businesses and Politicians
An indictment was unsealed Monday charging seven nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their involvement in a PRC-based hacking group that spent approximately 14 years targeting U.S. and foreign critics, businesses, and political officials in furtherance of the PRC’s economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.