Here are my unvarnished thoughts on this week of security news…in 60 second snippets.
Many thanks to Steve Prentice, David Spark, CISO Series and Cyber Security Headlines for having me on and asking the hard questions!
How Individualism Ruins Democracy
New book from Robert D. Putnam called “The Upswing” attempts to explain why American democracy won’t work if individualism is over-emphasized like southern Italy versus northern Italy:
The Upswing builds on the author’s celebrated concept of “social capital”: the web of non-contractual associational relationships that constitutes a community.
The idea acquires normative force through that word capital – the claim that social relationships are in aggregate not merely enjoyable but productive. In particular, they are able to generate and enforce common purposes.
Putnam initially used the concept to explain the divergence between a now- prosperous northern Italy and a now-dysfunctional southern one. With originality and courage, he traced northern success back to the eleventh century, when the north’s cities began fostering webs of mutually trustworthy relationships.
These developed through citizens’ participation in devolved associations, both political and social – emblematically, in choirs. In contrast, the South was invaded by Norman gangs who imposed feudalism, their hierarchical suppression of independent association helping to establish an autocratic state juxtaposed against suspicious individuals.
Putnam then made a radical inference: since the political institutions of Italy’s regions had been common for over a century, yet had led to wide differences in outcomes, institutions were not enough: democracy only succeeded if preceded by social capacity. He had the chutzpah to entitle his study Making Democracy Work (1993).
Facebook’s Role in Domestic Terrorism
Breaking news. Facebook might soon be understood for being exactly what it always has been.
Lawmakers finally seem to understand what journalists, academics, activists and legal experts have been saying for years – that social media, and particularly Facebook, represent a danger to democracy.
NBC News investigations confirmed how US military is undermined by Facebook:
…secret Facebook groups exclusively for special operations forces that were accessed by NBC News, share misinformation about a “stolen” 2020 election, disparaging and racist comments about America’s political leadership and even QAnon conspiracy theories…
The Atlantic also recently put the colossal security failures of Facebook like this:
…in every situation of extremist violence we’ve looked into, we’ve found Facebook…
You may recall I wrote at length earlier on this blog how an “alleged terrorist has a prominent tattoo displayed on Facebook”. And I wrote about how the US has a history of domestic terrorists operating safely from within police and military ranks.
For yet another example, here’s a ProPublica investigative article exploring recruitment and training of radical militant extremists for domestic terrorism and civil war, which really turns out to be a story about Facebook.
Look at the shout-outs:
There was a definite chain of command and a line of leadership within this group… he was introduced to the political ideology of the Boogaloo Bois through friends in the Air Force and on the internet. The 15 active-duty airmen identified by the news organizations as openly promoting Boogaloo content on Facebook…
and:
…he bought a $15 device that converts AR-15 semiautomatic rifles into fully automatic machine guns, making the purchase through a website that advertised to Boogaloo Facebook groups…
and:
Carrillo was in the back seat near the sliding door, carrying a short-barreled rifle… an illegal machine gun optimized to fire bursts of shots automatically, with an added silencer. Hours before, Carrillo had posted on Facebook that if ‘it’s not kicking off in your hood then start it.’ Now, according to prosecutors, Justus drove toward the guard hut while Carrillo slid the van’s door open and fired multiple bursts, killing Underwood and seriously wounding a second guard.
and:
Grizzly Scouts had a Facebook group called ‘/K/alifornia Kommando’ that proclaimed their desire ‘to gather like minded Californians who can network and establish local goon squads.’
and:
Most of the time…Carrillo was glued to Facebook, following the news and commenting on viral videos of police clashing with protesters.
and:
…deputies did not realize Carrillo was above them, perched just 40 feet away in a covered, well-concealed position up a steep embankment, aiming the same “ghost” weapon that prosecutors say he had used in Oakland. Based on the WhatsApp text messages that prosecutors say he sent at this time, Carrillo appeared to be trying to guide his fellow Grizzly Scouts on how they could join forces with him in a coordinated attack on the law enforcement officers… he sent one more WhatsApp message to his fellow Grizzly Scouts: “Dudes i offed a fed.”
and… now for something about Youtube.
Update: May 2021
The Grizzly Scouts came to mind when I read the latest domestic terrorism charges against a Facebook group calling itself Wolverine Watchmen.
The new superseding indictment alleges Fox, Croft and Harris planned to use the explosive devices to destroy a bridge near Gov. Whitmer’s family vacation home that would have taken out her security detail and any responding law enforcement officers.
They didn’t just use Facebook to coordinate their domestic terrorism, Facebook also was used to recruit extremists at big social events
On the stand, he detailed members’ involvement in several protests last spring, including the Operation Gridlock protest in April and another event where people went inside the state Capitol. He said members like Joe Morrison used the events for recruiting.
“He would pass out flyers and use COVID-19 to say, ‘Hey, has a family member or someone you care about passed away from COVID? Well, we’re going to hold the governor accountable,’” he said. “They wanted to obtain an arrest warrant and indict her, murder her.”
These events allegedly were organized and funded by the DeVos family.
…”Operation Gridlock” — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, a DeVos family-linked conservative group.
Facebook clearly is underpinning these stories about the Grizzly Scouts in California recruiting professional military to murder law enforcement and the Wolverine Watchmen linked to a mercenary group plotting to murder Michigan law enforcement and government officials.
Nixon Drove “balkanization and polarization” While Claiming the Opposite
I stumbled across a 1970 clipping from Nixon’s administration where they claimed “urban renewal” (widely recognized today as intentionally racist and destructive to American cities) would do the exact opposite of what we know they designed it to accomplish.
The President’s study group on urban renewal has recommended that the controversial Federal program be continued and used as a major means of halting the “balkanization and polarization of American society.”
The panel, appointed by President Nixon last Oct. 17, said that urban renewal should be used to “help exorcise the specter of increasing apartheid” by building within the central cities communities that would bring together people of various ethnic and income groups.
I mean we know the exact opposite happened because of systemic racism, right?
Those opposed to redevelopment had little recourse in a pre-Civil Rights era; the neighborhood had scant political clout, and most residents were tenants, not homeowners.
The residents of the heavily African-American neighborhood had also, by no accident, been precluded from getting home loans that would have helped them buy their own homes. (Meanwhile, racist homeowner groups in booming nearby suburbs like Palo Alto were also working hard to ensure that “white flight” from the city stayed white.)
[…]
“You have to read into the idea that these absolutely beautiful Victorian buildings were also blighted because they were populated by black people,” said [long time SF resident] Collins. “It’s amazing to me when you look back at the amount of housing that was removed.”
Urban renewal wiped out diversity, and instead further balkanized and polarized cities such as SF.
The number of African-Americans displaced from the Western Addition as a result of urban renewal is unknown, but estimates start at 10,000 people. Less quantifiable is the cultural aftermath; a once-thriving district studded with minority-owned businesses, nightclubs and hotels in the heart of San Francisco now exists mostly in faded photos and oral histories.
Incredible to see how the Nixon administration falsely projected the terms balkanization and polarization onto their targets, especially when you think about who pushes that exact terminology today when talking about the Internet.