Read the original article here.

---

Information Warfare in the Age of Automation and the 'Dead Internet': A Detailed Educational Resource

Information warfare (IW) is a critical aspect of modern conflict and competition, extending beyond traditional military battlefields into the digital realm. Unlike conventional warfare focused on physical destruction, information warfare targets perception, decision-making, and the integrity of information itself. In an era where the internet is increasingly populated by automated systems and bots – the landscape often referred to in discussions of "The Dead Internet Files" – understanding information warfare becomes paramount, as these automated systems serve as powerful tools and targets within this new form of conflict.

Understanding Information Warfare

Information warfare can be broadly defined as the use and management of information and communication technology (ICT) to gain a competitive advantage over an opponent. Its core characteristic is the subtle manipulation of information trusted by a target, leading them to make decisions detrimental to their own interests but beneficial to the party conducting the warfare.

Definition: Information Warfare (IW): The battlespace use and management of information and communication technology (ICT) in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. It involves manipulating information trusted by a target without their awareness, causing them to act against their own interests.

The nature of information warfare makes its boundaries fluid. It's often difficult to pinpoint precisely when an information campaign begins or ends, and assessing its true strength or destructive impact can be challenging compared to physical attacks.

Information Warfare vs. Cyberwarfare

It is important to distinguish information warfare from cyberwarfare. While related and often overlapping in practice, they have different primary objectives:

• Cyberwarfare: Primarily involves attacking computer systems, software, and command and control networks. Its focus is on technical disruption, denial of service, data theft, or physical damage enabled by cyber means (like disrupting industrial control systems).
• Information Warfare: Focuses on manipulating the information itself or the perception of information, regardless of whether it involves a direct attack on a computer system. While it heavily uses technology (including cyber capabilities), its goal is influencing behavior and decisions through informational means.

Think of it this way: A cyberattack might shut down a news website (cyberwarfare), preventing information dissemination. Information warfare might involve flooding social media with fake news related to that event, or spreading propaganda about the reasons for the shutdown, regardless of whether the website was technically hacked.

Broader Scope: Information Operations (IO)

Different nations and military doctrines use varying terminology. The United States Armed Forces tend to emphasize the technology-centric aspects, encompassing electronic warfare, cyberwarfare, information assurance, and computer network operations under the umbrella of "Information Warfare."

Other militaries, however, use the broader term Information Operations (IO). This perspective focuses more on the human element of information use. While still utilizing technology, IO includes activities like:

• Psychological Operations (PSYOP): Directly influencing the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately, the behavior of target audiences.
• Military Deception (MILDEC): Actions executed to deliberately mislead adversary decision makers.
• Operations Security (OPSEC): Protecting friendly information and activities.
• Public Affairs (PA): Providing truthful and timely information to the public.
• Social Network Analysis: Studying relationships and flows within groups to identify influencers and vulnerabilities.
• Decision Analysis: Understanding how opponents make decisions to better target information efforts.

Information Operations, therefore, represent a more comprehensive approach where technical means (like cyber capabilities and information warfare tactics) are integrated with non-technical methods to achieve specific effects on the information environment and influence human behavior.

Key Tactics and Components of Information Warfare

Information warfare employs a variety of tactics to achieve its objectives. These often operate synergistically and can be significantly amplified by the presence of automated systems in the digital landscape.

1. Collection of Tactical Information: Gathering intelligence about an opponent's plans, capabilities, and vulnerabilities. This includes traditional espionage but increasingly involves collecting data from digital sources, including open-source intelligence amplified or generated by automated systems.
2. Information Assurance: Ensuring the reliability and security of one's own information and systems while denying the opponent the ability to do the same. This is the defensive aspect of IW, involving cybersecurity, data integrity checks, and secure communication channels.
3. Spreading Propaganda or Disinformation:
   • Propaganda: Information, often biased or misleading, used to promote a particular political cause or point of view.
   • Disinformation: Intentionally false information spread to deceive. Both are used to demoralize or manipulate the enemy and the public. In the age of the "Dead Internet," automated accounts (bots) are prime tools for scaling the dissemination of propaganda and disinformation, creating an illusion of widespread belief or opinion.
4. Undermining the Quality of Opposing Information: Making the opponent's communications and intelligence appear unreliable, false, or contradictory. This can involve flooding communication channels with noise, spreading rumors about sources, or creating fake counter-narratives. Bots can generate vast amounts of low-quality or contradictory content to make it difficult for users (human or otherwise) to discern credible information.
5. Denial of Information-Collection Opportunities: Preventing opponents from gathering intelligence. This can involve jamming signals, using camouflage, or in the digital realm, overwhelming their surveillance systems with false data or blocking access to key online resources.
6. Psychological Warfare: Using psychological tactics to influence the morale, will, and behavior of opponents and their populations. Information warfare provides the modern technical means to execute large-scale psychological campaigns through social media, targeted messaging, and the manipulation of public narratives, often amplified by automated systems.

Modern Applications and Tools of Information Warfare

The digital age has expanded the toolkit and reach of information warfare dramatically. Many modern tactics leverage digital platforms and technologies, which are susceptible to manipulation by automated systems.

• Disrupting or Hijacking Transmissions: Jamming or taking control of television, radio, or internet broadcasts to disrupt enemy communications or insert false messages.
• Disabling Networks: Attacking logistics networks or enemy communication systems, including online social communities. This can involve cyberattacks, but the purpose is to disrupt the flow of critical information. Spoofing, or creating fake activity within these networks (often done by bots), is another key tactic to sow confusion.
• Economic Sabotage: Manipulating financial markets through electronic intervention, leaking sensitive but potentially false information, or placing disinformation to cause panic or instability.
• Surveillance Technology: Using drones, surveillance robots, or even compromised webcams to collect intelligence, which is then processed and potentially used in information campaigns.
• Communication Management: Actively controlling and shaping one's own information output and narrative to maintain credibility and influence target audiences.
• Synthetic Media: The creation and dissemination of artificial content, such as deepfakes (manipulated videos or audio), AI-generated text, and fabricated images.

Definition: Synthetic Media: Media content, such as images, audio recordings, or videos, that has been altered or generated using artificial intelligence or other automated means, often to create realistic-looking but fabricated scenarios or statements.

• Organized Use of Social Media and Online Platforms: This is perhaps the most visible and concerning aspect of modern information warfare in the context of "The Dead Internet Files." State and non-state actors organize campaigns using social media, online forums, comment sections, and content-generation platforms to influence public perceptions, sow discord, or promote specific narratives.

  • The Role of Bots: In this arena, bots and automated systems are indispensable. They can:
    • Create and manage thousands or millions of fake user accounts.
    • Automatically post, share, like, and comment to amplify specific messages.
    • Manipulate trending topics on platforms.
    • Manufacture the appearance of widespread support or opposition for an idea.
    • Drown out authentic human voices and discussions.
    • Target specific individuals or groups with tailored messages.
    • Operate 24/7 at a scale impossible for human actors alone.

  This organized, often automated, manipulation of online discourse directly contributes to the feeling described in "The Dead Internet Files" – that much of the content and activity online might not originate from genuine human interaction but from automated systems pushing agendas.

The New Battlefield: Cyberspace

Cyberspace has emerged as a primary domain for information warfare. This shift has brought new concepts and tools to the forefront.

Definition: C4ISR: An acronym standing for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. It refers to integrated systems and processes used by military forces to gather, process, and disseminate information to support decision-making and operations.

Within cyberspace, achieving information superiority – the ability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while denying the opponent the ability to do the same – is a key objective. This involves leveraging capabilities like:

• Network-Centric Warfare: A military doctrine that emphasizes linking all military assets into a robust, shared network to improve situational awareness, speed of command, and effectiveness. Disrupting an opponent's network-centric capabilities through IW tactics (like corrupting data or disrupting communication nodes) is critical.

• Cyberattacks as Enablers: While distinct from IW, cyberattacks can serve IW goals. Disrupting an enemy's air defenses via cyber means (as alleged in the 2007 Israeli strike in Syria) allows for a physical strike but also demonstrates technological superiority and potentially prevents the opponent from gathering information about the attack.

• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: A basic but effective cyberattack tactic.

  Definition: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): A cyberattack in which multiple compromised computer systems (often forming a botnet) are used to flood a target, such as a server, website, or other network resource, with traffic. This overwhelms the target, making it unavailable to legitimate users.

  In the context of IW, a DDoS attack might be used to take down a critical communication hub, a government website, or a news source, thus creating a vacuum that can be exploited by spreading alternative information or preventing counter-messaging.

Impact on Civilian Populations

A significant consequence of information warfare in cyberspace is the potential impact on civilian populations. As daily life, critical infrastructure (like power grids, financial systems, and transportation), and communication increasingly rely on networked systems, cyberattacks or information campaigns targeting these systems can directly affect civilians. Power outages, disruption of essential services, and exposure to widespread disinformation can cause economic disruption, social unrest, and erosion of public trust.

Furthermore, the proliferation of automated systems online means that civilians are constantly exposed to the potential vectors of information warfare – social media feeds, search results, online news sources – where distinguishing genuine human interaction from state-sponsored bot activity is increasingly difficult.

Case Studies and Examples

History provides numerous examples of information warfare, but recent events highlight its evolution in the digital age, heavily influenced by the prevalence of online platforms and automated systems.

• Gulf War (1990-1991): An early example of using electronic means to disrupt enemy communications instead of physical destruction, allowing infrastructure to be potentially reused later. The alleged attempted sale of stolen US troop movement information also highlights the intelligence collection and denial aspects.
• Moonlight Maze (starting 1999): A sophisticated, long-term intrusion into US government computers, suspected of originating from Russia, aimed at collecting sensitive information. This exemplifies the intelligence-gathering component of IW, complicated by the difficulty of attribution in cyberspace.
• Russo-Ukrainian War (Ongoing): This conflict is a major contemporary example of IW.
  • Communication Exploitation: Ukrainian forces exploited deficiencies in Russian communications, sometimes allowing Russians to use Ukrainian networks to eavesdrop and disrupt conversations strategically.
  • Disinformation Campaigns: Russia actively perpetuated a narrative before the 2022 invasion claiming the Ukrainian government was committing atrocities. By publishing vast amounts of disinformation online, this narrative appeared in search results, attempting to justify the invasion and manipulate international and domestic opinion. This relies heavily on flooding the information space, a task significantly aided by automated content generation and dissemination.
• Russian Interference in Foreign Elections: Notably the 2016 US elections, and ongoing efforts in 2024. These campaigns involve spreading disinformation, divisive content, and manipulating online discourse to influence voter perception and behavior. Investigations have revealed extensive use of fake social media accounts (bots and trolls) and automated amplification techniques to achieve scale and reach.
• Russia vs. West Information War: This ongoing struggle involves propagating opposing ideologies. Russia promotes anti-liberal sentiments (racism, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny) and narratives of American decline to undermine Western influence and values. Western efforts often focus on promoting democratic values and exposing Russian disinformation. Both sides utilize online platforms, where automated systems can amplify chosen narratives and suppress others.
• Russia, China, and Pro-Palestinian Protests (2024 Example): Reports suggest China and Russia have used pro-Palestinian narratives to influence public opinion in countries like the UK and US, attempting to create division, delegitimize authorities (like US police actions), and redirect public attention away from issues like the war in Ukraine. The reported 400% increase in Russian media activity following the October 7th attack points towards a coordinated, high-volume effort characteristic of campaigns potentially involving automated amplification.
• United States COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign (2020-2021): A Reuters report detailed a US military psychological operation campaign using fake social media accounts to spread disinformation about the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, specifically targeting Muslim populations with false claims about pork-derived ingredients. This is a direct example of creating fabricated online personas (akin to bots or sockpuppets) and using targeted social media campaigns (like hashtags) to spread false information with the aim of influencing public health choices and trust in a foreign competitor. The scale suggested by the large contractor involvement implies a systematic, potentially automated, approach to dissemination.

Legal and Ethical Concerns

The evolution of information warfare, particularly its heavy reliance on cyberspace and potential integration with automated systems, raises complex legal and ethical questions that challenge traditional frameworks like Just War Theory.

1. Lower Risk and Increased Frequency: Digital attacks often carry a lower risk of immediate physical retaliation compared to traditional kinetic warfare. This ease of entry makes it potentially more attractive for state and non-state actors (including terrorist or criminal organizations) to launch frequent, low-level information campaigns, blurring the lines between peace and conflict.
2. Targeting Civilian Infrastructure and Populations: Because modern ICT is deeply integrated into all aspects of society, civilian infrastructure (power grids, financial systems, communication networks) and civilian populations (via social media) are often direct or indirect targets. This clashes with principles of civilian immunity in traditional warfare. Furthermore, the possibility of attacks being launched through compromised civilian devices (like a botnet) makes attribution difficult and raises ethical dilemmas about defending against attacks originating from seemingly civilian sources. The right to privacy is a major concern when monitoring civilian networks for potential IW activity.
3. Accountability and Attribution: Determining who is responsible for a cyberattack or information campaign can be extremely difficult. The technical nature of these operations, combined with the intentional use of proxies, obfuscation techniques, and automated systems (bots), makes tracing the origin challenging, sometimes "virtually impossible." This lack of clear accountability complicates international response and the application of international law. When automated systems or AI are involved in decision-making or action (e.g., autonomous disinformation bots), questions of legal responsibility for their actions become even more complex.

These concerns highlight the need for new legal frameworks and ethical guidelines adapted to the realities of information warfare in the digital age, especially as automated systems become more prevalent and sophisticated participants in the online environment.

In conclusion, information warfare is a dynamic and evolving concept at the forefront of modern conflict. Its increasing reliance on digital platforms, where automated systems and bots play a significant role in disseminating information, manipulating discourse, and obscuring origins, makes understanding its mechanisms crucial in the age often characterized by the "Dead Internet Files" phenomenon. Recognizing the tools, tactics, and ethical implications of IW is essential for individuals, organizations, and nations navigating the complex information environment of the 21st century.