In the news … October 31, 2018

PAPER AND THE CASE FOR GOING LOW-TECH IN THE VOTING BOOTH

IN SEPTEMBER 2017, barely two months before Virginians went to the polls to pick a new governor, the state’s board of elections convened an emergency session. The crisis at hand? Touchscreen voting machines.
WIRED

How Russian Twitter Bots Helped Normalize Fringe Theories About the Mail Bomber & What It Means for Businesses on Social Media

 Last week’s news of a terrifying campaign of letter bombs mailed to prominent Democratic politicians and supporters drew round-the-clock media coverage. Law enforcement focused, rightly so, on the details and clues in the “real” world. Meanwhile, at the first news of a bomb sent to the home of George Soros, our research team noted a sudden surge of activity in our proprietary bad actor database: Russian Twitter bots were being woken up and activated to wage an intense disinformation campaign. We published an exhaustive study into Russian bot behavior and tactics earlier this year, How Russian Twitter Bots Weaponize Social Media. However, the fast-moving and fast-evolving story around these mail bombs proved to be an opportunity to re-examine the anatomy of a disinformation campaign in real-time.