Cyber democracy

Cyber democracy

Introduction

Cyber democracy refers to democracy which is facilitated through the use of the internet or cyberspace. In most of the cases, it is being used in developed countries and especially superpowers to monitor the progress of their competitors. When used in the right way, cyber democracy can be the best tool for advancing technologically. However, it is used with other motives; it can lead to conflict between states and can trigger political instability. A perfect example is what happened in the year 2016, where Russia used cyber democracy to interfere with presidential elections of the United States of America. One the reason unto why the

On 2nd March 2016, a disturbing report hit the desk of United States counterintelligence officials who are located in Washington. For some months, some American spy hunters had tried in all possible ways to uncover the details of Russia’s influence operation of interfering with the 2016 presidential election. In the offices of suburban Virginia and D.C., these American spy hunters have established massive wall charts of tracking the various players in Russia multipronged scheme. The point of focus was to describe how Russia has already migrated from rudimentary email hacks against some politicians. The Russian now were running a complicated hack on the twitter account (Mueller & Man, 2019). The report released said that Russians had already proficiently tailored messages that carry malware to about ten thousand twitter users in the department of defence. The hacking was dependent on the interests of the targets whereby it offered links to stories related to recent sporting activities. However, upon clicking the link, it automatically took the users to a specific server controlled by Russian. The server was embedded with a program that helps allowed hackers to take control of the personal details of the individuals.

The most used social media platforms by Russia to undermine the legitimacy of the election were Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook alone, Russia – linked imposters’ interactions with hundreds of millions of potential voters. These potential voters believed that they were utterly interacting with fellow Americans. These interactions, in a big way, influenced the voter’s political view, which later led to the leading political twists. A perfect example is that during the election there was an imposter Facebook called “Being Patriotic” and other known as “Welfare State. According to the analysis by the Albright data, those pages hosted up to 4.4 million interactions (Burrett, 2018). In these pages, was passing of wrong information about a party and candidate. It is a process which, in a way has a significant impact on shaping the politics of the United States of America.

The method which was used to distribute stolen campaign emails and documents as email phishing. It is a kind of scam email which tries to trick people into sharing sensitive information, for example passwords. There was another phishing of email which involved faking of am excel file which was corrupted hence stealing personal details of users. The hackers got access to networks belonging to DCCC and used that information to gain access DNC network. Upon getting the two systems, they were corrupted, and a malware known as X – Agent was installed. It tracked logging strokes and any inputs while taking screenshots. Through the connection of two networks, the hackers were able to harvest emails, passwords, staff communication, and other personal details (Klimburg, 2018). To hide evidence, the hackers sent the data from the DCCC and DNC back to the servers. This process was enabled by the GRU, Russia’s intelligence agency. In making sure that information is distributed, Russians first released it using a website known as DCLeaks.com, which was embedded with mostly used social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.

The United States has accused Russia since it influenced the outcome of the elections. It was claimed that Russia had planned a cyberattack which in a broadway weakened the Campaign of Hilary Clinton. According to Hilary Clinton, the Russian media coverage of her campaign was just vicious. She claimed that it portrayed her as an aggressive Russophobe, a liar, and a criminal. The media extended the ant campaign of Clinton by saying that she will surround them with missiles upon assuming the leadership (Burrett, 2018). That information about nuclear weapons was the typical frequent headline that was run on Russian media every day.

It appeared to be clear that Russia supported Donald Trump, who was believed to respect Vladimir Putin. He also recognized that Crimea is part of Russia. The point to focus by Russia on supporting Trump was that there would a very “constructive dialogue “which will be held between president Putin and Donald Trump. This talk will ensure that Russia has maintained its position of strength.

On September 6, 2017, a blog post on Facebook announced that there were more than 3000 advertisements that were posted on the social network (Badawy, Ferrara & Lerman, 2018). These posts and advertisements were posted between June 2015 and May 2017, and they were heavily linked with Russia. The Washington Post reported that those ads came from the Russian Company, which was known as the Internet Research Agency.

In October – November 2016, the website which was used by the Russian to distribute information known as WikiLeaks published more than 58,000 messages which were hacked from the account known as Podesta (Badawy, Ferrara & Lerman, 2018). That was the number of potential users that were reached by those hacked messages.

On October 3, 2017, CNN reported that the number of Russia – Linked Facebook ads were targeted to specific residents such as Michigan and Wisconsin (Badawy, Ferrara & Lerman, 2018). This was the areas where political rallies were held massively with a population of more than 4.4 million

On July 22, 016, which was the day before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks published more than 20,000 emails that were hacked from the servers of DNC (Badawy, Ferrara & Lerman, 2018). The documents were inclusive notes whereby DNC chair Wasserman Debbie insults the staffers from the Bernie Sanders campaign. The emails also contained messages which suggested that the organization was favouring Clinton instead of remaining to be neutral. After those allegations from the hacked emails, the chair of DNC Wasserman resigned.

On September 22, 2017, the DHS notified state agencies that hackers had their target before the vote of November 8, 2018(Badawy, Ferrara & Lerman, 2018). It was one the way of gathering a lot of votes for their favourite candidate trump.

To some extent, the issue of cybersecurity and the hacking of elections becomes a sensitive issue. For the case of whether Russia determined the outcome of the 2016 election in the United States of America, the answer revolves around the question of insufficient evidence. However, there is a report issued by Robert Mueller against the Internet Research Agency together with its leadership. The report provides significant detail on how Russian warfare always targets America during the time of elections (Mueller, 2019). In considering such scenario, it can be clear that Kremlin’s effort did have any impact on the American 2016 presidential election. To determine whether Russian effort ar has an effect on the outcome of USA presidential elections, the four following four factors should be considered.

The first concept is determining the scope of the Russian effort. The second concept is determining the kind of information they were relying on. The third concept is to determine who or what was the target of this effort. The last idea is the impact of the effort . However, most of the discussion about this issue has focussed on the opinions of political advertising an aspect which makes it miss the point.

Further explanation of the about the Russian efforts is that it is focused on establishing deep long – term identities of some individuals and groups in specified communities. The effort was underlaid through the establishment of servers and VPNs, which were based in the United States mask and location of the involved individuals (Kim, 2018). It was through the US-based email accounts that the identity of U.S. individuals was stolen which was later used to launder cryptocurrency accounts.

One of the good news about the 2018 midterm’s elections is that the top securities of the United States said that there is no evidence or sign of foreign government to interfere or compromise with elections. However, there is terrible news from the same officials suggesting that Russia, together with other countries, have the intention of influencing the election through the spreading of distorted information (Kim, 2018). A statement released by the Director of National Intelligence and Attorney General clearly showed that there is an aspect of calmness ahead of forthcoming elections. However, there is news that Russia, Iran and China have a plan of interfering with elections a situation which happened in 2016.

It has already discovered that the American election is vulnerable to influence by another superpower in an attempt to maintain superior complexity (Root & Kennedy, 2017). Therefore, the country needs to come up with various strategies that will aid a lot in improving America’s election infrastructure. The following are strategies to implement in the attempt of finding remedies of the vulnerability of election influence.

• Conducting robust postelection audits which should confirm the outcome of elections.
• Updating and also securing all outdated voter registration systems and even e –poll books.
• Carrying out compulsory pre-election testing on all voting devices and also carrying out steady vulnerability analysis
• Provision of the federal funding for election infrastructure updating

Conclusion

From the discussion in the paper, it can be shown that Russia indeed used cyber democracy to interfere with presidential elections of the United States of America. It is a scenario that does not auger well since there is the use of fraud and deception though technology. It is an aspect that triggers some sort of political instability since the involved states have a lot of powers. It is an issue that needs to be focussed on and stop the superpower from interfering with freedom of expression of citizens of another country.