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For context, this is likely related to an Elon Musk tweet earlier today https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887185381797343504 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/18871853

For context, this is likely related to an Elon Musk tweet earlier today https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887185381797343504 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887185381797343504 quoting Ian Miles Cheong > Can someone explain to me why the Department of Defense provided $9,147,532.00 to Reuters for "ACTIVE SOCIAL ENGINEERING DEFENSE (ASED) LARGE SCALE SOCIAL DECEPTION (LSD)"

jazzyjackson 2y ago
I guess he has to ask twitter because he doesn't actually have clearance to ask someone who would know
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  Narrator: he has clearance Elon is aiming to inflame and rage bait by providing insight into what the government authorizes payments for, without context Its working
  - iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
    In a very real sense, do you think its appropriate for one's government actively attempt to social engineer the population it is supposed to serve?
    - snypher 2y ago
      Maybe you missed the 'defence' part?
      - Lammy 2y ago
        That's defense of the government apparatus in the same sense as “Continuity Of Government” — not defense of constituents themselves.
      - iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
        Friend, I accept that there is a level of snark, when it comes to this stuff, but even rudimentary check of the website in question[1] will tell you that there are two pieces to this program: - ACTIVE SOCIAL ENGINEERING DEFENSE (ASED) - LARGE SCALE SOCIAL DECEPTION (LSD) I presume you are being snarky about ASED. I was thinking about the other one. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA865018C7886_9700_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA865018C7886_970...
        imadethis 2y ago
        Where are you seeing that there’s two pieces? I’m only seeing it referred to as one program there. I’m not a govt contracts expert so by all means let me know what I’m missing.
      - netbioserror 2y ago
        Was the Patriot Act patriotic?
      - taurknaut 2y ago
        Right, just like the DoD is "defending" us.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      The grant is for "proposals in the area of automated defense against social engineering attacks."
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
        Would you be willing to expand on that definition? Are you referring to this part[1]? https://www.highergov.com/document/hr001117s0050-amendment-02-pdf-a3f775/ https://www.highergov.com/document/hr001117s0050-amendment-0...
      - essentiallywhen 2y ago
        Probably, when a certain non supported narrative takes hold, Reuters is tasked with combating it with counter intel to change public narrative. This has been happening since Rome and before. Nothing new here.
    - derbOac 2y ago
      Personally, I think that if your adversaries are doing just that, a grant with a title related to that makes sense, both to understand the problem domain and to defend against it. Yes, I would want the department of defense to be funding research in this area. Maybe more importantly, I would not expect anyone to glean anything useful about said research from a title entry in a grants database, or maybe from anything in the grant description. I especially think it's absurd to expect an individual coming from outside government, who is unfamiliar with the details of what is going on at DARPA to pull up the title of such projects and immediately have any idea what the hell is happening. I know this from a bit of personal experience with DARPA projects. There's a part of me that finds Musk's behavior in all of this to be a massive security breach. You can put aside any of the questions about the constitutionality of funding, this is an absurd breach of national security, both in terms of the INFSEC/IT aspect but also in terms of him casually shining spotlights on projects he knows nothing about and knows nothing of the consequences of disclosure. It's ridiculous how much attention and handwringing there was about Wikileaks and Snowden, and yet we just let a random ignorant (in the sense of having no idea what's going on in the government — otherwise his exercise would have been unnecessary) billionaire with ties to white supremacist groups tap into the federal government and start blasting it on his personal social media platform. If this was anyone else doing these exact same actions during a different administration, they would be arrested and charged with espionage and treason immediately. To me it's performative empty arrogance with real security consequences, both for the people whose personal information was accessed but also for national intelligence and military strategies and methods.
      - iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
        << It's ridiculous how much attention and handwringing there was about Wikileaks and Snowden The two situations are very, very different for reasons that should be relatively obvious. Musk ( via Trump ) has actual mandate to do that. << You can put aside any of the questions about the constitutionality of funding, this is an absurd breach of national security, both in terms of the INFSEC/IT aspect but also in terms of him casually shining spotlights on projects he knows nothing about and knows nothing of the consequences of disclosure. This may be one point I am kinda agreeing with you on. << To me it's performative empty arrogance with real security consequences, both for the people whose personal information was accessed but also for national intelligence and military strategies and methods. Maybe.. just maybe.. some of those methods should be revised in light of day. << Yes, I would want the department of defense to be funding research in this area. I am genuinely of two minds about it so the question is why you think it is a good idea especially given that you also stated the following: << I would not expect anyone to glean anything useful about said research from a title entry in a grants database, or maybe from anything in the grant description. Either it is ok to fund it, because you think it is a good idea or you don't know what it is and still think it is a good idea. I can accept one of those propositions.
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      when foreign governments and hostile intelligence groups make concerted and aggressive efforts to subvert the US population then, yes, it is appropriate for the USG to make efforts to counter subversion efforts
  - netbioserror 2y ago
    Context provided by the vaunted journalists at Politico, I'm sure.
  - kevcampb 2y ago
    If you read the proposal, this is for providing automated defences against social engineering attacks - eg: phishing. It's incredibly benign. That's not how it's presented on Elon's twitter post, certainly. The replies are just layers and layers of conspiracy theories.
    - chrisco255 2y ago
      That sounds quaint. Why was it awarded to Reuters, a British/foreign news organization that supposedly hires journalists to report unbiased information? What expertise would they have in preventing social engineering attacks?
      - jauer 2y ago
        Reuters builds software for a variety of fields and maintains datasets that would be useful in identifying if, say, an email with an invoice purporting to be from a specific company aligns with the invoicing practices of that company. It would be more accurate to compare that side of Reuters to LexisNexus, Wolters Kluwer, or perhaps Bloomberg.
        egberts1 2y ago
        Apparently Experian does a far much better job giving credit scores to Americans than Thomas Reuters does against criminal immigrants.
      - imadethis 2y ago
        It was awarded to Thomson Reuters, the parent company. They do a lot of work in risk management and fraud detection, so they have a lot of expertise.
        egberts1 2y ago
        How's that working so far? Millions of illegal immigration, emptying of foreign prisons into America, development of apps to help navigate illegals into their US destinations, pacifying social media of the abovea? Thomas Reuters apparently is helping against America ... so far.
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  Even if he doesn't have a clearance (he might because SpaceX), he doesn't need one. Anyone with sufficient authority can read him into any program.
excalibur 2y ago
It's literally an attempt to protect Americans against you, Elon.
jeffbee 2y ago
IMC is a known Russian agent, a Malaysian national who openly writes for Putin propaganda outlet RT. Of course he wants to defund American information security.
- taurknaut 2y ago
  You can do worse than RT if you watch it knowing you're seeing a curated narrative (which is no different from any paper, really, ours just happen to shill for our own state department). RT is a really good source for eg central asian news, most of which never even gets a mention in western papers. People really need to stop throwing around "russian agent" if they want the phrase to stay scary. IMC does not need to be tied to Putin to criticize him; he's a moron who's weirdly obsessed with american conservative ragebaiting despite not having anything to do with this country. Like I can't emphasize enough how clearly stupid the man is. (Though it is also very unsurprising that he allegedly supports Putin.) Other examples: Financial Times is a Japanese paper, so it's not the most reliable at eg reporting on China and Korea. They have surprisingly quality coverage outside of east asia, though, and from my eye they have a lot more matter-of-fact tone to american political coverage than most american papers do. Al Jazeera is not reliable for reporting on Qatar, but they're indispensable for a lot of reporting the west will refuse to engage in around the MENA world (and to a very limited extent, subsaharan africa). Etc etc. RT has its place; it's no Epoch Times. They have some mildly interesting americans working for them who seem very willing to openly criticize Putin. The russian language version is much more blatantly propaganda. Edit: well it seems that RT also spreads qanon stuff; I emphatically don't endorse that kind of content, nor did I realize it was there. I stand by the fact that it's a useful tool.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    Seems like you went on a whole journey while writing and editing that comment! Downvotes not deserved.
yapyap 2y ago
My god, he’s actually acknowledging Cheong.. Meatriding has never been this successful
anothercoup 2y ago
[flagged]

jazzyjackson 2y ago

I guess he has to ask twitter because he doesn't actually have clearance to ask someone who would know

yieldcrv 2y ago
Narrator: he has clearance Elon is aiming to inflame and rage bait by providing insight into what the government authorizes payments for, without context Its working
- iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
  In a very real sense, do you think its appropriate for one's government actively attempt to social engineer the population it is supposed to serve?
  - snypher 2y ago
    Maybe you missed the 'defence' part?
    - Lammy 2y ago
      That's defense of the government apparatus in the same sense as “Continuity Of Government” — not defense of constituents themselves.
    - iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
      Friend, I accept that there is a level of snark, when it comes to this stuff, but even rudimentary check of the website in question[1] will tell you that there are two pieces to this program: - ACTIVE SOCIAL ENGINEERING DEFENSE (ASED) - LARGE SCALE SOCIAL DECEPTION (LSD) I presume you are being snarky about ASED. I was thinking about the other one. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA865018C7886_9700_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA865018C7886_970...
      - imadethis 2y ago
        Where are you seeing that there’s two pieces? I’m only seeing it referred to as one program there. I’m not a govt contracts expert so by all means let me know what I’m missing.
    - netbioserror 2y ago
      Was the Patriot Act patriotic?
    - taurknaut 2y ago
      Right, just like the DoD is "defending" us.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    The grant is for "proposals in the area of automated defense against social engineering attacks."
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
      Would you be willing to expand on that definition? Are you referring to this part[1]? https://www.highergov.com/document/hr001117s0050-amendment-02-pdf-a3f775/ https://www.highergov.com/document/hr001117s0050-amendment-0...
    - essentiallywhen 2y ago
      Probably, when a certain non supported narrative takes hold, Reuters is tasked with combating it with counter intel to change public narrative. This has been happening since Rome and before. Nothing new here.
  - derbOac 2y ago
    Personally, I think that if your adversaries are doing just that, a grant with a title related to that makes sense, both to understand the problem domain and to defend against it. Yes, I would want the department of defense to be funding research in this area. Maybe more importantly, I would not expect anyone to glean anything useful about said research from a title entry in a grants database, or maybe from anything in the grant description. I especially think it's absurd to expect an individual coming from outside government, who is unfamiliar with the details of what is going on at DARPA to pull up the title of such projects and immediately have any idea what the hell is happening. I know this from a bit of personal experience with DARPA projects. There's a part of me that finds Musk's behavior in all of this to be a massive security breach. You can put aside any of the questions about the constitutionality of funding, this is an absurd breach of national security, both in terms of the INFSEC/IT aspect but also in terms of him casually shining spotlights on projects he knows nothing about and knows nothing of the consequences of disclosure. It's ridiculous how much attention and handwringing there was about Wikileaks and Snowden, and yet we just let a random ignorant (in the sense of having no idea what's going on in the government — otherwise his exercise would have been unnecessary) billionaire with ties to white supremacist groups tap into the federal government and start blasting it on his personal social media platform. If this was anyone else doing these exact same actions during a different administration, they would be arrested and charged with espionage and treason immediately. To me it's performative empty arrogance with real security consequences, both for the people whose personal information was accessed but also for national intelligence and military strategies and methods.
    - iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
      << It's ridiculous how much attention and handwringing there was about Wikileaks and Snowden The two situations are very, very different for reasons that should be relatively obvious. Musk ( via Trump ) has actual mandate to do that. << You can put aside any of the questions about the constitutionality of funding, this is an absurd breach of national security, both in terms of the INFSEC/IT aspect but also in terms of him casually shining spotlights on projects he knows nothing about and knows nothing of the consequences of disclosure. This may be one point I am kinda agreeing with you on. << To me it's performative empty arrogance with real security consequences, both for the people whose personal information was accessed but also for national intelligence and military strategies and methods. Maybe.. just maybe.. some of those methods should be revised in light of day. << Yes, I would want the department of defense to be funding research in this area. I am genuinely of two minds about it so the question is why you think it is a good idea especially given that you also stated the following: << I would not expect anyone to glean anything useful about said research from a title entry in a grants database, or maybe from anything in the grant description. Either it is ok to fund it, because you think it is a good idea or you don't know what it is and still think it is a good idea. I can accept one of those propositions.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    when foreign governments and hostile intelligence groups make concerted and aggressive efforts to subvert the US population then, yes, it is appropriate for the USG to make efforts to counter subversion efforts
- netbioserror 2y ago
  Context provided by the vaunted journalists at Politico, I'm sure.
- kevcampb 2y ago
  If you read the proposal, this is for providing automated defences against social engineering attacks - eg: phishing. It's incredibly benign. That's not how it's presented on Elon's twitter post, certainly. The replies are just layers and layers of conspiracy theories.
  - chrisco255 2y ago
    That sounds quaint. Why was it awarded to Reuters, a British/foreign news organization that supposedly hires journalists to report unbiased information? What expertise would they have in preventing social engineering attacks?
    - jauer 2y ago
      Reuters builds software for a variety of fields and maintains datasets that would be useful in identifying if, say, an email with an invoice purporting to be from a specific company aligns with the invoicing practices of that company. It would be more accurate to compare that side of Reuters to LexisNexus, Wolters Kluwer, or perhaps Bloomberg.
      - egberts1 2y ago
        Apparently Experian does a far much better job giving credit scores to Americans than Thomas Reuters does against criminal immigrants.
    - imadethis 2y ago
      It was awarded to Thomson Reuters, the parent company. They do a lot of work in risk management and fraud detection, so they have a lot of expertise.
      - egberts1 2y ago
        How's that working so far? Millions of illegal immigration, emptying of foreign prisons into America, development of apps to help navigate illegals into their US destinations, pacifying social media of the abovea? Thomas Reuters apparently is helping against America ... so far.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
Even if he doesn't have a clearance (he might because SpaceX), he doesn't need one. Anyone with sufficient authority can read him into any program.

excalibur 2y ago

It's literally an attempt to protect Americans against you, Elon.

jeffbee 2y ago

IMC is a known Russian agent, a Malaysian national who openly writes for Putin propaganda outlet RT. Of course he wants to defund American information security.

taurknaut 2y ago
You can do worse than RT if you watch it knowing you're seeing a curated narrative (which is no different from any paper, really, ours just happen to shill for our own state department). RT is a really good source for eg central asian news, most of which never even gets a mention in western papers. People really need to stop throwing around "russian agent" if they want the phrase to stay scary. IMC does not need to be tied to Putin to criticize him; he's a moron who's weirdly obsessed with american conservative ragebaiting despite not having anything to do with this country. Like I can't emphasize enough how clearly stupid the man is. (Though it is also very unsurprising that he allegedly supports Putin.) Other examples: Financial Times is a Japanese paper, so it's not the most reliable at eg reporting on China and Korea. They have surprisingly quality coverage outside of east asia, though, and from my eye they have a lot more matter-of-fact tone to american political coverage than most american papers do. Al Jazeera is not reliable for reporting on Qatar, but they're indispensable for a lot of reporting the west will refuse to engage in around the MENA world (and to a very limited extent, subsaharan africa). Etc etc. RT has its place; it's no Epoch Times. They have some mildly interesting americans working for them who seem very willing to openly criticize Putin. The russian language version is much more blatantly propaganda. Edit: well it seems that RT also spreads qanon stuff; I emphatically don't endorse that kind of content, nor did I realize it was there. I stand by the fact that it's a useful tool.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Seems like you went on a whole journey while writing and editing that comment! Downvotes not deserved.

yapyap 2y ago

My god, he’s actually acknowledging Cheong.. Meatriding has never been this successful

anothercoup 2y ago

[flagged]