If the leak was something more, it only validates concerns over the alarming
trend of information warfare (both information leaks and exploits) and what this means for our collective future.
Russian messages — that Estonia supports Nazism, that Russians are discriminated against and that Estonia is a failed state — can be seen as
forms of information warfare delivered through culture.
CCIOS research will be hyper - focused on all
facets of information warfare, the weaponization of psychographic and demographic information, influence campaigns, and propaganda studies exclusive to digital weaponization.
Creating similar resources within a government organization like the Department of Homeland Security could go a long way to helping the general public separate truth from reality and become more informed of the real threat America faces from the insidious and manipulative
practices of information warfare.
The internet is a critical tool for spreading false information — or disinformation in the
parlance of information warfare — to either manipulate or demoralize a nation and its people.
In April, I went to St. Petersburg to learn more about the agency and its
brand of information warfare, which it has aggressively deployed against political opponents at home, Russia's perceived enemies abroad and, more recently, me.