Democracy is arguably ancient, but an electorate with a universe of information at its fingertips did not come into being until the dawn of the World Wide Web, 25 or so short years ago. Vaclav Vincalek of Pacific Coast Information Systems notes that the information wars continue - but the bad actors are getting more subtle.
Read Vaclav Vincalek’s warning about the vulnerability of Canadian elections.
“Vancouver-based cyber security expert Vaclav Vincalek says while the social media companies’ crackdown and public awareness could be leading to the eerie lack of interference this time around, it’s much more likely the foreign — and even domestic manipulators — have found others ways to influence voters.
"We always are ready to fight the last war, not the new one, and I think the techniques which are coming out, the social media platforms might not be aware yet that they’re going to get hit,” he said.”
Vincalek is right. It’s ironic that Internet-driven propaganda efforts, with their armies of bots and flood-the-zone algorithms, can probably only be defeated with better tech.