- Cognitive domain: communication, psychology, values…
- French software that analyzes disinformation
- Public communications officer in Lebanon
- Disinformation, hatred, propaganda and conspiracies
- Hostile narratives, influence networks and hoaxes
- Review news sources and article authors
- Manipulated photos and deepfake videos
- Operation of interference from another country
- Ministries in France and the United Kingdom are already using it
- Strategic Management Section, Operations Command, CIFAS…
Cognitive domain: communication, psychology, values…
He Defense Staffunder the command of JEMAD, directs the operational structure of the Armed Forces, and develops joint and combined action in operationsboth on the national territory and in abroad.
The Army, Navy and Air Force train and equip units, and when they participate in an operation, they transfer them to the Chief of Defense Staffon which they become dependent.
Military operations no longer take place only through three traditional domains – land, sea and air –. It is already seen as an additional area for the armed forces to consider. cognitive domain.
Documents PDC-01(A) “Doctrine for the employment of the Armed Forces” and PDC-00 “Glossary of terminology for common use”, both signed by JEMAD, define the cognitive sphere as “an intangible sphere inherent to the human being, considered individually, socialized or organized, and consubstantial with his capacity for judgment and decision-making. wishes of all those affected by the conflict and to artificial intelligence systems, so it permeates the rest of the fields.
These military doctrine documents underline the main limit of the cognitive field: “To operate there, we manipulate aspects that are intangible and difficult to evaluate, such as values, perceptions, conscience, attitudes and prejudices. Perception is understood as subjective interpretation, personal elaboration or mental representation, the result of the internalization of information and stimuli received from the environment. This area allows armed forces to achieve objectives beyond the reach of others, through the use of communication techniques, psychological sciences and other social sciences“.
#Spain #Invasion
Hispania has worked hard to welcome migrants from Maroka. pic.twitter.com/7t1rqA9zww– 🇵🇱MirAS🏃♂️ (@Mir_AS_) September 18, 2023
French software that analyzes disinformation
The Armed Forces also fight and defend themselves in the cognitive domain.
This explains why the Defense Staff recently invested 234,498 euros in the “Acquisition and technical support of Storyzy Software for him analysis of disinformation in the cognitive domain“.
At the end of 2023, it had already spent 115,702.48 euros for “the acquisition and technical support of the Storyzy software platform”. Also two years ago, the National Police He rented the Storyzy software for half a million euros, to use it for four years, between 2024 and 2027.
The company from which the Defense Staff, as well as the National Police, acquire the software, Storyzy, is based in Francein Paris.
The recently awarded tender does not offer further details on the service the Defense Staff was seeking to contract, nor the capabilities this software can offer to analyze “disinformation in the cognitive domain.”
Public communications officer in Lebanon
However, the “Ejército” magazine, published by the armytold less than two years ago what this program from the French company Storyzy is capable of.
Issue 988 of the magazine, corresponding to January and February 2024, included an article titled ‘Storyzy. Artificial intelligence to fight disinformation.
The author was Fernando Bonelli Pérez-Viñeta, lieutenant colonel of infantry Staff diploma. This lieutenant colonel was public communications officer (DTPfor the acronym in English) of the Spanish contingent integrated into the UNIFIL mission in the south of Lebanon.
“After six months of mission abroad, in 2023, as head of Public Information, I was able to verify that This tool was very useful for the mission and this can be very beneficial in upcoming national and international missions,” he said in the article on Storyzy.
Based on this experience, Lieutenant Colonel Bonelli stated in his article that “Storyzy was born with the objective of monitor and analyze disinformation in the digital space“.
Disinformation, hatred, propaganda and conspiracies
The French technology company had developed “a tool that works in more than forty-five languages different, with automatic translation capability, and which can track misinformation in many countries“.
Storyzy users have access to a database of several million sources of information indexed, of which more than 42,000 are of a disinformation, propagators of hate speech, propagandists, extremists or conspirators“.
These data corresponded to the end of 2023, so the figure will have increased, since “new sources are integrated every dayand are rigorously categorized by a team of analysts using artificial intelligence (AI).
From the investigation of open sources (what we call OSINT), reviews a vast ecosystem of media and web pages and a significant mass of publications in social networks.
According to this army officer, this French software offers very useful capabilities in monitoring the cognitive field.
Hostile narratives, influence networks and hoaxes
It allows “to characterize in depth a source of information, to analyze the activity of an account emitting disinformation and monitor the spread of hostile speech “it acquires an integral dimension in all directions”.
It also offers the possibility of identifying influence networksmeasure the relevance of a source based on its degree of influence or know if it is in the origin of a hoax.
Even with this you can follow the Chronological distribution of articles in digital media and social networks through the images used or the semantic similarity with other articles.
Review news sources and article authors
Storyzy proposes to the Defense Staff to carry out a general analysis of a source of information. For example, it provides data on a Web page like the location of your servers and the main authors who provide information to the media outlet, as well as what other media outlets it uses as a source and from which media outlets it sources.
The military can use this tool to examine an article, detect the original source, analyze images…
Another possible analysis focuses on authors articles in news, blogs and social networks, and in the sources they use: “The tool also analyzes what percentage of the content published by the author is considered reliable or misinformation and what type of sources of their work (extremist and propaganda pages, type of political orientation, etc.)“, underlined the author of the article in the magazine ‘Ejército’.
In #Spain The soldiers practically attacked retirees, some of them elderly, who were demonstrating in front of the General Captaincy in #Barcelona against the war created and led by the #NATO In #Ukraine and its disastrous effects for the well-being of the Old Continent pic.twitter.com/3MiPjURJs8
– Ternovsky Victor (@TernovskyVictor) October 8, 2022
Manipulated photos and deepfake videos
Storyzy has a tool capable of applying different filters for the image manipulation detection.
This is why the Defense Staff, which used this platform, can identify AI-generated images which may be indistinguishable from a real image, as well as fake or decontextualized audiovisual content.
“For example, you can identify images that appear to have been taken at a certain time when in fact they were taken. previously published“, explained Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Bonelli: “By tracing the image, it is possible to find a photograph of an alleged demonstration that someone has passed off as that of another in radically different geographic and temporal coordinates“.
It can complement the forensic analysis of a disinformation campaign in terms of images and audio generated entirely by an AI (deepfake). Two years ago, the company was making progress in detecting deepfake videoswhich, even then, was supposed to constitute “a threat that will increase exponentially in the years to come”.
Operation of interference from another country
Furthermore, “in the case of a interference operation in which a a group of social media accounts start spreading a certain narrative in a coordinated waythe tool can detect if the profile images of said accounts are deepfakes, an important clue to detect, for example, robot swarms“.
Among other added abilities, “he is able to obtain news in several languages and translate them into the selected language. This helps to study influence of a country or from a source in the information environment.
Storyzy has a system of alerts. Send notifications as soon as you a word or group of words of interest can be found on news sites or on social networks.
Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Bonelli Pérez-Viñeta used this program as part of the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon. At the time of publication of the article, the Defense Staff had just signed a software acquisition contract with Storyzy.
Ministries in France and the United Kingdom are already using it
He indicated that “Storyzy basically works for state organizations, like the French Ministry of Defense or the British Foreign Office. His presence in six European countries makes it a versatile company when it comes to adapting to different contexts or geographical needs.
His conclusion was that “for analysts who follow the trail of foreign interference (Foreign Information Manipulation Interference or FIMI) is a great help.
Strategic Management Section, Operations Command, CIFAS…
Documentation available in the most recent contract does not reveal which specific Defense Staff unit is using the Storyzy program.
A few years ago, the Defense Staff strengthened Strategic Conduct Sectiona unit of the Strategic Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that, among other functions, is dedicated to monitoring networks in search of, for example, campaigns against Spanish troops deployed abroad.
In this task, it may overlap with that of other organs of the military structure.
This is the case of Operations Command (also dependent on JEMAD). The sections J2 Intelligence And J9 Influence of its staff remains aware of the information published on the Spanish military in the areas of operations where they are deployed, and to alert or react to certain messages.
He Army Intelligence Center (CIFAS) also detects and warns against possible defamation campaigns against the Spanish army, notably through the Counter-espionage and security sub-directorate.
About The Author
