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The Military United States Technology

DoD Awards $1 Billion Contract To Peraton To Counter Misinformation (fedscoop.com) 118

Posted by BeauHD from the counter-messaging dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from FedScoop: The Department of Defense has awarded a task order worth up to $979 million over a five-year period to Peraton to counter misinformation from U.S. adversaries. The contractor will provide services to U.S. Central Command and its mission partners with operational planning, implementation and assessment services. Peraton has undertaken such work for Central Command since 2016 under its counter-threat messaging support program, and according to the company, the latest contract represents a doubling of work already scheduled to be carried out under the program.

Commenting on the contract, Tom Afferton, president of Peraton's cyber missions sector, said: "Since 2016, Peraton has executed campaigns to promote regional security and stability. Our ability to provide the U.S. government with insight, expertise, and influence helps ensure the safety of Americans, our allies, and the more than 550 million people under U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility, spanning three continents and 20 nations." The award comes after Peraton earlier this month won an IT infrastructure contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which could be worth up to $497 million over seven years. The Virginia company will provide infrastructure-as-a-managed service for storage and computing infrastructure facilities across the U.S. and globally. Announcing the award, Peraton said it will deliver an enterprise-scale solution that integrates on-premise infrastructure with the VA's enterprise cloud architecture.
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DoD Awards $1 Billion Contract To Peraton To Counter Misinformation More

DoD Awards $1 Billion Contract To Peraton To Counter Misinformation

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  • Ministry of Truth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by detritus. ( 46421 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @08:06AM (#61683769)

    Nothing good can come of this. It will only lead to more censorship and misinformation.

    • Que Amazon and Microsoft to start a court case

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Entrope ( 68843 )

        To borrow a phrase from a British comedian [wikipedia.org], "Que?" (Acute accent omitted because Slashdot still sucks.)

        You meant "cue", as in giving those companies a cue to their next action. Or maybe queue, if you want them to get in line. But not que.

        • "Qué?" (Acute accent omitted because Slashdot still sucks.)

          No, it doesn't. Accents work just fine. And we are grateful for not having to see emojis.

          Back on topic, they are just hiring a PR firm.. cui bono?

    • I predict they will be nearly immediately hacked by Russians and then the $979 million will evaporate into thin air. The FBI will admit knowing about it a decade later.

    • Considering some of it's coming from Russia and China we're rather behind in the game.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

      Nothing good can come of this. It will only lead to more censorship and misinformation.

      You missed the important part which was in the first sentence! "to counter misinformation from U.S. adversaries."

      They aren't doing anything about American idiots, just our adversaries.

      • Including fifth columnists?

        • If they identified such people then they would almost certainly pass that information to the FBI. Treason isn't something taken lightly.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Entrope ( 68843 )

            What you are talking about is not treason. It's at most something like acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Treason is the only crime that is defined in the Constitution, and courts have essentially narrowed it to require that the person accused of treason has to be working to help a country that is actively waging war on the US.

            The Supreme Court's decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio means that speech by itself will very seldom be criminal; it must be an integral part of a criminal conspiracy, or be "dire

        • Our Country (USA) was founded by rebels:

          "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Nothing good can come of this. It will only lead to more censorship and misinformation.

        You missed the important part which was in the first sentence! "to counter misinformation from U.S. adversaries."

        They aren't doing anything about American idiots, just our adversaries.

        So, rot from within is fine then, I take it. Way to miss the actual problem!

        • It's up to congress to address such issues. The DoD's responsibilities are to handle our nation's adversaries.

      • You missed the important part which was in the first sentence! "to counter misinformation from U.S. adversaries."

        An imaginary hurdle that's instantly overcome by already-spouted rhetoric that:

        * The US accounts MAY BE "bot accounts"
        * The US accounts RESEMBLE "bot" accounts
        * The US accounts "SHOW BOT-LIKE" behavior
        * The US accounts are INFLUENCED BY the foreign adversary
        * The US accounts are EXPOSED TO the foreign adversary, and need COUNTER-messaging
        * The US accounts are REPEATING THE MESSAGES of the foreign adversary
        * The US accounts are ADVANCING THE AGENDA for the foreign adversary
        * The US accounts are BOOSTING the

      • Yet tragically you're still missing the important takeaway from that sentence: Who decides what is and isn't misinformation?

        It appears you've already accepted that whatever the US says is automatic truth, so further discussing this with you is rather pointless.

        • Who decides what is and isn't misinformation?

          I'm pretty sure they are just going to take down anything another nation is pushing on US citizens. No need to identify it's validity.

      • Look here, Propornot just spotted new activity by russian propagandists:
        https://twitter.com/propornot/... [twitter.com]

    • Quite. It's about power and control. 'Misinformation' means information we don't want out there, never mind whether it is from adversary, independent or critic.

      • And if a million Americans have to die because half the country believes a global pandemic is the fictional creation of the Illuminati, so be it! Small price to pay for our freedums!

        • Do you think the Russians and the Chinese made us think the pandemic was fake? I would count that as misinformation but nobody is going to contradict you on that. I reckon the DoD sees little problem in blaming an external enemy for domestic problems. It improves stability, diverts attention from internal problems and allows you to counter dissent by linking it to external enemies.

          • No, but they certainly (and demonstrably) help amplify misinformation.

            • You started by implying Russia or China were responsible for the covid deaths by deliberately spreading misinformation. That is misinformation. It is also merely your opinion, so that should give you an idea of how low the threshold is for the claim 'spreading misinformation'. When you start talking about 'demonstrable' misinformation from Russia/China you have to start by setting a reference level of what is a normal predictable amount of misinformation and one way to do that is general trust towards domes

              • You started by implying Russia or China were responsible for the covid deaths by deliberately spreading misinformation. That is misinformation.

                Certainly nothing in the post you replied to implied such a thing.

                As for my follow-up claim that China and Russia are amplifying misinformation, there are plenty of articles on the subject [lmgtfy.app] that are a lot meatier on facts than most of the speculation in this thread.

                • Certainly nothing in the post you replied to implied such a thing.

                  it bloody well did.
                  as for 'plenty of articles' , yeah right. there are thousands of articles about 'the russians are coming' and 'the chinese are coming'. I am asking to pick one which is reason to be concerned about so that we need to 'fight misinformation'. You could at least have pointed out their 'advocacy' efforts to at least spread their version of events. Trouble with that of course is I see little reason to fight that, they have their

            • I'll put it differently. I believe that the people who support the idea that we need to fight Russian and Chinese disinformation are full of bullshit ideas about Russia and China.
              What we need most is people who try to be trustworthy and fair.

              • Well, while I agree that the trustworthyness of anyone the government is actually hiring at this late phase to combat misinformation is definitely in question, there's no question to me whatsoever that you're actively helping spread said misinformation and you should not be trusted either.

                • At least you're clear. I stick my neck out because I believe the attitude you're demonstrating is very common and very unhealthy and needs to be denounced.

                  The media are entirely complicit. They know what they need. The ratings of CNN and MSNBC dropped to the floor after Trump, they know they need a permanent enemy to maintain interest.

                  • Naturally you have nothing to say about the "news" organizations that tell their audiences that there was massive election fraud when there wasn't, or that the COVID vaccines are ineffective and dangerous. Your opinion on anything is irrelevant.

                    • It's hard even to guess what you want to say. That you know what I think? That it doesn't matter ? That I'm hiding something? Do you think now I'm some kind of pro-Trumpian person? I'm not. I didn't mention Fox because, while they pioneered the partisan politics businessmodel in the graphs I saw they didn't experience the extreme drop in ratings since beginning of the year. Their enemy did not suddenly drop away. But then it depends on what audience (primetime, 25-54) you're looking at so I'm fine with incl

                    • If you want to know my perspective you can start by throwing me in the box with people like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald

                      That certainly squares with their more recent work.

    • It will only lead to more censorship and misinformation.

      As opposed to the status quo that led to 40% of USAians believing in creationism? Not quite sure how you will be able to tell the difference; people in the US are already doing quite well when it comes to misinformation.

      • Creationism isn't being pushed by a state actor, so no, your argument is a red herring.

        • Strawman.

          Typical of those losing the argument they setup a claim nobody has made, knock it down, and declare victory. It is LITERALLY MISINFORMATION.

        • The comment I responded to merely said "misinformation", not "misinformation by a state actor". "More misinformation" could come from any source, really.

          • And yet, the article and the summary are about US adversaries, which could reasonably be assumed to be state actors. This new Pentagon thing is most certainly a state actor.

        • Pardon me, the Vatican would like a word with you.

      • Yes, as opposed to that status quo. I don't want governments deciding what people are allowed to believe.

        I won't try to justify creationism, but science is never done - what seems to be true can later be overturned or refined, and we need people to be able to explore ideas which seem wrong to most in order to advance science and understanding.

      • Reading comprehension has been on the decline in the world for a long time. You can be a creationist - believing that God created the universe, and still disagree with the majority of the creationists you refer to who believe it all started around 6k years ago. If they'd read Genesis 1 more closely, they'd see God gave the command to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it". The word replenish is a bit problematic there if there wasn't anything before the restorating work describe

        • Oddly after a 666 discussion it comes to mind just how important being a historian and a christian are intertwined.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by noodler ( 724788 )

          The bible makes an excellent case for there being civilization before Adam and Eve, judgment on them, and Genesis 1 describing making some part or all of the earth habitable again.

          In the same book the bible also makes an excellent case for talking snakes, old guy on a cloud, genocide, women being created from a piece of man, that the space outside the atmosphere is made of water, that livestock is a type of creature, that god apparently looks just like humans, with all the silly design flaws like the appendix etc. and that god thinks his creation of predators, who's life depends on killing other creatures, is something to be proud of.

          Seems your own reading comprehension is rather sel

          • I'm only going to address some of your comments, because I really don't get your point on a few of the others or am not following the reference.

            Talking snakes: The Bible does make a case that animals - and by extension probably any creature - can be demon controlled. You may not agree, but the NT would indicate that. In that case it would have been the demon speaking. It is also possible that Satan put the thoughts directly into Eve's head as if they had come from the snake. I lean to the former. Regardle

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by noodler ( 724788 )

              I only lament that one particular globally operating organization that spreads a lot of misinformation won't be combated by Peraton...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Nothing good can come of this. It will only lead to more censorship and misinformation.

      But it will be the _right_, _patriotic_ misinformation!

      (Indeed. Counter-propaganda propaganda just leads to an arms-race and hence makes everything worse...)

  • Sphere of influence. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @08:07AM (#61683777) Journal

    Our ability to provide the U.S. government with insight, expertise, and influence helps ensure the safety of Americans, our allies, and the more than 550 million people under U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility, spanning three continents and 20 nations."

    Wow, that's a lot of countries to invade.*

    *Said tongue in cheek.

    • Don't give them any ideas!

    • The US government classifies almost everything and perpetually lies about what it is doing, and why. You don't invade or harass countries on the other side of the world that did not attack the US in order to "make us safe", you do it to project geopolitical control, and to destabilize countries that have cross-purposes to the US agenda. So this funding is going to be used to boost the government's ability to propagandize, oops, sorry, "manage the narrative" with even greater urgency. Considering how most pe

  • ... we have to find this troublemaker posting under the Mrs. Silence Dogood pseudonym.

  • previous experience (Score:4, Funny)

    by algaeman ( 600564 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @08:24AM (#61683853)
    They've been doing a bang-up job; I haven't seen any misinformation since 2016. So, it makes sense that we would extend the contract.

  • Uncomfortable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @08:26AM (#61683869) Homepage
    I would feel a lot better about this if all their findings were made public, so we could see what they claim is misinformation. I mean I like the idea of fighting misinformation, but I don't really trust a government contractor to do it. I don't trust Twitter, Facebook, or Google to do it either. I'd rather all the information was out there and you could also find critics explaining what was wrong with the factually incorrect information. Bonus points if you had a verifiable way of knowing where the information came from.

    • This seems like a reasonable accommodation.

      But if we don't want the public sector doing this, and we don't want the private sector to do it either, then we simply accept the status quo.

      Bad idea IMHO.

      • It is a bad idea, except for all the other bad (worse) ideas.

        The only way to counter bad ideas is to be able to discuss them along with all the other bad ideas, some better, some worse. The worse case is having a select few people deciding which bad ideas are the best bad ideas. That is got to be one of the worst ideas ever.

    • so it's not reasonable to expect it to be made public. Doing so would expose spies.

      That said it will be made public in about 10-20 years. You can read all about the horrible things we did during the 70s, 80s and 90s. Fun stuff like the Gulf of Tonkin, Iran Contra, the millions killed by Henry Kissinger protecting US corporate interests, Bush Sr's war crimes in the 1st Iraq war, how we were categorically lied into the 2nd Iraq and Afghanistan wars, etc, etc, etc.

      There's absolutely zero reason to wor

      • After the last two elections, I finally completed the switch ti independent, which means I don't get to vote in NY's primary.
        The Establishment really does have the system locked up tight.
        This is why I tell people that the elites don't care which one of their canidates you vote for, red or blue; but you will vote for the canidates that are chosen by the elites one way or another.

    • The problem with this idea is the asymmetry of misinformation.

      Step 1: I make up some shit and start spreading it widely. ("Bill Gates put nanobots into the COVID vaccines to control you via 5G!!!")

      Step 2: Your clearing house finds out about it, assigns a researcher, who starts gathering information to show that this claim is impossible, nonsensical, and has no evidence supporting it.

      Step 3: I make up a new claim ("Masks can't stop the COVID virus, and poison you by blocking the CO2 you exhale!!")

      Step 4: Yo

  • Great idea. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Joey Vegetables ( 686525 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @08:28AM (#61683875) Journal
    Yeah. Let's put the world's most powerful military in charge of suppressing free speech, and controlling what people are allowed to read and hear. What could possibly go wrong???? :(

    • Yeah. Let's put the world's most powerful military in charge of suppressing free speech, and controlling what people are allowed to read and hear. What could possibly go wrong???? :(

      A lot of people here would love the idea, provided it's aimed at their enemies.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Yeah. Let's put the world's most powerful military in charge of suppressing free speech, and controlling what people are allowed to read and hear. What could possibly go wrong???? :(

        A lot of people here would love the idea, provided it's aimed at their enemies.

        It may start out that way, but that never keeps. Creating capabilities that can easily be pointed at domestic targets later is about the most stupid thing one can allow a government to do.

    • I guess it's better to let foreign mis/dis-information continue unabated and unchallenged because of vague, paranoid predictions of impending tyranny.

      • You don't get to decide on someone else's behalf what does or does not constitute "misinformation."

        • Re:Great idea. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @10:22AM (#61684313) Homepage

          Millions of people in this country are living in an alternative reality thanks to mis/dis-information. It's easy to smugly stand on principle as long as the problem doesn't affect you directly.

        • Misinformation [merriam-webster.com]: "Incorrect or misleading information"

          How would you otherwise define the concept of "misinformation"? There are absolutely claims which are factually incorrect, and the spread of those claims can be classified as misinformation by any common definition. You seem to be veering off into "everyone is entitled to their own truth" territory.

        • Uh, actually that's exactly how this works. People are wrong about stuff on purpose, and they make other people wrong about stuff on accident, then someone steps in to correct them all. That's exactly how misinformation is combated. It is inherent to the situation that the people who are right have to correct the people who are wrong on accident and silence the ones who are wrong on purpose. What you're proposing is the current status quo where everyone just decides what's true for themselves; that's ca

  • Easy for the dod (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SappoMan ( 51574 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @08:29AM (#61683893)
    Just bomb every fucking Facebook datacenter. Easy and cheap
  • The summary sounds like it's straight out of "1984".

  • Fighting misinformation with propaganda. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hmmmmmm ( 6216892 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @09:25AM (#61684099)

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2013... [foreignpolicy.com]

    Smith-Mundt Act
    The Act was developed to regulate broadcasting of programs for foreign audiences produced under the guidance by the State Department, and it prohibited domestic dissemination of materials produced by such programs as one of its provisions.[1] The original version of the Act was amended by the Smith–Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 which allowed for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be disseminated (widely spread) within the United States.[2][3]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Seems to me this is a natural consequence of the amendment.

  • This is a fantastic business model. As competitors eventually merge, you can create a globe-spanning network of marketing firms which manage the campaigns from all sides. Unlike previous global arms dealers who at some point had to actually produce/procure/transport the tangible RPGs and ammo they sold to the highest bidders on all sides of a fight, the global information-weaponry dealers can just crank out new blahblah via their pawn army of TwitTwokGram bots and influencers, then have their bishop army of

  • ... out a wild hogs ass.

  • I can't believe they'd let a company known for making devices that kill kids and pets be in charge of this...

    https://www.nydailynews.com/ne... [nydailynews.com]

    • Regarding killing... You may wanna look up what the primary job of a military is... ;)

      • Liberating foreigners from their governments?

      • Protecting its nation via a show of force to minimize killing?

        Isn't that why the US has grossly overfunded its military for 70+ years? Having an over-the-top intimidating military force had been an excellent deterrent and likely saved millions of lives over the last few decades. I'm not even a fan of the military being this large, but I do see the utility of it.

        FYI: The US Army states: "The Army exists to serve the American people, defend the nation, protect vital national interests and fulfill national mil

  • First they charge $4k for a bike that doesn't go anywhere, then charge $50/month to use it, and now this.

  • When your legal system is "the response to murder is murder or torture" because that's the level of enlightenment that your society's culture has reached, the above detail is the inevitable behavior of its people.

    Sadly not any different everywhere else in the world.
    My country is not one bit better, so unrustle your jimmies. :)

    Despite people knowing that that is wrong for at least 3500 years before Ghandi. (Roughly 3500 years ago is when the Jesus stories were already known in ancient India and Egypt. Yes, r

  • 1 - Hire 5 people to post, "Nuh Uh!!!" all over the web 2 - ?? 3 - Profit! (and in fewer steps than normal!)
  • They have a new PR firm.

  • The US social media monitoring company that hired Russian PR firms to run ads not related to the Election at all, the 'Detected' this advertising activity, then used this 'Detected' activity to feed the media narrative that Russia was interfering with the Election, and that the Federal Government should buy their social media monitoring software to stop the Russians from manipulating the election?

    Wake up - this is about manipulation of the Public into supporting the foreign policy activity of the deep state

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