US military working on deepfakes for mind control operations: Report

The US military has been pursuing machine-manipulated media, commonly referred to as deepfakes, for its mind control psychological operations, while Washington has been touting that the use of such technology in American disinformation campaigns is against the principles of democracy.

The Intercept reported on Monday that the US Special Operations Command, tasked with some of America's most secretive operations, is pursuing contractors to provide deepfakes technology to conduct internet propaganda and deception campaigns online.

US federal documents with tech companies reviewed by The Intercept revealed projects involving hacking internet-connected devices to falsify images for propaganda campaigns.

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"While the US government routinely warns against the risk of deepfakes and is openly working to build tools to counter them, the document from US Special Operations Command, SOCOM, represents a nearly unprecedented instance of the American government — or any government — openly signaling its desire to use the highly controversial technology offensively," the report stated.

The US military is also seeking capabilities to deploy “next generation” deepfakes in information warfare and hack the Internet of Things (IoT) to track their impact, the review of the procurement documents revealed, it added.

SOCOM’s next-generation propaganda aspirations are outlined in the procurement document that lists capabilities it’s seeking for the near future and soliciting pitches from outside parties that believe they’re able to build them.

Last October, SOCOM quietly released an updated version of its wish list with a new section: “Advanced technologies for use in Military Information Support Operations (MISO),” US military doublespeak for its global propaganda and foreign deception efforts otherwise known as psychological operation or mind control.

The added paragraph spells out SOCOM’s desire to obtain new and improved means of carrying out “influence operations, digital deception, communication disruption, and disinformation campaigns at the tactical edge and operational levels.” SOCOM is seeking “a next-generation capability to collect disparate data through public and open source information streams such as social media, local media, etc. to enable MISO to craft and direct influence operations.”

MISO is seeking a “next generation of ‘deepfake’ or other similar technology to generate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels in relevant peer/near peer environments,” RT stated in a report of US Special Ops aiming to weaponize deepfakes as quoted by The Intercept.

SOCOM typically fights from the shadows using tech-savvy personnel in units from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force; SOCOM conducts the most sensitive military operations of the world’s most lethal nation, it noted.

American Special Forces often bring Navy SEALs’ killing Osama bin Laden to one's mind; however, they cover a vast scope of operations and secret missions, including subterfuge, sabotage, and disruption campaigns. SOCOM’s “next generation” disinformation ambitions are only part of a long, vast history of deception efforts on the part of the US military and intelligence apparatuses.

The US military's Special Operations Command, which is accepting proposals on these capabilities through 2025, has for years coordinated foreign “influence operations” such as employing machine learning-generated avatar bots to spread disinformation and lend fake accounts on popular social media platforms a degree of realism

Provocatively, the updated capability document reveals that SOCOM wants to boost these internet deception efforts with the use of “next generation” deepfake videos, an increasingly effective method of generating lifelike digital video forgeries using machine learning. Special Forces would use this faked footage to “generate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels,” the document revealed.

The use of deepfakes to deliberately deceive could have a deeply destabilizing effect on civilian populations exposed to them, government authorities warn regularly.

The deepfakes technology uses publicly available imagery to create a digital version of a person, which can then be used to fabricate footage.  The technology behind deepfake videos first arrived in 2017, spurred by a combination of cheap, powerful computer hardware and research breakthroughs in machine learning. Deepfake videos are typically made by feeding images of an individual to a computer and using the resultant computerized analysis to essentially paste a highly lifelike simulacrum of that face onto another.

According to a 2018 news report, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military’s tech research division, has spent tens of millions of dollars developing methods to detect deepfakes. Similar studies are underway throughout the Department of Defense.

Perhaps as provocative as the mention of deepfakes is the section that follows it in which SOCOM wishes to finely tune its offensive propaganda seemingly by spying on the intended audience through their internet-connected devices.

Described as a “next generation capability to ‘takeover’ Internet of Things (loT) devices for collect [sic] data and information from local populaces to enable breakdown of what messaging might be popular and accepted through sifting of data once received,” the document says that the ability to eavesdrop on propaganda targets “would enable MISO to craft and promote messages that may be more readily received by local populace.”

In 2017, WikiLeaks published CIA files that revealed a roughly similar capability to hijack household devices.

WikiLeaks posted thousands of files revealing secret tools used in cyberwar by the agency to convert cellphones, televisions and other ordinary devices into implements of espionage.

It lay bare the design and capabilities of some of the US intelligence community’s most closely guarded cyberweapons.

WikiLeaks posted US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations about National Security Agency spying activities in 2013.

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