Democracies are being gamed. Authoritarian governments, moneyed elites
and fringe hackers are exploiting our digital infrastructure and the
vulnerabilities in our democratic system to influence our politics and
elections. In just a few years, it has become a perpetual information
war.
Inherently unstable and prone to wild volatility, our digital ecosystem
has at its heart a vacuum open to the influence of those with the
motivation, money or expertise to exploit it. Played successfully it can
lead to unprecedented swings of public opinion.
Martin Moore explains how hackers interfere in our democratic processes
and why they can do it and outlines what we need to do to save democracy
for the digital age. This is a story about active measures, data mining,
psy-ops, mercenaries, microtargeting, the alt-right, plutocrats, the
collapse of local news, Silicon Valley, Trump, trolling, surveillance -
and you.