Descriptions and definitions of who an informant is goes back centuries. In the past 100 years informants have become a necessity to the government sector to help solve cases which may never have been solved through applying conventional investigative methodologies and techniques.

It is imperative to understand that informants are part of human intelligence operations and a proven method of collecting information. The training and development of those who manage informants is a very important skill.

The word informant in society is perceived in a very negative context. Most people who are revealed to be an informant become isolated from society and in some cases are victims of severe retribution.

There are several motives as to “why” someone will become informant in the first place and the methodology used to recruitment them is often known as MICE – Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego.

Ensuring the control and accountability of informants is important and proves a true physical and psychological challenge.
In the corporate world, some investigations, particularly where well organised fraudulent activities are involved, have been so well organised and executed that companies need to use informants to obtain information about them. In this example, informants would typically be identified as “confidential informants”.

The difference between an “Informant” and “whistleblower” in corporate world needs to noted.

Most commonly informants will be used as a starting point for an investigation, commonly known as AD REM – borrowed from the Latin ad rem (“pertinent, relevant”), from ad (“to”) + rem, accusative of res (“matter”).

If you have just a suspicion, little or just circumstantial evidence then that is the moment where you, as an investigator, should put your Informant Management Plan into action.

It is important to understand three key elements of who an informant can be and how they need to be managed.

1. Accessibility – Informants need to be people who have access to information. As an investigator, you must have some indication, idea or confirmation that the person about to become your informant actually has access to useful information.

2. Motivation – Informants will have some type of motivation that encourages them to obtain and pass on information.

3. Control – Prior to engaging the informant, the need for accountability must be explained and the fact they will be directed as per the needs of investigation as well as being subject to control through other means.

 

To obtain a competitive edge, as well as aid the fight against crime, the use of informants plays a crucial role in the gathering and collecting of information.

It is the way the information provided by informants is gathered, managed and used which brings into play the privacy issues and the legal responsibilities which must be considered by any organisation engaging in this form of information collection.
When people think of informants, they usually associate them with government departments and law enforcement bodies, which are primarily concerned with the prevention of crime, terrorist attacks and other unfavourable events.

However, the use of informants is far more widespread. They are also associated with industries where valuable information is sought for many reasons — most of which can be encapsulated in the desire for a competitive edge through industrial espionage and economic espionage.

The information sought, and therefore the informants used, can be from both within the organisation and/or from competing organisations.

On the surface, the use of informants within organisations may seem unethical, but in today’s competitive world, this has become a normal part of the business environment and their benefits are well explained in the Fraud Magazine article by (Martin T. Biegelman,, 2014).

If you choose to use an informant for the first time. Making sure you are clear why you need them, the scope of their activity as well as who will develop and run the informant management plan must be decided up front.

Mario Bekes has extensive experience of managing informants in a range of circumstances. Contact Mario for a confidential discussion to ensure your objectives are achieved and risks minimised.

 

 

How often have we watched blockbuster movies where some of the main characters are labelled “informants”. Our thirst for information is insatiable, despite how easily we can access material at the click of a mouse. There is a big difference between accessing information on the net and getting information directly from an individual.

Perhaps you will ask yourself, “I can read and see what’s on internet, what more do I need? Correct, however an informant will usually have access to more than just information, but an extensive circle of other people, informant observers and interact on social level which we cannot do on internet. They add colour and movement to the picture.

Even today, there is no exact definition for the term ‘informant’. However, every government department has its own definition, basically it is the human being who provides information.

Looking at historical data, East Germany had almost 180K informants, mostly recruited by domestic intelligence agencies such as the Stasi (official name Ministerium für Staatsicherheit (German: “Ministry for State Security” due the fact that Stasi performed work outside of Eastern Germany borders).

Western government agencies also use informants extensively. According to Forbes (Adam Andrzejewski, 2021) United States agencies paid over 500 million US Dollars to informants while the Drug Enforcement Association (DEA) still has over 18,000 active informants.

Utilising informants is not only the preserve of government agencies, they have been used by corporations around the world, particularly those in highly competitive industries such as military contracts, chemical or pharmaceutical, to name but a few.

Corporate informants are not only people who are working on behalf of competitor, they may also choose to provide information to the media as in Goodwin v United Kingdom (Savla, 1997).

 

Informants are often categorised with respect to their nature and motivation into:

Informant — anyone who provides and supplies information without the consent of the other party with the intent of malicious, personal or financial gain.

The recruitment of informants in this category by government agencies is usually regulated by legislation and acts of parliament.

 

Informer — any informant (except a person without any criminal record, background or association) who supplies information, whether for reward or not, on actual or anticipated criminal activities or those involved either directly or indirectly in such activities, where it is anticipated that the informant will provide information more than once.

Informants who work for some government bodies are usually registered under a pseudonym or nickname.

 

We are all dependent on portable devices for our work and our social lives. Using them in public settings, especially airports, planes and trains provides the perfect opportunity for criminals to access your information – and they don’t even need your passwords. Recent trips of mine have confirmed how the best cyber security arrangements count for once employees leave their taxis and enter airports to get on planes.

As restrictions are starting to relax, we are seeing commuting for both work and personal reasons start to increase again. After two years of working from home, people are seizing the opportunity for face-to-face meetings with clients, peers and employees.

Working from home has seen its own privacy challenges with more people using their own networks and devices that are typically outside the company’s firewall. We saw an increased number of fraudulent activities from identity theft, hacking accounts and phishing – the list goes on.

The restart of business travel brings with it the privacy challenges of using portable devices on the move.

It is important to know the modus operandi for how perpetrators access your information.

Information theft usually occurs out of sight. It will happen outside of your peripheral view. Due to most people’s lack of interest in the environment around them, for example on a plane, they can be particularly vulnerable.

As soon as businesspeople start traveling, perpetrators have easier access to you and the information you are carrying. One method is via social engineering (malicious activities accomplished through human interactions) and another is from observing your screen and perhaps utilising some type of surveillance method (video, imagery, eavesdropping).

Things become more interesting as soon as two or more people from a company travel together. They inevitably openly discuss work, share documents and other information in the cabin. For those sitting close, it is almost impossible not to learn sensitive information. Just think of your last flight, I bet you inadvertently found yourself listening to a work conversation or watching someone working on a laptop.

I see corporations spend tremendous amounts of money on the technical and mechanical protection of company information (cyber security), while neglecting one of oldest and best field-tested form of intelligence gathering operations – human intelligence.

If you couple social engineering, which occurs way more than you realise, together with a lack of employee training, education and preventative methods, there is no doubt in my mind that working at an airport, on a plane, train or bus will be a heightened focus for perpetrators.

After all, if information theft occurs on plane or at an airport, it is most likely to never be discovered or investigated. Most importantly corporations will not know how to implement processes to

protect data when they do not know how it has been compromised. In these environments, perpetrators do not need your password, after all you are willingly sharing your screen and having conversations/calls about sensitive information.

Recent trips of mine just confirmed how few prevention techniques are being followed once employees happily leave their taxis at the airport and move through onto the aeroplane. The investigation of information theft is a difficult and costly process. You should be your own strongest link by being more aware of your environment and being your own human firewall to prevent information theft.

 

 

Many of you will remember December 2010, when a Tunisian produce vendor set himself on fire and sparked what became known as the Arab Spring. The name stemmed from the ‘People’s Spring’ and ‘Prague Spring’ that described movements towards democracy, rather than the time of year per se.

The success of the Arab uprising is often put down to the social media platforms used by the citizens of Tunisia, Egypt and other countries, to share their experiences of tyranny and turmoil. However, social media was just a one of many tools which inspired millions to revolt against their governments.

On 28 January 2011, the Egyptian government shut down social media platforms and later the entire internet, but the revolution and uprising continued to spread like wildfire.

So, how did the uprising continue despite the shutting down of social media platforms and the internet taking away the major tools of the uprising?

To answer this question, we can go further into history and analyse how the Prague Spring developed in Czechoslovakia, despite the absence of social media and with the State’s tight control of media and newspapers.

The answer is simple, today we depend on social media platforms to be educated, informed and to share our opinions or disagreements. What social media platforms miss are the true opinion of the populous. For example, few of us would consider a social media poll to be 100% truthful, so, you never know exactly what people are thinking.

Both the Prague and Arab uprisings shared common information dissemination. That is ‘analogue’ intelligence, the discussions between humans at places and times where people gather over drinks or social engagements. That is how information was disseminated without the assistance of social media platforms. Word of mouth is also more powerful for one reason.

Words are converted into information and when spoken from person to person they can be weaponised by adding emotions.

I remember as a kid in what was then communist Yugoslavia, my father used to hide in the bath, under blankets, to listen to the Voice of America to learn what was happening in Poland during its martial law in 1981. He would then quietly speak with a few neighbours during the

day, to discuss how to get rid of communism in Yugoslavia. That is how information was transferred from one person to another.

Even today, the power of information is not only on social media platforms. Every information has a source which is human. Regardless of how it is positioned on social media, the question needs to be what is the value of that information, the validity of its source validity and its reliability?

In recent history, we saw how the social media platforms that helped start the Red Shirt movement in Thailand, become a threat. They ended up building their own electronic logistical network for sharing and disseminating information to their followers.

If you compare the world 30 or 40 years ago when social media platforms literally didn’t exist, much information would have been passed from person to person in social environments such a workplace, homes, family gatherings, making it hard for communist countries, like the one I was brought up in, to monitor what and who said what.

Information that was placed into the broader public with intent was the most damaging, which was why communist states intelligence was inaccurate or misleading.

Decision making should be based on the elements of validity and the reliability of the source and to take into consideration the fact that every source is human. Social media platforms are only a tool for information distribution.

Those looking to understand public sentiment for corporate or government use, through the recording of information, its sources, validity and reliability should always include field intelligence methods and not simply rely on electronic media.

It is also important to understand that information collected today may not be valid tomorrow.

The success of this information collation to organisations depends on how you collect and analyse the source and reliability, to drive strategic planning and inform the tactical response of your organisation.

 

 

Mainstream media and social channels are awash with conversations and disagreements about misinformation and disinformation and what they are. The pandemic and Trump’s presidency have added considerable fuel to these debates.

Definitions of disinformation and misinformation are easy to find. The important distinction between the two is the intent that sits behind them.

Misinformation is the sharing or publishing of information that is more or less accurate. It can be spread by anyone, by any means and without the intent to deceive. We see this daily on our social media platforms, through the continuous arguments and counter arguments, which may even include some facts.

Disinformation, on the other hand, is created deliberately with the intent to deceive. Its deceptive nature is designed to cause problems within countries, organisations and the general public. It is often directed against prominent members of society and is a common tactic employed by foreign countries and their intelligence agencies, who use friendly, reliable supporters to help distribute disinformation on large scale.

We can look back in history at some of the origins of disinformation. One of most famous examples of disinformation is Grigory Potemkin (1739-1791) who orchestrated the building of fake villages to impress his former lover, Empress Catherine the Great, when she visited newly conquered territories in 1787.

It is a beautiful story, but a fake one. The idea of Potemkin villages was designed to disinform the Ottoman Empire into believing that Russia Empire was weak and that they just built wooden facades. It encouraged the Ottoman Empire to go to war with Russia over Crimea and they lost, resulting in the Treaty of Jassy that confirmed Crimea as a part of the Russian Empire.

There are many examples of disinformation from both sides during World War II. Both set up fake airfields and model planes to trick the enemy. The allies even dropped fake paratroopers the night before the D-Day invasion to make the Germans think the invasion was in a different location.

Modern age disinformation was widely adopted by the USSR under the term, dezinformatsiya. According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, a high-ranking official in Romania’s secret police, who defected in 1978, there were many examples of how USSR utilised disinformation against West.

Misinformation, particularly online, is all around us. It has shown how vulnerable we are as a society, particularly during the Covid19 pandemic, where truthful and fact checked information has in some cases become a rare commodity.

Disinformation is usually based on true event, so, it will include facts around which a false story will be built. These typically use sources, like social media platforms, where misinformation is flowing.

Disinformation is part of daily life, alongside misinformation. It is important for corporations to understand the modus operandi of both in order to protect their brands and reputations by maximising trust and confidence within their consumer and supplier communities.

Organisations invest heavily in their IT risk management frameworks, while the weakest link and potentially the best firewall, humans, are often forgotten.

Information risk management must include employees and policies around information risk management should be implemented for employees to help them understand what information is, how to access, analyse and record information for decision making.

 

 

During the Covid19 crisis, the typical workplace is no longer a company office, protected by technical, mechanical and physical security with access controls and an IT/cyber security manager physically sitting next to employees.

In contrast, the workplace has become the kitchen table or spare room, with many of IT devices also being used by household family members, partners or kids. Companies who were already set up for home working will typically have stronger security protocols than those who were forced to respond rapidly to home working and have kept utilising the same approach they did from day one.

With this transition of the workplace from offices to home set-ups, it is much easier for industrial or economic espionage operations to be performed successfully. The world has suddenly become flat.

Flat in sense that access to information can be done via an internet cable, Wi-Fi or email. There is no longer the need for an operative to be present in person, however that does not mean an existing intelligence operative may not be in the vicinity of your staff member or executive etc.

It is important to acknowledge that even if you decide to investigate a breach in your corporation due industrial or economic espionage type activity, it will be difficult to successfully complete your investigations for one simple reason – the perpetrators will be hundreds or thousands of kilometres away having learned and explored your organisation’s weaknesses.

 

So, what are most common drivers for successful industrial or economic espionage?

 

Human Factors:

Recruitment of informants or insiders to perform industrial or economic espionage is nothing new, however the Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego (MICE) methodology for recruitment during Covid19 will be on rise due to these two key indicators:

• Money – Covid19 lockdowns have caused distress on many families, employees and business owners who will seek a way to continue the lifestyle they had prior to pandemic or even to enhance a lavish lifestyle. Uncertain economic recovery and limited markets will drive individuals to seek monetary remedies based on previous work, R&D and current exposure to defence, government and other valuable information.

• Ideology – all modern western society is blend of many different cultures, often firmly embedded into society. It is certain that many unknown individuals are part of larger overseas intelligence networks, sent to the host country either as an immigrants, students or workers and patriotism will always prevail over lifestyle – patriotism was favourite model for recruiting informants in the socialist communist countries of the Eastern Bloc.

 

Technical Factors:

Access to classified information via technology and cyber espionage is the main modus operandi of industrial and economic espionage.

Most of the technology devices used in the day-to-day life of corporations and households are built-in third-party countries, including components of the telecommunications, PC’s, laptops and electric vehicles.

Importantly, this technology purchased from other countries could be possibly manufactured in a way to collect information without the consumer suspecting. (Samantha Hoffman and Elsa Kania, 2018)

Adding to the weight of the technical factor driver, is the possibility of easier access to information via hacking. Social engineering, the art of manipulating people to obtain confidential information, is made easier with corporate employees preferring to work from home. When you add the challenges of securing information in a home environment, this makes hacking more straightforward.

Despite legislations and various actions by countries to prevent cyber espionage and sanction those who commit it, there are strong drivers for foreign countries to utilise their existing ideology-based, informant network and recruit individuals from different corporations.

(Rowel.B.I., 2020) stated in her article that the danger of State-sponsored cyber espionage is that that any foreign intelligence agency will not prosecute or extradite those who are organised and financially supported to perform cyber espionage, instead they will deny, to minimise the exposure that anything happened.

(Samantha Hoffman and Elsa Kania, 2018) stated, “Any organisation and citizen shall, in accordance with the law, support, provide assistance, and cooperate in national intelligence work, and guard the secrecy of any national intelligence work that they are aware of,” concluding that the Chinese intelligence agencies will support and demand Chinese telecommunication companies to assist in cyber espionage when requested.

To summarise, Covid19 has increased the vulnerability of organisations to industrial and economic espionage. With espionage activities becoming increasingly sophisticated, organisations need to address both the human and technology factors that are increasing the risk of damaging infiltrations.

 

 

Economic and industrial espionage come from a different base, but their activities are similar.

(Button, 2020) in his article quoted definitions from Wagner’ (Wagner, E.R., 2011) to explain and distinguish the differences between economic and industrial espionage:

• “Economic espionage refers to targeting or acquiring trade secrets from domestic companies or government entities to knowingly benefit a foreign state’”.

• “Industrial espionage is the same as economic espionage, except that rather than benefiting a foreign government, it benefits another private entity’.”

 

Industrial and economic espionage are clearly interrelated.

In previous pieces, I have discussed industrial and economic espionage along with the purpose and examples of those activities. However, here I want to examine two key elements of why industrial or economic espionage is successful and how competitors or foreign countries exploit them.

 

1. Human Factor – by nature this is either the strongest or simultaneously the weakest link in preventing espionage activities

2. Technical Factor – which explores vulnerabilities of IT and Cyber Security

 

Globalisation has enabled the world to evolve at an incredible speed, with new technologies emerging on a daily basis. Right now, we can divide our way of living and working in two main categories. Firstly, Pre-Covid and a new category, Covid WFH (working from home). Going forward, there is likely to be a third category, that of Post-Covid. I’m going to focus on the two known categories.

The reason for dividing the world into these two main categories is that technology, particularly IT technology, has evolved tremendously in the past two decades, leading to information being scattered around the globe in different locations and in different types of protective environments. This is a major factor, that according to (AUSTLII, 2000) means, “Criminals will organise themselves, adopting all those strategic information technologies useful in order to retrieve, manage and communicate important information.”

In other words, perpetrators of industrial or economic espionage will adopt and learn new emerging technologies to obtain information. This activity also needs the human factor to substantiate the validity and usefulness of the data.

If we take into consideration that in Pre-Covid era employees primarily worked in offices and the security around information management was more easily monitored and controlled. The massive increase in working from home has led to a corresponding reduction in the effectiveness of risk management and information security.

A logical conclusion is that the Covid WFH category has increased the opportunities for organisations to be the target of industrial and economic espionage. Organisations need to adopt human and technology-based intelligence processes to prevent damaging impact from these activities.

 

 

 

“The life of spies is to know, not to be known”

George Herbert

 

A stolen recipe in ancient Greece led to one of the first cases of industrial espionage.

This, and other historical precedents, are discussed in relation to contemporary industrial espionage by (Tarantola, A , 2020) who analysed the events that took place in the ancient Greek city of Sybaris.

Another well-known example occurred in the 1800s, when the British East India Company hired the botanist, Richard Fortune, to smuggle tea cuttings out of China. These were used to cultivate the Indian tea industry, which eclipsed that of the Chinese in a few decades. (Rose 2010)

In short, it would seem that the earliest example of industrial espionage was based around the theft of intellectual property, more specifically, a recipe. From this, we can make a tentative inference about the structural forces at play that underpin contemporary equivalents. That is, people have an insatiable desire to know how, why and what their competitors have that is giving them a business edge.

By nature, both industrial and economic espionage, are simultaneously aggressive and defensive. They are aggressive in the sense that steps are taken to pursue and achieve a competitive advantage over competitors by utilising methods of operational intelligence gathering, as well as methods of sabotage and subversion. Both types of espionage are also defensive, and this is seen in activities that concentrate on the use of deception of competitors and/or foreign intelligence services by utilising methods such as information warfare and counterintelligence processes.

Industrial and economic espionage are considered illegal activities. However, it would be an inaccurate characterisation to say that most industrial and economic espionage activities that take place are, strictly speaking, illegal. The majority of such activities are performed using methods that are mainly legal. For example, collecting information about a competitor or product via open-source information, friendly discussions with a competitor’s employees, purchases of a competitor’s product (which are then used to attempt to reverse engineer its design), or head-hunting key employees in the hope that they can be enticed into breaking their exit contract with their previous employer.

Countries and States will utilise illegal means to conduct information/intelligence gathering operations regarding the economic capabilities of other countries, as well as the products of private entities, so long as doing so is to their benefit and it is deemed an acceptable risk relative to the potential gains afforded.

Cyber crime is one of the common examples of State-sponsored espionage. Indeed, the head of the UK’s secret service revealed back in 2012, how a UK company had suffered an AU$1.5bn loss from a state-sponsored cyber-attack in lost intellectual property and disadvantages in contract negotiations (Shah 2012).

In his article (Webb, T, 2011) provided a comprehensive list of industrial and economic espionage cases which involved corporations. The main scope of industrial espionage was information. The author outlined that industrial espionage evolved in terms of re-selling information to third parties or back to the owner of information.

The above-mentioned article illustrates that industrial and economic espionage represent a diverse umbrella of different activities with the key objective being to require information which puts a certain industry, corporation or a country in a better competitive position. In doing this, it can simultaneously, cause tremendous financial losses to the corporation which has been breached and information stolen.

Fierce global competition can drive corporations and countries to bend rules and start analysing competitors including their defence capabilities, production and economic survival.

The task of industrial espionage is not only to gather information but to explore the vulnerabilities of the competitor and the economic assessment of countries.

In summary, much industrial and economic espionage is not technically illegal but can stray into grey areas. Reverse engineering a product or hiring employees from competitors is commonplace and legal, whereas covert surveillance and hacking crosses the line.

Companies should be aware of competitors’ activities and the opportunities that can be created through legal and effective intelligence gathering methods as well as illegal ones.

 

 

1. Rose, S. 2010. For all the tea in China. Westminster: Penguin. Google Scholar

2. Shah, S. (2012). Corporate espionage on ‘an industrial scale’ targeting the UK. Retrieved from https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2187123/corporate-espionage-an-industrial-scale-targeting-uk.

Organisations need to act now and prepare for the growing prevalence of economic espionage in Australia and the damage it causes.

To understand what we mean by economic espionage, the FBI (2021) describe it as, “foreign power-sponsored or coordinated intelligence activity” while ASIO (2021) define it as, “Espionage is the theft of Australian information by someone either acting on behalf of a foreign power or intending to provide information to a foreign power which is seeking advantage.”

As evidenced by the word ‘economic’, this form of clandestine behaviour is directed towards the business sector in order to extract information and also to destabilise the market and impact productivity.

In an article by Tom Uren, “China’s cyber espionage surge in Australia”, he clearly describes how Chinese State Security carried out cyber espionage in order to steal technology so a Chinese state-owned company could benefit by building their own airliner.

The first time you become aware that you have been a victim of espionage is often when we find out someone has discovered and utilised information that you have not made public.

Espionage has come a long way since the days of the US/Soviet Cold War with its micro dots, secret cameras and advanced technologies of the mid to late 1900s. Then, as now, the key commodity was information. Espionage has continued to evolve, reaching new heights and dimensions. Although the way different countries behave towards each other has changed over time, it is clear some countries and corporations are utilising sophisticated, high tech methods, along with less glamorous techniques such as analogue human intelligence, to extract information, blueprints and product knowledge or destabilise economies.

A question most corporations often forget to ask or include as part of their risk framework, is around the prevention of economic espionage. This is understandable given the general feeling that this would not affect them and that they are safe behind their firewalls and data encryptions. Cyber espionage is often at the end of the espionage processes; (intelligence or counterintelligence cycle).

One of the most crucial parts of any economic espionage is the human link and human activities. After all, no intelligence agency or corporate sector launches activities against a company purely from seeing a solitary post on social media.

The easiest way to learn, adopt and exploit an organisation’s vulnerabilities is to read and study how an individual employee’s activities on websites and social media. Information about products, blueprints, production or simply ideas always start with humans.

We all have experienced working from home during the COVID crisis with the remoteness and distance from other colleagues, peers and managers it creates. It has become a largely unsupervised work environment to which we can add people’s uncertainty, anxiety, loss of income and so many other elements of changes to our day-to-day life.

The environment this has created plays into the hands of economic espionage perpetrators as a part of hybrid warfare and espionage as well as country, state or company destabilisation.

Without going into depth around intelligence methods, their operations and applications, organisations need to study how economic espionage is carried out. They should concentrate not only on the prevention of hacking and online surveillance by others, but on how to develop a human firewall. After all, humans are the first and last line of defence.

The weakest link in the security chain is often the human who accepts a person or scenario at face value and unwittingly becomes the source of information, from which no IT security measures will be able to protect your blueprints, ideas and products.

Economic espionage is a very real, growing threat. Prevention is the key to combat this espionage by utilising human intelligence methods and training your staff not only on IT security related issues but how to recognise when they may potentially be an unwitting ‘target’ of foreign services or competitor exploitation.

Equally important, is to develop counterintelligence processes and respond to possible threats of economic espionage. A one size fits all solution does not work when it comes to protection from economic espionage, particularly not in moment of crisis. The history of Cold War espionage can teach us valuable lessons that we can apply to today’s modern environment.

 

References:

• https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/what-is-economic-espionage 2 March 2021
• https://www.asio.gov.au/counter-espionage.html 2 March 2021
• https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-cyber-espionage-surge-in-australia-opportunism-not-punishment/ 31 July 2020, Tom Uren

 

 

We know advertisers and politicians try to persuade us to believe a certain viewpoint. The power of communication as a type of warfare is often undervalued. Influencing your ‘enemy’ is a key part of winning any battle. Being able to analyse misinformation has become a critical skill for armies, businesses and citizens alike.

You may remember that prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was a slogan, “Winning hearts and minds in the war on terrorism” that used extensively. The slogan is not the weapon in military terms, it doesn’t cause human fatalities and body injuries. But, communication, translated into carefully chosen words, along with military might, cause a deep emotional effect on military personnel and civilians on other side of the front line.

There are so many examples of how leaders, or wannabe leaders, have looked for the most effective ways to influence others through communication (words, public speaking and even subversive methods). One of the first people to document how to influence others was Greek philosopher Socrates, with his ingenious methods of delivering messages to the public.

In order to delve into his students’ view, he would ask them questions until any contradictions were exposed. The Socratic method used typically seeks to ask a series of questions to lead people to think in a certain way. Critical thinking skills are key to effectively resisting this approach. ( https://www.alu.edu/alublog/understanding-the-socratic-method-of-teaching/ 03.02.2021)

The key objective of communication warfare is to infiltrate the minds of large populations, not just particular groups. The endless possibilities of social media make these processes more powerful and effective. We all enjoy the benefits of connecting with people on social media but have you stopped to think how it may have altered your behaviour, mood and decision making.

The work of Nicollo Machiavelli in the 1500s is still relevant when it comes to understanding how communication can be used to influence people. His book ‘The Prince’ has been used for both good and bad for centuries. Machiavelli’s thinking can be summed up by the quotes from the book, “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are” and “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”

Words used in communications can be weaponised with emotions which are designed to lead the listener to create distorted conclusions or perceptions on the topic published. You should never take this kind of information lightly. It is important to understand the message and learn how to decode the meaning behind it.

When making decisions based on communications, decision makers need to recognise misinformation and disinformation to understand not only who said what but why it was said and the choice of language used.

Communications professionals usually adjust words and language to suit particular demographics and countries in order to elicit emotional responses from listeners or readers.

Most communication professionals are trying to help people understand the truth. However, when misinformation and disinformation are deliberately used in business communications then the corporate world needs to correctly analyse them.

The power of technology is being used to help create algorithms to categorise and make decisions on information. This has some merit and advantages but a true analysis using human intelligence will provide you with accuracy and source reliability for decision making.

Decision making in corporations and the business world, as well in private life, should be based on the reliability of the source and validity of the information. Relying on social media is definitely not a reliable approach.

With so much talk about misinformation and disinformation being communicated from previously trusted sources, business need to put more resources into the valuable commodity of information and develop critical thinking strategies. 2020 has taught us that many of the solutions to our problems are best found using new ways of thinking and enhanced risk management tools.