Disinformation and Science

Disinformation's tools emerged from science and art.
And furthermore: disinformation can happen in politics of course, but also in science:
for example by launching ideas which have not been proven exactly until the moment of publication. e.g. the thought that time runs backwards in parts of the universe:
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991127/newsstory3.html

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The "Corpse-Conversion Factory"-rumor

Supposedly the most famous British atrocity story concerning the Germans during World War I was the "Corpse-Conversion Factory"-rumor; it was said the Germans produced soap out of corpses. A story, which got so well believed that it was repeated for years - without a clear evidence of reality at that time. (Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, p.180)

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The Romans

The Romans can be called the great inventors of myths with the purpose of propaganda. Think of Caesar, Augustus or Nero. Caesar wrote his war-documentation by using incredible (e.g. the numbers of hostile soldiers) but he also emphasized the barbarity of the foe, creating images of hatred. People back at home had to believe these manipulative stories.
Or Augustus: he reunited the Roman Empire; part of his power was due to huge efforts in propaganda, visible e.g. in the mass of coins showing his face, being sent all over the empire. He understood very well, that different cultures used different symbols - and he used them for his propaganda.
Politically the Roman army was an important factor. Propaganda in that case was used for the soldiers on the one hand, but on the other hand also for demonstrating the power of the army to the people, so they could trust in its strength. Even then security was an essential factor of politics. As long as the army functioned, the Roman Empire did as well (Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, p. 48).

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Further Tools: Photography

Art has always contributed a lot to disinformation.
Many modern tools for disinformation are used in art/photography.
Harold D. Lasswell once stated that propaganda was cheaper than violence. Today this is no longer true. Technology has created new tools for propaganda and disinformation - and they are expensive. But by now our possibilities to manipulate pictures and stories have gone so far that it can get difficult to tell the difference between the original and a manipulation.

Trillions of photographs have been taken in the 20th century. Too many to look at, too many to control them and their use. A paradise for manipulation.
We have to keep in mind: There is the world, and there exist pictures of the world, which does not mean that both are the same thing. Photographs are not objective, because the photographer selects the part of the world which is becoming a picture. The rest is left out.

Some tools for manipulation of photography are:



Some of those are digital ways of manipulation, which helps to change pictures in many ways without showing the manipulation.

Pictures taken from the internet could be anything and come from anywhere. To proof the source is nearly impossible. Therefore scientists created on watermarks for pictures, which make it impossible to "steal" or manipulate a picture out of the net.

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The history of propaganda

Thinking of propaganda some politicians' names are at once remembered, like Caesar, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Saddam Hussein.
The history of propaganda has to tell then merely mentioning those names:

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The Egyptians ...

Besides ordinary religious manipulation-tools the Egyptians were masters of using architecture for propaganda. In Egypt, most of all, architecture was used as a media to demonstrated power, whereas the Greek and Romans used other types of art, like statues, for political propaganda.
The pyramids, palaces, tombs became tools for power demonstrations. Paintings and carvings (like on obelisks) proved the might of the rulers.
All those signs of power were done to make people compare their ruling dynasty to gods and keep them politically silent, because religion was used for justifying mortal power. Marble, gold, jewelry and artists were the tools for those maneuvers. Whereas questions for the truth were not even asked or listened to.
Finally it was the masses who were used for propaganda, when they were not only forced to work as slaves on those signs of power but also were abused for those power demonstrations, when they had to accompany the dead king into his tomb - dying of hunger, thirst, lack of oxygen and in darkness. The more religious disinformation the more luxury. The more luxury the better. The more luxury the more power.

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Television

No mass-media is more efficient in disinformation and propaganda than TV. And no one seems to be better in influencing that which is considered the truth. e.g. around 67% of the Austrian population in 1999 believe that TV is the most reliable information-media.
Opinion polls show that it is said to be the most realistic media, the only one worth trusting. History tells us the contrary. The combination of words and moving pictures, together with the documentary style of the news, looks sincere, while it produces images in our heads which start working on their own. The Vietnam war was only the first war performed on television ...

But: also watching the news is part of the entertainment show of the media. And therefore they are presented in an entertaining form. Manipulation of the contents of the news is part of the show.
One factor is the issue that news must be reported in a very short period. Several seconds for each catastrophe. Scarcity implies disinformation.
Ted Koppel's movie Revolution in a box demonstrates this:
When the TV-news showed pictures of the nuclear plant accident in Chernobyl, they showed pictures of another - still working - plant. The thought behind was to demonstrate that in this world nothing can stay undetected by the media, to show that still everything is observed and under control - at least in the West.

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Blue Box

The blue box-system works with a special blue colored background. The person in front can act as if he/she was filmed anywhere, also in the middle of a war.

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The World Wide Web History Project

The ongoing World Wide Web History Project was established to record and publish the history of the World Wide Web and its roots in hypermedia and networking. As primary research methods are used archival research and the analysis of interviews and talks with pioneers of the World Wide Web. As result a vast of collection of historic video, audio, documents, and software is expected. The project's digital archive is currently under development.

http://www.webhistory.org/home.html

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Sun Microsystems

Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Palo Alto, USA, Sun Microsystems manufactures computer workstations, servers, and software.

http://www.sun.com

For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,108249+1+105909,00.html .

http://www.sun.com/
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0...
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Yakima

YAKIMA, USA

Latitude: 46.592633, Longitude: -120.528908

The Yakima Research Station was established in the early 1970s inside the 100,000-hectare United States Army Yakima Firing Center, 200 kilometers south-east

of Seattle. The facility, located between the Saddle Mountains and Rattlesnake Hills, initially consisted of a long operations building and a single large dish pointing

west to enable collection against the Pacific Intelsat satellite. By 1995 the Yakima station had expanded to five dish antennae, three facing west to the Pacific and two, including the original large 1970s dish, facing east. In addition to the original operations building several newer buildings had been added, the largest a two-story windowless concrete structure. The Yakima station has been monitoring Pacific Intelsat communications since it opened, and also monitors the Pacific Ocean area Inmarsat-2 satellite.

Source: http://www.fas.org/irp/facility/yakima.htm

http://www.fas.org/irp/facility/yakima.htm
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Ottawa

Latitude: 45.42, Longitude: -75.7

The headquarters of the Communications Security Establishment CSE are located in Ottawa. Here all processed intercepted data from Canadian monitoring stations come together to be further analyzed by special signals intelligence analysts. For that purpose the dictionary system is used.

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CANYON

A US military signals intelligence satellite of the second generation from the 1970s.

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HoriPro

HoriPro is a Japanese media company.

For further details see: http://www.horipro.co.jp

http://www.horipro.co.jp/
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