Dutch technology for defence at Kooy Symposium
Theme: disinformation, manipulation and destabilisation

The initiative for the Kooy Symposium was taken early this century to promote and put Dutch technology for Defence & Security on the map. Since then, this symposium has become the main activity of the KIVI Defence&Security Department where the organisers come from the 'golden triangle': Defence, research institutes such as TNO and industry. In 2018, 16 speakers in three blocks addressed the theme: 'disinformation, manipulation and destabilisation', demonstrating that there is a lot of knowledge in the Netherlands regarding techniques and technologies that can be used to recognise 'disinformation' and maximise the reliability of information sharing.

Traditionally, the programme of the Kooy Symposium is divided into three blocks: Setting the Scene, Policy&Vision and Excellent Technologies. The first block outlines why technology and related developments are so important to the theme.

Hybrid

From a defence perspective, solutions to recognise disinformation are important in the context of hybrid warfare, among other things. Col Drs Peter de Boer says: "When the threat is military in nature, it is clear to everyone what the role of defence is. When other opponents are employed using different instruments, we speak of hybrid threat. In the Netherlands, we use the definition: conflict conduct between states, largely below the legal level of open armed conflict, with integrated use of means and actors, with the aim of achieving certain strategic objectives. With hybrid warfare, the enemy tries, for instance, to influence political processes, infiltrate or shut down networks or spread fake news. The aim is usually to sow confusion.

The main characteristic of the hybrid variant is the use of different means, with much coordination both nationally and internationally on how to respond to threats. In doing so, there seems to be consensus that a two-track approach should be adopted: on the one hand, it is important to be resilient against hybrid threats; on the other hand, it is important to know the adversary and recognise adversary actions. For both tracks, awareness of the threat is the first step towards a solution. Next, public and private parties must take joint responsibility for solutions. The necessary technologies will have to be able to support vulnerability mapping, identifying and signalling activities and investigating state actors. A challenge for defence, industry and research institutes alike."

Role of research institutes

Interesting research in the context of disinformation and manipulation is conducted within TNO and focuses on how the human brain works. Drs. maj(r) Maaike Duistermaat says: "The human brain is a neural network characterised by, among other things, limited capacity and attention, blind spots and the tendency to make connections. In this respect, our brain is definitely not comparable to a computer. A big difference is that all the signals we receive through our senses are impossible or difficult to ignore or delete. A computer makes decisions based on data we say it can use. That is not possible with a human being. So however much we think we act rationally based on facts...: nothing could be further from the truth.

These universally prevalent ways of thinking and reasoning are called heuristics and biases. They do NOT conform to the rules of logic, probability and rationality and occur the same way in almost all people. By now, dozens of these biases have been identified, of which 'herd behaviour' is an important one. Furthermore, we are all familiar with the phenomenon that we prefer to hear the 'facts' that confirm our behaviour or decisions rather than facts that undermine them. We select, as it were, what is most favourable to us as human beings. In many situations, these unconscious ways of thinking limit the quality of our judgements, explanations and decisions."

Investigating these biases can help recognise forms of disinformation that lead people astray. 'Seeing through the opponent' and capitalising on his biases. Also important for industry in the context of, for example, acting safely (operation, maintenance), dealing with problems, making financial decisions, communicating with other departments and so on.

Disinformation in practice.

Finally, Drs Caecilia J. van Peski, former OSCE observer in Ukraine's Donbas told in the 'setting the scene' block about: Hybrid warfare on the frayed edges of the Russian Federation. Caecilia van Peski had been deployed to the war zone in eastern Ukraine for a period of three years. There, as an observer for the OSCE, she oversaw the enforcement of the peace agreement in a situation of regular and irregular conflict activities, all with the aim of targeting the opponent. In doing so, the various actors within the 'conflict theatre' used - in addition to conventional warfare - political, military, para-military, economic, criminal, (dis)intelligence and terrorist means to achieve their goals.

Kooy Prize

After the first block, the Kooy Prize was awarded to ir Maarten van Klapwijk. While graduating from TU Delft (Master Marine Technology), he researched the accuracy of predicting water surface disturbance due to rising exhaust fumes emitted by diesel-electric submarines. The end result of his research is a report with which he graduated cum laude, indicating, among other things, how to use existing CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software to do the most reliable simulation possible.

This year, the Kooy Prize jury consisted of Messrs Dr L. Koene (Board KIVI-DV and jury chairman, NLDA), Ing L.F. Galle (Ministry of Defence, Materiel Directorate), Prof.dr.ir. PHAJM van Gelder (TU Delft), Prof. dr. ir. F.E. van Vliet (TNO, University of Twente) and Prof. dr. ir. P.J. Oonincx (NLDA). They judged about eight submissions at the end of 2017. Chairman Bart Koene comments: The eight submissions were without exception of high quality but Maarten's contribution - Modelling of the exhaust plume of a submerged exhaust system: A numerical analysis of a submarine exhaust - was chosen almost unanimously. Discussion was then unnecessary and the flowers, certificate and free to spend amount of €. 1,000 are totally deserved!"

Policy and Vision

The second block featured six lectures.

Drs Rick Meessen of TNO discussed the 'games' the research institute is developing to allow people to practice complex situations in a simulated environment. After all, hybrid threats are about a coordinated, complex mix of events, assets or phenomena with security implications. Often intangible or even undefinable and therefore impossible to convey in a PowerPoint in order to then - rationally? - make the right decisions.

Drs Rick Meessen: "Hybrid threats are often accompanied by deception, ambiguity and denial of actions. This complicates attribution and effective response. Within TNO, the tool of strategic gaming has been applied to hybrid conflict management since 2017, in particular to gain a better understanding of the nature and effects of hybrid threats and campaigns with relevant actors in the Netherlands. But also to see how and what to coordinate on in order to quickly detect and interpret the threats and then mitigate the effects."

Meanwhile, a pallet of games (such as matrix games and dilemma games) have been developed with which experience has been gained for various hybrid conflict management scenarios. The use and development of these games is still in its infancy but have already helped improve people's awareness in certain situations on both a small and larger scale.

MINUSMA

Colonel Hans van Dalen talked about the ASIFU. An NLD/NOR-led intelligence experiment to enable the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) to deliver improved conflict understanding. Such improved conflict understanding is important to enable MINUSMA to better implement stabilisation and peace-building measures. NLD has provided an ISR company for this purpose, among others, as well as personnel for ASIFU HQ and UN mission headquarters. Other western European countries have also participated in the ASIFU experiment with personnel and units.

This impressive lecture was followed by a talk Drs Petra Hielkema, divisional director of payments and market infrastructure at the Nederlandsche Bank. She went into detail on how financial institutions protect themselves against a wide range of attacks; ranging from the more basic to the most sophisticated cyber attacks. The latter are less common, but their potential effects are significant. De Nederlandsche Bank, together with institutions in the core financial infrastructure in the Netherlands, therefore developed a framework for advanced attack testing in 2017: TIBER (threat intelligence-based ethical red teaming). Based on up-to-date threat information, controlled attacks are carried out on participating institutions, including DNB itself. The aim is to jointly learn from the results and become more resilient against advanced attacks.

Next, Elina Lange Ionatamishvili, Senior Expert NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga, addressed the topic of NATO and National Responses to Hostile Influence.

Blockchain

Dr Oskar van Deventer, Senior scientist blockchain networking at TNO, then humorously talked about 'blockchain'. A topic that has the attention of many, but is not yet very widely adopted; bitcoin stories aside. Among other things, he indicated: "In the longer term, blockchain may become a vital infrastructure and will therefore need to be properly secured. Although it is not that far yet, we had better be well prepared. For example, crypto currencies are often deflationary, like gold, which can be destabilising when used on a large scale. Moreover, there are plenty of problems to be identified in the shorter term. For example, the hype lures consumers into dubious investments, and facilitates drug trafficking and money laundering.

The expected benefits of blockchain technology are less bureaucracy, lower administrative burdens and better services. These expected benefits are currently being explored in many industry sectors and governments. In doing so, I do want to stress that it is just a technology and people need to make it work. People create and sign transactions, people lose their keys or have them stolen and people together create the history of a blockchain. In all cases, malicious people are undoubtedly present. But above all, that should not stop us from exploring the potential benefits of blockchain technology."

The 'Policy and Vision' section was concluded by Professor Dr Bart Jacobs, Professor of Computer Security at Radboud University Nijmegen. He made his presentation on IRMA. An Identity platform whose abbreviation stands for: 'I Reveal My Attributes'. In this, an attribute is a property such as age, bank account number or education.

Jacobs: "When you buy a bottle of whisky, by law you have to prove that you are over 18. The seller does not need to know more than that. Through IRMA, it is possible to prove only this one aspect online via your mobile phone; the rest of your data remains secret. This privacy protection is ingrained in the system and is therefore also called privacy by design. Most recent national and European legislation requires privacy by design for new ICT systems. Besides intrinsic privacy protection, IRMA also provides protection against identity fraud: when your name or date of birth are not mentioned at all, they cannot be abused either."

In a nutshell, the system works as follows: Attributes are downloadable to the IRMA app on the smartphone for every user. They are issued by, for example, a bank, national government, online shops and so on. The corresponding attributes - e.g. age, phone number, Citizen Service Number, IBAN and BIC - are thus already available here. Before the attribute is issued, the person concerned must first identify himself, after which it is provided with a digital signature. This allows the authenticity and origin to be verified.

The system differs from other systems because it has a decentralised architecture which means that the attributes are stored exclusively on a phone and not centrally on a computer. This ensures privacy and prevents other parties from misusing the data. Pilots running on this include at the government (filling in forms, Utrecht's household book), healthcare and in cooperation with SURF. More information and a detailed explanation can be found at: https://privacybydesign.foundation/

From blockchain to dynamic QR codes

Arriving in the third block of 'excellent technologies', Rob Frees presented in his workshop an intelligent pair of glasses that can remember several dozen facial features based on a photo and use them to recognise the person in question. "In the context of defence, a great tool for distinguishing friend from foe but also in the industrial world an 'augmented reality' solution that, among other things, contributes to simplifying maintenance. You have to imagine that with these glasses you put a kind of second layer over the real world. For example, a technical drawing of a machine or an installation diagram of a control box. You can also incorporate an infrared camera to instantly detect heat-related problems or easily call the supplier's phone number. The glasses are a prudent partial solution to compensate for the lack of well-trained technical people and, moreover, fit the current generation that is more selective about taking in knowledge beforehand but more focused on the question: where can I find the answer?"

Blockchain

The topic of Blockchain was once again addressed here by Walter Bril (CSM at Elements.cloud) where he mentioned the logistics chain as an application of blockchain. "Blockchain technology offers us for the first time the opportunity to seriously think about adapting our current thinking models where we traditionally apply new technology in existing frameworks. The focus should shift to organising trust, resulting in reducing friction when supply and demand are brought together. After all, it is about (temporary) organising capacity rather than organisations as a sustainable (legal) entity. The pursuit of full employment might therefore be seen in a very different light in this context. Fodder for managers."

Development of algorithm fraud detection in written text

As part of her PhD research at the University of Twente, Dr Marcia Fissette developed a so-called 'text mining model' that allows her to detect fraud in annual reports with a reliability of around 80%. A text mining model consists of three parts. The first is the data, consisting of texts in two or more categories. The second component is a procedure to convert the texts into a textual representation that a computer can process. Finally, a machine learning algorithm is needed that learns patterns from the texts using the structured representation.

Marcia Fissette: "Detecting fraud in these texts is just one example of the applications. The steps followed in this research for setting up a text mining model can also be followed for other applications. The machine learning algorithms used, Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine and Convolutional Neural Network, were all successful in previous text mining studies in different domains."

Virtual identity

Dr Hans Henseler, CEO Tracks Inspector covered the topic of 'Cyber Agent Technology'. "The virtual nature of social media makes it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. Virtual identities, electronic money and fake messages are intangible and not hindered by firewalls or other technical security measures. Spying on unwanted groups and disrupting threats remains human work for now.

To simplify and coordinate such operations, Tracks Inspector is developing a Cyber Agent Technology (CAT) prototype. By working with a 'virtual' identity, it is possible to explore social media unseen and engage in confrontations with suspicious identities with the aim of unmasking them or sabotaging their plans."

Next, Egbert Jaspers, director ViNotion, Intelligent Image Interpretation in Video for Recognising Objects told about automated video analysis. A field that has been developing for several decades and within which machine learning has been taking serious shape for the last 15 years. Since 2015, this technique is so good that we can rightly start talking about artificial intelligence. Currently, these techniques are applied in real time in traffic, among others, but it is evident that this technique will also be used in the observation of people and their behaviour for public order and security.

Liu Kars - founder and CEO of Ticketguard - closed the 'Excellent Technologies' block with a solution to provide easier, smarter and more secure access to a location, equipment, web page and so on. This solution is the 'TigerID'; a non-copyable smartphone ID that allows individuals to identify themselves at any time. From an account-based system, it is flexible to determine and verify what a person is entitled to. Liu Kars: "The solution was initially developed to prevent fraud in concert ticket sales, but is eventually applicable to any 'access problem'."

Photos can be found at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u0w9vsdm1bzgozb/AAA2u_Z1PrQHi9gVG8UIBkXja?dl=0

You can also download part of the presentations (see the links on the right side of the page).

Description

Kooy symposium 2018 - Disinformation, manipulation and destabilisation

The importance of facts and technology

Stroe - Wednesday 11 April 2018 | 10:30 - 19:00

Not so long ago, a war began very clearly with a written declaration of war and different parties were easily identifiable by their uniforms. In the present day, we have to deal mainly with uncertainties.

A conflict today starts with destabilisation through disinformation, intimidation, disruption of communications, cyber-attacks, interruption of money flows, destruction of vital infrastructures (such as dykes, tracks, roads, energy-water supplies), semi-military action by unclear armed groups (green men)... Anything that is just short of war and would allow a call for collective defence under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. Also in the Netherlands. Does the term hybrid-warfare mean anything to you?

However complex and opaque: industry, defence and government will have to work on solutions that recognise 'fake news' or - even better - prevent this type of news from being released into the world. On solutions that remove terrorist propaganda sooner, protect vital infrastructure and stop cyber attacks. Above all: know your enemy! Only when it is clear how these parties operate and which methods and techniques they use, is it possible to come up with meaningful solutions.

During the Kooy Symposium, we try to find an answer to the question of which technical solutions can help to counter destabilisation of society. For example, what is possible with Artificial Intelligence, drones, sensors, big data analysis and other technologies? Who will develop the solutions and where should technical disciplines collaborate with other disciplines?

You can register by 2 April, or as much earlier as the maximum number of participants has been reached

Location

Maj. Koot barracks in Stroe

Organiser

Defence and Security

Name and contact details for information

Marjolein de Wit - Blok

mw@kividv.nl

General information

Programme

Documents