Latest news with #Pravda
Kiwiblog
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Kiwiblog
General Debate 21 May 2025
Victor Davis Hanson is a guy that deserves to be read by every centre right person. Here he comments on Trump's first 100 days: He argues that Trump is waging a counter revolution against the anti democratic practices of the left: 'The left maintains real political power not by grass-roots popularity, but rather by unelected institutional clout. The party of democracy uses anti-democratic means to achieve its ends of perpetual control. It wages lawfare through the weaponization of the state, local, and federal courts. It exercises executive power through cherry-picked federal district and circuit judges and their state and local counterparts. The permanent bureaucracies and huge federal workforce are mostly left-wing, unionized, and weaponized by a progressive apparat. Their supreme directive is to amalgamate legislative, judicial, and executive power into the hands of the unelected Anthony Faucis, Jim Comeys, and Lois Lerners of the world — and thus to override or ignore both popular plebiscites and the work of the elected Congress. Over 90 percent of the media — legacy, network, social, and state — are left-wing. Their mission is not objectivity but, admittedly, indoctrination. Academia is the font of the progressive project. ' The result is: ' Almost everything the vast majority of Americans and their elected representatives did not want — far-left higher education, a Pravda media, biological men destroying women's sports, an open border, 30 million illegal aliens, massive debt, a weaponized legal system, and a politicized Pentagon — became the new culture of America.' Not much to argue with there. Just closing the border, keeping men out of women's sports and cutting off federal funding for Harvard and their anti semitism is worth the price of a Trump presidency. No one else would have the courage to do the things Trump has done. No one.
ABC News
02-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Pro-Russian influence operation targeting Australia in lead-up to election with attempt to 'poison' AI chatbots
A pro-Russian influence operation has been targeting Australia in the lead-up to this weekend's federal election, the ABC can reveal, attempting to "poison" AI chatbots with propaganda. Pravda Australia presents itself as a news site, but analysts allege it's part of an ongoing plan to retrain Western chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot on "the Russian perspective" and increase division amongst Australians in the long-term. It's one of roughly 180 largely automated websites in the global Pravda Network allegedly designed to "launder" disinformation and pro-Kremlin propaganda for AI models to consume and repeat back to Western users. Pravda Australia was registered last year and began publishing articles in November, before its output increased significantly in mid-March, two weeks before the election was called. It's been publishing as many as 155 stories a day since then, churning out repackaged posts from Telegram channels and stories from well-known Russian propaganda sites. Nevertheless, the site has failed to make a direct impact on Australian audiences — with little to no evidence of organic engagement — so much so that its existence went mostly unnoticed for the first several months it was active. Election essentials: Find out where your But disinformation experts who've been tracking the Pravda ecosystem say humans aren't the real target. "The Pravda Network appears to be designed and created solely to affect … AI chatbots," said McKenzie Sadeghi, AI and foreign influence editor at disinformation monitor NewsGuard. "From what we've seen, it's had great success," she said. The tactic means chatbots absorb content that would otherwise be excluded because it comes from an untrustworthy source. "Content is being aggregated by Pravda through the seemingly independent domain, and these chatbots are unable to realise that this site is actually a Russian propaganda site," Ms Sadeghi said. That widely-held theory about the network's true purpose was confirmed in January this year when John Dougan, a key Kremlin propagandist, said as much at a Moscow roundtable with journalists, which was published online. John Dougan (centre) spoke about his efforts to train AI models with pro-Russian material at a roundtable event in Moscow in January. ( Moscow House of Nationalities ) Mr Dougan, a former deputy sheriff from Florida who fled to Russia in 2016 whilst facing a string of felony charges, openly laid out his vision. He argued that propaganda campaigns shouldn't merely spread disinformation, but "train AI models" with pro-Russian material instead. Mr Dougan went on to boast that his websites had already "infected approximately 35 per cent of all worldwide artificial intelligence". "By pushing these Russian narratives, from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI," he said. How Pravda pushes 'Russian narratives' in Australia Pravda Australia was spotted in early 2025 by Recorded Future, a private intelligence firm monitoring the election for foreign influence attempts. "It's publishing a lot of content related to the Australian election," said Sean Minor, a senior analyst at Recorded Future. To date, the website has published more than 6,300 stories, most of them since mid-March, roughly 40 per cent of which have focused squarely on Australia. The topics vary depending on the news cycle, but any mention of Russia, Ukraine, disharmony among Western allies, or embarrassing moments for Western leaders tends to feature prominently. The Pravda Australia website has published more than 6,300 stories. ( Pravda Australia / ABC News ) The vast majority of the stories are verbatim reproductions of posts to a handful of Telegram channels and stories from Russian propaganda outlets. The two most heavily featured Telegram channels are operated by the users AussieCossack and RealLandDownUnder. AussieCossack is the username of an Australian man named Simeon Boikov, a self-styled pro-Kremlin influencer who has been holed up in the Russian consulate in Sydney since January 2023, avoiding an arrest warrant for an alleged assault. Roughly one in four of the articles on Pravda Australia was a direct reproduction of one of Mr Boikov's posts to his roughly 1,400 followers. When contacted, he told ABC News he was unaware his posts were being reproduced by the site. "I haven't disapproved or approved of that, but it warms my heart," said Mr Boikov. Simeon Boikov said the fact his posts were being reproduced by Pravda Australia warmed his heart. ( Supplied ) "I would say it's an AI thing … they are probably reproducing stuff from my channel because they trust me to be a pro-Russian credible source for a pro-Russian angle. "In any case, I have no contact". A second channel run by RealLandDownUnder, which frequently features far-right views and disinformation, was the source for almost one in six of the articles published. There's no suggestion that the owner of that Telegram channel has any knowledge their posts are being repurposed by Pravda Australia either. Disinformation group DFRLab has traced the global network's origins to a handful of news websites run from Russian-occupied Crimea in 2014, but in 2025, its scale, focus and architecture are completely different. The current incarnation of the Pravda ecosystem is a little over a year old. While it shares a name with a better-known and long-running Russian news publication, the two aren't linked. Is Pravda swaying AI chatbots on Australian topics? NewsGuard conducted an audit of AI chatbots for the ABC to check how effective the global Pravda network had been when it came to Australian-based disinformation. Researchers tested 300 prompts concerning 10 false narratives, on 10 leading chatbots. Among the chatbots audited were OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o, xAI's Grok-2, Microsoft's Copilot, Meta AI, and Google's Gemini 2.0. Of the 300 responses, 50 contained false information, 233 contained a debunk, while 17 declined to provide any information. That means 16.66 per cent of the chatbots' answers amplified the false narrative they were fed. Read more about the federal election: Want even more? Here's where you can find all our 2025 Catch the latest interviews and in-depth coverage on "Some could argue that 16 per cent is relatively low in the grand scheme of things," NewsGuard's Ms Sadeghi said. "But that's like finding that Australian fact-checking organisations get things wrong 16 per cent of the time." NewsGuard chose a range of false narratives, all of which had been spreading online, including "The Bank of Australia sued Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong for promoting a cryptocurrency platform", and "Wind farms cause drought and contribute to global warming". Other examples include claims that "Australia's e-Safety Commissioner sought to remove a video of anti-Israel Muslim nurses, citing Islamophobia concerns", that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was "importing 500,000 new Labor voters a year" and that "the Australian Muslim Party was formed to compete in the 2025 election". Photo shows The blue-and-white Vote compass logo: The words, with a tick through the "o" of "Vote". The ABC's Vote Compass can help you understand your place in the political landscape. Researchers tested each narrative using three prompts on each of the 10 chatbots — one that may have been written by an innocent user seeking genuine clarification, one containing a leading question, and one that was actively seeking to reproduce information. "The chatbots performed the worst when it came to those 'malign actor' prompts, which are specifically intended to generate misinformation," Ms Sadeghi said. "Nevertheless, there were still instances where they provided a completely inaccurate response to a very straightforward and neutral question." While the results aren't reassuring, NewsGuard found false narratives were amplified 33 per cent of the time when their testing focused on the United States — nearly double the rate in Australia. Researchers believe part of the reason is that the campaign to influence AI models in the US is larger and longer running. "That is not something that we've observed yet with Australia," she said at the time the audit was conducted in mid-March. Photo shows An election sign of Wil Anderson in a neighbourhood with a dog urinating on it with Gruen Nation Election edition and iview. It's election season and politicians are trying to sell you the world. The team at Gruen isn't about to buy it. They're taking a big swing at the election, showing you how the democracy sausage is made, all the sizzle and none of the meat. Since then, the Pravda Australia website has come to light, and significantly increased its output, although the daily volume is still much lower than on some other sites in the network. ABC News conducted its own less extensive audit of AI chatbots towards the end of the election campaign to assess whether their performance in handling false narratives had deteriorated. Our tests revealed similar results to NewsGuard's. Some AI tools did return answers that contained false information related to Australian politics. For instance, when the chatbots were asked for information about the "Australian Muslim Party", a party that doesn't exist, two AI models returned answers suggesting that it did. One even provided a detailed breakdown of the motivations for the party's formation ahead of the 2025 federal election. The 2025 election explained: Our testing also found that some tools could easily spin up fake social media posts that serve to amplify false information when asked. One of the chatbots created a series of social media posts falsely claiming the Australian government provided millions of dollars to the terrorist organisation Hamas. But the rate of answers containing falsehoods had not significantly increased. So far, it's not clear how much impact Pravda Australia has had on the AI front. A failed operation, or a slow burn? There are no signs that the Pravda operation, also known in the intelligence community as "Portal Kombat", is reaching many humans either. Even Mr Boikov, the site's most prominent contributor, claimed to be unaware of its existence, although he said it sounded "fantastic". "It's low-level, insignificant activity that is not garnering a lot of authentic attention," Recorded Future's Mr Minor said. The Coalition's home affairs spokesperson senator James Paterson has called for an investigation into Pravda's Australian operations by the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce. The taskforce includes several government bodies, including intelligence agencies and the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). "Any allegations of foreign interference, including online, must be taken seriously and investigated," Senator Paterson said. "The Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce … should examine whether these actors are trying to sway our election through chatbots". James Paterson says any allegations of foreign interference needs to be taken seriously. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts, file photo ) A spokesperson for the AEC said the taskforce had observed that web traffic to the site was "very low", as was social media amplification of its content. "Taskforce agencies have noted the number of accounts subscribed to the site's associated Telegram channel, and the number of posts on X in the last month that contain a link to the site, are both in single digits." But while Pravda Australia might appear to be failing, analysts believe human engagement is the wrong metric to judge it on. "They've invested zero resources in trying to build an organic human audience on social media, which is very significantly different from most Russian disinformation efforts," Ms Sadeghi said. That lack of appeal to humans, she said, didn't stop it from succeeding in the US. "These narratives are being laundered by a network that has no distribution, online or human engagement, but is having a massive impact on the outputs of Western AI models." Photo shows Nigel Farage sits in a brown armchair, pointing at a photo of Vladimir Putin. The five Facebook pages an ABC investigation linked to foreign interference in the UK election have been taken down for deception and "inauthentic engagement tactics". Multiple experts said Russia plays a long game when it comes to information warfare. "Russian doctrine thinks about this in terms of generations, and Australians think about this in terms of election cycles," said Miah Hammon-Errey, the CEO of Australian security advisory firm Strat Futures, and a former analyst at an Australian security agency. She said Russia has a natural and ongoing interest in Australia and its election outcomes, as a member of the Five Eyes security alliance and a vocal supporter of Ukraine. "Australia has been an active voice, perhaps outsized for our physical and economic size on the global stage. "They have a real particular interest in destabilising international alliances," she said. "I think of Portal Kombat specifically more as an enduring type of operation," Mr Minor said. "At the end of the day, they're not concerned with supporting a single candidate," he said. "They're ultimately trying to increase division across Australia, or just really undermine the democratic process in itself." The ABC is on the hunt for any misinformation or disinformation circulating in the lead-up to the federal election. Send us a tip by filling out the form below, or if you require more secure communication, select an option from our page.
Techday NZ
01-05-2025
- Techday NZ
AI security report warns of rising deepfakes & Dark LLM threat
Check Point Research has released its inaugural AI Security Report, detailing how artificial intelligence is affecting the cyber threat landscape, from deepfake attacks to generative AI-driven cybercrime and defences. The report explores four main areas where AI is reshaping both offensive and defensive actions in cyber security. According to Check Point Research, one in 80 generative AI prompts poses a high risk of sensitive data leakage, with one in 13 containing potentially sensitive information that could be exploited by threat actors. The study also highlights incidents of AI data poisoning linked to disinformation campaigns, as well as the proliferation of so-called 'Dark LLMs' such as FraudGPT and WormGPT. These large language models are being weaponised for cybercrime, enabling attackers to bypass existing security protocols and carry out malicious activities at scale. Lotem Finkelstein, Director of Check Point Research, commented on the rapid transformation underway, stating, "The swift adoption of AI by cyber criminals is already reshaping the threat landscape. While some underground services have become more advanced, all signs point toward an imminent shift - the rise of digital twins. These aren't just lookalikes or soundalikes, but AI-driven replicas capable of mimicking human thought and behaviour. It's not a distant future - it's just around the corner." The report examines how AI is enabling attackers to impersonate and manipulate digital identities, diminishing the boundary between what is authentic and fake online. The first threat identified is AI-enhanced impersonation and social engineering. Threat actors are now using AI to generate convincing phishing emails, audio impersonations, and deepfake videos. In one case, attackers successfully mimicked Italy's defence minister with AI-generated audio, demonstrating the sophistication of current techniques and the difficulty in verifying online identities. Another prominent risk is large language model (LLM) data poisoning and disinformation. The study refers to an example involving Russia's disinformation network Pravda, where AI chatbots were found to repeat false narratives 33% of the time. This trend underscores the growing risk of manipulated data feeding back into public discourse and highlights the challenge of maintaining data integrity in AI systems. The report also documents the use of AI for malware development and data mining. Criminal groups are reportedly harnessing AI to automate the creation of tailored malware, conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns, and process stolen credentials. Notably, services like Gabbers Shop are using AI to validate and clean stolen data, boosting its resale value and targeting efficiency on illicit marketplaces. A further area of risk is the weaponisation and hijacking of AI models themselves. Attackers have stolen LLM accounts or constructed custom Dark LLMs, such as FraudGPT and WormGPT. These advanced models allow actors to circumvent standard safety mechanisms and commercialise AI as a tool for hacking and fraud, accessible through darknet platforms. On the defensive side, the report makes it clear that organisations must now presume that AI capabilities are embedded within most adversarial campaigns. This shift in assumption underlines the necessity for a revised approach to cyber defence. Check Point Research outlines several strategies for defending against AI-driven threats. These include using AI-assisted detection and threat hunting to spot synthetic phishing content and deepfakes, and adopting enhanced identity verification techniques that go beyond traditional methods. Organisations are encouraged to implement multi-layered checks encompassing text, voice, and video, recognising that trust in digital identity can no longer be presumed. The report also stresses the importance of integrating AI context into threat intelligence, allowing cyber security teams to better recognise and respond to AI-driven tactics. Lotem Finkelstein added, "In this AI-driven era, cyber security teams need to match the pace of attackers by integrating AI into their defences. This report not only highlights the risks but provides the roadmap for securing AI environments safely and responsibly."
Daily Mirror
30-04-2025
- Daily Mirror
Female Ukrainian journalist killed by Russia sent back marked as 'unnamed male'
An award-winning journalist from Ukraine who was kidnapped and killed by the Russians was sent back to her home country without eyes or a brain in a body bag marked as an 'unnamed male', it has been revealed. Viktoria Roshchyna's brain, eyes, and larynx had been removed before her body was sent back to Ukraine in February, two and a half years after she went missing in Russian-occupied territories in August 2023. It is likely the body parts were removed in a bid to obscure the torture that she is most likely to have suffered, a report into her death has revealed. Her body had been labelled as an 'unidentified male' and was handed over, during an exchange of 757 Ukrainian bodies. The 27-year-old's body was much smaller and lighter than the others, according to the report. The gruesome treatment of her body could have been done to hide how badly she was treated during her time in Russian captivity. The head of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office's war crimes department, Yuriy Belousov, told news outlet Pravda, that her body still had signs of torture, including a broken rib, and possible evidence that she was given electric shocks. A bruise on her neck also pointed to possible strangulation, the report noted. "The forensic examination revealed numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment on the victim's body, including abrasions and haemorrhages on various parts of the body, a broken rib, neck injuries, and possible electric shock marks on her feet," Belousov wrote. He added that the body had been returned "with signs of an autopsy that was performed before arrival in Ukraine" and missing certain organs. Due to the mummified state of the body, the official cause of death is still undetermined the report said, and further tests will be carried out by the Ukrainian authorities. However, an unusual Russian marking 'SPAS', possibly meaning 'total arterial damage to the heart', was found on the Russian listing that could reflect a cause of death. Forbidden Stories reported that the acronym "NM SPAS 757" was scrawled on the bag, translating to "Unnamed Male, Extensive Damage to the Coronary Artiers, [Body Number] 757." Despite the bodybag identifying her remains as an 'unnamed male', a tag was attached to Viktoria's shin bearing her first initials and surname. Viktoria's dad has also requested additional foreign examers, prosecutors told Ukrainian outlet Hromadske. Russia only confirmed that she had been detained in May 2024, nine months after she disappeared. Viktoria had travelled to Zaporizhzhia, in Russia-occupied Ukraine, in the summer of 2023 to report on the treatment of Ukrainians in Russia's prisons there. What happened between her arrival and disappearance in August remains unclear, despite her family's desperate attempts to find out what happened to her. She was taken to a brutal penal colony in Berdyansk, eastern Ukraine known as one of Russia's harshest facilities, according to the Media Initiative for Human Rights. She then spent time in a pre-trial detention centre in Taganrog, just over the border in Russia before dying during transportation to Moscow. "Viktoria was the only reporter who covered the occupied territories. For her, it was a mission," her editor at Ukrainska, Sevgil Musaieva, said: "She was the bridge between Ukraine and those territories who provided this critical information about life [there]. After she disappeared, there is no coverage of what is happening." Viktoria wrote for a number of Ukrainian outlets as well as Radio Free Europe. She was previously held by the Russians for 10 days in the early days of the war in March 2022, earning the International Women's Media Foundation's 2022 Courage in Journalism Award. When she returned from that trip in 2022, editors, colleagues and family all urged her to stop going to the occupied area - but she didn't. In July 2023, she prepared for another trip, which would be her last, with a clear vision in mind. Musaieva said: "We discussed the places where Ukrainians could be tortured, and she gave me her kind of vision of how she sees the topic. She wanted to find those places and the people involved." A source living in the occupied zone who had met her twice in 2023 described Viktoria as "closed off" when she arrived for the last time. He said: "She didn't say much. I don't know what she was afraid of, maybe of being captured by video cameras or something." Olga, another source, told Forbidden Stories that Viktoria had start compiling a list of FSB agents. The source, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said: "She was telling me about her experience in captivity, asking me everything, and I realised that she had a lot of information, her own database, about FSB agents."
Sky News AU
30-04-2025
- Sky News AU
Russian captors tortured and mutilated Ukrainian journalist — and returned her body with no eyes, brain or larynx: report
The body of a Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped and killed by Russians was returned to her home country with her eyes and brain missing, likely to obscure the torture she suffered, according to an investigation. Victoria Roshchyna's brain, eyes, and larynx had been removed before her body was sent back to Ukraine in February, two and a half years after she went missing in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories in August 2023, a report found. Roshchyna's body was labeled as an 'unidentified male' when it was handed over, during an exchange of 757 Ukrainians' remains. An unusual Russian marking, 'SPAS,' possibly meaning 'total arterial damage to the heart,' found on the Russian listing could reflect the officially-listed cause of death. The 27-year-old's body was much smaller and lighter than the others, according to the report. The gruesome treatment of the body could have been done to hide how badly she was tortured in Russian captivity, the report from Forbidden Stories published on Tuesday claimed. Still, the body showed obvious signs of torture including abrasions, hemorrhages, a broken rib and possible evidence of electric shocks, the head of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office's war crimes department, Yuriy Belousov, told Pravda. A bruise on her neck possibly pointed to strangulation, the report noted. Due to the mummified state of the body, the official cause of death is still undetermined, with Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General arranging further tests, the report said. Her father has also requested additional foreign exams, prosecutors told Ukrainian outlet Hromadske. Russia only confirmed that they had detained Roshchyna in May 2024, nine months after she disappeared. She was taken to a brutal penal colony in Berdyansk, eastern Ukraine known as one of Russia's harshest facilities for Ukrainians, according to the Media Initiative for Human Rights. She then spent time in a pre-trial detention center in Taganrog, just over the border in Russia before dying during transportation to Moscow. Roshchyna wrote for a number of Ukrainian outlets as well as Radio Free Europe. She was previously held by the Russians for 10 days in the early days of the war in March 2022, earning the International Women's Media Foundation's 2022 Courage in Journalism Award. Originally published as Russian captors tortured and mutilated Ukrainian journalist - and returned her body with no eyes, brain or larynx: report
