Let's shut them down-- SMiSC becomes irrelevant

Well, just when we thought it was worth a 42 million dollar contract, the brits want social media shut down. The Wired blogger makes a comment that the TV needs to go, too.  That's a new twist for an open culture.

What is an "Idea" in the context of SMiSC?

What is an SMISC idea? Let's address this issue here.
  I suppose any idea could start with something as simple as a sentence or be as complex as a video. Are all new posts worthy of "idea" status? Are only repeat posts worthy of "idea" status?  Let's say we build a data structure to hold "ideas."  It might have some of the following elements:

• unique identifier


• initial creator


• initial URL


• timestamp of creation of idea


• timestamp of system seeing the idea


• list of variant but related ideas (reworded sentence? made a video?)


• list of repeaters/reposters/retweeters etc and a link to the variant idea expressed


• some kind of classification characteristics (innocuous... violent... subject...)


• trending data to discuss the dynamics of the idea


• a veracity indicator (unknown.. true... debunked publicly... etc nee Snopes.com)


• a measure of the number of people repeating the idea per second (idea velocity)


• a measure of the change in the number of people repeating the idea per second (acceleration)

Others?

TA 2 Simulation Technology

There should be a capability to run the TA 2 social network in a simulator mode.  Here are some ideas:

1. Run a simulation of network activities in real time (that is, minutes or hours between network events).
2. Run a simulation of network activities at a high speed (that is, milliseconds between network events with simulated progression of clock times)
3. The simulation may or may not have random events thrown in as it executes. Sometimes there should be a "realistic" simulation and sometimes there should be a "repeatable" simulation.
4. The TA 2 platform should support automated calls to its system through a simulation driver tool.  At worst, it will be automated calls to the web interface; at best one could hope for a path through a SOA interface.
5. The automated calls should be able to cause events such as:

• create or delete an account
• create or delete a posting (text/url/image)
• create or delete a friendship
• you add your own in the comments

Geez look at all these TA 2 technology platforms!

I took a look on SourceForge to see what was out there for a sample TA 2 technology base.  I found all  these! That's 674 results (and your little dog, Toto, too.). Maybe some of these will be useful for a TA 2 demonstrator.

What's "Deceptive Messaging" mean to everyone but DARPA?

I did a Google search on this term.  Seems that there's not a lot out there.  My first search didn't include "meme" and I got some answers about lies and truthiness in advertising, etc.  I added "meme" and got about seven thousand links to articles about SMiSC -- but I still didn't see an answer.

I'm going to create some original thought here. In the context of memes and SMiSC, a "deceptive message" is a message that:

• might be a lie, or might be a truth, or some combination thereof;
• might contain an omission;
• has a strategic governmental (or corporate/NGO) purpose;
• is specifically crafted to get a result

Meme Bibilography

A nice start for this section is the Wikipedia entry on memes; it has a reference section that's worth looking at.  I've not read many of these works but I intend to do so over time.  Here are some that look juicy and relevant to the SMiSC efforts:

1. Can we measure memes? by Adam McNamara
2. Lynch, Aaron (1996), Thought contagion: how belief spreads through society, New York: BasicBooks, pp. 208, ISBN 0-465-08467-2
3. Godwin, Mike. "Meme, Counter-meme". Wired. 

Hopefully Tim will add an academic search result list here or in a comment.

Thoughts from the chart on page 7

Page 7 of  the solicitation has a graph:

I text-mined the graph for the following bright ideas:

1. PI meetings will occur (the solicitation says one will happen after the contracts are let, at the beginning of the project).
2. Detect, classify, measure and track ideas, concepts, and information in the track called "memes and deceptive messaging."
3. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social media sites and communities in the track called "persuasion campaigns and influence ops"
4. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns in the track called "intent and effects"
5. Pro-actively shape opinions and beliefs through influence operations, and separately, counter-messaging of detected adversary influence operations in the track called "proactive messaging and counter-messaging"
6. Code drops are expected to occur in Q4 2012, Q3 2012, Q2 2014, and Q1 2015, along with a "mid-term exam" to select technologies for focused scaling efforts and transition (my guess: use what works as soon as possible)
7. There are integration and test efforts going on to facilitate TA 3 efforts.
8. Scenario development will take place every 8 months.

These ideas look like the crux of the expectations for TA 1 development and, combined with the description of TA 1, will be the focus of the algorithmic section of this blog.

Technical Area 3 (TA 3): Algorithm Integration, Test and Evaluation

The TA 3 performer will work with TA 1 performers to develop appropriate performance metrics and develop, execute and evaluate the results of corresponding test and evaluation procedures. Test and evaluation procedures will include red team activity involving strategic communication and influence operations in the closed environment developed by the TA 2 performer.

Technical Area 2 (TA 2): Data Provision/Management

The TA2 performer will create a closed and controlled environment where large amounts of data will be collected and experiments will be performed in support of the development and testing of TA 1 algorithms. One example of such an environment could be a closed social media network made up of two to five thousand people where participants have agreed to conduct a significant portion of their social media based activities within the network and agree to participate in the required data collection and experiments. Such a network might be formed within a single government, industrial or academic organization or across multiple such organizations. Another example of such an environment would be a massively multiplayer on-line role playing game where the use of social media is of central importance to game play and with tens of thousands of players that agree to participate in the required data collection and experiments.

The TA 2 performer will work closely with TA 1 and TA 3 performers to support the type of data collection, experimentation and evaluation required.

The type of data required for SMISC research potentially contains Personally Identifiable Information (PII). The TA 2 performer will be required to certify that no PII for U.S. persons was collected, stored or created in contravention to federal privacy laws, regulations and Department of Defense (DOD) policies. Proposers must address the collection and use of PII, if any, in their technical proposal. PII will not be provided to SMISC from another Government agency or from an outside source.

SMiSC Technical Area 1 (TA 1): Algorithm/Software Development

TA1 performers will develop automated and semi-automated operator support tools and techniques for the systematic and methodical use of social media at data scale and in a timely fashion to:
1. detect, classify, measure and track the

• formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes) and,
• purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation;

2. recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social media sites and communities;
3. identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns; and
4. counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations.

TA 1 performers are required to define and validate appropriate performance metrics for algorithms and techniques developed. This will require TA 1 performers to also develop measures of the effectiveness of strategic communication and influence operations.

Discussing the DARPA Social Media in Strategic Communications Initiative and Related Technologies

The US DARPA has released the Social Media in Strategic Communication solicitation.  The solicitation is located here: .  In case you are just passing through, this is the summary:

"DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of social media in strategic communication. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice"

This blog will focus on the solicitation, its efforts and products, and the technologies related or adjacent to this work.

Hopefully, our posts won't be so dry that the blog becomes too journal-like.