Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2013 (GIJC13) GLOBAL: Great Investigations You Should Know About Tuesday, October 15 9:00am ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KCIJ(Korea Center for Investigative Journalism) exposed the National Intelligence Service(NIS), South Korea's spy agency illegally did political campaigning and manipulated public opinion during presidential election in 2012. KCIJ found out that the spy agency had formed secretive cyber psychological warfare unit, created at least 660 Twitter accounts. KCIJ identified those accounts posted or re-tweeted 280,000 tweets usually criticising the opposition candidates for helping the ruling party candidate.
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REPORTING ON MANIPULATION OF INTERNET PUBLIC OPINION BY SOUTH
KOREAS SPY AGENCY BEFORE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
KCIJ-NEWSTAPA.ORG
OUTLINE Alleged online smear campaign by the National
Intelligence Service (NIS) to influence the 2012 presidential
election
OUTLINE Some 600 Twitter accounts used by spy agents detected A
network of 10 groups confirmed Major Twitter account holders
confirmed as spy agents
OUTLINE KCIJ reporting used as strong evidence by prosecutors,
prompting indictment of former NIS chief
Online smear campaign conducted on online forum website Today
Humor by an NIS official surnamed Kim uncovered
NIS explanation : normal anti-North Korean psychological
campaign
REASONABLE DOUBTS It couldnt be done alone if it really were a
normal operation It must have been conducted on other websites as
well
Googled some 100 postings on the website Today Humor Found
online postings with similar contents on Twitter, written during
the same period
Traced Twitter accounts that retweeted the online postings. A
total of 65 Twitter accounts uncovered Criticizing North Korea,
promoting government policies, denouncing opposition parties, etc
Twitter postings coincide with online postings on Today Humor
Online posting activities stopped simultaneously on Dec 11,
2012, the day when an NIS official was caught Confirmed core
Twitter accounts that mainly produced contents without retweeting :
nudlenudle, taesan4 First reporting on Mar 15, 2013 Twitter account
holders which remained active before the first reporting deleted
postings or withdrew
Revelation by an opposition lawmaker about orders made by
former NIS chief to meddle in politics (Mar 18, 2013) Confirmed
online postings made by suspected Twitter accounts in line with the
orders Confirmed 600 suspicious Twitter accounts
Retrieved postings made by deleted Twitter accounts Collected
Tweets from weblog with the use of crawler Succeeded in collecting
280,000 postings from some 450 Twitter accounts Obtained
information about content producers, retweeters as well as postings
and dates.
NETWORK ANALYSIS Analyzed relations among retweets Completed
making a network map with Twitter accounts with more than 10
retweets Calculated with the help of MODULARITY on SNA analysis
program
CONFIRMED 10 MAJOR GROUPS Composed of at least 10 core Twitter
accounts (producers), remaining supporting accounts (messengers),
and Twitter bots
KEYWORD ANALYSIS Sorting Tweets according to Morphological
Analysis 15% of Twitter postings confirmed to be related to
presidential election
DISTRIBUTION MAP OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION-RELATED TWEETS
Remaining problem : Lack of compelling evidence that confirms
Twitter account holders as NIS officials Difficulty : Need to
obtain information about the identities of Twitter accounts holders
from Twitter headquarters in the U.S.
EMBARKED ON THE PROCESS OF IDENTIFYING THE TWITTER ACCOUNT
HOLDERS Use of e-mail address when registering a Twitter account
Possibility of using e-mail accounts from local portal sites
Entered some 660 IDs into the account registration section of major
portal sites Found same 160 IDs
SEARCHED E-MAIL ADDRESS THAT HAVE THE SAME IDS THROUGH PEOPLE
SEARCH WEBSITES Confirmed real names of account holders with unique
IDs Major account nudlenudle included Confirmed the identity of a
43-year-old man surnamed Lee His bio introduced him as a Korean Air
captain, but Korean Air confirmed it as a lie
Confirmed through multiple sources that Lee is a member of a
warfare psychological team of the NIS Reported that the major
Twitter account belongs to the NIS official, Lee, on May 17,
2013
INFLUENCE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE REPORTING The main opposition
Democratic Party reported Lee to the prosecutors office on charges
of violating NIS and election laws
INFLUENCE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE REPORTING Prosecutors started
a probe into social network sites - Searched big data companies -
Requested the U.S. for judicial cooperation
INFLUENCE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE REPORTING Prosecutors
indicted former NIS chief Won Se-hoon for violating election laws
on June 17, 2013 - Secured some 320 Tweets suspected of meddling in
the presidential election - Tracing the identities related to some
400 accounts accused of having been used by NIS officials (70
percent of such accounts coincide with the Twitter accounts
revealed by our reporting) - Confirmed the creation of a separate
team in Feb 2012 to strengthen the SNS activities of the warfare
psychological team of the NIS
THE SIGNIFICANCE Revealed the secret, organized online smear
campaigns by the NIS to meddle in the presidential election First
reporting based on SNS data collection and analysis