Cultural Fingerprints Can Help in Counter PSYOP Analysis

I just finished attending an information security conference in Ireland (www.cosac.net). One of the presentations concerned some recent research in the area of cultural variables and their impact on cyber attack design.

The presenter showed details of her recent dissertation on the subject. Her hypothesis was that people’s innate cultural norms would come through in their work, especially if that work was performed in a time compressed manner or under stress.

Of course the dissertation proved the hypothesis. The nature of the variables is way beyond the scope of a Blog posting, but I think the theory holds true for Counter PSYOP Analysis.

Perhaps more importantly it holds true for PSYOP product development. In particular MISO personnel need to take great pains that their end work product is designed with the target audience in mind and not based on the developer’s perspective.

Guarding against this bias will likely mean the employment of trusted third parties who are steeped in (and ideally part of) the culture of the target audience and whose review can insure that MISO product is presented in such a way as to appeal to the target rather than showcase – either directly or indirectly – the perspective and culture of the developers.

As always, reader input invited.

Photo Source: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/fingerprints_biometrics