By Brandi Meoni
“The situation is very serious,” warned a viral
message spreading across social media in Turkey in the wake of a failed
military coup against the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
on July 15th 2016. The message warned social media users that hackers
were targeting their IP addresses in order to covertly post anti-government
propaganda. As the message was gradually exposed as a hoax, it became the focus
of various light-humored jokes and spoofs. [1] But in the aftermath of the
failed coup, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s still imposed state
of emergency is no laughing matter. With the subsequent dismissal and arrest of
tens of thousands of military personnel, judges, teachers, civil servants and
journalists, as well as a brutal crackdown on media outlets and freedom of
political expression, the situation is in fact very serious.
The Turkish military,
historically seen as the guardians of the Kemalist secular legacy handed down
by the Turkish Republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, had once again
demonstrated their opposition to the government’s ongoing shift toward Islamist
policies. In a military ordered announcement issued by the state broadcaster TRT,
the coup plotters publicly proclaimed the need for a new constitution and
restoration of the “democratic and secular rule of law.” [2] But after
President Erdoğan’s swift mobilization of his supporters via the mobile
application FaceTime, the coup was quickly put down. As Erdoğan regained full
government control, it was not the secular opposition party CHP at which he
directed his accusations of treason, but rather his former ally, the Muslim
cleric Fethullah Gülen.
http://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-president-erdogan-makes-apple-facetime-statement-2016-7
In a country polarized by
religious and secular ideologies, Erdoğan and Gülen’s shared Islamist views
made them natural allies. But after a 2013 political scandal threatened
Erdoğan’s government, Gülen became one of his strongest adversaries. Erdoğan
has since labeled Gülen’s Hizmet (Service) Movement a terrorist organization,
accusing its supporters of infiltrating government institutions in an attempt
to create a parallel state. With
the state of emergency in place, Erdoğan vowed to aggressively purge
all Gülenist supporters from government positions. What has transpired, though,
since the July 15 events, has been nothing short of an indiscriminate attack on
political dissent, press freedoms, and critical dialogue regarding the current
political climate.
Turkey’s Western allies, as well
as human rights groups, have expressed their concerns over the extent and
severity of the government’s crackdown. Most disturbing are Amnesty
International’s allegations that it has “received credible evidence of
detainees being subject to beatings and torture, including rape, since the coup
attempt.” [3] In numerous cases, links between the Gülenist movement and those
who have been detained are unsubstantiated, leading many observers to believe
that Erdoğan is using the coup as an opportunity to eliminate any and all
political opposition. Some believe that he may have even orchestrated the coup
himself for this purpose. [4]
As the international community
reacted with confusion, speculation, and concern over the events unfolding in
Turkey, the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks announced that it would publish what it called “The Erdoğan Emails,” a searchable collection of
nearly 300,000 files leaked from the AKP. The collection covered a period
dating from 2010 until July 6 of this year. Although the emails had been
obtained prior to the coup, WikiLeaks decided to expedite their publication in
response to the increasing alarm over the government’s crackdown. The
organization claimed to have verified the material, which promised to expose
Turkey’s political power structure and shed light on the politics leading up to
the coup. Due to the sensitivity of the material, WikiLeaks also warned Turkish
citizens of impending censorship on the part of the Turkish government, and
provided them with instructions for installing bypass systems such as
TorBrowser and uTorrent.
As predicted, Turkey swiftly
blocked access to WikiLeaks, and shortly after, the site reported a sustained
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its server. In the eyes of those
awaiting publication of the AKP emails, these incidents provided further proof
that WikiLeaks’ claims were legitimate, and that the leak contained information
that was damaging to Erdoğan and the AKP. Notorious hacker Phineas Fisher
subsequently took credit for the stolen data, proudly tweeting “I hacked the
AKP,” and posted a link to a 100-gigabyte archive comprised of several files.
[5]
For those who don’t speak
Turkish, the anti-secrecy organization may have seemed to fulfill its objective
to publish the truth. However, as Turkish-speaking activists and analysts began
sifting through the 300,000 files, their excitement gradually turned to
disgust. What they found was not the huge cache of highly sensitive government
emails that WikiLeaks promised, but rather large chunks of archives from online
discussion groups that were already publicly accessible. Still, the misleading
nature of WikiLeaks’ claims was not its most egregious error. On July 21 the
organization tweeted a link to the full data for its “Turkey AKP emails +
more.” That link provided access to a page hosting Turkish citizens’ private
information, including a database containing the addresses and phone numbers of
nearly every female voter in Turkey.
This mass doxing of Turkey’s
female citizens is particularly troubling due to the country’s record of
violence against women. Zeynep Tüfekçi, a Turkish sociologist who found the
database through WikiLeaks’ link, expressed her thoughts in the Huffington
Post, stating that “every year in Turkey hundreds of women are murdered, most
often by current or ex-husbands or boyfriends, and thousands of women leave
their homes or go into hiding, seeking safety.” [6] Equally disturbing is that
her repeated tweets to WikiLeaks informing them of the database’s harmful
content were met with denial. Instead of taking responsibility for their
errors, WikiLeaks chose to launch an attack on Zeynep Tüfekçi, labeling her “an
Erdoğan apologist.” [7]
It is clear that this
misreporting could have been avoided had WikiLeaks consulted with Turkish
speakers to properly verify the content of the data prior to making it publicly
accessible. Responsibility also lies with hacker Phineas Fisher, whose stated
motivations for hacking the Turkish government include advocacy for Kurdish
rights and, ironically, gender liberation. [8] It is therefore unfortunate that
women, for whom he advocates rights and freedoms, were put in danger due to the
data which he himself exfiltrated. Despite the activist’s good intentions and
superior hacking skills, his lack of knowledge of the Turkish language made him
little more than a bull in the AKP china shop.
In her Huffington Post article, Zeynep
Tüfekçi goes on to express her fears that “the ignorance with which Western
media and alleged activists met with the publication of ordinary Turks’ private
information, will become an unfortunate talking point for pro-censorship forces
in Turkey.” [9] Another potentially offensive display of Western media
ignorance can be seen in the illustration that accompanied WikiLeaks’
searchable database. The Orientalist-style caricature depicted Erdoğan as an Ottoman sultan on a flying
carpet, knocking down pillars of democracy. One might question whether this
highly stereotypical and potentially patronizing image was appropriate for the
Turkish audience whose right to information WikiLeaks claimed to protect.
The lack of understanding with which
WikiLeaks reported its information serves as an example of the importance
linguistic and cultural training play in cyberspace operations. This example
can easily be applied to state-directed cyber professionals, and serves as a
valid argument for increased prioritization of linguistic and cultural training
for those involved in cyberspace operations. According to a 2015 study
conducted by RAND Corporation on the effectiveness of language defense
training, the pipeline of skilled linguists is limited. Additionally, those who
are selected to become language specialists are often trained from zero, or a
very low skill level. This is problematic due to the length of time it takes to
train absolute beginners to high levels of proficiency, and the high costs
associated with extended training programs. [10]
Foreign languages that are vital
to U.S. national security interests are often those to which most U.S. citizens
have little previous exposure (Arabic, Persian, Mandarin, Russian) and share no
common linguistic principles with English, making rapid progression by those
with no existing language skills difficult if not impossible. Therefore, it can
be argued that along with the effort being placed on recruiting cyber warriors
with high levels of technical skill, it is equally important to focus
recruitment efforts on identifying qualified candidates with pre-existing
language skills. Those with both the language and technical skills are
naturally the ideal recruits.
As these individuals may be in
short supply, it is also critical to prioritize the development of educational
pipelines of programs to grow these recruits. The RAND Corporation study
acknowledges the benefits of The Language
Flagship Initiative, which provides funding for K-12 education to “address
the early years of students’ education and build a pipeline of
second-language-proficient individuals in the U.S. workforce.” [11] As the need
for cyber professionals with highly advanced technical skills is undeniable, so
is the need for personnel highly proficient in foreign languages, without whom
the missions of cyber professionals may not be as effective.
“In August 2011, then-Secretary
of Defense Leon Panetta underscored the importance of language, regional
expertise, and culture as enduring warfare competencies.” [12] For cyber
professionals in the military and beyond, accessing and exfiltrating data,
disabling websites, and using the Internet to publish material that promotes
human rights are important capabilities. They depend not
only on technical skill, but also on the ability to accurately analyze data and
determine methods of information dissemination that are culturally and
linguistically appropriate.
About the Author
Brandi Meoni has extensive international education
and experience. She recently taught English in Antalya, Turkey. She holds a
Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Dominican University, a
Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Studies and Analysis from the University of
Brighton in the United Kingdom, a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish Language and
Literature from Hamline University, and has completed other programs in South
America and Israel.
End Notes
[1] http://ofpof.com/keyif/facebook-un-durum-cok-ciddi-trolu-ile-ilgili-eglenceli-tweetler
[2] CNBC
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/15/gunfire-heard-jets-seen-flying-in-turkish-capital-of-ankara.html
[3] BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36881943
[4] The Clarion Project
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/whos-who-turkeys-power-struggle
[5] Motherboard
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/phineas-fisher-turkish-government-hack
[6] Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.html
[7] Ibid.
[8] Motherboard
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/phineas-fisher-turkish-government-hack
[9] Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.htm
[10] RAND
Corporationhttp://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR476/RAND_RR476.pdf
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
