Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

gulliver

gulliver's Journal
gulliver's Journal
February 3, 2018

Trump uses Twitter for "script injection" into the news media.

In software security, there is an attack known as "script injection." In effect, the attacker gets a website to pass bad JavaScript language code to the user's browser. It's probably why we have only limited markup (bold, italics, link, blockquote, etc.) here on DU. The site will scour out any true JavaScript language code that a member tries to put into the text of a post. That protects the users who view the post.

Trump, whether by luck, instinct, or design, is injecting his "English language scripts" into the news media. Unfortunately, they are playing them.

For example, think about this latest case where he refers to himself in the third person as "Trump." His first sentence is as follows:

"This memo totally vindicates 'Trump' in probe,"

What will happen is that the news media (anchors and so forth) will read the sentence above verbatim in order to quote Trump. They will say something like the following:

"President Trump tweeted today that the Republican memo vindicates him. According to Trump, 'This memo totally vindicates Trump in probe.'"

He has just gotten a news anchor to say "This memo totally vindicates Trump in probe." People who aren't listening closely may think the anchor is the one saying the memo vindicates Trump, not Trump himself. That's good for Trump. It wouldn't work if Trump had referred to himself in the first person.

Obviously, I can't say for sure that is what he is doing or that it actually plays out as a true security exploit at the human media level. But it does look familiar from a software security standpoint. It looks like a hack.

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 13,197
Latest Discussions»gulliver's Journal