Marco Ciappelli🎙️✨:verified: :donor:<p>Reflections from Black Hat USA 2025 on Deception, Disinformation, and the Marketing That Chose Fiction Over Facts... 🤔 </p><p>As I was driving away from Las Vegas... pretty damn fast -- as you can see -- I couldn't shake a troubling feeling from Black Hat.</p><p>The Narrative Attack Paradox: When <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Cybersecurity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Cybersecurity</span></a> Lost the Ability to Detect Its Own Deception and the Humanity We Risk When Truth Becomes Optional</p><p>The paradox? An industry studying "narrative attacks"—AI-powered campaigns that flood information environments with personalized deception at scale—as external threats, while simultaneously being surrounded by their own <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/marketing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>marketing</span></a> language that had become indistinguishable from the very algorithmic content generation they were warning about.</p><p>When the canary in the coal mine—the cybersecurity industry that's supposed to detect digital deception—loses its ability to distinguish authentic capability from algorithmic fiction, what hope do other industries have?</p><p>We're living in a Borgesian nightmare where marketing descriptions of <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a> capabilities have become more influential than actual AI capabilities. </p><p>The problem isn't just technological—it's epistemological. We've built machines that decide what questions we should ask and how we should evaluate the answers.</p><p>A direct challenge to marketing professionals: This is your wake-up call. Stop letting <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/algorithms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>algorithms</span></a> craft your messages. The most respected brands choose honesty over hype, transparency over clever AI-optimized copy. When your audience can't distinguish between human insight and machine-generated claims, authentic communication becomes your only competitive advantage.</p><p>The canary may be struggling to breathe, but it's still singing. The question is whether we're still listening.</p><p>There's so much more to think about here—from Borges to McLuhan, from recursive information crises to what we risk when truth becomes optional. </p><p>Read the full analysis, or if you prefer, listen to the podcast version included in the newsletter.</p><p>Let's keep exploring what it means to be human in this Hybrid Analog Digital Society—especially when the stakes have never been higher.</p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/narrative-attack-paradox-when-cybersecurity-lost-detect-ciappelli-oytlc/?trackingId=Tz2D8ng4Q5uI3lkYlnhQiQ%3D%3D" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">linkedin.com/pulse/narrative-a</span><span class="invisible">ttack-paradox-when-cybersecurity-lost-detect-ciappelli-oytlc/?trackingId=Tz2D8ng4Q5uI3lkYlnhQiQ%3D%3D</span></a></p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/technology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>technology</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/genau" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>genau</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/artificialintelligence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>artificialintelligence</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/branding" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>branding</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/authenticity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>authenticity</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/BlackHat2025" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BlackHat2025</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/narrativeattacks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>narrativeattacks</span></a></p>