Kevin Poulsen

Kevin Poulsen is an American journalist who served as a senior national-security correspondent for The Daily Beast and has long covered cybersecurity and computer crime, including as the author of a book on the carding underground. He broke the story revealing that Russia's Internet Research Agency, the troll farm indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, had held a 2017 'ask me anything' session on Reddit that went largely unnoticed and was populated mostly by the operation's own sockpuppet accounts asking and answering questions. His reporting further showed that several of the session's questions had been copied from a list The Daily Beast itself had emailed the group, illustrating how the operation manufactured the appearance of organic engagement. The piece is among the clearest documented accounts of Russian information-operation activity on Reddit and is frequently cited in coverage of foreign manipulation of the platform.