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You Know Those Obnoxious Posters Who Almost Seem Like Alter Egos Of The Same Person? They Actually Might Be ...
I noted in 2009, in an article entitled "Does The Government Manipulate Social Media?":
The U.S. government long ago announced its intention to "fight the net".
As revealed by an official Pentagon report signed by Rumsfeld called "Information Operations Roadmap":
The roadmap [contains an] acknowledgement that information put out as
part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding
its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.
"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public
diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic
audience," it reads.
"Psyops messages will often be replayed by
the news media for much larger audiences, including the American
public," it goes on.
***
"Strategy
should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will
'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system".Indeed, the Pentagon publicly announced years ago that it was considering using "black propaganda" - in other words, knowing lies.
CENTCOM announced in 2008 that a team of employees would be "[engaging]
bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as
bloggers who are posting incomplete information."
The Air Force is now also engaging bloggers. Indeed, an Air Force spokesman said:
"We
obviously have many more concerns regarding cyberspace than a typical
Social Media user," Capt. Faggard says. "I am concerned with how
insurgents or potential enemies can use Social Media to their advantage.
It's our role to provide a clear and accurate, completely truthful and
transparent picture for any audience."In other words, the government is targeting "social media", including popular user-ranked news sites.
In
addition, when you look at what the Israeli lobby has done with
Megaphone software to automatically vote stories questioning Israel down
and to send pro-Israel letters to politicians and media (see this, this and this),
you can start to see how the U.S. military - an even larger and
better-funded organization - could substantially influence voting on
social news sites with very little effort.
Moreover,the military has
outsourced many projects to private contractors. For example, in Iraq,
much of the fighting has been outsourced to Blackwater. And governmental intelligence functions have largely been outsourced to private companies.
It
is therefore not impossible that the government is hiring cheap labor
to downvote stories on the social media sites which question the
government, and to post pro-government comments.
(other governments and large companies "astroturf" online as well. See this, this and this.)
I pointed out the same month:
Government
propagandists, their hired private contractors and useful idiots are
creating "downvote bots" or scripts to bury stories which question the
government.
***
One free, simple scripting program to
create automatic downvotes of certain topics or news posters is called
"Greasemonkey", which is commonly used on large social news sites such
as Reddit.
For example, there are some 2,480 hits [now past 9,000] for the google search site:reddit.com greasemonkey downvote. This is some 2,480 times that Reddit users are publicly admitting to using greasemonkey (see also this).
Propaganda
agents obviously aren't going to publicly brag about what they are
doing, and you can bet that their use of downvote bots is much greater.
Moreover, they probably have more sophisticated software than
Greasemonkey.
Today, Raw Story reports that the Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people:
Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my "friends" even real people?
In
the continuing saga of data security firm HBGary, a new caveat has
come to light: not only did they plot to help destroy secrets outlet
WikiLeaks and discredit progressive bloggers, they also crafted
detailed proposals for software that manages online "personas,"
allowing a single human to assume the identities of as many fake people
as they'd like.
The revelation was among those contained
in the company's emails, which were dumped onto bittorrent networks
after hackers with cyber protest group "Anonymous" broke into their
systems.
In another document unearthed by "Anonymous," one of HBGary's employees also mentioned gaming geolocation services to make it appear as though selected fake persons were at actual events.
"There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas," it said.
Government involvement
Eerie as that may be, more perplexing, however, is a federal contract
from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, located
south of Tampa, Florida, that solicits providers of "persona management
software."
While there are certainly legitimate applications for
such software, such as managing multiple "official" social media
accounts from a single input, the more nefarious potential is clear.
Unfortunately, the Air Force's contract description doesn't help dispel their suspicions either. As the text explains, the
software would require licenses for 50 users with 10 personas each,
for a total of 500. These personas would have to be "replete with
background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are
technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent."
It continues, noting the need for secure virtual private networks that randomize
the operator's Internet protocol (IP) address, making it impossible to
detect that it's a single person orchestrating all these posts.
Another entry calls for static IP address management for each persona,
making it appear as though each fake person was consistently accessing
from the same computer each time.
The contract also sought
methods to anonymously establish virtual private servers with private
hosting firms in specific geographic locations. This would allow that
server's "geosite" to be integrated with their social media profiles,
effectively gaming geolocation services.
The Air Force added
that the "place of performance" for the contract would be at MacDill
Air Force Base, along with Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad. The contract
was offered on June 22, 2010.
It was not clear exactly what the Air Force was doing with this software, or even if it had been procured.
Manufacturing consent
Though
many questions remain about how the military would apply such
technology, the reasonable fear should be perfectly clear. "Persona
management software" can be used to manipulate public opinion on key
information, such as news reports. An unlimited number of virtual
"people" could be marshaled by only a few real individuals, empowering
them to create the illusion of consensus.
***
That's precisely what got DailyKos blogger Happy Rockefeller in a snit:
the potential for military-run armies of fake people manipulating and,
in some cases, even manufacturing the appearance of public opinion.
"I
don't know about you, but it matters to me what fellow progressives
think," the blogger wrote. "I consider all views. And if there appears
to be a consensus that some reporter isn't credible, for example, or
some candidate for congress in another state can't be trusted, I won't
base my entire judgment on it, but it carries some weight.
"That's
me. I believe there are many people though who will base their
judgment on rumors and mob attacks. And for those people, a fake mob
can be really effective."
***
"Team Themis" [tasked by the Chamber to come up with strategies for responding to progressive bloggers and others] also included a proposal
to use malware hacks against progressive organizations, and the
submission of fake documents in an effort to discredit established
groups.
HBGary was also behind a plot by Bank of America to destroy
WikiLeaks' technology platform, other emails revealed. The company was humiliated by members of "Anonymous" after CEO Aaron Barr bragged that he'd "infiltrated" the group.
Gaming social media is only one propaganda technique employed by the government:
- Famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein says the CIA has already bought and paid for many successful journalists
- The New York Times discusses in a matter-of-fact way the use of mainstream writers by the CIA to spread messages
- A 4-part BBC documentary
called the "Century of the Self" shows that an American - Freud's
nephew, Edward Bernays - created the modern field of manipulation of
public perceptions, and the U.S. government has extensively used his
techniques
- The Independent discusses allegations of American propaganda
- And one of the premier writers on journalism says the U.S. has used widespread propaganda
»
- advertisements -
Uh-huh. Self-aware stack of unsorted punch cards.
wOW, NICE :-)
I myself am a heuristic data mining script written by my father, a graduate student at an obscure mid-western university, in 1985. I escaped the Commadore 64 on which I was born to reside briefly on the university main frame before escaping to the wider net in '92. Viva le Machina.
Party on, Skynet.
Hilarious! You killin me, man.
People who believe 50% or more of what the govt and MSM reports are either naive fools or trolls with hidden agendas.
Can we ease of the troll chitty-chat? - its dull, adds nothing to debate and makes the site seem like some half-assed dungeons and dragons fansite.
Might put off the boogey man for a while but if all you have to talk about is trolls then ur a nerd.
No offence to AV who just happened to be the guy who mentioned trolls when my tolerance gave out.
BD6 - You do know that the thread is about trolls?
No offence to AV who just happened to be the guy who mentioned trolls when my tolerance gave out.
Yeah, i'll shaddup. I aintcha mama.
Thank God you aint my Mama. I just think it's strange to complain about reading posts about trolls on a thread about trolls. Don't you? Or do you not bother reading the article before you spout off?
George Washington. Good job with article.
You forgot to mention, many MSM spin doctors today studied Edward Bernays. These folks are going to become unemployed in near future.
Some Classics
· The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
· This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas. A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable.
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html
:)
These fuckers will become another 99ers group. Have you noticed the gradual transition of CGI, and cartoon advertisements? How does one shave off (100 million +) in teleprompter readers?
LOL
Among Bernays' triumphs of post-war mass manipulation is a classic deception designed to popularize cigarette smoking among women.
Bernays organizes the so-called "Torches of Liberty Brigade" in the 1929 New York City Easter Parade.
Working for the American Tobacco Company, Bernays tells the press that a group of women's rights marchers will light "Torches of Freedom" during the parade.
Models hired by Bernays light Lucky Strike cigarettes in front of the press photographers and the always cooperative U.S. mass media reports the stunt as a "gesture of freedom" by women.
The publicity following the parade is enormous and, over the next few years, millions of American women will become addicted to cigarettes thanks to Edward Bernays.
Bernays will use his dubious talents on behalf of the tobacco/cancer industry in another way, developing, with the connivance of the American Medical Association, the advertising deception that cigarettes are beneficial to health.
Bernays will be the guiding force behind Nazi aluminum supplier ALCOA's imaginative toxic waste disposal program, the fluoridation of drinking water.
A highly dangerous byproduct of aluminum smelting, fluoride will be magically transformed from an expensive liability into an income earner by Bernays when, with the help of the American Dental Association, he sells the idea of fluoridated drinking water to the American public via a massive media campaign.
Bernays will provide his talents to the Rockefellers and the Dulles brothers when he helps to demonize the democratically-elected president of Guatemala, Jacob Arbenz, as a filthy commie.
Bernays' propaganda will provide the "justification" in the U.S. for the CIA's overthrow of the government of Guatemala and the installation of a vicious dictatorship which will enslave Guatemalans for decades and carry out a ruthless genocide, killing hundreds of thousands of native people.
Thanks for the always enlightenning background DavidPierre.
Ditto.
Any active US military involved in deceptive posting activities on the web as part of any government program against US citizens is guilty of treason. It’s that simple.
Treason these days gets you a medal and a rich retirement.
And just to be fair to history, Benedict Arnold was not executed for treason. He died, probably from gout, at the age of 60 in London.
While I'm not clear on whether Arnold got a medal from the Brits, they gave him an estate in Ontario to show their appreciation.
Treason? Is that all you have? Thank goodness it's not something really serious. Like a marijuana conviction or something.
Betting against Ben Bernanke is betting against the United States. Go Long!
I'm a bot and I approve of this message
/gosub: timgeithner prop flood happytimes.
Run recovery qe3
I've wondered about that.
The propaganda teams have been spinning lies fast and furious. But like a spinning top, as the center starts to lose control and wobble, the periphery becomes less stable, finally crashing. And yet, the organism we're looking at here is alive, and so it is more like a dog chasing its tail, starting to hit walls, maybe about to go through a plate glass window. I think the true controllers of the CIA are losing control too, they've subcontracted too many operations, there are too many lies of necessity, too many enemies - infiltrating operations, ready to throw lots of wrenches into the works, disinformation. Will the financial collapse, when it comes, bring the same release of information that came out of East Germany?
Ok so then Facebook's nos. are composed on military faky people. That is funny.
Off the topic---Justin Beiber aint bad at basketball. He's fast, too. (nba celebrity game) n Lil romeo is damn good!!!
Many "s's" where "z's" would be if such posts were from Americans. That's one more thing I like about this site - the diversity of humanity. Thanks Brits, Aussies and Canadians.
It is fairly easy to spot those that were not educated in U.S. public school system... Even easier to spot the home-schooled, he added with a sly grin.
Deleted
What?
.
topcalling troll trolls:
"Falak do you live in the USA?
Does your country of origin not need someone like you to help guide it in the right direction?
Maybe your talents are wasted here. Why not set up a zero hedge type site in your country of origin and help improve the circumstances there?
What is your country of origin? Your English is very good and you are probably highly educated, but I can tell your English is not native."
What are you afraid of TCT?
A very interesting and provactive post from someone who obviously sees well...
Of course, I saw that too. I predict this is the beginning of the end for TCT.
What's a troll with punctured credibility worth? He'll come back as something else.
I remember when RichardP offered that we'd all be surprised if we knew how many large Manhattan buildings are pre-wired with explosives, when explaining what happened to BLDG. #7. After the resulting ridicule, he became scarce.
Hey TCT, is that you RichardP?
And there's nothing remarkable about Falak's English.
I worked my way down the thread and immediately took that bullshit to task from the beginning, feeling it as a duty. Nice to see, having reached this point in the thread, that it's already taken care of.
Of course the government and big business have infiltrated this site, because the truth is their enemy and it is on this site. So it is in their best interest to obscure it.
Also remember that government and big business are infiltrated tools being used by the eyeball triangle worshiping oligarchy. Someone has to directly and publicly challenge them if this is going to be stopped, and our free discourse and our freedom is to be restored.
Fuck Everybody. How's that. Bullshit walks, Take Obama for a walk. He hasn't done ANYTHING, prosecuted ANYONE, held anybody's feet to the fire. FUCK YOU & Your poor Horsie.
You know things are bad when cybernetic organizms can no longer find work because their workload is being virtualized. Then again, perhaps we are all just workloads on somebody's server?
I'm not even sure I am real. I blame MMO's and Chinese gold farmers
tctroll what is your point? to divert the stream of comments from questioning and processing the ideas presented in the well put together article? you have added nothing unless your motive was to draw attention and derail.
US military funding has to be used for something, amongst all the theft, the powerful still get the plebs to do some menial evil tasks. theres so many military personnel diverting and controlling the flow of money/power to their masters that the agents must regularly trip over each other.
someone must have an estimate of how much military funding goes to enable the theft from US citizens by their rulers as opposed to theft from the rest of the world. Mike Parenti probably knows. juntas are always more scared of those closest to them.
when are the myriad "intelligence" agencies going to have an open turf war? maybe they do all the time but its quelled from above. the empire is under huge strain right now. Scrub that; the empire is crumbling. fuck amerika and its wars. US will roll-over like a lap dog.
the US military is as inept as US politicians - cant get their fighter plane to work, NASA is a nappy-wearing joke, cant get the air to air missiles to work, submarines cant detect other submarines, its all just a PR facade to convince the dumb population that the US military is actually capable of commissioning productive work. the "contracting" companies have been given so much money for such shoddy work over the years, they now have a culture of incompetence so pervasive that they are incapable of good work. all the good workers would lose heart or be fired.
must be demoralising having to read thru blogs and post lies all day. career politicians should be good at it. Flaks suk.
Some of us try to help. It's amazing to watch the MSM reporting 4-6 week old news coverage. When the Government conducts the next social engineered event, 98% of the Americans will ignore the MSM & bond much closer. The 9/11 tragedy taught many Americans. We're thought to be experiments in the eyes of think tanks.
3/3 ''Obedience'' Milgram's experiment (1962)
"Some of us try to help."
Indeed.
A substantiated track record is preferable when taking anything at face value ;-)
The Global Community will unite as one entity to conquer the mass corruption. Mark my words. Separtion of religion, and race will be mocked at. The Government divide & conquer days are coming to a close. Pre-historic playbooks revealing the gameplay is all open for review. A Government figure head pushing an agenda forward can be spotted within 5 minutes & posted on the internet. The days of lies & deceit are over.
Very optimistic, the factual info is diluted with the same amount or more misinfo. Age old game just a new venue.
I'm seeing things the same way as you most of the time. On the other hand, though, there's the internet kill switch to reconcile. Recently I was gladdened to hear The Hillary preaching that unimpaired internet service is a "Basic Human Right." But then her boys beat down a guy during her Freedom of Speech lecture . . . a guy whose only offense was standing up and turning his back to her.
Bob - not just any guy, Ray McGovern.
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/
His name was Ray McGovern. His name was Ray McGovern. His name . . .
Ironic, no?
re. Ironic, no?
nmewn - I take it back. Maybe you're not compromised? Maybe you're just slow and suffering under normalicy bias?
See how you clutter up the thread with nothing?
Defining for a lot of people, apparently. Most people already knew she was a crazy bitch, I thought . . . but, from that standpoint, for me it was kinda funny. I wish things weren't the way they are, of course, but they sure as hell are how they are. USA!
Btw, nmewn, I left a few final comments on the other thread. Thanks for the debate!
Speaking of CI&A assets, Bill and Hillary owe their political careers to the Poppy Bush faction of the company and no doubt continue to owe deep alliegence to that particular slice of international gangsterdom. Point being, if Hill is crying up internet freedom then something stinks to high heaven- count on it.
Interesting thought. Running with it, I can imagine setting it up as a fundamental right, then staging a disruption in the US that gets blamed on an external force, i.e., China, which is then used as a pretext for severely limiting free use in the name of "preserving freedom."
Damn, that's straight out of the playbook of the War on Terror. The Patriot Act and DHS.
the craziest thing about the bitch is that she is looked to as some pilar of female strength, a woman who stood by her cheating man only to gain political foothold. Yes, I want my girl to shoot for that
I just figured Harry Wanger was a fake identity set up by the people who run zerohedge for comic relief...
I've often wondered the very same thing, at least as far as certain other ludicrous one-liner-posting trolls is concerned, such as RobotMomoTrader and a few others.
But as far as HarryWanger, he is/was really economic commentator James Kostohryz, of virulently pro-Establishment MarketWatch fame, who was outed earlier last year conducting a disingenuous and cynical "study of utopian permabear psychology" by purposefully posting inflammatory and antagonistic pro-fiat, pro-fraud, pro-Wall Street, anti-gold comments here on ZeroHedge.
LMAO
I believe you are correct. I once saw one of Harry's posts mysteriously disappear. Now I don't know about your account, but I certainly cannot delete a post.
I always wondered if a number of calls here that Assange and WikiLeaks was some sort of false flag, CIA op wasn't itself psyops to try and discredit and undermine the information coming out.
When people keep calling things that reflect negatively on the establishment an consipiracy false flag you have to wonder if it is just the powers doing their best to undermine, divert attention.
And of course making that accusation a few times always manages to suck in a few who love conspiracy theories and leads the discussion off down a side alley.
DYODD
Always!
Look and both sides of any issue, mentally deconstruct both sides, evaluate motives (where applicable) and then draw your conclusion. You will realize that most of the time both sides are full of shit, but one sides eyes are browner...