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New Snowden Docs: British Spies Manipulate Polls and Pageview Counts, Censor Videos They Don't Like and Amplify Messages They Do
We've noted for years that the Pentagon and spy agencies manipulate the Internet - including social media - in order to promote false propaganda and to stifle dissenting information.
We've also discussed some of the methods used to game popularity on social media sites.
A new report from the Intercept adds to our understanding of these tactics:
The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, “amplif[y]” sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be “extremist.” The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.
The tools were created by GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), and constitute some of the most startling methods of propaganda and internet deception contained within the Snowden archive. Previously disclosed documents have detailed JTRIG’s use of “fake victim blog posts,” “false flag operations,” “honey traps” and psychological manipulation to target online activists, monitor visitors to WikiLeaks, and spy on YouTube and Facebook users.
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The “tools” have been assigned boastful code names. They include invasive methods for online surveillance, as well as some of the very techniques that the U.S. and U.K. have harshly prosecuted young online activists for employing, including “distributed denial of service” attacks and “call bombing.” But they also describe previously unknown tactics for manipulating and distorting online political discourse and disseminating state propaganda, as well as the apparent ability to actively monitor Skype users in real-time—raising further questions about the extent of Microsoft’s cooperation with spy agencies or potential vulnerabilities in its Skype’s encryption. Here’s a list of how JTRIG describes its capabilities:
• “Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS)
• “Mass delivery of email messaging to support an Information Operations campaign” (BADGER) and “mass delivery of SMS messages to support an Information Operations campaign” (WARPARTH)
• “Disruption of video-based websites hosting extremist content through concerted target discovery and content removal.” (SILVERLORD)
• “Active skype capability. Provision of real time call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists.” (MINIATURE HERO)
• “Find private photographs of targets on Facebook” (SPRING BISHOP)
• “A tool that will permanently disable a target’s account on their computer” (ANGRY PIRATE)
• “Ability to artificially increase traffic to a website” (GATEWAY) and “ability to inflate page views on websites” (SLIPSTREAM)
• “Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)” (GESTATOR)
• “Targeted Denial Of Service against Web Servers” (PREDATORS FACE) and “Distributed denial of service using P2P. Built by ICTR, deployed by JTRIG” (ROLLING THUNDER)
• “A suite of tools for monitoring target use of the UK auction site eBay (www.ebay.co.uk)” (ELATE)
• “Ability to spoof any email address and send email under that identity” (CHANGELING)
• “For connecting two target phone together in a call” (IMPERIAL BARGE)
NSA engages in the same types of dirty tricks.
We're not very confident that the spies are only going after actual bad guys and promoting the messages of the good guys, given that:
- Any criticism of government policies is considered "extremist" and potential terrorism
- Top NSA whistleblowers Bill Binney and Thomas Drake both say that the U.S. has become a police state
- They say that the U.S. government has become like the Stasis or Soviets, and Binney says that the NSA has become like “J. Edgar Hoover on super steroids”
- Mass surveillance isalways used to crush dissent
And see this.
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folks are gonna have to give up their strong desire for leaders, heroes & dis-info to support their fake realities.
GreenWald is a Jewish lawyer fed Snowden's Secrets, all supported by Omidyar's billionaire-status - the oligarchs are serving their system, and anyone who is still plugged into their grid
is wasting their life-time with hope for change.
Freddie, you know it's just more TeeVee and HollyWood. . .
I am now wondering, or at least entertaining the possibility that Greenwald has been compromised. Do you think that perhaps the Virginia Farmboys gave him a good old fashioned gov't-style shakedown? An offer that he couldn't refuse?
Dunno. I am on the fence here. Why else would he work for the CEO of the company that owns Paypal, a corporate censor that would normally be an anethma to him, per his word? Does anyone have any compelling argument one way or another?
Yes, there are some things about Greenwald that stink, but on the other hand, that Bluffdale facility uses 65MW of power and over 1 million gallons of water per day. There are some key pieces of information missing here. While I don't doubt that the NSA either does or would like to spy on everything, I will reserve judgment until those key pieces of information come out. I will hypothesize, however, that they want us to believe that they are omniscient, when they in fact, are not.
One would think this mass surveillance might help solve a murder or two, or maybe catch some criminals.
Oh - that would be illegal...............
Don't worry about any illegal aspect not being pursued. It's already being done and has been for some time. Keyword: parallel construction.
Or it might catch some drug dealers. Illegal? Pffffft...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805
Tinfoil hats have become fashionable headgear for a good reason.
Two simple observations.
1 Most ZHers can spot spurious posts.
2 Most Zhers are smart enough not to reply to those who are trying to plant disinfo.
I see all these sites like "Bright Bart" where one good comment is made, then the rest of the comments are responses to plants, and the discussion of the article never takes place, so I guess the objective is achieved on that particular site.
Carry on.
Keep stackin'
Keep Packin'
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory.We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.
There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyways always yield to the stronger, and this will always be ‘the man in the street.’ Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.
Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character.
The rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitive. In the long run basic results in influencing public opinion will be achieved only by the man who is able to reduce problems to the simplest terms and who has the courage to keep forever repeating them in this simplified form, despite the objections of the intellectuals.
What you want in a media system is ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity.
It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.
We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear’s work, that is its affair. We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come.
We have made the Reich by propaganda.
Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.
Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose.
Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street.
Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place.
That is of course rather painful for those involved. One should not as a rule reveal one’s secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again. The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.
If we are attacked we can only defend ourselves with guns not with butter.
The war made possible for us the solution of a whole series of problems that could never have been solved in normal times.
During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information.
When today a clique accuses us of having anti-Christian opinions, I believe that the first Christian, Christ himself, would discover more of his teaching in our actions than in this theological hair-splitting.
A verbal confession cannot suffice; we require an active confession. Christianity to us is no empty form, but rather a continual action.
In the interpretation of the Gospel one may hold the command of God higher than human commands. In the interpretation of political realities, we consider ourselves to be God’s instrument.
If the day should ever come when we [the Nazis] must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction.
Joseph Gobbels
On Her Majesty's Secret Serfice
I really need to build my internal private network. This information makes any electronic data used as evidence suspect.