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NSA and GHCQ Employing Shills To Poison Web Forum Discourse
Advocatus Diaboli writes with this excerpt from an article by Glenn Greenwald on the pervasiveness of shills poisoning web forums: "One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It's time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.. ... Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the Internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: 'false flag operations' (posting material to the Internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting 'negative information' on various forums."
I guess Cryptome was right. Check out the the training materials provided to future forum spies.
It is all a lie
Seen the Snowden character assassination even here on Slashdot. "Look at that traitor with the dodgy face, not the highly unconstitutional government surveillance program which basically takes a huge dump over your privacy rights!"
Not that it would do much good here, but God bless 'em for tryin'!
So you should look at the message itself, not at the person you get the message from. If the message contains further tainting of a messenger, it will seed more mistrust. Try to focus on arguments of fact, not arguments of person or source. Then you will weed out most deception.
Why waste a bullet when you can label someone a rapist, narcissist, child molester, etc.--and then threaten all their friends into bad-mouthing them, disparaging them online, and so on?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
A better question might be, "How could this possibly be furthering out national security interests?", and if it isn't, "Why the hell are they wasting my money on programs designed to further their own egomaniacal agenda?".
I mean, isn't this self-serving and public-harming behavior exactly what got them in to hot water in the first place?
Frankly, if they still don't get that abusing the hand that feeds them tax dollars isn't in America's best interest, then they don't deserve to be an organization. Let the CIA and FBI pick up their responsibilities and disolve the NSA altogether. They are a waste of money, a waste of manpower, and are wasting our liberties.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
If the posts name starts with 'c' and ends with "fjord" is going to be a shill post.
Poor quality graphics. Ridiculously complex infographics. Irrelevant pictures. Overuse of mantras. Incredible lack of consistency. A powerpoint presentation this bad has to be from a government or a large corporation.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
He may have meant "ripping what they sew"
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
The ever reliable cold fjord, bringing the gospel of his masters to the unwashed masses. Taking a break from sucking your boss's cock?
We already have a culture of anti-government rhetoric building. While many are chaotic, and completely lacking organization, there might be enough just to start trouble across the board. In short, they will probably end up reaping what they sew.
You're not wrong about the culture of anti-government rhetoric, but your last comment, about reaping what they sew, is off the mark and makes me sad. Our "culture of anti-government rhetoric" has been sculpted to treat the government as a monolithic entity. Government is government. Thus, a story about an invasion of privacy or one like this, about perverting speech, can be turned into an attack on the EPA or health care reform or an argument against the regulation of financial markets. The government can't be trusted, after all.
Even worse, that paranoid atmosphere is exactly what drives legislation like the Patriot Act in the first place. People want to feel safe, it's self-propagating.
If you really want to stop this sort of abuse, what you need to foster in your self and in others is not paranoia, or mistrust, but confidence. Keep your outrage, that's certainly appropriate, but recognize this as a problem that can be fixed and move towards that solution.
How is it in America's best interest? Because the people in charge actually think like this:
1) There are threats to us everywhere and we are the only ones protecting against them.
2) To effectively protect America (as per #1), we need power. Lots and lots of power.
3) Anything that reduces our power (e.g. Edward Snowden) threatens us and therefore impacts our ability to protect America.
4) Therefore, anything that reduces our power (or threatens to do so) is a threat to America and needs to be dealt with.
5) Go To Step 2.
It's an infinite loop. The more power they have, the more "potential threats" they see (real or imagined in an attempt to justify their power), and the more they see any reduction of their power as something that will cause horrible things to happen.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.