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Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek To Control the Internet
Advocatus Diaboli writes 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.
Whenever I saw someone write something retarded on the internet in the past, I just chalked it up to the person in question genuinely being retarded. The idea that a government agency might intentionally be contributing retardation to poison genuine discussion seemed ridiculous on the face of it. Now, every time I read something and think "no one can really be that stupid, can they?" I've begun to wonder. Maybe no one CAN really be that stupid...
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
Right now on Slashdot, you can see the results of this blatant manipulation in the service of their sinister paymasters in the energy-saving lightbulb industry...
How to avoid being manipulated by online poll results
Short answer: don't buy into online poll results.
Polls are one of the worst methods of "information gathering" known to man, in terms of accuracy; online polls, doubly so. Not only do you have to be concerned with how the polls are worded, how large a sample size is used, and what group of people were used for the sample, you also have to consider that not every poll respondent is answering honestly 100% of the time. Take the "drug use" polls, many of which are now saying that marijuana use is up in teens. Is usage really up? Is the question just worded in a different way than the last poll? Or has the recent bi-state decriminalization caused more people to be willing to be honest in a poll that asks them if they're doing something that may be illegal where they live?
Trouble is, it seems, is that most people will ignore flawed methodology if the result of the poll is confluent with their pre-existing beliefs.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I don't believe GCHQ is involved in anything of the sort and you shouldn't either. This story simply reeks of falsehood.
Edit: Hey, that's not what I wrote...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/ge...
(originally titled: The Gentleman's Guide To Forum Spies)
It could never happen, and yet it does
makes a decision based on an online poll, page count, or anything to do with YouTube deserves what they get.
Snowden is a traitor. We (NSA) were doing all these things to make the world a better place, and then he had to ruin the surprise.
Remember that guy who betrayed Neo in Matrix? How he explained the whole rationale to Agent Smith, using a piece of steak?
Remember Daleks? How resistance is futile?
We are at the same crossroads, people. Just give in. Don't make us come after you. We both know how it'll end. Just relax. Use FB, twitter, instagram, pinterest and all the tools of procrastination. Give us the information, don't make us go after it. It will be easier for both parties
Did I mention that Snowden is a traitor and you don't count if you happen to be outside our country? Just accept it. Don't make me liberate you.
A firm hand on the rudder is required at troubled times such as these. We should gladly accept
NO WAIT THIS IS BS, I DI
[LOST CONNECTION]
You turn scumbag government spying into "alien lizards live among us"? I think you're wearing your tinfoil hat for the wrong reason.
The agency has been officially outed as GoatCHQ.
Guy Fawkes, but you're correct.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Snowden has documents showing GCHQ was also behind those page widening posts in the early days of Slashdot as well as posting countless goatse and tubgirl links and other assorted crapflooding.
I would like to call you troll but unfortunately they were caught Man In The Middling slashdot.
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
"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, ..."
Wow they have duplicated what 12 year old trolls do every day.
'The ability to manipulate online polls' is usually just called 'just refuse cookies'.
...this explains the downward spiral of /. comments....
I love how any critique of the American government, no matter how intellectual, or how much hard evidence exists, somehow gets retorted with "HURR EVAL AMURIKKKA", like there is some underlying conspiracy theory against America outside a reaction to facts at hand.
Clearly, many of you missed the short PBS run of the BBC documentary, Spooks, which details the exploits of MI5 in the UK. Peter Firth as the lead, great casting.
Joking aside, I don't understand all of the shock and awe at post-Snowden revelations about how various security agencies around the world operate. I have yet to see anything that comes off as remotely new knowledge since the Cold War. Yes, computers have made it easier in the years since the Cold War to store, catalog, and search data as well as automate human tasks. That's what computers were made for. Did people really think that the security services were going to act like the IRS and use the computer as a poor substitute for paper forms as opposed to modernizing and stretching technology's legs? Are people really so naive as to not understand the extreme manner to which computing advances have been driven by the needs of various secret security agencies around the world?
This is nothing new for the UK. The only thing new is that it is done electronically rather than by old fashioned methods (ie, bribes, cajoling, blackmail). Just about every fucked up situation in the world today can be traced back to root causes that are result of UK colonial policies and the use of "intelligence" agencies from the late 1800's thru the late 1960s (when they finally became a has been).
There are a class or group of people, however you want to define them, that think no matter what the US does, says, hears, thinks, or anything, they are evil. It has nothing to do with critiques or anything but a resentment for what they think has already happened (and it may have happened too).
But I would hardly consider what I responded to intellectual or hard evidence. It was little more than a look over here suggestion implying there was some fact that the NSA was doing something bad because some other country had.
Next, I'm waiting for an "It's Bush's fault" and possibly a "that damn Obama ruining the country". And I will respond in kind or at least think it. Because after you hear the same drum beat with the lack of substance, you start getting tired of it.
>There are a class or group of people, however you want to define them, that think no matter what the US does, says, hears, thinks, or anything, they are evil. It has nothing to do with critiques or anything but a resentment for what they think has already happened (and it may have happened too).
I won't doubt that these people actually exist, but recently we've seen "HURR AMURIKKKA" comments used to describe very real concerns people have about what snowden, manning, et all have discovered, and are simply re-itterating what they've read in linked mainstream newspapers with some shock and disgust as anyone who values living in a free society should.
As for English intellegence, anything they do is considered very relivant to the USA because they are part of the five eyes partnership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
"There are a class or group of people, however you want to define them, that think no matter what the US does, says, hears, thinks, or anything, they are evil."
Yes there are. They are the world's population. Even your allies don't like you. Now, why would that be?
I call bullshit. Only the USA could possibly do anything this evil. At least, that is what I have learned from reading /.
seems like a good candidate for a budget cut
it may look like that when they consistently say that the US is evil, but it actully just turns out to be a coincidence, and most of what america does is evil. If they spent 10% of the trillions they spend on killing people and controlling people, on actully helping people, then a lot less people would hate them.
Rocket Surgeon.
The point isn't "look at the technology", it's "look at the behaviour" - look at what a government is willing to do to make sure the democratic will of the people is what they think it should be. Right now, with the amount of noise in the British press about so-called "cybernats" (trolls in favour of Scottish independence, a very tiny minority typically blow out of all proportion by the media), it's a sobering thought,
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Poll says he can.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
I conducted an online poll, and the overwhelming consensus was that the GCHQ was not manipulating poll results. In fact, most of the people commenting said that the GCHQ were the greatest, most honest, and most trustworthy agency on the planet.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Set up an irrelevant straw man and knock it down why don't you.
You seem to need some caffeine, that is gibberish considering there is no parent post to yours.
This article of course does not lack substance, the source is NSAs own data.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Oops, the parent link disappears when you're replying to a post, didn't know that.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
Best Slashdot Co
Always keep offline backups.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
This is why the volume of ads is higher than the programmes they're in. Damn you GCHQ, I don't want your new soft drink, I want my freedom from tyranny!
I am shocked, SHOCKED, at the gambling that goes on in this establishment! http://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME
"I am shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here" is the quote.
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
In fact, most of the people commenting said that the GCHQ were the greatest, most honest, and most trustworthy agency on the planet.
And the rest said "CmdrTaco."
Also, for the record, I might be okay with Beta if it didn't take a solid minute to preview a comment.
Good for the GCHQ. Just because the agenda is set by the government doesn't mean there aren't other forum stuffers and poll manipulators out there. That's a two decades old technology.
Unfortunately the people who its working on are also two decades behind in web savvy learnin' type stuffs.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.