Wednesday, February 26, 2014

intellectually strong use pied pipers and digital snipers to herd and control the intellectually weak


firstlook | 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.

Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”

By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

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. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:

18 comments:

Nakajima Kikka said...

A good example of National Socialist thinking in action.

BigDonOne said...

BD senses impending additions to the hard-hitting blacklist of Dreaded Descriptors....

CNu said...

SCIENCE keeping the Pervitin hand strong! Accept no substitutes....,

Nakajima Kikka said...

Don't you mean National Socialist Science? When ordinary Science just.isn't.pervertin.enough.

Constructive_Feedback said...

Brother CNu:


I just learned the other day on one of the financial news cable channels that MEXICO now builds more cars that are imported into the United States than does Japan.


While I agree with unions that their goal should be to prevent the "glide toward $0 salary and compensation" - there is something about their strategy that is fundamentally lost.


America's consumer and self-indulgence economy uses credit to allow people to purchase vehicles and other trinkets that are increasingly made outside of the USA. The federal reserves "credit" in the form of fake money injected into the economy keeps the shell game going.


Strangely enough - actual Develop IN MEXICO is the logical "new frontier" for the United States. This would allow American corporations to claim an untapped consumer base and bring the level of safety, education and prosperity up to the good ole American standard.


Race, language and culture differences are the main impediment from this ever happening.

CNu said...

Wrong Bro. Feed. Declining levels of net available energy are the main impediments to the phantom "growth" your proposition posits. Low skill, some assembly required can still be outsourced to peasants who have no worker rights or protections, particularly as this outsourcing further erodes the scant rights and protections required for your own confederate states peasants - but the fantasy of Mexico swelling into a consumer economy went out the door the minute Cantarell began drying up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Mexico

CNu said...

You on a John McGlaughlin roll this morning http://youtu.be/6sdVx5gQz6w

John Kurman said...

Just give 'em speed. Worked for both sides in dubya-dubya-two...

CNu said...

Last I checked, speed doesn't have any of the memory or cognitive erasure possibilities of this transcranial direct current stimulation - something conspicuously akin to electroconvulsive shock therapy - to the casual observer. I think it's been reasonably well established in the wake of Snowden that the ability to control the controllers is a highly desirable program parameter.

John Kurman said...

While you're at it: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2014/02/dark-patterns-user-interfaces-designed-trick-people/

John Kurman said...

Reminds me of a story told by Zappa who knew a cat out in the Mojave that always wore a German steel helmet, and gave himself daily morning electroshock treatments via an electrical cord to the helmet. Why are they always in the Mojave?

DD said...

Great stuff.

makheru bradley said...

Well, you would not want to be Black on post-Qaddafi Libya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jhT5u6ecTQ



Prior to the overthrow of the Jamahiriya by NATO/Al Qaeda, Libyans enjoyed the highest standard of living in Afrika. Now the country is an absolute mess, just like other examples of imperialist failure, Iraq and Syria (regime change or attempted regime change followed by chaos). And now Obama wants to do the same thing to Venezuela.

CNu said...

lol, but that's exactly what happened to the Seminoles in Florida, AND, the squatters took 160 acres at a pop, and were legally authorized to kill the rightful owner(s). http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-brief-history-of-ethnic-cleansing.html

woodensplinter said...

A simple blood test and you can begin rationing healthcare immediately http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/39371/title/Biomarkers-Predict-Future-Cognitive-Impairment/

CNu said...

smdh, lipidomics and the geriatric cull...,

CNu said...

Didn't take long for the old raisins to commence their whining..., http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/alzheimers-blood-test-raises-serious-ethical-concerns-30080265.html

Vic78 said...

I'll say three years is a little late in the game. I think it'll be better at twenty years in advance. I guess if they fail the test, the doctors should suggest serious chess playing. That might help them keep most of their marbles. How is the test unethical? Are they going to start shooting old folks after failing the test?

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