Army of Fake Social Media Friends to Promote Propaganda

[D Ghost]

Does a code of ethics still exist in Intelligence firms? Does it disappear behind closed doors, dirty deeds done in the dark and used against the American people who are supposed to be free to express themselves?

It's recently been revealed that the U.S. government contracted HBGary Federal for the development of software which could create multiple fake social media profiles to manipulate and sway public opinion on controversial issues by promoting propaganda. It could also be used as surveillance to find public opinions with points of view the powers-that-be didn't like. It could then potentially have their "fake" people run smear campaigns against those "real" people. As disturbing as this is, it's not really new for U.S. intelligence or private intelligence firms to do the dirty work behind closed doors.

EFF previously warned that Big Brother wants to be your friend for social media surveillance. While the FBI Intelligence Information Report Handbook (PDF) mentioned using "covert accounts" to access protected information, other government agencies endorsed using security exploits to access protected information.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/22049...pa ganda.html

[Grapesoda]

so you mean Obama?

[uno]

Maybe Anonymous will go after them again.

[$5 submissions]

If anyone needs a SWARM of real Facebook Filipinos, hit me up. I can hook you up cheeeeap.

[alias]

I "like" this.

[TheDoc]

Well they didn't just create that if we're just now hearing about it.... the hacker guys have been screaming this for years. Looks like they were correct.

Anyway... Is that leaked info, related to the wikileaks attacks where they said they would release bad information? Clearly they would have to push that to make it viral, to really get it out - makes me think this is some how related.

[Agent 488]

pretty sure in the dirt on HBGary is from informational anonymous hacked and released.

[D Ghost]

Originally Posted by $5 submissions

If anyone needs a SWARM of real Facebook Filipinos, hit me up. I can hook you up cheeeeap.

[Loki]

I've been reading up on this for the last few days now, this is HIGHLY intriguing to me...

Originally Posted by Fed Biz Opps website:

Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent.

Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries.

Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms. The service includes a user friendly application environment to maximize the user's situational awareness by displaying real-time local information.

TL DR:
each real person will control 10 "fake people" from 1 computer, each fake person has FULL backstory, facebook, twitter, linkedin etc, and comes from various parts of the world.

Originally Posted by Fed Biz Opps website:

Secure Virtual Private Network (VPN). 1 each
VPN provides the ability for users to daily and automatically obtain randomly selected
IP addresses through which they can access the internet. The daily rotation of
the user s IP address prevents compromise during observation of likely or
targeted web sites or services, while hiding the existence of the operation.

TL DR:
Each real person has access to a VPN to pull a random IP for each fake persona

Additionally, these are to be running off of flash drives, each flash drive holds 10 fake personas, a detailed GUI so the "real person" knows exactly which persona they are working under at any given time, and the ability to select (or pinpoint) the desired geoip location to make it look like a persona is attending a specific event.

More "cool" is that this is CLOSED, meaning someone ALREADY created this for the gov. so not only is the tech out there NOW, but it is most likely being used right now.

Can you imagine the possibilities of using something like this for MARKETING? (the original intent of this project was to manipulate consensus or to create a desired consensus)

I won't lie here, I'd LOVE to play with something like this!

oh and one more thing, the budget for this and similar projects was......... 25 mill

-Loki-

[TheDoc]

Originally Posted by Loki

More "cool" is that this is CLOSED, meaning someone ALREADY created this for the gov. so not only is the tech out there NOW, but it is most likely being used right now.

Can you imagine the possibilities of using something like this for MARKETING? (the original intent of this project was to manipulate consensus or to create a desired consensus)

I won't lie here, I'd LOVE to play with something like this!

oh and one more thing, the budget for this and similar projects was......... 25 mill

-Loki-

The sick part to me is how fast it sounds like this can get setup and going.... this is unreal.

I can see areas of the Internet where they could bleed this right into huge opinion now, and this would give them huge forced viral ability too, exploding anything that has any base to feed off of, instantly... and we can see the Internet feeding the TV already. This is scary.

But Interesting.. they would need to be assuming peoples profiles too, they would know if you've ever come online or went offline for good, they could easily become people we think we know.

[Loki]

Originally Posted by TheDoc

The sick part to me is how fast it sounds like this can get setup and going.... this is unreal.

I can see areas of the Internet where they could bleed this right into huge opinion now, and this would give them huge forced viral ability too, exploding anything that has any base to feed off of, instantly... and we can see the Internet feeding the TV already. This is scary.

But Interesting.. they would need to be assuming peoples profiles too, they would know if you've ever come online or went offline for good, they could easily become people we think we know.

Well the project synopsis was posted by the Air Force in June of 2010, The Army posted a similar need synopsis (the Flash drive version) around the same time, as of October the Army's project was closed (meaning it got and accepted a bid)

To me, 4 months is not "fast" per say, BUT once you have the platform built (which it looks like they do have it now) it would ONLY take the time to create 10 fake personas, backstory info, maybe some photos (for effect) and creating the profile accounts...

It must have been inside the Army's synopsis (cause I don't see it in the Air Force's one) where they talked about wanting Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin accounts tied to each persona so the possibility of ending up becoming friends with one is not too far fetched lol.

But from all that I've read over the past days it LOOKS like they "army, air force" is going to use these personas on the blogasphere to sway, manipulate or create a consensus of their choosing.

Oh, and for anyone who can't understand WHY the Army / Air force would "need" something like this, it's not actually them, it was explained to me from a military friend of mine, "they" (meaning whoever REALLY ordered this platform) run stuff through the D.O.D to keep stuff 'secret' and off the record, and just because it was contracted BY the military has nothing to do if the military will be the ones using it.

Truth be told this is nothing new, "we've" been doing stuff like this for years now with fake surfer forums, splogs, posing as models etc etc, BUT not at this scale, "they" have streamlined viral marketing and packaged it up into a nice little flash drive.

Gotta love it

-Loki-

[96ukssob]

awesome! I hope they are hiring, I'd like to play

[TheDoc]

Originally Posted by Loki

Well the project synopsis was posted by the Air Force in June of 2010, The Army posted a similar need synopsis (the Flash drive version) around the same time, as of October the Army's project was closed (meaning it got and accepted a bid)

To me, 4 months is not "fast" per say, BUT once you have the platform built (which it looks like they do have it now) it would ONLY take the time to create 10 fake personas, backstory info, maybe some photos (for effect) and creating the profile accounts...

It must have been inside the Army's synopsis (cause I don't see it in the Air Force's one) where they talked about wanting Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin accounts tied to each persona so the possibility of ending up becoming friends with one is not too far fetched lol.

But from all that I've read over the past days it LOOKS like they "army, air force" is going to use these personas on the blogasphere to sway, manipulate or create a consensus of their choosing.

Oh, and for anyone who can't understand WHY the Army / Air force would "need" something like this, it's not actually them, it was explained to me from a military friend of mine, "they" (meaning whoever REALLY ordered this platform) run stuff through the D.O.D to keep stuff 'secret' and off the record, and just because it was contracted BY the military has nothing to do if the military will be the ones using it.

Truth be told this is nothing new, "we've" been doing stuff like this for years now with fake surfer forums, splogs, posing as models etc etc, BUT not at this scale, "they" have streamlined viral marketing and packaged it up into a nice little flash drive.

Gotta love it

-Loki-

Great info.. thanks.

I took it as the software creating those back profiles, like deployed them more on the fly rather than they were already created. I guess I was thinking about the security issue that would cause if someone lost that flash drive.... but either way, it's crazy.

... the chain of who could have ordered the military to create this is... is some what short.

[Loki]

Originally Posted by TheDoc

Great info.. thanks.

I took it as the software creating those back profiles, like deployed them more on the fly rather than they were already created. I guess I was thinking about the security issue that would cause if someone lost that flash drive.... but either way, it's crazy.

... the chain of who could have ordered the military to create this is... is some what short.

Yeah, the overall order (from the Air Force at least) was 50 user licenses 1 user = 10 personas so a total of 500 fame personas.

The Army's order spoke more on platform method being utilizing flash drives per user, I have no idea if the two orders are for the same exact 'software' of if they are independent of each other, but it reads as they would be a perfect match.

-Loki-

[papill0n]

Originally Posted by bm bradley

so you mean Obama?

dumbest shit I have read all day

[moeloubani]

The American government lying and trying to manipulate its own people? Say it isn't so!

[alias]

Originally Posted by moeloubani

The American government lying and trying to manipulate its own people? Say it isn't so!

Top notch, stand up guys.

[seeandsee]

shut down the interwebs!

[u-Bob]

So they are using xrumer, scrapebox and hiring pixepipe creators on WF? and fatfoo is a CIA operative?

[cooldude7]

this is new., but c'mon if bunch of people can develop sw like xrumer then why not.

[Barry-xlovecam]

Need 1000 fake Iranians?
Call 1-800-CIA-CLONE