Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek To Control the Internet 117
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.
It's worked, too (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Never had one fail? (Score:2)
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...
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I wonder if they log the data before or after they modified it?
Well, looky here. We found somebody who just did a google image search that just so happened to return some kiddie porn images. Off to jail with him.
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Re:It's worked, too (Score:5, Interesting)
I have often wondered about it, but never paid much attention to it. One time I read about it, from a rather dubious source (hence I just sent it to the 'conspiracy theory' pile) was regarding heavy handed wikipedia editing of the Lockerbie Plane Crash article. The allegations were that one particular editor was either a spy, government agent or even more than one person due to the incessant editing. The stated aim of the editing was to completely sanitise the wiki article and only allow the official line surrounding the events in the article. I remember reading these accusations well before anything around the arab spring and ultimate demise of Gaddafi happened. Make of that what you will.
I guess since the spy agencies ultimately do the bidding of governments, this may be a newer method of 'crowd control'; dictating the consumption of the masses. It makes sense as one always wonders why certain topics are far more popular than they should be. The media with the internet has much better ability in tracking the consumption of certain topics in the media. As a result, these sorts of things are easy to game, especially with the resources available, so maybe the espionage agencies are trying to steer people away from touchy issues by stimulating activity in certain inane topics.
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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...
It's a nonsense that's been thoroughly debunked. We ran a poll in the foremost security forum, and only 3 respondents said it was possible, while the other 9 billion said it wasn't.
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A good example of tactics that look a lot like what is described in the article are used by people like this slashdot user:
http://slashdot.org/~cold+fjor... [slashdot.org]
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True story bro. I used to post daily on Slashdot and was regularly modded up. One day I got a reply on an Islam oriented thread that refered to a very specific activity I had been involved in, in another country, of which photos had been recently posted to Facebook. My Slashdot account contained no personal details. There was no link between my Slashdot account and Facebook account other than being registered to the same private email address. My Facebook account is private and photos visible only to friends. So either it was a very lucky guess, or someone out there is watching and engaging "influential" Slashdot posters on topics of interest. I always wondered about that.
Sounds like coincidence. Perhaps one of your friends on Facebook made the reply having recognised it was you from your writing. I don't think we should be too paranoid about this.
PS. Stop picking your nose, sit up straight, and if you're going to put your laptop at that angle will you please put some trousers on.
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I am shocked, SHOCKED, at the gambling that goes on in this establishment! http://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME [youtu.be]
"I am shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here" is the quote.
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Always keep offline backups.
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Poll Results (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Over 87% of people agree with you.
And of the remainder, 10% disagreed, and 3% would not open door.
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Lets start a sloshdot poll to see how often people believe in these so called polls!
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Meta-polls. I like it. Suggest it!
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Polls are one of the worst methods of "information gathering" known to man...
But elections, the only polls that matter, speak volumes. Salesmen know their trade... Some may claim they're being hacked, but it still boils down to free choice. The trinkets and money have no power of their own. Media polls are pure advertising and distractions that exploit known psychological weaknesses of... the crowd
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Elections are a bit different. They're controlled, so only one vote per person, and they tend to attract much wider participation than internet polls do.
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There was a poll a while ago - a couple put up a blog about their unplanned pregnancy, with a poll asking people if they should abort it while they detailed the process of preparing for a baby. It's an interesting case study because it was easy to watch the swing: It started off with a majority voting to keep the baby, until 4chan got wind and flooded the site - then it went to upwards of 90% in favor of abortion. Then news spread and it was reported on many anti-abortion blogs and news services, which resu
Nothing to see here (Score:5, Informative)
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...
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The requirement here is for the UK Electoral Commission To Investigate http://www.electoralcommission... [electoralc...ion.org.uk] and to ascertain whether those activities amounted to political advertising by a government agency. Where those actions designed to make the policies of the current Government look better, is so, then the government agency us guilty of a crime a subject to prosecution ie the abuse of government funds to promote the activities of the current elected politicians. It is illegal to use government funds for
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The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies (Score:5, Informative)
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/ge... [cryptome.org]
(originally titled: The Gentleman's Guide To Forum Spies)
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I don't think people appreciate the degree to which this is happening. The BBC denying that white phosphorus is used as a chemical weapon by the west is a classic example of propaganda.
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I was wondering how long it would take for the "but evil America" comments to show. You didn't keep me waiting long even though you lacked creativity in spelling it out.
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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
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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 simpl
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"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?
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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
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Oops, the parent link disappears when you're replying to a post, didn't know that.
And suddenly V doesn't sound so unlikely a scenari (Score:3)
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Guy Fawkes, but you're correct.
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You turn scumbag government spying into "alien lizards live among us"? I think you're wearing your tinfoil hat for the wrong reason.
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Anyone who... (Score:2)
Re:Anyone who... (Score:5, Informative)
makes a decision based on an online poll, page count, or anything to do with YouTube deserves what they get.
You simply don't understand how marketing works. I do it for a living (on the database/reporting/IT side of things)
Give me the power to do what GCHQ claims to be able to do and I could get the person of your choice elected president of the united states. You have no idea how powerful being able to manipulate page ranks would be. It would be staggering, unfathomable power. They could get any law passed, any person shunned, any insane conspiracy accepted as fact. Your control of the press would be unprecedented in human history. You could tank the world economy in days, that would actually be childs play.
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It's based on the idea that most people are very very stupid. Most people who think that never include themselves, interestingly enough.
You should probably include yourself... I certainly include myself. None of us know as much as we think we know.
To really understand how useful such manipulation is, you have to think about it philosophically. How do you really know anything? You can do scientific experiments, and then calculate the statistical probability that bad luck gave you incorrect results (and so even then we still don't really know anything), but we don't have that luxury for most of what we know. Most of the time we're limite
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50% are of below-average intelligence
Assuming a Gaussian distribution. Given the rise of drug use and non-education in the United States I'm not sure that's true anymore.
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http://www.wired.com/2011/07/d... [wired.com]
eg what was the Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program, ie countermessaging is now legal with the loss of the Smith–Mundt Act.
The 'using data from the micro-blogging service as an intel source to aid" ends up in an interesting way.
US military studied how to influence Twitter users in Darpa-funded research (9 July 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
Totally not NSA spy (Score:1, Interesting)
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 info
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The sad thing is that they don't realize that they actually cost society something important when they derail online discussions and polls.
It is a damage that is hard to put a number on when you prevent people from communicating freely.
I for one I'm glad our safety is being looked over (Score:2)
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]
Re:That's not all they've done (Score:5, Informative)
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... [techdirt.com]
In other news... (Score:4)
The agency has been officially outed as GoatCHQ.
Inconceivable! (Score:2)
"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'.
Not Surprisingly... (Score:3)
Documentary (Score:2)
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
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Universities and gov standards ensure good encryption globally.
Courts and political leaders ensure checks and balances at a national level.
Lawyers at a corporation level would never allow their brand to be tainted with extra-judicial collaboration.
The press would find out, the data collected is massive and could never be kept, sorted.
Shared intelligence sites are only looking at other nations.
The post-Snowden revelations fill in the histo
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We can't lay large scale cognitive dissonance on politicians and government agencies. It violates all forms of rational thinking. What rational mind thinks that a government agency (e.g. the NSA) whose hiring profile is mathematics graduates and ex-marines isn't obtaining information in a questionable manner and then ripping apart encryption.
In th
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Their grandparents got mil/gov/police clearance, their parents got mil mil/gov/police clearance. Some of the second or third generation might have drifted into the private sector and became a contractor/consultant?
Or with skill and great grades you where the first to pass a full life story back ground/friends/family face to face interview.
As for 'decent knowledge of network hardware and software" look
Standard for the Brits (Score:4, Interesting)
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).
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Did the citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have a choice when US and UK went to war with them and bombed them (drones - Pakistan), after Tony Blair and George Bush had waited for the media to ready the public for war and the intelligence to be 'fixed' (WMDs).
'Downing street memo'
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"In my world view", bollocks, don't go assuming that you know what my world view is, if you did know then you wouldn't come up with crap like "Yeah, the US military really hates a straight-up fight."
Actually these days they do hate a straight up fight, if the US entered a war now and as many US soldiers died as did enemy soldiers, the US public would hate it.
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Please read some histories of MI-6 and UK Prime/Foreign/Defense ministries. Pay particular attention to their actions in north Africa and the middle east on out to the subcontinent..
Bullshit (Score:2)
I call bullshit. Only the USA could possibly do anything this evil. At least, that is what I have learned from reading /.
where is austerity when you need it? (Score:2)
Not true! (Score:2)
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.
Not true! (Score:1)
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.
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. (Score:2)
Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
"amplif[y]" sanctioned messages on YouTube" (Score:2)
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!
The 90's called. They want their script back (Score:1)
Unfortunately the people who its working on are also two decades behind in web savvy learnin' type stuffs.