CYBER SHILLS AND VIRTUAL PERSONALITIES

Anyone running a website these days will tell you that they have to deal periodically with a certain sort of personage who seems to pop up on a site, stir up the most inflammatory drama - insulting behavior, foul language, attacks on the host or other commenters, and so on - and then "disappear," only to reappear on the same site under a new name, with the same tactics. Cyber shills.

Well, now there is at last an admission that some of this is coordinated activity, as many have surmised:

CIA Admits Full Monitoring of Facebook and Other Social Networks

What interested me here is precisely the MO of the "virtual personality," several characters created in what one can only presume to be "mobile cyber-shill" setups, rather like the telemarketing companies of old: rows and rows of computers manned by people given a "policy book" in a three ring binder, and sites to monitor, and what to say and how to say it. And the article confirms it:

"These 'personas' were to have detailed, fictionalized backgrounds, to make them believable to outside observers, and a sophisticated identity protection service was to back them up, preventing suspicious readers from uncovering the real person behind the account. They even worked out ways to game geolocating services, so these "personas" could be virtually inserted anywhere in the world, providing ostensibly live commentary on real events, even while the operator was not really present."

All this in an effort to mine "open source intelligence":

"It's part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using "open source intelligence" - information that's publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day."

But given all we've seen about Snowden, the IRS revelations, and the political use of cyber warfare, I doubt very much if it stops there. One can easily envision coordinated "cyber agents provocateur" targeting specific sites with a torrent of "commentary" designed either to deflect attention away from sensitive areas, to plant useful memes to whatever social engineering agenda might be envisioned, or even to plant "incriminating" statements against individual commentators, sites, or to use them as "non-funded platforms" for other types of propaganda.

So, heads up everyone: expect "revelations" of that sort to be the next "big surprise" coming down the pike. The only trouble is, it's not a surprise at all. It's business as usual in the wonderful wide world of intelligence.

See you on the flip side.

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

15 Comments

  1. henry on July 8, 2013 at 6:53 pm

    @”One can easily envision coordinated “cyber agents provocateur” targeting specific sites with a torrent of “commentary” designed either to deflect attention away from sensitive areas, to plant useful memes to whatever social engineering agenda might be envisioned.”

    I think its back in 2011, in the wake of seeing how some social media networks like facebook are playing “pro-NATO” war propaganda against Libya, in conjunction with Western main stream media distortion of current events, people had already realized that “virtual personalities” exist to serve the interests of the “empire”.
    “America Must See! FAKE YouTube Twitter Accounts From Libya- Manipulated Social Media”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKvEPnTccN4

    Almost at the same as NATO intelligence were spreading “anti-Libya” war propagandas by utilizing various social media networks, there were reports
    with revealing informations that question the very integrity and neutrality of these social media sites.
    “US Gov. Software Creates ‘Fake People’ on Social Networks”
    http://www.examiner.com/article/us-gov-software-creates-fake-people-on-social-networks
    “Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media
    – Military’s ‘sock puppet’ software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda.”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

    @”it’s not a surprise at all. It’s business as usual in the wonderful wide world of intelligence.”
    I think one of the NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake called it “We wiretap the world”.



  2. DownunderET on July 3, 2013 at 3:23 pm

    “Caveat Emptor” or “Let the Buyer Beware” still holds true today, and thus the Internet can be a wealth of information or a minefield of disinformation, take your pick.

    “The War of the League of Cambrai” is going to get a re-run, not as a movie, but as “Clash of Civilizations”, sorry Joseph for stealing your thunder.

    The Internet itself has been a thorn in the side of the elites, and they will continue to try and regulate it, but the toothpaste is out of the tube.

    So now that the MSM is focused on Egypt, what have the Anglo-American elites got planned for this little blip on the world radar screen, probably the same as Iraq, Libya, Afganistan, the same old game plan all over again.WOW!



    • Nidster - on July 3, 2013 at 10:32 pm

      Downunder says: “the MSM is focused on Egypt, what have the Anglo-American elites got planned for this little blip on the world radar screen….?

      Distraction, of course.

      When something ‘pops-up’ that draw America’s attention towards the ME and away from domestic issues, then rest assured it is a Distraction, from what? Once you figure the answer to that question, you will have elevated your outlook, ‘just sayin’.



      • Frankie Calcutta on July 4, 2013 at 7:11 am

        Nidster,

        it all depends on where the new Egyptian military junta stands on Assad. IF they want him toppled like the deposed Egyptian leader Morsi did, than it is business as usual– the anglo-american elites offering up a distraction. Most likely staying one step ahead of the Egyptian mobs who were ready to explode again– this time over the new bankster stooge Morsi. If the new rulers of Egypt take a different position on Syria and Palestine then things are surely getting interesting. It wouldn’t surprise me if the KGB (and Germany?) was behind the insurrection and maybe also behind the insurrection in Turkey. The big prize will be Saudi Arabia. How about toppling Netanyahu while they are at it and put in an off the boat Russian agent posing as a zionist? Then on to DC and toppling that corrupt regime.



  3. Elm on July 3, 2013 at 2:03 pm

    If they can hire actors to stage false flags, fabricate a persona for a presidential candidate & organize 9/11, then this is totally commensurate with their modus operandi. Quite an extensive, compartmentalized & multifaceted operation really. Falsehood always requires a tremendous latitude to succeed – a control of media, “education” medicine etc., etc. This is why JFK stated an incredible amout of human & material “resources” have been commandeered for an implimentation of their agenda. As they say in basketball, it’s a “full court press.”



  4. cwickenkamp on July 3, 2013 at 1:25 pm

    There were “personas” running geo-political propaganda on the old Genie roundtables in the late 1980s. If you knew what was going on, you could see how deadly serious the operation and its outcomes were.



  5. amunaor on July 3, 2013 at 11:52 am

    Do a search on: “The Power of Nightmares”
    http://www.wanttoknow.info/powerofnightmares

    Straight out of the meat-grinder of both great wars, these Freudian psychological tricks were put into play by Edward Bernays – Freud’s nephew – the man that painted the repulsive term ‘propaganda’ with the acceptable euphemism of ‘public relations’ and put it into the hands of Wall Street, with the public airwaves as the funnel by which to dispense the ‘programing’ dictates of Madison Avenue.

    Of course the selling soap is no different than the selling of war or any other monetized political agenda.

    I remember, I think it was an old Twilight Zone episode, where everyone began to pull the plug on that one eyed beast (the idiot box); that proudly displayed center piece within every American home, in front of which families gather together daily to receive the lords blessing while being subliminally programed for the next day’s major shopping events, those with any mental political aberrations or kinks would be surreptitiously straightened by the calming caresses emanating from the mouths of a cavalcade of corporate talking heads.

    So, now we have the National Staci Administration (NSA) and the Cocaine Importers of America (CIA) caught with their pants down while confronted with a clogging funnel.



    • LSM on July 3, 2013 at 3:21 pm

      your posting is very well stated amunaor- couldn’t agree with you more-

      “Cocaine Importers of America (CIA)”- lol!- great formulation on your part-

      but Edward Bernays was Freud’s son-in-law, not nephew- but I guess it doesn’t really matter how Bernays was associated with Freud; they obviously both played in the same sand box as far as selling goes and that includes the selling of psychiatry as actually being a valid science (which it isn’t)-

      be well- regards-

      Larry in Germany



  6. Robert Barricklow on July 3, 2013 at 10:45 am

    Frederick Winslow Taylor broke down each job into a sequence of small steps, and then testing differrent ways of performing them, he created a set of precise instructions/an algorithm, changing workers into little more than automatons – factory production soared. The industrial revolution had found its philosophy & its philosopher/seeking maximum speed, maximum efficiency, & maximum output. The internet is likewise designed for efficient, automated collection, transmission, & manipulation of information, & its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best way” – the perfect algorithm.

    In the past man had been first.
    Now & in the future, the system is first.
    We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us –

    Our cyber mirrors exist in shades much darker –
    they are, afterall, but the agents of the system.
    Whereas, as we humans are, at best…
    now in 2nd place.



  7. marcos toledo on July 3, 2013 at 9:45 am

    I remember fifty years ago on a Sunday Monday show who’s title I have forgotten. the late Alan Watts mention the word person is derived from the Latin persona which means mask. It seems that the MSM is being flooded by many masks spouting lies and disinformation to bamboozle the public and sow confusion among them. They have turn the whole world into The Village and the Number Ones demand total Information.



  8. Cassandane on July 3, 2013 at 8:57 am

    “For Microsoft, the company is monitoring the buzz on its Windows 7 rollout.” Er, how old is this article?



  9. John Q. on July 3, 2013 at 8:16 am

    The myth of “social” media was publicly executed back in early November, when the IDF feinted a declaration of war (i.e. Operation Pillar of Cloud) on Palestine… via Twitter.

    Social media is/was co-opted and/or developed for intelligence purposes from the outset, from its inception. Look at the meteoric rise of tech company after tech company, after software company, after social media upstart, etc. … Accounting for the levels of open manipulation, rampant insider activity and crony-capitalistic “cycled currency” evident in the “markets” today, it’s difficult to escape the suspicion that Social media has been pursued and developed, perhaps from the ground up, as a means of social engineering and control of consciousness—perhaps on the basis of a directive, and perhaps coinciding, for various reasons, with the entry of Big Intel into the Master Game of the International Banking Elite.

    The bottom line, regardless of initial intent in development: social media is nothing short of an open-source, infinite oasis of intelligence, a contrived tool of social engineering and control.

    The MainStream Media teaches how to react and what to feel via reliance on disinformation, theater and Jedi mind tricks. In this way, traditional media serves to isolate and incarcerate the mind of the individual.

    Now, social media—or, perhaps, the MainVein Media—teaches people how and what to think by exploiting and manipulating the vast weaknesses of the helpless, herd mentality which is so perfectly cultivated in this culture. Social media leverages the “organic” peer-pressure of groupthink to pervade and infect minds which are otherwise (and quite intentionally) physically or socially disconnected from the group, from any “organic” social dynamic. In this way, social media seeks to incarcerate the entirety of a social body whose constituents are already compartmentalized and isolated from one another.

    I shudder to speculate on any “third punch” that follows this one-two combination…



  10. Frankie Calcutta on July 3, 2013 at 6:44 am

    I was thinking about an exchange between Sagnacity and P the other day and I was wondering if it was Yaj having a Norman Bates moment or possibly two ignored shills meeting their end of the month “nuisance comment” quota.

    I used to do some remote viewing years ago and it was very common to be pestered by annoying but relatively impotent entities while attempting to remote view. Interesting that this same phenomenon pops up in the cyber realm as well.

    ” …to plant useful memes to whatever social engineering agenda might be envisioned, ”

    If that applies to me I give you my word of honor that I am not consciously doing someone else’s bidding. They must have got to me without my knowing. I’ve had a few “lost weekends” in my past but no extended Obamma-esque “disappearances” in my life. Possibly programming me in my sleep or while I’m searching the internet?



    • Sagnacity on July 3, 2013 at 9:46 am

      News to me that I’m working for the NSA.

      And sorry: What I write may be considered as annoying to you, but it’s your choice to claim things like bombs powderized the WTC.



  11. basta on July 3, 2013 at 5:55 am

    It’s business as usual in the wonderful wide world of intelligence.

    You forgot to encase “intelligence” in quotation marks.

    Snotty games for organizations with way too much money and power.



Help the Community Grow

Please understand a donation is a gift and does not confer membership or license to audiobooks. To become a paid member, visit member registration.

Upcoming Events