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.
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...
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)
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]
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.