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| Interesting disinfo/shill tips exposed | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 27 2011, 11:03 AM (420 Views) | |
| broken sticks | Jan 27 2011, 11:03 AM Post #1 |
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Here's a video i watched recently from the hacker convention HOPE. The first half of the video is about hacking into terrorist forums, but the tips the speaker gives relating to forums, and how to trick forums into thinking you are legitimate, reminded me a lot of some users' behaviour on 911/conspiracy forums. (note: the guy Adrian Lamo they keep referring to and insulting is the guy who informed on Bradley Manning, the wikileaks leaker, to the feds). Hope this is at least slightly interesting and not too geeky for y'all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UGdnA1FppM btw, the HOPE convention is usually attended by several undercover law enforcement agencies, because they pay special attention the hacker community. if you're at all interested in social engineering, lock-picking, or even hacking, i really recommend googling for videos from HOPE over the years. |
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| shure | Jan 30 2011, 02:35 PM Post #2 |
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Co-Intel, Agent Provocateurs, and Propaganda Techniques http://resistancereport.com/provocateurs..htm  COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and often illegal projects conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. The FBI used covert operations from its inception, however formal COINTELPRO operations took place between 1956 and 1971. The FBI motivation at the time was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order." According to FBI records, 85% of COINTELPRO resources were expended on infiltrating, disrupting, marginalizing, and/or subverting groups suspected of being subversive, such as communist and socialist organizations, people suspected of building a "coalition of militant black nationalist groups" ranging from the Black Panther Party those in the non-violent civil rights movement Students for a Democratic Society, the National Lawyers Guild, almost all groups protesting the Vietnam War, and even individual student demonstrators with no group affiliations, and nationalist groups such as those seeking independence for Puerto Rico. The other 15% of COINTELPRO resources were expended to marginalize and subvert "white hate groups," including the National States' Rights Party. The directives governing COINTELPRO were issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and their leaders. Methods. According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO: 1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents. 2. Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used myriad other "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists. 3. Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters. 4. Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI and police threatened, instigated, and themselves conducted break-ins, vandalism, assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt their movements. In the case of radical Black and Puerto Rican activists (and later Native Americans), these attacks - including political assassinations were so extensive, vicious, and calculated that they can accurately be termed a form of official "terrorism". The FBI also conducted more than 200 "black bag jobs",which were warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members. In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black Panther Party (BPP) revealed that in his city, at least, the Black nationalists were primarily feeding breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo implying the career ambitions of the agent were directly related to his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the BPP was "a violence-prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means". Hoover was willing to use false claims to attack his political enemies. In one memo he wrote: "Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt the BPP and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge." In one particularly controversial 1965 incident, civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo was murdered by Ku Klux Klansmen who gave chase and fired shots into her car after noticing that her passenger was a young black man; one of the Klansmen was acknowledged FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe. Afterward COINTELPRO spread false rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement. FBI informant Rowe has also been implicated in some of the most violent crimes of the 1960s civil rights era, including attacks on the Freedom Riders and the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. In another instance in San Diego the FBI financed, armed, and controlled an extreme right-wing group of former Minutemen, transforming it into a group called the Secret Army Organization which targeted groups, activists, and leaders involved in the anti-War Movement for both intimidation and violent acts. Hoover ordered preemptive action...."to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence." Illegal surveillance The Final report of the Church Committee concluded: "Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone "bugs", surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous -- and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations -- have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity. Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory and vicious tactics have been employed -- including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform. Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law. The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them." Reports that COINTELPRO tactics continue. While COINTELPRO was officially terminated in April 1971, suspicions persist that the program's tactics continued informally. Critics have suggested that subsequent FBI actions indicate that post-COINTELPRO reforms in the agency did not succeed in ending the program's tactics. The Associated Press reported in November 2008 that documents released under the FOIA reportedly show that the FBI tracked the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Halberstam for more than two decades. A review by The Washington Post shows that Maryland activists were wrongly labeled as terrorists in state and federal databases by state police's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division from 2005 to at least early 2007. “Counterterrorism” guidelines implemented during the Reagan administration have been described as undercutting these reforms, allowing a return to earlier tactics. Some radical groups accuse factional opponents of being FBI informants or assume the FBI is infiltrating the movement. Several authors have accused the FBI of continuing to deploy COINTELPRO-like tactics against radical groups after the official COINTELPRO operations were ended. Several authors have suggested the American Indian Movement (AIM) has been a target of such operations. A few authors go further and allege that the federal government intended to acquire uranium deposits on the Lakota tribe's reservation land, and that this motivated a larger government conspiracy against AIM activists on the Pine Ridge reservation. Others believe COINTELPRO continues and similar actions are being taken against activist groups. Caroline Woidat argued that with respect to Native Americans, COINTELPRO should be understood within a historical context in which "Native Americans have been viewed and have viewed the world themselves through the lens of conspiracy theory." Other authors note that while there are conspiracy theories related to COINTELPRO, the issue of ongoing government surveillance and repression is nonetheless real. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/COINTELPRO-FBI.docs.html http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/cointelpro.html http://www.noi.org/cointelpro/default.html http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=COINTELPRO Agent Provocateurs - http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Agent_provocateur An agent provocateur is a person assigned to provoke unrest, violence, debate or argument by or within a group while acting as a member of the group but covertly representing the interests of another. In general, agents provocateur seek to secretly disrupt a group's activities from within the group. Agents provocateur are employed to disrupt or discredit a group by performing acts for which the group will be falsely accused, by leading the group into activities that they would not otherwise pursue or by creating discord between group members. Provocateurs may encourage illegal acts, recommend belligerent tactics a group might otherwise reject, spread false rumors intended to provoke hasty action by a group, spread malicious rumors within a group about a group member or employ other tactics intended to provoke improper action by a group or to divert a group from its chosen purpose. An agent provocateur might attempt to implicate as an accomplice an innocent target who the agent unwittingly involves in a crime or criminal conspiracy. Agents provocateur sometimes try to disrupt a group by creating discord between group members. They may argue for unity, while themselves promoting divisiveness. They may argue against factionalism, while consistently advancing the positions or actions of one faction in the group. Disruptive group members might not be agents provocateur if they do not represent an outside interest; the term "agent" usually implies representation of or employment by another interest. Propaganda Techniques Propagandists use a variety of propaganda techniques to influence opinions and to avoid the truth. Often these techniques rely on some element of censorship or manipulation, either omitting significant information or distorting it. Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation, aimed at serving an agenda. Even if the message conveys true information, it may be partisan and fail to paint a complete picture. The book Propaganda And Persuasion defines propaganda as "the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist." many techniques with advertising or public relations; in fact, advertising and PR can be said to be propaganda promoting a commercial product. As commonly understood, however, the term usually refers to political messages. It can take the form of leaflets, posters, TV broadcasts or radio broadcasts. In the common use of the term, propaganda refers to deliberately false or misleading information that supports a political cause or the interests of those in power, however propaganda can be based on truths, or lies, or a combination of both. The propagandist seeks to change the way people understand an issue or situation. What sets propaganda apart from other forms of advocacy is the willingness of the propagandist to change people's understanding through deception and confusion, rather than persuasion and understanding. The leaders of an organization know the information to be one sided or untrue but this may not be true for the rank and file members who help to disseminate the propaganda. Propaganda is a mighty weapon in war. In this case its aim is usually to dehumanize the enemy and to create hatred against a special group. The technique is to create a false image in the mind. This can be done by using special words, avoidance of words, or by saying that the enemy is responsible for certain things he never did. In every propaganda war two things are needed: Injustice and Faint. The faint or the injustice may be fictitious or may be based on facts, but the aim is always to create hate. Propaganda is also one of the methods used in psychological warfare. Propaganda has sometimes been classified as "white," "black" or "gray." White propaganda generally comes from an openly identified source and is not intentionally deceptive. Black propaganda pretends to be from a friendly source, but is actually from an adversary and is intended to deceive its audience. Gray propaganda falls somewhere between white and black. Other general methods used for controlling populations: 1) Isolation/control: Isolating groups can take many forms whether racial, demographic or social. Isolating groups politically can be a simple or complex process but always results in leveraged control and potential political marginalization with potential ultimate control as in a one-party state. Propaganda is an essential tool in providing the information to that will allow a particular group of people to be isolated from the mass. 2) Confusion/diversion: Splitting a major issue into separate components can work to resurrect failed but desired consequences, for example when one contentious element of an issue fails related or independent components of the issue serve as new justifications. For example the original goal in Iraq was the quest for WMD's but when WMD's were disproved the issue was transformed to providing "freedom and liberty" for the Iraqi people, and later on simply the idea of toppling Saddam Hussein was the desired goal. 3) Separation: Related to isolation and control, behaviorial psychologists sometimes refer to the principle of "divide and conquer". Divide and conquer is an extremely useful tool to maintain control over disparate groups and propaganda provides the information upon which separation is based. 4) Reaction: strength is based upon action and it is desirable to place the people and unruly groups in positions where they must react, propaganda is a useful tool and adjunct in forcing people to react as a large group. Government takes its strength from action where the strong act upon certain information and the weak and unwary are left to react. 5) Disinformation as weakness: weakness is indicated by reaction, reaction is induced by misinformation and disinformation. Strength is manifest in action to which an adjunct may be the supply of misinformation or disinformation. Individuals must not be allowed to act or think independently, and individuals must not be permitted to act in the face of government coercion. By forcing people to react to disinformation and misinformation individuals in power can pursue their own private agenda. 6) Coercion: a government's capability is determined by the government's ability to coerce citizens into adopting certain behaviors. In this manner the government may control and condition its people or the government cannot be successful. Propaganda is an essential tool and sometimes directs the manner in which the coercion is focused. Techniques of Propaganda Generation A number of techniques are used to create messages which are persuasive, but false. Many of these same techniques can be found under logical fallacies since propagandists use arguments which, although sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid. Some time has been spent analyzing the means by which propaganda messages are transmitted, and that work is important, but it's clear that information dissemination strategies only become propaganda strategies when coupled with propagandistic messages. Identifying these propaganda messages is a necessary prerequisite to studying the methods by which those messages are spread. That's why it is essential to have some knowledge of the following techniques for generating propaganda: Appeal to fear: Appeals to fear seeks to build support by instilling fear in the general population - for example Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used the phrase "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." when describing the reason why Americans should support a war on Iraq. Another example of fear propaganda is used regulary against Americans who are discontent with their government. The puropse in this case is not to gain the support of the people, but to contain and control them with fear in order to prevent them from supporting pro-freedom organizations. For example: "the government will tap your phone if you say things that they don't like", "your tax return will be audited", "the FBI will knock on your door asking questions", "you will be put on the terrorist watch list", or you will be attacked by the Jewish controlled press as a "racist" or "anti-Semite" if you publicly identify Jewish abuse of power. Appeal to authority: Appeals to authority cite prominent figures to support a position idea, argument, or course of action. Bandwagon: Bandwagon-and-inevitable-victory appeals attempt to persuade the target audience to take a course of action "everyone else is taking." "Join the crowd." This technique reinforces people's natural desire to be on the winning side. This technique is used to convince the audience that a program is an expression of an irresistible mass movement and that it is in their interest to join. "Inevitable victory" invites those not already on the bandwagon to join those already on the road to certain victory. Those already, or partially, on the bandwagon are reassured that staying aboard is the best course of action. Obtain disapproval: This technique is used to get the audience to disapprove an action or idea by suggesting the idea is popular with groups hated, feared, or held in contempt by the target audience. Thus, if a group which supports a policy is led to believe that undesirable, subversive, or contemptible people also support it, the members of the group might decide to change their position. For example, if Neo-Nazi's or the Klan support gun rights, ending affirmative action, and enforcing our nations immigration laws then all decent people should take the opposite opinion on these issues so as not to be agreement with Nazi's or Klansmen. Glittering generalities: Glittering generalities are intensely emotionally appealing words so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that they carry conviction without supporting information or reason. They appeal to such emotions as love of country, home; desire for peace, freedom, glory, honor, etc. They ask for approval without examination of the reason. Though the words and phrases are vague and suggest different things to different people, their connotation is always favorable: "The concepts and programs of the propagandist are always good, desirable, virtuous." Rationalization: Individuals or groups may use favorable generalities to rationalize questionable acts or beliefs. Vague and pleasant phrases are often used to justify such actions or beliefs. Intentional vagueness: Generalities are deliberately vague so that the audience may supply its own interpretations. The intention is to move the audience by use of undefined phrases, without analyzing their validity or attempting to determine their reasonableness or application Transfer: This is a technique of projecting positive or negative qualities (praise or blame) of a person, entity, object, or value (an individual, group, organization, nation, patriotism, etc.) to another in order to make the second more acceptable or to discredit it. This technique is generally used to transfer blame from one member of a conflict to another. It evokes an emotional response which stimulates the target to identify with recognized authorities. Oversimplification: Favorable generalities are used to provide simple answers to complex social, political, economic, or military problems. Common man: The "plain folks" or "common man" approach attempts to convince the audience that the propagandist's positions reflect the common sense of the people. It is designed to win the confidence of the audience by communicating in the common manner and style of the audience. Propagandists use ordinary language and mannerisms (and clothes in face-to-face and audiovisual communications) in attempting to identify their point of view with that of the average person. Testimonial: Testimonials are quotations, in or out of context, especially cited to support or reject a given policy, action, program, or personality. The reputation or the role (expert, respected public figure, etc.) of the individual giving the statement is exploited. The testimonial places the official sanction of a respected person or authority on a propaganda message. This is done in an effort to cause the target audience to identify itself with the authority or to accept the authority's opinions and beliefs as its own. Stereotyping or Labeling: This technique attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, loathes, or finds undesirable. Scapegoating: Assigning blame to an individual or group that isn't really responsible, thus alleviating feelings of guilt from responsible parties and/or distracting attention from the need to fix the problem for which blame is being assigned. Virtue words: These are words in the value system of the target audience which tend to produce a positive image when attached to a person or issue. Peace, happiness, security, wise leadership, freedom, etc., are virtue words. Slogans: A slogan is a brief striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. If ideas can be sloganized, they should be, as good slogans are self-perpetuating memes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Techniques of Propaganda Transmission Common methods for transmitting propaganda messages include news reports, government reports, historical revision, theater, books, leaflets, movies, radio , television , and posters. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recognizing Propaganda Some of the most effective propaganda techniques work by misdirecting or distracting the public's attention away from important issues. It's important to read between the lines of the news and see what isn't being reported, or what is reported once, quietly, and not followed up. In an age of information overload, distraction techniques can as effective as active propaganda. One way to test for distraction is to look for items that appear repeatedly in foreign press (from neutral and hostile countries) and that don't appear in your own. But beware of deliberately placed lies that are repeated with the hope that people will believe it if it is repeated often enough. All active propaganda techniques can be tested by asking if they tend the target audience to act in the best interests of the distributor of the propaganda. Propaganda presents one point of view as if it were the best or only way to look at a situation. Sometimes propaganda can be detected by the fact that it changes before and after a critical event, whereas more honest information like medicine, science or any training manual should largely remain the same after the event as before. |
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| broken sticks | Jan 31 2011, 05:21 AM Post #3 |
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good post jeff, interesting stuff! |
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