Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet
By Glenn Greenwald
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=167590#167590
14 Jul 2014, 12:38 PM EDT
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/
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.
But as the U.K. Parliament today debates a
fast-tracked bill to provide the government with
greater surveillance powers, one which Prime
Minister David Cameron has justified as an
"emergency" to "help keep us safe," a newly
released top-secret GCHQ document called "JTRIG
Tools and Techniques" provides a comprehensive,
birds-eye view of just how underhanded and
invasive this unit's operations are. The
document--available in full here--is designed to
notify other GCHQ units of JTRIG's "weaponised
capability" when it comes to the dark internet
arts, and serves as a sort of hacker's buffet for wreaking online havoc.
The "tools" have been assigned boastful code
names. They include invasive methods for online
surveillance, as well as some of the very
techniques that the U.S. and U.K. have harshly
prosecuted young online activists for employing,
including "distributed denial of service" attacks
and "call bombing." But they also describe
previously unknown tactics for manipulating and
distorting online political discourse and
disseminating state propaganda, as well as the
apparent ability to actively monitor Skype users
in real-time--raising further questions about the
extent of Microsoft's cooperation with spy
agencies or potential vulnerabilities in its
Skype's encryption. Here's a list of how JTRIG describes its capabilities:
* "Change outcome of online polls" (UNDERPASS)
* "Mass delivery of email messaging to support an
Information Operations campaign" (BADGER) and
"mass delivery of SMS messages to support an
Information Operations campaign" (WARPARTH)
* "Disruption of video-based websites hosting
extremist content through concerted target
discovery and content removal." (SILVERLORD)
* "Active skype capability. Provision of real
time call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and
bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists." (MINIATURE HERO)
* "Find private photographs of targets on Facebook" (SPRING BISHOP)
* "A tool that will permanently disable a
target's account on their computer" (ANGRY PIRATE)
* "Ability to artificially increase traffic to a
website" (GATEWAY) and "ability to inflate page views on websites" (SLIPSTREAM)
* "Amplification of a given message, normally
video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)" (GESTATOR)
* "Targeted Denial Of Service against Web
Servers" (PREDATORS FACE) and "Distributed denial
of service using P2P. Built by ICTR, deployed by JTRIG" (ROLLING THUNDER)
* "A suite of tools for monitoring target use of
the UK auction site eBay (www.ebay.co.uk)" (ELATE)
* "Ability to spoof any email address and send
email under that identity" (CHANGELING)
* "For connecting two target phone together in a call" (IMPERIAL BARGE)
While some of the tactics are described as "in
development," JTRIG touts "most" of them as
"fully operational, tested and reliable." It
adds: "We only advertise tools here that are
either ready to fire or very close to being ready."
And JTRIG urges its GCHQ colleagues to think big
when it comes to internet deception: "Don't treat
this like a catalogue. If you don't see it here,
it doesn't mean we can't build it."
The document appears in a massive Wikipedia-style
archive used by GCHQ to internally discuss its
surveillance and online deception activities. The
page indicates that it was last modified in July
2012, and had been accessed almost 20,000 times.
GCHQ refused to provide any comment on the record
beyond its standard boilerplate, in which it
claims that it acts "in accordance with a strict
legal and policy framework" and is subject to
"rigorous oversight." But both claims are questionable.
British watchdog Privacy International has filed
pending legal action against GCHQ over the
agency's use of malware to spy on internet and
mobile phone users. Several GCHQ memos published
last fall by The Guardian revealed that the
agency was eager to keep its activities secret
not to protect national security, but because
"our main concern is that references to agency
practices (ie, the scale of interception and
deletion) could lead to damaging public debate
which might lead to legal challenges against the
current regime." And an EU parliamentary inquiry
earlier this year concluded that GCHQ activities were likely illegal.
As for oversight, serious questions have been
raised about whether top national security
officials even know what GCHQ is doing. Chris
Huhne, a former cabinet minister and member of
the national security council until 2012,
insisted that ministers were in "utter ignorance"
about even the largest GCHQ spying program, known
as Tempora--not to mention "their extraordinary
capability to hoover up and store personal
emails, voice contact, social networking activity
and even internet searches." In an October
Guardian op-ed, Huhne wrote that "when it comes
to the secret world of GCHQ and the [NSA], the
depth of my 'privileged information' has been
dwarfed by the information provided by Edward Snowden to The Guardian."
+44 (0)7786 952037
http://rt.com/op-edge/authors/tony-gosling/
http://cryptome.org/2014/06/video-report-axed-2.htm
www.thisweek.org.uk
www.dialectradio.co.uk
Fear not therefore: for there is nothing covered
that shall not be revealed; and nothing hid that
shall not be made known. What I tell you in
darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye
hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27
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www.v911t.org
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Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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