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http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media
Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities
to spread pro-American propaganda
* Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 March 2011 13.19 GMT
General David Petraeus Gen David Petraeus has previously said US
online psychological operations are aimed at 'countering extremist
ideology and propaganda'. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP
The US military is developing software that will let it secretly
manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by
using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and
spread pro-American propaganda.
A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United
States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed
operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is
described as an "online persona management service" that will
allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate
identities based all over the world.
The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to
control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are
likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a
false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome
opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not
correspond with its own objectives.
The discovery that the US military is developing false online
personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" –
could also encourage other governments, private companies and
non-government organisations to do the same.
The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must
have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and
that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false
identities from their workstations "without fear of being
discovered by sophisticated adversaries".
Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology
supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language
websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy
propaganda outside the US."
He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would
be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and
any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always
clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are
conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.
Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel,
working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging
online conversations with any number of co-ordinated Facebook
messages, blogposts, tweets, retweets, chatroom posts and other
interventions. Details of the contract suggest this location would
be MacDill air force base near Tampa, Florida, home of US Special
Operations Command.
Centcom's contract requires that for each controller, the
provision of one "virtual private server" be located in the United
States and eight NINE? appearing to be outside the US to give the
impression the fake personas are real people located in different
parts of the world.
It also calls for "traffic mixing", blending the persona
controllers' internet usage with the usage of people outside
Centcom in a manner that must offer "excellent cover and powerful
deniability".
The multiple persona contract is thought to have been awarded as
part of a programme called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which
was first developed in Iraq as a psychological warfare weapon
against the online presence of al-Qaida supporters and others
ranged against coalition forces. Since then, OEV is reported to
have expanded into a $200m programme and is thought to have been
used against jihadists across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle
East.
OEV is seen by senior US commanders as a vital counter-terrorism
and counter-radicalisation programme. In evidence to the US
Senate's armed services committee last year, General David
Petraeus, then commander of Centcom, described the operation as an
effort to "counter extremist ideology and propaganda and to ensure
that credible voices in the region are heard". He said the US
military's objective was to be "first with the truth".
This month Petraeus's successor, General James Mattis, told the
same committee that OEV "supports all activities associated with
degrading the enemy narrative, including web engagement and
web-based product distribution capabilities".
Centcom confirmed that the $2.76m contract was awarded to Ntrepid,
a newly formed corporation registered in Los Angeles. It would not
disclose whether the multiple persona project is already in
operation or discuss any related contracts.
Nobody was available for comment at Ntrepid.
In his evidence to the Senate committee, Gen Mattis said: "OEV
seeks to disrupt recruitment and training of suicide bombers; deny
safe havens for our adversaries; and counter extremist ideology
and propaganda." He added that Centcom was working with "our
coalition partners" to develop new techniques and tactics the US
could use "to counter the adversary in the cyber domain".
According to a report by the inspector general of the US defence
department in Iraq, OEV was managed by the multinational forces
rather than Centcom.
Asked whether any UK military personnel had been involved in OEV,
Britain's Ministry of Defence said it could find "no evidence".
The MoD refused to say whether it had been involved in the
development of persona management programmes, saying: "We don't
comment on cyber capability."
OEV was discussed last year at a gathering of electronic warfare
specialists in Washington DC, where a senior Centcom officer told
delegates that its purpose was to "communicate critical messages
and to counter the propaganda of our adversaries".
Persona management by the US military would face legal challenges
if it were turned against citizens of the US, where a number of
people engaged in sock puppetry have faced prosecution.
Last year a New York lawyer who impersonated a scholar was
sentenced to jail after being convicted of "criminal
impersonation" and identity theft.
It is unclear whether a persona management programme would
contravene UK law. Legal experts say it could fall foul of the
Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which states that "a person
is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the
intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to
accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or
not to do some act to his own or any other person's prejudice".
However, this would apply only if a website or social network
could be shown to have suffered "prejudice" as a result.
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