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nobbis writes "In an article entitled 'How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations' Glenn Greenwald publishes training material from the Snowden archive that illustrates how GCHQ uses "cyber-offensive techniques against people who have nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats", for example against "Hacktivism".
These techniques include disseminating deception on-line and harming the reputations of their targets with a honey trap , a blog from a purported victim of the target, or 'changing their photos on social media sites'. Similarly companies are discredited by leaking of confidential information, or posting negative information on appropriate forums. The covert agents' play book includes infiltration, false flag, disruption and sting operations.
When questioned GCHQ replied "It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters""
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 25 2014, @08:19PM
Similarly companies are discredited by leaking of confidential information...
It's too bad these intel agencies don't use their powers to do more good. I can think of a bunch of companies off the top of my head that deserve to be discredited and destroyed, for the good of society: Microsoft, Best Buy, Comcast, Verizon, BP, etc.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by etherscythe on Tuesday February 25 2014, @08:29PM
and let us never forget Monsanto
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1) by isostatic on Wednesday February 26 2014, @06:56AM
We're whalers on the moon / we carry an harpoon / but there ain't no w hales / so we tell tall tales / and sing our whaling tune
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bd on Tuesday February 25 2014, @08:40PM
At least one employee from a certain intel agency recently applied his training in "confidential information leaking" quite successfully, I guess.
(Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Tuesday February 25 2014, @08:40PM
Discredited by leaking confidential information?
Ah, now I understand: Snowden was hired by the GCHQ to discredit their NSA competition. The NSA found out but it was already too late to stop him, so as retaliation they just made sure he also got a good amount of material on the GHCQ ... ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by omoc on Wednesday February 26 2014, @06:26AM
actually this could get very nasty for them if there is only one hint at a foreign company that was discredited in favor of a US based company. We should not forget their spying is not about terrorism but about industrial espionage and I would not be surprised if they have a more aggressive approach to destroy overseas competition.
(Score: 1) by jalopezp on Wednesday February 26 2014, @10:31AM
Foreign... Like the UK? For whom GCHQ works? I guess it might be even worse for them if it turns out that at some point they discredited a US based company.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:51PM
At least in the United States everything in and about government does what companies want. If the government goes after any one company, it's because their competitors outbid them in the influence game. They either spent more, or spent more on the right Senators and Congressmen who occupy key positions on the key committees. Often the Senators and Congressmen themselves have no idea why a particular lobbyist starts throwing money at them, they simply shut off their questioning circuitry, take the money, and vote how the lobbyist tells them to vote. It's the same for all parties and branches of government. All the Republican and Democrat stuff is kabuki theater to keep the public quiescent or at each other's throats instead of asking uncomfortable questions.
What I am saying is not simple cynicism. I used to run digital for Bill Clinton's foundation, and it didn't take too many cycles of watching Bob Dylan's son Jesse walk through the door one day, then Rupert Murdoch the next, then Rachel Ray the next, then Chris Ruddy (the guy who started and funded the conspiracy that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster in the Whitehouse) the next, for me to understand that all the rest of us are being had. And through that same lens I had intimate insight into the rest of government and even most of the largest NGOs. My purpose in saying such here is not to discourage any of us from seeking change. Rather I mean to paint a clear picture of the reality of government in the United States, so we can all shake off lethargy and false hope engendered by the system as it is and take concrete, productive steps to build a better society.
So of course no part of the government would work to discredit the people and companies that put fat envelopes of untraceable money into their pockets, so they can build 20,000 sq. ft. homes in the tonier suburbs in Virginia and drive Mercedes to work every day. That job falls to us citizens of America, and other allied people around the world who can see benefit in working together on this. It is for us to compel change. To do that, we need to build more mechanisms, inspired by open source, that circumvent the traditional means the powers-that-be use to disrupt mass action like agents provocateurs and arresting key protest leaders and agitators. If we can build those, then we will certainly achieve our goals. There are way, way more of us than there are of them, or even those who worship state power for its own sake.
Washington DC delenda est.