Yeah, I know the above headline sounds bizarre and paranoid. But the truth is actually quite alarming for the Obama administration really is recruiting software companies to create and manage "fake people" on social media sites. The purpose? To create the illusion of consensus regarding controversial issues.It's kinda' like stuffing the ballot box or counting the votes of the deceased -- techniques which Democrats in big cities are already adept at. But these new tactics apply the principle to cyberspace.
This whole thing was discovered just last week in leaked e-mails from a private security firm but anyone can now read the government contract that was offered. Here it is. But, watch out; it makes for pretty eerie reading. For instance:
Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms...
1 each VPN provides the ability for users to daily and automatically obtain randomly selected IP addresses through which they can access the internet. The daily rotation of the user s IP address prevents compromise during observation of likely or targeted web sites or services, while hiding the existence of the operation. In addition, may provide traffic mixing, blending the user s traffic with traffic from multitudes of users from outside the organization. This traffic blending provides excellent cover and powerful deniability...
Enables organizations to manage their persistent online personas by assigning static IP addresses to each persona. Individuals can perform static impersonations, which allow them to look like the same person over time. Also allows organizations that frequent same site/service often to easily switch IP addresses to look like ordinary users as opposed to one organization...
Place of Performance: Performance will be at MacDIll AFB, Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq.
Feel like you're reading a high-tech thriller? I'm afraid this is all too real. And, in the hands of unscrupulous people (including government agents or private firms working for them), this poses significant dangers to an individual's privacy, an individual's security, and an entire society's understanding of what's real and what's not.
