Look no further~ The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies

Originally posted by ADVISOR

Originally posted by MDDoxs
THIS IS ATS!!..

*queue Sparta scene*

Also for those who may not have read the linked article, here is another quote mentioning ATS;

Technique #2 - 'CONSENSUS CRACKING'

A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com) is 'consensus cracking.' To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used.

I have been here since 2008, and only have spotted two members using two accounts at once. I cannot remember any details, but I called them on it. I think ATS does a most excellent job policing such a large forum for ghost accounts. Everyone has an IP, and only the very savvy know how to run a proxy successfully.

reply to post by autowrench

Everyone has an IP, and only the very savvy know how to run a proxy successfully.

I imagine that there are many 100's of members with multiple accounts. I've played browser war games and it's always a problem. It's common and any troll like member will know how to hide their IP. It's not savvy.. it's average. Any paid shill will make 100's of accounts ASAP. They share them and have programs for everything, including logging in sequentially. I know this much from watching the Japanese troll teams at work on you Tube over the whaling issue. (Yes, I mean to say they use 100's of unique email address' too)

I agree that the mods are doing a perfect job. I just don't know how much credit they can take for the lack of obvious trolls, but then again, I take this site seriously and don't get into pointless arguments. I don't usually care what they say, for the more intelligent responses that aren't too hard to find. I noticed in the anti-US post that was started earlier that the first 10 responders were bashing America. That seemed a bit heavy handed and possibly faked.

reply to post by bowtomonkey

I noticed in the anti-US post that was started earlier that the first 10 responders were bashing America. That seemed a bit heavy handed and possibly faked.

agreed......

and noticed the patterns as well.. not hard to spot since it's pretty blatant sometimes


and ETA: my profile says I was on 6 mins ago .. LMAO .. now 5... so mods.. what's going on exactly with my profile status .... !!!!

Registered: 6-3-2008
Location:
Mood: questioning
Member was on ATS
5 minutes ago.

reply to post by Flatfish


Thank you for this posting, I am so glad that someone has put into words these tactics which I will be watching for. What if someone set up a database to track the most active users and monitored their posting times of day, which topics seem to contain users that follow these topics and build a statistical model to show which threads are the most attacked. Wouldn't that in reverse show which were most true? by their warranted attention?

reply to post by ADVISOR


Hopefully ATS isn't selling our information to 3rd parties.

Has anyone read the disclaimers shown in fine print before joining ATS?

I didn't read them, but after having gone through the sign-up process, I was alarmed at seeing that ATS appeared to be wanting to know my favorite this and that etc etc etc.

I like you site, ATS, but for crying out loud, "WHO YOU WORKING FOR?"

Thank you or the thread and link, great topic. I had noticed as a newbie that a few threads seemed obviously derailed. Will be watching more closely start for you.

thanks
bg

reply to post by Neocrusader


It's great fun poking a stick in the cage now and then. I didn't think anybody really paid too much attention to the shinanigans that goes on here. Maybe I should follow your posts more carefully.

reply to post by Komaratzi11


I'm even more curious now. How did I become an object of someone's interest. I don't post here on ATS very often, but occasionally I throw a few rocks. Oh Well, Whatever!





Obviously I'm just now getting it. God!! I hating reading through threads like this!!! Although I did like the original premise. Geez!! What a pain in the A@@ you Geeks are!! lol!!!

reply to post by MDDoxs

The Co-operative Intelligence Program was a Nixon era undercover operation primarily targeting the radical left organizations like the Weather underground and the Black Panthers. At that time the LAPD was the most paramilitary police department in the country but not the only one. Federal intelligence agencies set up co-operative activities all over the country and if you were involved in any anti-war or radical organizations you knew that there were provacatours in your midst. If you read Phillip Agee's books you learn how the CIA operated in other countries to subvert freely elected governments by infiltrating both left and right political parties, unions and seemingly innocuous groups as well as establishing front organizations that would, for example commit terrorist acts in the name of the left wing in order to discredit their ligitimate cause.
The most glaringly obvious cointelpro action was the SLA. They styled themselves as a radical militant organization but they had no ties to any ligitemate organization and their printed statements were a garbled mass of pseudo Marxist revolutionary blather that anyone who had ever read ten pages of Das Kapital would recognise as such. Their leader was an inmate who walked out of Vacaville State prison in California without setting off an alarm. He was allowed to attend a class given outside the prison and this class was given by a retired FBI agent. They never had more than 20 members and their first "revolutionary" act was the asasination of the first black school superintendent ever elected in Oakland. They kidnapped Patty Hearst and got lots of national headlines, did some spectacular bank robberies and when they had accomplished their mission of discrediting the radicals the leader, Sinque and a few others were massacred in a tract house by the fascist LAPD. Hundreds of cops poured thousands of rounds into this house until it caught fire and the only people who knew anything about the origins and financing of the SLA were eliminated. There is a sort of reconstruction of this event in the Clint Eastwood movie, The Gauntlet, where the cops literally demolish and bring down a house with massive gunfire.

Subversion is scientific and immensely subtle and perpetrated by people who have lots of experience, unlimited funds and lots of friends in high and low places. There are a couple of very, very enlightening youtube videos, lectures and interviews with a guy named Yuri Bezmenov who was a Soviet defector. He was a journalist, which in Soviet Russia meant that he was a propaganda specialist. He was the son of a high ranking general and he explains Soviet subversion methods better than anyone I have ever encountered.

Subversion can take any form and provacatours can be anybody, if you think you can spot an agent of the HSA, CIA, DIA, NSA or any other kind of spy you are deluding yourself. They own and control the internet. Google has constructed their headquarters on the grounds of Moffat Field in Mt. View CA., the place where the Hubble telescope was constructed, one of the Air Force's top spook bases. This is an example of reverse privatization where Google started out as private and became partners with the security state. That is unless it was an invention of Big Brother from the beginning. We all know that GOOGLE IS WATCHING.

If you think there is any real freedom from .gov's watchful eye on the internet, I've got a bridge I can sell you real cheap

reply to post by CPAauditor


Never.

ATS is a privately owned and operated web community, that cares more for its members than it does its own self.

With out the ATS'er population, our community would not be.

In fact, the Three Amigo's, as they are so called. Have made an effort to protect the ATS community above what was required. They even tried to make the site a HTTPS, but the general census was it was not necessary. They listened to the members, and still do, with out a doubt.

Hope that clarifies any questions.


Also, I have revisited this thread, in light of this very subject material contained, has been mentioned in one aspect or another recently.

So, figured it would not hurt to bump, and reply to any missed posts.

reply to post by MDDoxs


This is iMO the best forum I've ever posted on for dealing with these tactics. However, most other forums don't even try. Many forum managers (especially liberal forum managers) display a shocking level of incompetence. For example, take Markos' Daily Kos 2011 crazy purge or the Huffington Posts happy thought police. If you don't know what the happy thought police are try posting a negatively worded or mildly critical thought on the Huff Post. Their forum manager has admitted they are doing this. Huff Post bans more ppl than any other website. Google any forum name and add the word banned. I did this and Huff bans five more than any major news site or any forum I'm aware of. Most are banned for the crime of criticizing a liberal. Really any partisan website across the political spectrum is highly vulnerable to these attacks because they don't track group behavior and the tactics can be easily be disguised as partisan passion. A distance 2 and 3 in number of bans is not surprising. FOX and MSNBC.

Any group format where members have similar interests or ideas is highy vulnerable Therefore, Twitter which is very group oriented is also vulnerable to this especially because they have private messaging.

What makes abovetopsecret special IMO is there is more focus on skepticism and objectivity but with a great tolerance for a diversity of ideas. Lying, which underlies all disinformation, is much easier to spot in that sort of environment.

To the agents of dis-information and of malicious intent, I wish you luck, be prepared for close scrutiny and critical opinions.

THIS IS ATS!!..

Well said. I am so skeptical of so many posts and threads here that I know they already exist. Social media and forums are always monitored and tweaked by the man behind the curtain, and it is only going to get worse. They will use these posts and threads we read motive to classify us.

They are afraid and angry about what they have created, but love it all the same because now they know we all know, and they will use it against us in one way or another, whether we know it or not.

reply to post by ADVISOR


Here ya go fellow ATS members, the lowdown on political spies, trolls and shills as
it happens here on this forum, and others across the Net.

Here are two reports, one from Time Magazine, and the other from Canada Free Press.
They parralell each other, down to the details, an "expose" on Obama, and his secret
data mining minions.

"Infiltrate web forums, collect screen names, avatars, and posters’ tag lines, and attempt to resolve these to their actual identities"

"There was another section titled “Divert, Disrupt and Destroy,” listing “how to’s” in certain cases."

"There was also a section on maintaining a social media presence, and another on the most
effective use of Twitter."

"there was a “reference section,” which included statistics, specific language to use to marginalize different posters, and effective methods to discredit people while maintaining a sense of legitimacy. "


Obama’s Cyber Warriors

At that time, I was shown a white, three-ring binder with Obama’s circular campaign logo imprinted on the outside of the binder with the name “Cyber-Warriors for Obama” printed in blue across the top. Inside were the names and e-mail addresses of 3,575 “cyber assets,” or “warriors,” listed in alphabetical order under about a dozen or so “team leaders.” From a separate sheet I was shown, most of these “assets” are being paid just over minimum wage, but as I understand it, they work from home and have no overhead. I believe there are about two dozen supervisors who make substantially more.

Now I only had the binder for a minute, and could not take it from the room I was in, so this is strictly from memory.

It was tabbed, and one section with the word “targets” ............

..........RB: The instructions seemed very specific. Infiltrate web forums, collect screen names, avatars, and posters’ tag lines, and attempt to resolve these to their actual identities. I read one paragraph that listed circumstances when the “asset” was only to monitor but do not disrupt without authorization. There was another section titled “Divert, Disrupt and Destroy,” listing “how to’s” in certain cases.

There was also a section on maintaining a social media presence, and another on the most effective use of Twitter.

Lastly, there was a “reference section,” which included statistics, specific language to use to marginalize different posters, and effective methods to discredit people while maintaining a sense of legitimacy.

www.canadafreepress.com...

Now here is the TIME article.

But from the beginning, campaign manager Jim Messina had promised a totally different, metric-driven kind of campaign in which politics was the goal but political instincts might not be the means. “We are going to measure every single thing in this campaign,” he said after taking the job. He hired an analytics department five times as large as that of the 2008 operation, with an official “chief scientist” for the Chicago headquarters named Rayid Ghani, who in a previous life crunched huge data sets to, among other things, maximize the efficiency of supermarket sales promotions.

Exactly what that team of dozens of data crunchers was doing, however, was a closely held secret. “They are our nuclear codes,” campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt would say when asked about the efforts.

swampland.time.com...

Originally posted by OccamAssassin
Someone needs to make a list in reply to this one.

"The Gentle-persons guide to online paranoia".

Or Maybe

"The Gentle-persons guide to finding a shrink".

Or even

"The Gentle-persons guide to delusions that the government actually cares about you beyond your tax contribution".


I agree with those who have questioned the validity of this document.

Pastebin? Seriously?

My respect for ATS mods has been seriously damaged.

If the mods are bringing this kind of crap to the table, what hope has logic?

You are never going to become a Super Moderator here. On the other hand you very well may become a Super Moderator here. Of course should you manage it, well then to paraphrase Nanny McFee, "when you become mod, then I must go."

aHEMagain

reply to post by ADVISOR

According to those points in the article , if one entirely acted within the reigns of this outline , one would not be saying much at all on the internet

Which would lead to a much more peacefull life .
Frankly if idiots want to waste their life manipulating others with emotional content to see what they really think aligns with what you are allowed to think
Then what can be said as that whole premises is so very DULL
Do YOU really care

And clearly it's working.

People fall for the trolls each and every time. The government doesn't even need it's own agents when the conspiracy scene is mostly screwing itself over all the time.

There's only one real deterrent, and it's a deterrent nobody wants!

Deterrent: Special topics where "no disagreeing" is an enforced rule. This is the only way to stop would-be disinfo agents (or non smart non-) coming and starting arguments and supplying non-answers to their rebuttles etc.

But that is of course an offensive option because
A) There are intelligent people who disagree with stuff and we need them
B) The whole notion of "no disagreeing" seems so stupid and immature and repulsive e

This is the corner we've been backed into. It no longer matters who is ultimately responsible. We need to think of a solution.

reply to post by LoveFurther


Two way debate is dialogue. One way debate is propaganda.

Sadly that answer would actually lead to much more of an ability for special interests to muddy the waters.

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by LoveFurther

 

Two way debate is dialogue. One way debate is propaganda.

Sadly that answer would actually lead to much more of an ability for special interests to muddy the waters.

Yeah. But I'm not going to lie; some threads are so intriguing and entertaining that I wish the debaters just kept out of them and let the information flow. I think I can judge the info on my own without other debtors barging in and judging it for me, you know?

Maybe some kind of alternate thread structure. The problem seems to be not the nature of debate itself but the way forums work.

Idea for an alternate structure: You have the "main thread" which is a non-interrupted flow of "information" and then the "sub thread' which is purely the rebuttal thread.

The key thing being that individual debators and individuals in the main thread can't directly engage in direct back-to-back arguing (which grows tiring, and which seems to be what most disinfo relies on) but instead both try to state their views independently and as clearly as possible, in their own respective threads. Case building.

So this way you have no discursive arguing mid-forum, no tangents that are produced through "non-answers" and insults, no skeptics starting annoying tangents purely by replying directly to the OP with some conceiting message (as they'd of course be forced to make their own independant rebuttal in the rebuttal thread, no direct replying means that insults, contained in the rebuttal topic, come across as silly like they do in election campaign TV ads) and maybe people can like even vote for which thread they think is the true one.

Every new viewpoint becomes it's own sub-thread, it's own "case" trying to support itself.
Every one of these threads become less confusing as thread each one has a clear, unified purpose and viewpoint.

Disguised trolls are removed from the guts of a discussion as they have no place anymore to divert a topic's original purpose/direction yet healthy debate still occurs.

And you'd be encouraging lurkers to think for themselves more, as you'd be presenting them the two sides, side by side, rather than one trying to dominate the other one for attention in a single thread.

I always thought that people argue so much better when they're not actually doing it back-to-back, because in the heat of the moment stuff tends to get misunderstood, and then the next person replies to this misunderstood interpretation, and so their rebuttal is really a "non answer" but they don't realise that and so on and so forth. This could remove that annoying discourse.

Of course, that doesn't stop things like false information on either side of the debate, emotional "pulls" rather than evidence being used, etc.

But it seemed like an idea worth thinking about, and I suppose it'd be up to the mods to keep the two threads free of manipulative content, keep them "cases" or just free-information flowing, whatever those posters want to say.

With this structure I suppose mods would be able to be a bit more strict, because there'd be no reason for the types of posts that usually derail today's modern single-board topics

Kind of unrelated... I posted on Twitter how Fulford really is seeming confident lately. I instantly got a reply saying he is a disinfo agent. I scanned the person's tweet list, and determined they were a disinfo agent. I hope Fulford is right about this upcoming thing!

reply to post by LoveFurther


I like your thinking. I haven't been here in a while. I got used to life without tangling with people taking their arguments personally. Banish them to negative and after that...

On the other hand. People with alternative views could be advised to start their own threads, and or, the OP be allowed to enforce guidelines.

I would like to see guidelines on a different level. It makes people more accountable.

I think it might work in some areas. There could be tabs for different arguments / opposition, should the OP choose them, as well as specific rules = ATS is possibly tamper proof.