Revision as of 11:32, 25 May 2015

Spent time searching the subject of who your social media friends might be? Ever wonder what the intelligence agencies are up to with fake profiles? Driven mad at people who derail intelligent discussions? It’s simple. In information operations, the goal is to create people who ‘are what they think’ to the advantage of ‘the man behind the curtain’ or a center tower as described in Foucaults panopticon.

Bits and pieces from history

It doesn't take long or a lot of work to find dots and snippets of the recent past that give us glimpses of what was to come.

• In 2005 the BBC reports that the US military is planning to win the hearts of young people in the Middle East by publishing a new comic in order to "achieve long-term peace and stability in the Middle East" ^[1] and reveals in 2006 US plans to 'fight the net': A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks ^[2].
• The Raw Story reports in 2007 that apparently CENTCOM sent emails to "bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information" ^[3].
• More alarming seems to be the article from the Register on wargame simulations: Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale informing us that the US DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual "nodes" to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and artificial reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda ^[4].
• 2009 is the year the US Air Force releases ‘Counter-Blog’ marching orders to its airmen as part of an Air Force push to "counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the U.S. government and the Air Force" ^[5].

Covert operations

The larger context of the above bits and pieces is that of covert operations, a practice as old as warfare, the oldest occupation of mankind. Many events in history have been changed because of covert missions by military or by secret organizations led by a government.

“History isn’t like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always – eventually – manages to spring back into its old familar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It’s been around a long time.” ~ Terry Pratchett, Mort

Discoveries and experiences are being shared, conspiracies disclosed ^[6], injustices revealed, the dead named, and sometimes governments change as a result of that. More likely, when a government changes it is caused by covert operations.

Psychological warfare

‘Psychological Operations: Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives. Also called PSYOP. See also consolidation psychological operations; overt peacetime psychological operations programs; perception management. ‘ US Department of Defense

Shock doctrine

Propaganda

Any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.

Rewriting history

Most (if not all) of the techniques used in rewriting history (revisionism) are for deception or denial and vary from using forged documents (the fog) as genuine sources (or inventing reasons to distrust genuine documents), to exploiting opinions by taking them out of their historical context.

Disinformation

Unlike traditional propaganda techniques designed to engage emotional support, disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting conflicting information or supporting false conclusions.

Sleeper effect

News and watchdogs

Interesting reads

Documentaries

Counterintelligence

• Counter-Intelligence: I - The Company https://vimeo.com/65148608
• Counter-Intelligence: II - The Deep State https://vimeo.com/65942057
• Counter-Intelligence: III - The Strategy of Tension https://vimeo.com/66019647
• Counter-Intelligence: IV - Necrophilous https://vimeo.com/66019647
• Counter-Intelligence: V - Drone Nation https://vimeo.com/66183267

Psychological warfare

• Psywar https://vimeo.com/14772678

References

1. ↑ US army to produce Mid-East comic http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4396351.stm
2. ↑ US plans to 'fight the net' revealed http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm
3. ↑ Raw obtains CENTCOM email to bloggers http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Raw_obtains_CENTCOM_email_to_bloggers_1016.html
4. ↑ Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/
5. ↑ Air Force Releases ‘Counter-Blog’ Marching Orders http://www.wired.com/2009/01/usaf-blog-respo/
6. ↑ 25 Most Top Secret Military Operations In History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dWiRtkzaAQ