Inside the secret troll army of ... Britain!

1KIKI

Sunday, November 25, 2018 4:09 AM

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a part of the British Army the 77th Brigade "fighting" Britain’s information wars

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“If everybody is thinking alike then somebody isn’t thinking,” was written in foot-high letters across a whiteboard in one of the main atriums of the base.

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the 77th knew how to set up cameras, record sound, edit videos. Plucked from across the military, they were proficient in graphic design, social media advertising, and data analytics. Some may have taken the army’s course in Defence Media Operations, and almost half were reservists from civvy street, with full time jobs in marketing or consumer research.

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From office to office, I found a different part of the Brigade busy at work. One room was focussed on understanding audiences: the makeup, demographics and habits of the people they wanted to reach. Another was more analytical, focussing on creating “attitude and sentiment awareness” from large sets of social media data. Another was full of officers producing video and audio content. Elsewhere, teams of intelligence specialists were closely analysing how messages were being received and discussing how to make them more resonant. Another sign on the wall declared, “Behavioural change is our USP [unique selling point]”.

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“A document will come from the Ministry of Defence that will have broad guidance and themes to follow.” ... each military campaign now also has – or rather is – a marketing campaign too.

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Ever since Nato troops were deployed to the Baltics in 2017, Russian propaganda has been deployed too, alleging that Nato soldiers there are rapists, looters, little different from a hostile occupation. One of the goals of Nato information warfare was to counter this kind of threat: sharply rebutting damaging rumours, and producing videos of Nato troops happily working with Baltic hosts.

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But messaging campaigns could become “grey” and “black” too. There, the messaging doesn't have to look like it came from the military and doesn't have to necessarily tell the truth.

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GCHQ also has a unit dedicated to fighting wars with information.

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Almost all we know about it comes from a series of slides leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. Those documents give us a glimpse of what these kinds of covert information campaigns could look like.
According to the slides, JTRIG was in the business of discrediting companies, by passing “confidential information to the press through blogs etc.”, and by posting negative information on internet forums. They could change someone’s social media photos (“can take ‘paranoia’ to a whole new level”, a slide read.) They could use masquerade-type techniques – that is: placing “secret” information on a compromised computer. They could bombard someone’s phone with text messages or calls.

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“Clean Sweep” would impersonate Facebook wall posts for individuals or entire countries. “Gateway” gave the ability to “artificially increase traffic to a website”. “Underpass” was a way to change the outcome of online polls.

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They had operational targets

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JEWELSTAITEFAN

Sunday, November 25, 2018 6:01 AM

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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MI6 battling to stop Donald Trump releasing classified Russia probe documents

I6 chiefs are secretly battling Donald Trump to stop him publishing classified information linked to the Russian election meddling investigation.

The UK is warning that the US president would undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers.

However Trump allies are fighting back, demanding transparency and asking why Britain would oppose the move unless it had something to hide. ...

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MORE AT https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/21/exc-mi6-battling-donald-tr
ump-release-classified-russia-probe/amp/

Not a new story, just an indication that the battle over "Russiagate" is still going on.

Since the House will be turned over to Dems in January, Dems will drop any investigation of FBI/CIA/WH/Clinton/MI6 malfeasance* like a hot potato, leaving investigation/ exposure of the deep-state to either the WH (declassify and release) or to the DOJ, either continuing Huber's remit or appointing another prosecutor. I imagine that declassification and release would expose SUCH a can of worms that this might be something even Trump would be reluctant to do.

For example, I have heard - more than once- that the NSA has a giant database of illegally-gathered information on pretty much everyone of any importance/ interest (Remember that big data center in Utah? It wasn't built for shits and giggles.) and that they share that information with the CIA, FBI, local PDs etc. The TRICK is to create some sort of plausible investigatory pathway by which that information might have been discovered legally, obtaining paper-thin warrants or "turning" relatively unimportant people to develop a string of "evidence" which will lead them to the desired result.

Also, the UK seems pretty accommodating at just making stuff up, and MI6 and the CIA and FBI seem adept at looping the material into larger and larger importance, taking something that is (in essence) a made-up story, then questioning someone about it, then leaking the story, then using the leak to investigate further. Or creating "sting" operations to net the unwary innocent (called "entrapment").

Seems like exposure of those kinds of operations would create all kinds of havoc, even with important and legitimate intelligence-gathering.

*MALFEASANCE: (legal definition) illegal or dishonest activity especially by a public official or a corporation

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CAPTAINCRUNCH

Sunday, November 25, 2018 4:24 PM

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Do we the people need to set up our own spy agencies to figure out what our government is doing in our name?

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SIGNYM

Sunday, November 25, 2018 8:50 PM

Seriously????

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Chilcot report: MI6 may have got crucial intelligence on Iraq WMDs from a Nicolas Cage film

MI6, desperate to find evidence which would prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction

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thought they had at last struck gold – a source with “phenomenal access” to the highest echelons of the Iraqi regime, one who would be the “key to unlock” the secrets of a chemical and biological arsenal.

The prized undercover “asset” not only confirmed that the WMD programme was going full blast but that the regime was actually building more facilities. The head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, was confident that the man would even produce a “CD with everything in it.” Under the circumstances the service’s reporting of a “ significant breakthrough” seemed, if anything, to be an understatement.

Doubts, however, began to creep in. One MI6 officer pointed out that the source’s description of the device and its spherical glass contents was “ remarkably similar to the fictional chemical weapons portrayed in the film The Rock”. In the film, according to the blurb which accompanied it, a FBI chemical warfare agent, played by Nicolas Cage, is sent on a mission with a British spy, Sean Connery to stop a mad general, Ed Harris, from launching chemical weapons on Alcatraz Island into San Francisco.

Nevertheless, what the Iraqi agent had to say played an important part in the conclusions of the dodgy dossier

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on Iraq’s WMD. Crucially, the material was not shown to the real experts on the subject, the scientific analysts of DIS

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( Defence intelligence Staff) by the JIC ( Joint Intelligence Committee) who were putting the document together.

The Chilcot report points out that “ The SIS ( MI6) report should have been shown to relevant experts in the DIS who could have advised their senior managers and assessment staff. Expert officials in the DIS questioned the certainty with which some of the judgments in the dossier were expressed.”

The inquiry also noted "Sir Richard Dearlove's personal intervention, and its urgency, gave added weight to a report that had not been properly evaluated and would have coloured the perception of ministers and senior officials. The report should have been treated with caution”.

The great scoop was unraveling fast. It was noted by MI6 on 2nd February 2003 that the source had failed to provide the information expected. By 18th February, the man was being described in MI6 notes as a liar who had been misleading them for a long time. But MI6 failed to tell others involved in producing the dossier about the debacle. Reports from the Iraqi was still being issued in April, a month after the war had begun.

MI6 finally met the source in June 2003. He had only been involved in Iraq’s chemical programme, in a minor capacity, before 1991. He denied providing any of the tantalizing material attributed to him. MI6 "concluded that its source was a fabricator who had lied from the outset". In July 2003, the “ intelligence” was officially withdrawn. The Chilcot Inquiry noted "the withdrawal of the reporting was done in a very low key manner compared with the way in which the original intelligence was issued’’.

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The withdrawl of the “evidence” was not known by ministers giving evidence to the inquiry by Lord Hutton into the death of Dr David Kelly in 2004, but was known by them at the time of inquiry by Lord Butler in the sam

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SIGNYM

Sunday, November 25, 2018 9:23 PM

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Yes! It's called a Free Press

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CAPTAINCRUNCH

Monday, November 26, 2018 4:32 PM

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Yes! It's called a Free Press

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It sure would be great if we had one!

'Cause all I see is a "bought-and-paid-for" press!

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SIGNYM

Tuesday, November 27, 2018 12:48 PM

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Major Psy-Op in Europe Exposed: UK Government Tramples on Values It Vowed to Protect

Those who have been saying that the West has turned Russia into a scapegoat to be blamed for each and every thing that goes wrong have been proved right. We have witnessed concocted stories invented to denigrate Moscow that have gone viral as directed by the secret services. The UK, the country that is spearheading the anti-Russian information campaign, offers a good example that illustrates how this is being done.

An online group of hackers known as Anonymous has just revealed covert UK activities in the EU. According to the documents released by that group, London is in the midst of a major program to interfere in the internal affairs of EU members, the US, and Canada. Anonymous threatens to release more information on the clandestine operations of the UK government, unless it agrees to remove the shroud of secrecy protecting those information-warfare efforts. On Nov. 24 Twitter deleted RT comments on the issue. The UK knows it has friends it can rely on in a crunch.

The Integrity Initiative is a London-based organization set up and funded by the government-friendly Institute for Statecraft, in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to wage information-warfare operations against Russia. Anonymous calls it a "large-scale information secret service." It aims to “change attitudes in Russia itself” as well as the influence of Russian natives living abroad. The Integrity Initiative’s budget for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2019 is estimated at £1.96 million ($2.51 million). The network has received grants from NATO, the US State Department, and Facebook.

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The Initiative’s operations have been kept under wraps. Its activities are conducted by “clusters” of local politicians, journalists,

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military personnel, scientists, and academics involved in anti-Russian propaganda efforts. The list includes William Browder, a US-British businessman convicted in absentia in Russia for tax evasion.

The Integrity Initiative network has offices from which to conduct its covert operations in France, Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Norway, Serbia, Spain, and Montenegro. Its plans to expand to the US, Canada, Eastern Europe, and the MENA region are already underway.

The Anonymous hackers mention Operation Moncloa that was launched in June in Spain to prevent Pedro Baños, a colonel known for his Russia-friendly views, from being appointed the new head of Spain's influential national security agency.

It’s all part of a broader picture. In March, Prime Minister Theresa May promised to “defeat” Russia with a new cyber-warfare initiative titled the Fusion Doctrine. Back then, Ms. May told British intelligence services to use social media “to prevent the spread of misinformation.” In other words, she has pulled the military into this anti-Russian propaganda effort. Security sources have floated the idea that that the UK must harness “soft power” and “counter-propaganda” on social media networks.

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Is it possible to imagine any media remaining independent in a country where they're part of a "soft power strategy" implemented by the government under the rallying cry of protecting national security?

This is the origin of so many fantasies about Russia and the imaginary threat it poses. The plan included an enhanced role for the BBC World Service

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CAPTAINCRUNCH

Tuesday, November 27, 2018 3:44 PM

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Major Psy-Op in Europe Exposed: UK Government Tramples on Values It Vowed to Protect

SIGGY propaganda text dump goes here:

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SIGNYM

Tuesday, November 27, 2018 9:15 PM

Oh, looks like The Guardian (another British paper!) got caught in another lie!

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Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy, sources say

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WikiLeaks Categorically Denies Assange-Manafort Meetings
Update: WikiLeaks has fired back at the Guardian, tweeting: "Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper's reputation. @WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor's head that Manafort never met Assange."

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SIGNYM

Tuesday, November 27, 2018 9:28 PM

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Joint Information Activities Group (JIAG)

JIAG provides specialist information activities training, operational delivery capability and capacity building for defence and other government departments.

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The UK National Security Capability Review and the Fusion Doctrine

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Theresa May: UK will use ‘every capability at our disposal’ to defeat enemies

... “Crucially, what all of these incidents have made clear is that our national security is conditional on not only the police and security services who work so hard to keep us safe at home, or on the brave men and women of our armed forces working tirelessly around the world – but on our ability to mobilise most ­effectively the full range of our capabilities in concert to respond to the challenges we face.”

New investment in a £1.9 billion cyber security strategy announced earlier this year will see the team dedicated to combatting misinformation from hostile states like Russia expanded...

More resources will be put into the UK’s network of embassies and high commission to strengthen Britain’s ability to project soft power.

“Based on the new Fusion Doctrine, this approach will ensure that in defending our national security we make better use of all of our capabilities: from economic levers, through cutting-edge military resources to our wider diplomatic and cultural influence on the world’s stage,” Mrs May adds. “Every part of our government and every one of our agencies has its part to play.

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“Integrity Initiative” Exposed as UK Special Ops vs. EU Countries

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