Military Report: Secretly 'Recruit or Hire Bloggers'

By Noah Shachtman

March 31, 2008 | 1:11:05 PMCategories: Info War

A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."

Since the start of the Iraq war, there's been a raucous debate in military circles over how to handle blogs -- and the servicemembers who want to keep them. One faction sees blogs as security risks, and a collective waste of troops' time. The other (which includes top officers, like Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell) considers blogs to be a valuable source of information, and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, both at home and abroad.

This 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, "Blogs and Military Information Strategy," offers a third approach -- co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. "Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering," write the report's co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.

Lt. Commander Marc Boyd, a U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman, says the report was merely an academic exercise. "The comments are not 'actionable', merely thought provoking," he tells Danger Room. "The views expressed in the article publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, USSOCOM [Special Operations Command], or the Joint Special Operations University."

Denning, a professor at Naval Postgraduate School, adds in an e-mail, "I got some positive feedback from people who read the article, but I don't know if it led to anything."

The report introduces the military audience to the "blogging phenomenon," and lays out a number of ways in which the armed forces -- specifically, the military's public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations units -- might use the sites to their advantage.

Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence... to pass the U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.

Denning, the report's author, has promoted controversial opinions before. In the early 1990s, when she was chair of the Georgetown University's computer science department, Denning emerged as the leading advocate for the so-called "Clipper Chip," a cryptographic device for protecting communications -- until the government wanted to listen in. The project was cancelled by 1996.

In her 2006 paper, Denning warns that blogs can and will be used by America's enemies. These sites, she argues, can also be used to serve U.S. government interests.

There are certain to be cases where some blog, outside the control of the U.S. government, promotes a message that is antithetical to U.S. interests, or actively supports the informational, recruiting and logistical activities of our enemies. The initial reaction may be to take down the site, but this is problematic in that doing so does not guarantee that the site will remain down. As has been the case with many such sites, the offending site will likely move to a different host server, often in a third country. Moreover, such action will likely produce even more interest in the site and its contents. Also, taking down a site that is known to pass enemy EEIs (essential elements of information) and that gives us their key messages denies us a valuable information source. This is not to say that once the information passed becomes redundant or is superseded by a better source that the site should be taken down. At that point the enemy blog might be used covertly as a vehicle for friendly information operations. Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site (and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action, give the U.S. an opportunity to offer the individual amnesty in exchange for information. (emphasis mine)

(Hook up: Cryptome.org; photo: Peter Starman / WIRED)

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February 10, 2008

Scientology's Legion of Doom

If you passed the Church of Scientology’s Toronto chapter at Yonge & St. Mary on Sunday, you may have momentarily entertained a dark fantasy that Tom Cruise would emerge from the masked masses amid gales of manic laughter, igniting the dissenting throng with bolts of righteous lightning.

Sadly, no such fun. Rumour has it that Mr. Cruise was under lockdown during Anonymous’ global day of action against L. Ron Hubbard’s brainchild. As the Toronto campaign got underway, Sunday commuters voiced solidarity with the placard-waving Vs and Vaders through their horns. “Honk for Xenu” read one such sign; “Honk if you think Scientology is silly” read another. On the other side of the street, police wedged themselves between Scientology’s Toronto headquarters and a crowd that was only getting louder.

The war Anonymous wants is over ten years old, fought on a digital battleground. Many of the demonstrators gathered on Yonge Street were rallied through Facebook or YouTube, new recruits in a struggle that, in this city, can be traced at least as far back as a guy named Gregg Hagglund (pictured above) and “The Great Internet Wars” of the late nineties.

“I started picketing because Scientology attacked me for criticizing them on the Internet,” he said. Referring to a Usenet newsgroup on the subject, he says, “Some of it was wild, but a lot of the posters were very, very educated in their information about Scientology. So I made the comment that if what they were saying was true, Scientology should be investigated.” As exchanges and e-mail bombings escalated, things got ugly. Before long, Hagglund and his compatriots were embroiled in a struggle which, at its heart, was about freedom of speech, information, and challenging a “culture of surveillance.”

That was something like ten years ago. And while Anonymous is a new movement, it is fighting the same war.

Watching the swelling crowd across the street, Hagglund reminisced. “We never had this many. The most we ever had was fifty people from all over North America,” he said. “This is incredible.”

Surrounded by watchful shutters, Rev. Yvette Shank, president of Scientology’s Toronto chapter, dismissed Hagglund’s and Anonymous’ allegations of harassment, suppression of dissent, and even stalking. “Bushwash,” she responded. “That is such bushwash. I have never, ever had that happen. If we did, we would be very busy. We wouldn’t be doing anything else.” "Anything else" probably refers to Scientology’s outreach campaigns, many of which are youth-targeted. “We have a drug-education campaign where we get kids from the age of 6 on up to pledge to be drug-free.”

"Anything else" also refers to Scientology’s infamous stress tests. “All that does is help us locate where the person is having the most difficulty,” Shank said, “and then you can start working on improving that.” When asked to elaborate further on the methods involved, Shank declined. (An invitation to “show us how it works” through participation, but that’s about it, and no mention of Thetans.)

Such details of the Scientology mythos have remained tightly-guarded for years, available only to the Church’s ladder-climbing members. With the advent of the Internet, the conflict between Anonymous and Scientology has become an information war, one that’s rapidly approaching critical mass.

“We’ve always said that the Internet is Scientology’s Vietnam,” Hagglund continued. “Now, years later, so many people between the ages of 18 and 25 are on YouTube or Facebook. When I stopped picketing, YouTube was just starting. Facebook didn’t exist. And they want to attack that?” Hagglund chuckled a little, remarking, “It’ll be like throwing a hand grenade into an African Bees’ nest.”

Since Anonymous’ first video appeared on YouTube, Scientology has been vigilant in defending itself and its interests, profiling Anonymous as an “Internet hate machine.” In its reporting, FOX News echoed the accusation. “I think FOX News did a good job at exposing the intent of these guys, honestly,” Shank asserted. “The hate crimes of Anonymous should be condemned. This is a country that is free, and I don’t want people that believe and follow Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto as their Bible.” Pressed for her source, she said, “It comes from Anonymous. That’s the source. You have to look at...” as an aide whispered in her ear: “It’s on YouTube.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “On YouTube.”

Outside, a masked demonstrator offered his answer. “Anonymous likes to think of itself as a school of all literature,” he said. “So, likewise, we also educate ourselves through 1984 and Brave New World, which I’m sure they’d love their followers to read. Or not.”

If this is an information war, Anonymous’ outrage concerns a lack of transparency on the Scientology side. “We just like to raise attention on certain matters. If the church wanted to debunk some of [Anonymous’] claims, then they could make more of their information available and not be so secretive. If people knew all that they were getting into, they might have a different opinion.”

When asked for his name, the masked demonstrator simply answered, “My name is Legion.”