
The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies (2012) - 1337biz
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
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pekk
Sometimes people who disagree with you just disagree with you, and are not
astroturf spies sent by the CIA.

If you hold an unpopular opinion, people may want to marginalize your opinion
by claiming that you aren't a real person.

~~~
RyanZAG
Unfortunately, there really are dedicated and heavy operations by government
organizations and corporations to try and sabotage debate. These operations
are well recorded, especially corporations such as Microsoft and Samsung who
are well known for it. It's just a fact of online forums. Of course, it's also
a fact that a lot of people obviously hold diverse opinions. It is just plain
impossible to be able to reliably tell the difference between astroturfing,
trolling and genuine opinions.

Honestly, the best solution is simply to state your argument and leave as back
and forth debating is generally useless. This applies in both the case where
you are arguing against someone who appears to be astroturfing and where you
are in the position of having an unpopular opinion. You're just wasting both
your time and others with pointless arguments. HN is pretty good on this point
by having that 'deep thread cooldown'.

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pm215
If everybody follows the "state your argument and leave" rule then you don't
have a discussion forum at all...

~~~
gravity13
I doubt he'll come back to answer you on this...

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Zigurd
Some people here scoff at the idea that COINTELPRO-type operations are still
under way. What do they say now about the dirty tricks campaigns recently
revealed?

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higherpurpose
It helps that US recently passed a law that allows the government to spread
propaganda in US. And you just know that when something like that gets passed,
it's probably been happening for at least 5-10 years.

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sitkack
When the government passes laws that help itself or corporations, much of the
time it is retroactive. To legitimize illegal or quasi-legal things that are
already occurring.

I don't understand how a democracy can function with retroactive laws. With
enough power, all actions can be legitimized in the future.

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hansjorg
This reads like black propaganda.

If you're politically active in any meaningful way, it's smart to realize that
you're probably under surveillance.

It's not smart to start accusing people who 'Display banners with too many
words that are confusing' of being saboteurs.

~~~
cinquemb
John Young has been at this for years, and has drawn flak from all governments
from the information that he has been posting to his site, so I wouldn't call
it black propaganda (nor take everything presented here as an absolute guide),
but I pretty much agree with everything else you said. His self proclaimed
"amateur"[0] ways seems to me to be quite effective especially when sensitive
information does get posted (which are cached,copied elsewhere, and removes
the motive elements that are with other organizations/people that do similar
things) before he gets the take-down requests. Though I have to admit, some of
the things that have (not) happened to him compared to others like him make me
wonder…

[0]:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html](http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html)

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
That article is from 2010, but it is interesting that his doors hadn't even at
that point been kicked down in a no-knock raid or three. It has happened to
gov't critics for less.

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joyeuse6701
I feel like a lot of the techniques are used by non-agents, like straw man or
acting indignant of what have you. I know I'm guilty of it looking back.
Certain techniques though are deliberate enough, like forum sliding.

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marze
It would be fun to take the HN database and do an automated search for the use
of such techniques.

~~~
obstacle1
I wonder if there is a database or list of known forum accounts who have
practiced these techniques? Would be useful for modelling.

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walshemj
Sounds like the way newspapers/media organisations over time try to shift the
debate towards their preferred position - contentiously attacking "gold
plated" public sector pensions with some what dubious statistics.

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sirsar
(2012). This is not a Snowden leak, as I mistook it at first.

~~~
api
Later leaks including Snowden have further corroborated this foil hat
nonsense.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
What do you mean by "foil hat nonsense"?

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SimHacker
Why isn't your user name visible? How did you do that???

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fnordfnordfnord
It required no effort on my part.

~~~
SimHacker
Yeah, how do I know you're even the same person if I can't see your name?
Maybe lots of people can hide their names, for all I know! This is as bad as
talking with anonymous cowards on slashdot, dammit.

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veb
… this is just social engineering. I'm missing something, why is this news?
;-)

