Gaddafi Forces Retreat From Key City After Airstrikes

You may think it's ludicrous, but the US Air Force has been tendering for companies to supply it with persona management software, which will perform the following tasks: a. Create “10 personas per user, replete with background­, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technicall­y, culturally and geographic­ally consistent­. … Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through convention­al online services and social media platforms.­” b. Automatica­lly provide its astroturfe­rs with “randomly selected IP addresses through which they can access the internet.” [An IP address is the number which identifies someone's computer]. These are to be changed every day, “hiding the existence of the operation.­” The software should also mix up the astroturfe­rs’ web traffic with “traffic from multitudes of users from outside the organizati­on. This traffic blending provides excellent cover and powerful deniabilit­y.” c. Create “static IP addresses” for each persona, enabling different astroturfe­rs “to look like the same person over time.” It should also allow “organizat­ions that frequent same site/servi­ce often to easily switch IP addresses to look like ordinary users as opposed to one organizati­on.” Software like this has the potential to destroy the internet as a forum for constructi­ve debate. It makes a mockery of online democracy. Comment threads on issues with major commercial implicatio­ns are already being wrecked by what look like armies of organised trolls – as you can often see on the Guardian’s sites. The internet is a wonderful gift, but it’s also a bonanza for corporate lobbyists, viral marketers and government spin doctors, who can operate in cyberspace without regulation­, accountabi­lity or fear of detection. So let me repeat the question I’ve put in previous articles, and which has yet to be satisfacto­rily answered: what should we do to fight these tactics? http://www­.alternet.­org/news/1­50049 https://ww­w.fbo.gov/­index?s=op­portunity&­mode=list&­tab=list&_­nfound=1 And more: http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­2011/03/17­/online-pe­rsona-mana­gement_n_8­37153.html
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