Cyber-Herding: Exploiting Islamic Extremists Use of the Inte

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ozzybinoswald
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Cyber-Herding: Exploiting Islamic Extremists Use of the Inte

Unread post by ozzybinoswald »

To appreciate and understand the research paper below simply replace Islamic extremists with us.



NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

Cyber-Herding: Exploiting Islamic Extremists Use of the Internet

David B. Moon, Capt, USAF
Joint Information Operations Student
Department of Defense Analysis


http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2007solic/moon_paper.pdf


Defining Cyber-herding:

Cyber-herding is the action by which an individual, group, or organization drives individuals, groups, or organizations to a desired location within the electronic realm. Why implement cyber-herding versus engaging in an all out war on extremist websites? The answer to that question lies in the realm of intelligence gathering and in the freedom of the internet. While the threat from Islamic extremists’ use of the internet is high, intelligence agencies have successfully harvested information from these sites. Thus, an all-out denial-of service attack on extremists’ websites would limit intelligence agencies capability to gather information. Indeed, some extremists’ websites have been actively targeted and shut down. However, the problem that emerges from this tactic is the freedom of the internet allows extremists to restore or relocate their websites in a matter of hours to days. Thus, these attacks could embolden the extremists by reinforcing the fact that they can set up a new site within a short period. Simply stated, the attacks and subsequent re-emergence could provide them with a simple affirmation: The powerful United States tries to keep us off the internet but they cannot! On the other hand, cyber-herding has the potential to covertly neutralize undesirable websites, mine data from controlled websites, map virtual social networks, manipulate extremist messages, and modify the extremists’ story. To implement a cyber-herding program effectively, a minimum of four nodes are required.


Objectives of the Cyber-herding Nodes:

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The Gatherer Node:
The gatherer node’s objective is to compile and maintain an up to date list for all extremists related uses of the internet.


The Network Node:

The members of the network node have two objectives. The first objective is to insert themselves into the extremists’ virtual social network. The second objective is to identify major “hubs” and “links” within the extremists’ virtual social network.


The Construction Node:

The members of the construction node have two objectives. The first objective is to create realistic doppelganger extremists websites and chat rooms. A doppelganger refers to a ghostly double or a look alike. In some traditions, it is an omen of death to see your own doppelganger. The second objective is to create several content rich Darknet environments that offer e-mail, file sharing, chat, instant messenger, and streaming video services. A Darknet is a private virtual network where users connect only to people they trust.


The Demolition Node:

The demolition node’s objective is to remotely destroy or disable all extremists’ websites, chat rooms, Darknets, etc.


The Cyber-herding Process:
Phase One:

The gatherer node begins the cyber-herding process by tracking down extremists’ websites and chat rooms. To facilitate this process, the node seeks public help by placing web-based advertisements asking people to submit Uniform Resource Locators (URL) for any suspected extremist website. The node seeks out help from private groups such as the Rand Corporation, the Search for International Terrorist (SITE) Institute, and the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and academic terrorism research groups. The node compiles a list of extremist website URLs. This list becomes a living document that the node constantly updates with identified extremists’ sites. In addition, a program constantly checks identified URLs to verify the sites are still active and automatically deletes dead sites. During this process, the network node makes a copy of the list, and begin phase two.

Phase Two:

Upon accessing a site on the list, the members of the network node pose as Islamic extremist sympathizers and/or supporters and begin interacting with members of the site. In chat rooms, the node members start or join conversations supporting extremists themes. The objective is to develop trust relationships with Islamic extremists. Node members contact extremists’ websites to see what they can do to support the cause. If needed, the network node would have the authority to make small donations to extremists websites to help build trust. During this phase, the network node maps the extremists’ chat rooms. Mapping a chat room involves creating a social network diagram of who is talking to whom within the chat room.
The members of the network node are looking for “hubs” using the sites. These hubs are people who have more connections then anyone else. Malcolm Gladwell in his book, “The Tipping Point,” refers to these people as “connectors.” The members of the network node develop virtual fictitious identities. They keep detailed records of their conversations for each identity. This way any member of the network node can be that virtual person. All they have to do is pick a character, and read up on his or her history before chatting. If the network node discovers any websites not identified on the list, they will update the master list with the new URLs and forward these sites to the gatherer node. The members of network node mark the list to identify sites they are currently working, this ensures the demolition node does not destroy a site the network node is currently operating in. Subsequently, the network node forwards the list to the construction node.

Phase Three:

After the members of construction node receive the list from the network node, they start accessing the sites. They copy the websites content, format, graphics, files, and links. Using this information, the construction node builds doppelganger extremists’ websites. All website created should be independent sites, with only passing similarities with other existing websites. At no time will the construction node hijack an existing extremist website as this could cause distrust in the target audience. The construction node forwarded all created sites to the network node. The members of the network node endorse these new websites with their contacts. The members of construction node remove all websites the network node marked and any sites they created from the list. Afterwards, the construction node forwards the list to the demolition node.

Phase Four:

After receiving the list from the construction node, the demolition node systematically begins a process of attacking every site on the list. These attacks can be simple such as contacting the sites service provider to protest the site to try to get the site removed. They can also use more sophisticated attacks such as denial of service attacks, hijacking a website, Structured Query Language (SQL) injections, Cross Site Scripting cookie stealing, JavaScript injections, and other hacking methods. Depending on where the host server is located, it may not be politically feasible to attack some sites directly. In these cases, the demolition node could post the extremists’ URLs on internet chat rooms and blogs in the hope that private citizens and/or groups can bring down the sites...

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Phase Five:

The purpose of phase five is to change the message....

Phase Six:

Going back to math modeling, by day 1,032 virtually all of the extremists’ websites could potentially be eliminated. At this time, the construction node would stop making new websites. The demolition node will continue to attack any identified Islamic extremists’ sites. Additionally, the demolition node will start to shut down construction node sites at the same rate they were attacking the extremists websites...The demolition node will continue to attack any extremists’ website that makes it on the list.

Phase Seven:

During this phase, the construction node will develop content rich Darknet environments. As stated earlier, a Darknet is a virtual private network where users connect only to people they trust. These Darknet environments will offers e-mail, file sharing, chat, instant messenger, and streaming video services. Once a Darknet is created, the construction node will send the URL to the network node.
The members of network node will pick a connector with which they have developed a strong trust relationship, and invite that connector to become a member of the Darknet...If the connector likes the website, then he may chose to invite others. On the other hand, if he does not like the website, then the network node will have to start over with a new connector. Anyone invited to join the network will go through the same process as the connector. Using small-world theory, the network node can have extremists build a detailed map of their virtual social network...
As people join the Darknet, a computer program constructs a social network map showing the connections between the individuals and people that invited them to
join the network. The program also updates the map whenever users send e-mails from their Darknet e-mail account, and chat with other Darknet users. Additionally, the Darknet runs IP and e-mail tracking software against all users. This software provides geographical locations for the users IP addresses and e-mail. In addition, the software provides contact information on the person that owns the IP address, and contact information on the person’s host service provider. The social network map incorporates all of this information. The map can be used to identify geographical clusters within the network, links between clusters, and vital network hubs that can be targeted for human intelligence surveillance.

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MartinL
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Unread post by MartinL »

Their treacherous behavior towards humanity makes me puke...

Thanks for making me sick Oz...
simonshack
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Unread post by simonshack »

NOTE: THIS POST IS BY MEMBER FBENARIO WHO ASKED THE ADMINS TO POST IT OVER HERE. I KINDLY OBLIGE. (simon shack)



This new CIA-funded (In-Q-Tel) data mining company/process sounds like it's designed to accomplish some form of cyber-herding, as described in yesterday's thread.

Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring

The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time -- and says it uses that information to predict the future.

The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents -- both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.”

The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online “momentum” for any given event.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07 ... oogle-cia/

And from Recorded Future's own website:

Recorded Future's linguistics and statistics algorithms extract time-related information and through temporal reasoning helps users understand relationships between entities and events over time, to form the world's first temporal analytics engine. Our customers include some of the most advanced financial institutions and leading government agencies in the world.

The Recorded Future team includes computer scientists, statisticians, and linguists with deep domain expertise in areas such as intelligence and quantitative finance.

https://www.recordedfuture.com/about.html

I asked my best friend, one of the very few people I trust, who works in network security for an exceedingly large institution, whether cyber herding is a threat to this forum. He thought not, but he did suggest that Simon have complete mirror images of this forum saved and updated daily on multiple servers in various countries, so that if we get shut down, a mirror could be set up nearly instantly with no loss of posts/historical work.

Admins: You are welcome to move this post to the other thread on cyber herding, and I would love to have the appropriate status to post there.

fbenario
http://www.septemberclues.org
simonshack
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Unread post by simonshack »

fbenario 4 Jul 29 2010, 07:23 PM wrote: He thought not, but he did suggest that Simon have complete mirror images of this forum saved and updated daily on multiple servers in various countries, so that if we get shut down, a mirror could be set up nearly instantly with no loss of posts/historical work.
I'd warmly appreciate help with that.
Anyone willing to offer help, please contact me by pm (click on my screen name and select "personal message".)

:)
http://www.septemberclues.org
ozzybinoswald
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Unread post by ozzybinoswald »

fbenario 4 Jul 29 2010, 08:23 PM wrote: I asked my best friend, one of the very few people I trust, who works in network security for an exceedingly large institution, whether cyber herding is a threat to this forum. He thought not
And how could your friend possibly come to this conclusion?


*edit: fbenario responds:
I have no idea. The only reason I give him any credibility on this is because he is the person who first convinced me, years ago, to look into whether 9/11 was an inside job, and he has made clear to me in the past that he is very glad Simon and Hoi have done their research.

I say there's no possible way anybody can make this statement.

And aside from cyber-herding as strictly delineated by this research paper, my intention was to allow the forum to extract the double-talking doppelganger potentialities - which are entirely possible and already an established fact.
fred
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Unread post by fred »

"It boggles my mind that these people are, day after day, churning out those cretinous stories to perpetuate the fable. What a dreary job it must be..." SimonShack wrote this about the moon landing hoax.

The actual "event" hoax videos themselves are really the tip of the iceberg. The real work and investment (for the perps) is in all of the follow-on activities which continue for decades. We had 106 minutes of 9/11 news simulation video, but countless hours of bogus documentaries, made-for-TV specials like the Naudet movie, 9/11 Hotel, etc. Then on top of that we have all of the fake truth sites, daily fake stories for the papers with a 9/11 twist.

The follow-on operation to manipulate public opinion is probably 100 times the size of the initial "shock and awe" presentation, which caught most folks by surprise.
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