More HBGary Federal Fallout: The Government Wants To Buy Software To Fake Online Grassroots Social Media Campaigns

from the ipropaganda dept

The latest in the long line of revelations from the HBGary Federal email leak, is that HBGary Federal wanted to create software that could make it easy for staffers to create and maintain a massive number of fake online social network personas, allowing them to control virtual armies of totally fake people, whose only mission is to spy on others and spew paid-for propaganda. But, what's even more amazing is that not only did the emails reveal HBGary Federal employees talking about building a platform for letting people more easily manage an army of fake personas, but that the US government put out a request for exactly that kind of software last June, with its request for "Persona Management Software."

Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. 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. The service includes a user friendly application environment to maximize the user's situational awareness by displaying real-time local information.

The request appears to come from the Air Force, and the idea is to use such a tool in Afghanistan and Iraq... but if the government has such tools, is it really that big of a stretch to see them using them in other contexts as well? While I do wonder how effective such a tool really is, the idea that it can pretty successfully build up "friends" using social media, and then use those for propaganda purposes seems just wrong. It seems that even the folks at HBGary Federal were somewhat perplexed by this government opportunity, with one employee sending around an email that said, simply: "WTF Dude?" while someone else questioned whether it could really be serious.

Of course, once again we're seeing HBGary Federal in the middle of a plot that sounds like the script of a bad movie. Still, the question remains: are these kinds of actions par for the course, or did HBGary Federal's boss spend way too much time watching crazy SciFi movies and using them for inspiration?

Filed Under: fake profiles, falsification, government, social networks, spying
Companies: hbgary federal

Careful With That Fake Social Networking Profile; If You 'Personate' Someone, You Can Go To Jail

from the careful-who-you-mock dept

We've seen numerous lawsuits involving schools punishing students for setting up fake social networking profiles of principals or teachers. However, could setting up a fake profile actually be a criminal offense that gets you sent to jail? Evan Brown has the news of how a California appeals court has ruled that a guy who set up a fake MySpace profile of his former pastor can stand trial for the crime of "personation." Apparently, in California, it's illegal to (a) assume the persona of someone else and then (b) do something while pretending to be that person that could get that person into legal trouble. So, it's not just setting up the profile that gets you in trouble, but then doing something with the profile (in this case, the guy suggested the pastor used drugs and was gay).

Filed Under: fake profiles, personate, pretending
Companies: myspace

Texas Politicians Want To Make It A Felony To Create Intimidating Fake Online Profiles

from the if-you-intimidate,-please-be-real dept

The latest in a long line of questionable "cyberbullying" legislation has shown up in Texas, where the legislature has approved a bill that would make it a felony to create a fake social networking profile with intent to "harm, defraud, intimidate, or threaten" anyone. Of course, that seems rather broad. Oddly, the article doesn't mention the Lori Drew case (Update: actually, it does mention Lori Drew at the bottom... but says this law wouldn't apply, because it only applies to fake profiles of "real people"), though, it does mention the Tony La Russa/Twitter legal battle, even though it's difficult to think any court would rule a parody profile as being with intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten. Of course, even if the bill is signed into law, Eric Goldman notes that it would likely have trouble surviving much of a challenge, pointing out the oddity of singling out "social networking sites" and (more importantly) the fact that any such law would likely ban all sorts of protected free speech. Still, "anti-cyberbullying" laws are all the rage these days, and politicians want to make sure they can tell constituents that they're out there "protecting the children," so expect to see plenty more of this type of legislation.

Filed Under: bullying, cyberbullying, fake profiles, profiles, regulations, social networks, texas