Corporate- & Gang-stalking

[Naga_Fireball]

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/groupsta ... ug05.shtml

Group Stalking

Group stalking is a group effort directed against a targeted individual in order to psychologically torture and demoralize the victim.

People who have been targeted for psychotronic (electronic) torture are often also the victim of "street theater" and group stalking. A group of perpetrators act as a "team" to harass the target, but in subtle ways so as not to tip off passersby. A team member will get behind the victim in a grocery line, for instance, and say or do something that is disconcerting to the victim, but not so obvious that other people in the line can easily notice what is taking place.

Team members will try to interfere with the victim in making new friends or create suspicions with their landlord or their neighbors, the mail carrier, etc. Perpetrators will move in next door to the victim or surround him on all sides as his "neighbors." There seems to be no limit to the amount of money and "team" members available to make the victim's life a daily ordeal. People in law enforcement are often involved with this activity either as perpetrators themselves or enablers. The idea is to make the target feel isolated and deprived in order to produce despondency and perhaps suicide.

Whistle blowers, ex-cult members, corruption exposers in law enforcement, former government workers, former employees of certain corporations, trouble makers at universities, researchers or writers who get too close to sensitive topics are the type of people usually targeted, but some victims have no idea why they've been targeted.

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm ... w/1002/923

Corporate Cyberstalking: An Invitation to Build Theory by Paul Bocij

Cyberstalking describes a relatively new form of stalking behaviour where technology is used as the medium of harassment. The term corporate cyberstalking is often used to describe incidents that involve organisations, such as companies and government departments.

This paper uses a number of case studies in order to propose a typology of corporate cyberstalking. It is suggested that incidents involving corporate cyberstalking can be divided into two broad groups, depending on whether or not the organisation acts as a stalker or as a victim.

Examining the motivations behind corporate cyberstalking allows these groups to be subdidvided further. The motives behind corporate cyberstalking can range from a desire for revenge against an employer to cyberterrorism. The paper also briefly discusses definitions of stalking and cyberstalking, concluding with a revised definition of cyberstalking that is more in keeping with the material discussed.

It is also worth pointing out that organisations may sometimes hold some of the responsibility for incidents where company resources are directed towards harassing others. This is because it can be argued that organisations have a duty to ensure that resources are used appropriately. Even when legislation does not impose such a duty, it seems difficult to claim that companies have no professional or moral responsibility to protect the public. Of course, there are also very sound business reasons to ensure that organisational resources are not abused in the ways described here.

It can be argued that some organisations use cyberstalking as a way of controlling some of the information posted to the Internet. As an example, recent years have seen many companies use SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) to prevent individuals from publishing various kinds information on the Internet, such as complaints. The Civil Liberties Monitoring Project suggests that SLAPPs can be used "... to intimidate activists into silence by filing meritless lawsuits against them ... for such torts as slander or intentional interference with business advantage" (Kirk, 1998). Some well-known cases regarding SLAPPs include the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and its support of a parody concerning a favourite children's character named BarneyTM [6], Carla Virga and Terminix [7], and some of the numerous disputes concerning Scientology [8].

Terrorist Gang Stalking

http://starfishgirl.org/page.php?id=119

Gang stalking enjoys a long and sordid history. It was a part of the KKK’s infamous lynching campaign that lasted well into the the twentieth century, was called Jew Baiting prior to the Holocaust, was perfected by the East German secret police who were called the Stasi, was called "Rat F'ing" by the Nixon administration, and has also been known as Blacklisting, McCarthyism, The Red Scare, Cause Stalking, Mobbing, Stalking By Proxy, and The Politics of Personal Destruction.

Stalker 4People ranging from activists (democrat and republican) to whistle blowers to women who have dared to break up with abusive partners are being targeted. Terrorist Gang Stalking is a form of abuse designed to control, intimidate, and ultimately destroy.

Case 4: (Unwitting) A Serial Cyberstalker

A detailed account of the following case study is provided by Bocij, Bocij and McFarlane (in press).

Mr. Smith harassed a number of women via e-mail and Internet chat rooms. Victims would be selected by searching the personal profiles that many people submit to various services, such as ICQ. Mr Smith appeared to select victims who were single and lived relatively close to him.

Mr. Smith adopted several distinct identities when communicating with his victims. These identities would be used to minimise the possibility of being caught once he began to conduct a sustained campaign of harassment against his victims. This harassment would take a number of different forms, including sending abusive e-mail messages, placing surveillance software on the victim's computer, following the victim and making threats that implied he would assault the victim in her own home.

Mr. Smith was eventually caught when he deviated from his usual pattern of behaviour and selected a married woman as a victim. The woman's husband was a consultant with expertise in computer security. This man was able to trace Mr. Smith's name, address and place of employment. It was found that Mr. Smith was a network administrator for a relatively large local company and had been using his employer's facilities in order to stalk his victims. This included:

making use of company software packages, such as route planning software and a database containing a register of electors, to find personal information about victims;
establishing numerous false e-mail accounts; and,
intercepting e-mail messages meant for senior management, deleting them and then impersonating managers in replies.

Once notified of Mr. Smith's activities, senior management were quick to offer a guarantee that the matter would be dealt with. However, it does not appear that the police were informed of Mr. Smith's actions and he does not appear to have been dismissed from his post.

Case 6: (Competitive) Microsoft and the Halloween papers

The Web site of the Open Source Initiative describes a series of documents produced by Microsoft employees that outline how the company planned to deal with competition from open source software, such as Linux (an operating system) and Mozilla (a Web browser) [16]. The first document was named "Halloween" because of the date it was leaked. Over a period of a year, six Halloween documents were leaked, each containing information that was embarrassing to Microsoft for one reason or another.

The first memorandum was produced by a Microsoft software engineer. This document suggested that Microsoft could deal with competition from open source software (OSS) by subverting common standards. The engineer, Vinod Valloppillil, stated in his report "By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market" (Ricciuti, 1998). The memo also stated that Microsoft's usual FUD tactic would be unlikely to work in the case of products like Linux. FUD stands for "fear, uncertainty and doubt".

The last of the Halloween documents dragged the highly respected Gartner group into the argument. According to the Open Source Initiative, Gartner published a series of five articles that criticised Linux and predicted that its popularity would decline once Windows 2000 became more established. The press responded to these reports by publishing numerous articles suggesting that Linux was doomed to failure. However, Eric Raymond of the Open Source Initiative claims that there is evidence to show that Microsoft wrote and published the articles on Gartner's Web site.

If one accepts the allegations made by the Open Source Initiative, then Microsoft were responsible for harassing the developers of Linux and other open source software for more than a year.

http://fightgangstalking.com/tactics-for-fighting-back/

1. Shine a light on the cockroaches.



Organized stalking is a manifestation of the view that intelligence and law enforcement agencies, their corporate cronies, and the military-industrial complex should have supremacy over all other elements of American government.

Even if you think that is a desirable power structure for national security reasons, it is impossible to deny that it grossly violates core principles of the U.S. Constitution. Organized stalking also violates stalking prohibitions under federal law and state laws in all fifty states.

One of the implications of that is that the perpetrators need to keep it a secret.

This is a primary difference between the use of organized stalking as a domestic counterintelligence strategy in America today and its use by the Stasi (state police) in communist East Germany: in the U.S. it is illegal.

This was true during the original version of Cointelpro also – and was a primary reason the U.S. Senate conducted its Church Committee investigations after the FBI’s activities were exposed by civilian activists.

Many of the tactics and strategies employed by the Stasi were virtually identical to those now used (and largely out-sourced apparently) by the FBI and other agencies in the U.S.

In East Germany however, the Stasi wanted citizens to be aware that their society was infested with spies because it furthered the communist party’s goal of political control. In the U.S., such a public awareness would trigger a backlash against the abuse of power by the government and its cronies, so it is kept under the radar.

So the Achilles’ heel of gang stalking is exposure.

From the perspective of intelligence and law enforcement agencies and corporations which use organized stalking as a secret illegal weapon for subversion, the perfect operation is one in which the target becomes progressively isolated, impoverished, emotionally degraded, and eventually commits suicide. That does happen in some cases – the most prominent example being the FBI’s psychological torture of actress and political activist Jean Seberg.

Seberg’s case was tactically successful in the short term (they destroyed her emotionally), but it was ultimately a strategic failure for the FBI because their crimes against her ended up on the front pages of national newspapers.

Without question, the vast majority of Americans do not want to live in a society infested with spies working for a Stasi-type government. To the extent that you can educate your fellow citizens about the creepy and illegal stalking activities of private security mercenaries, vigilantes, and corrupt law enforcement officers, they will be on your side.

Targets of organized stalking must wage a two-front war: we must act locally to expose the harassment to neighbors and others, and we must expose what is happening on a national level as well. Both objectives are critical.

The Streisand Effect

One of the reasons that most of the tactics listed here do not involve much risk for the targeted individual is that gang stalking perps have to worry about the following phenomenon.

The “Streisand Effect” is when an effort to suppress information inadvertently causes an increase in attention to the information.

Lower-level perpetrators of the direct face-to-face harassment involved in organized stalking almost always interact with the targeted individual in a tightly scripted way. The perpetrator is directed to make a specific comment and/or perform a specific action based upon the particular victim and circumstances.

This is done for a very good reason. It allows the handlers to control the harassment in ways which follow a thoroughly tested playbook that has been developed and honed over years of psychological operations by the Stasi, the FBI, and other counterintelligence agencies.

Comments are intended to be as creepy and insulting and provocative as possible (and tailored to the individual victim as much as possible) without including any language that might be incriminating or legally objectionable or suspicious in case they are recorded.




Based on my own experience and accounts of other targeted individuals, perps don’t like being photographed when they’re stalking you. Some will be more bothered by it more than others, but none of them will want you to do it.

With the variety of digital cameras available (cell phones, spy cameras, etc.), you can take photos and videos either overtly or covertly. Both have advantages. If you are trying to annoy the perp’s, taking their photo in an obvious way, might be a good method. On the other hand, if you’re trying to document their actions, a covert spy-camera approach might be better.

Of course, it’s unlikely that your photos and videos will have much legal significance. Perps are told to avoid doing and saying things that could be incriminating. They are normally following very specific directions from their handlers – for example, they are told to make a comment which is not explicitly threatening or slanderous, but which makes reference to something they know about you from conducting illegal surveillance.


Also, it might be productive to clearly communicate in various ways – in advance – to any local criminal conspirators (professional and volunteer) your willingness to defend yourself.



Distributing flyers is probably the single most powerful tactic for fighting back against America’s Stasi goon squads. Mailing flyers anonymously – or placing them on walkways or doorsteps of residences – is a legal, simple, cheap, and very effective way to expose the crime of organized stalking. Counterintelligence perps do not have a good way to suppress this particular avenue of communication. Also, this tactic circumvents the problem of cowardice and laziness in the mainstream corporate news media because it exposes the information directly to the public.




Direct interactions with targeted individuals are rarely initiated by law enforcement officers – especially officials who identify themselves as such. Out-sourced overt stalking by agencies and corporations is much more common. Nevertheless, you should be aware of your legal rights in case such encounters occur.

http://www.utne.com/politics/corporate- ... tions.aspx

Corporate Spooks: Private Security Contractors Infiltrate Social Justice Organizations Spies might miss the Cold War, but they’re getting plenty of work tracking activists
by Paul Demko
January-February 2009

Cara Schaffer just wanted to improve the lives of vegetable pickers in the fields of south Florida. In March the idealistic college student signed up to volunteer for the Student/Farmworker Alliance, a group that works closely with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to fight for better wages.

Schaffer’s fellow activists, however, quickly became suspicious of the new recruit’s excessive enthusiasm, particularly her keen desire to take part in national conference calls that plotted strategy. So they punched her name into an Internet search engine and discovered that Schaffer wasn’t a college student at all. She was the owner of Diplomatic Tactical Services, a private security and espionage firm based in Jupiter, Florida.

Schaffer’s firm had been hired by Burger King, which was locked in a dispute with the coalition over tomato pickers’ wages. In the aftermath of her outing as a corporate mole, two of the burger empire’s executives were fired and the company agreed to meet the workers’ demands.

While activists easily sussed out Schaffer’s rather buffoonish infiltration attempt, highly professional corporate espionage has become a galling reality for many activist groups. In the wake of the Cold War, former spies from the CIA, FBI, Britain’s MI5 and MI6—even the KGB—are increasingly plying their dark arts for private firms with cinematically sinister names such as Diligence, Control Risks, and Kroll.

“The big change in recent years has been the huge growth in these companies,” Annie Machon, a former MI5 agent, told the London-based New Statesman (Aug. 11, 2008). “Where before it was a handful of private detective agencies, now there are hundreds of multinational security organizations, which operate with less regulation than the spooks themselves.”


Perhaps the most disturbing entry in the lucrative corporate espionage field is the private-military firm Blackwater Worldwide (best known for gunning down 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007). Led by J. Cofer Black, who spent 28 years working for the CIA, Blackwater launched the Orwellian-named Total Intelligence Solutions in February 2007. The firm is stacked with former high-ranking officials from the FBI and the U.S. State Department, promising clients around the globe, including foreign governments, unprecedented access to power brokers in Washington. “It is not difficult to imagine clients feeling as though they are essentially hiring the U.S. government to serve their own interests,” the Nation reports (June 23, 2008).

While spying on idealistic do-gooders is undoubtedly a minuscule portion of these firms’ activities, businesses have sometimes taken elaborate steps to acquire the inside dope on protest plans, acts of civil disobedience, and lobbying agendas. This fixation suggests that the regrettably groomed rabble demonstrating outside your local weapons-manufacturing plant might actually be causing some anxiety in corporate boardrooms.

[Naga_Fireball]

Glen Greenwald gives some good advice on why Trolls and Shills do what they do:

Glenn Greenwald

Feb. 24 2014, 3:25 p.m.

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.

Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”

By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:



Other tactics aimed at individuals are listed here, under the revealing title “discredit a target”:



Then there are the tactics used to destroy companies the agency targets:



GCHQ describes the purpose of JTRIG in starkly clear terms: “using online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world,” including “information ops (influence or disruption).”



Critically, the “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law enforcement” against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends.

The title page of one of these documents reflects the agency’s own awareness that it is “pushing the boundaries” by using “cyber offensive” techniques against people who have nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats, and indeed, centrally involves law enforcement agents who investigate ordinary crimes:



No matter your views on Anonymous, “hacktivists” or garden-variety criminals, it is not difficult to see how dangerous it is to have secret government agencies being able to target any individuals they want – who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes – with these sorts of online, deception-based tactics of reputation destruction and disruption. There is a strong argument to make, as Jay Leiderman demonstrated in the Guardian in the context of the Paypal 14 hacktivist persecution, that the “denial of service” tactics used by hacktivists result in (at most) trivial damage (far less than the cyber-warfare tactics favored by the US and UK) and are far more akin to the type of political protest protected by the First Amendment.

The broader point is that, far beyond hacktivists, these surveillance agencies have vested themselves with the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats. As Anonymous expert Gabriella Coleman of McGill University told me, “targeting Anonymous and hacktivists amounts to targeting citizens for expressing their political beliefs, resulting in the stifling of legitimate dissent.” Pointing to this study she published, Professor Coleman vehemently contested the assertion that “there is anything terrorist/violent in their actions.”

Government plans to monitor and influence internet communications, and covertly infiltrate online communities in order to sow dissension and disseminate false information, have long been the source of speculation. Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, a close Obama adviser and the White House’s former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote a controversial paper in 2008 proposing that the US government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups.

Sunstein also proposed sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups” which spread what he views as false and damaging “conspiracy theories” about the government. Ironically, the very same Sunstein was recently named by Obama to serve as a member of the NSA review panel created by the White House, one that – while disputing key NSA claims – proceeded to propose many cosmetic reforms to the agency’s powers (most of which were ignored by the President who appointed them).

But these GCHQ documents are the first to prove that a major western government is using some of the most controversial techniques to disseminate deception online and harm the reputations of targets. Under the tactics they use, the state is deliberately spreading lies on the internet about whichever individuals it targets, including the use of what GCHQ itself calls “false flag operations” and emails to people’s families and friends. Who would possibly trust a government to exercise these powers at all, let alone do so in secret, with virtually no oversight, and outside of any cognizable legal framework?

Then there is the use of psychology and other social sciences to not only understand, but shape and control, how online activism and discourse unfolds. Today’s newly published document touts the work of GCHQ’s “Human Science Operations Cell,” devoted to “online human intelligence” and “strategic influence and disruption”:

Shouldn't feel too bad about calling a spade a spade,
these "human beings" have gone really too far, in their spying and immature "snickering" --
refer to the thread about Unit 9900 for more information on who is targeted and why.

It's really not beyond the pale to imagine gifted & talented children are targeted for life,
by these half-persons who couldn't survive in the real world without immoral government support.

It's not the sense of justice to which the government appeals, it's to greed.

[Naga_Fireball]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-2 ... eive-and-d

The Conspiracy Theory Is True: Agents Infiltrate Websites Intending To "Manipulate, Deceive, And Destroy Reputations"
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/25/2014 00:35 -0400

In the annals of internet conspiracy theories, none is more pervasive than the one speculating paid government plants infiltrate websites, social network sites, and comment sections with an intent to sow discord, troll, and generally manipulate, deceive and destroy reputations. Guess what: it was all true.



And this time we have a pretty slideshow of formerly confidential data prepared by the UK NSA equivalent, the GCHQ, to confirm it, and Edward Snowden to thank for disclosing it. The messenger in this case is Glenn Greenwald, who has released the data in an article in his new website, firstlook.org, which he summarizes as follows: "by publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself." Call it Stasi for "Generation Internet."

Greenwald's latest revelation focuses on GCHQ’s previously secret unit, the JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group).

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140 ... ions.shtml

New Snowden Doc Reveals How GCHQ/NSA Use The Internet To 'Manipulate, Deceive And Destroy Reputations'
from the and-not-just-terrorists dept


(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Feb 25th 2014 8:35am
A few weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald, while working with NBC News, revealed some details of a GCHQ presentation concerning how the surveillance organization had a "dirty tricks" group known as JTRIG -- the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. Now, over at The Intercept, he's revealed the entire presentation and highlighted more details about how JTRIG would seek to infiltrate different groups online and destroy people's reputations -- going way, way, way beyond just targeting terrorist groups and threats to national security.

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

[Naga_Fireball]

There was an absolutely terrible shill on PA that many many many intelligent users fell for.
He set honeypots for popular users then discredited them, and was able to replace them:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill

A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization.

Shill typically refers to someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that they are an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) for whom they are secretly working. The person or group who hires the shill is using crowd psychology to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed). Shills are often employed by professional marketing campaigns. "Plant" and "stooge" more commonly refer to any person who is secretly in league with another person or organization while pretending to be neutral or actually a part of the organization he is planted in, such as a magician's audience, a political party, or an intelligence organization (see double agent).[citation needed]

Shilling is illegal in many circumstances and in many jurisdictions[1] because of the potential for fraud and damage; however, if a shill does not place uninformed parties at a risk of loss, but merely generates "buzz," the shill's actions may be legal. For example, a person planted in an audience to laugh and applaud when desired (see claque), or to participate in on-stage activities as a "random member of the audience," is a type of legal shill.[citation needed]

Shill can also be used pejoratively to describe a critic who appears either all-too-eager to heap glowing praise upon mediocre offerings, or who acts as an apologist for glaring flaws. In this sense, such a critic would be an indirect shill for the industry at large, because said critic's income is tied to the prosperity of the industry.[citation needed]

Examples would be, praising the government's handling of the Ebola crisis,
or praising the questionable motives of CERN.

On the negative side of the coin, we had this same user attempt to censor a thread about HAARP.
The same year HAARP's contract holder changed.

Those are all functions easily filled by a shill/troll/paid agent who is working from a script,
and looking for opportunities in the forum conversation to do damage to truth.

[Naga_Fireball]

WHEN a SHILL tried to go public with his story on ATS,
ATS moved his thread to HOAX section, and tried to sue the blogger who copied the story onto his news site.
The blogger fought back and ATS failed to respond, so on this basis the blogger preserved the article:

http://consciouslifenews.com/paid-inter ... e/1147073/

I Was a Paid Internet Shill



By Ex-Shill, Above Top Secret

I am writing here to come out of the closet as a paid shill. For a little over six months, I was paid to spread disinformation and argue political points on the Internet. This site, ATS, was NOT one that I was assigned to post on, although other people in the same organization were paid to be here, and I assume they still walk among you. But more on this later.

I quit this job in the latter part of 2011, because I became disgusted with it, and with myself. I realized I couldn’t look myself in the mirror anymore. If this confession triggers some kind of retribution against me, so be it. Part of being a real man in this world is having real values that you stand up for, no matter what the consequences.

My story begins in early 2011. I had been out of work for almost a year after losing my last job in tech support. Increasingly desperate and despondent, I jumped at the chance when a former co-worker called me up and said she had a possible lead for me. “It is an unusual job, and one that requires secrecy. But the pay is good. And I know you are a good writer, so its something you are suited for.” (Writing has always been a hobby for me).

She gave me only a phone-number and an address, in one of the seedier parts of San Francisco, where I live. intrigued, I asked her for the company’s URL and some more info. She laughed. “They don’t have a website. Or even a name. You’ll see. Just tell them I referred you.” Yes, it sounded suspicious, but long-term joblessness breeds desperation, and desperation has a funny way of overlooking the suspicious when it comes to putting food on the table.

The next day, I arrived at the address – the third floor in a crumbling building. The appearance of the place did not inspire confidence. After walking down a long, filthy linoleum-covered corridor lit by dimly-flickering halogen, I came to the entrance of the office itself: a crudely battered metal door with a sign that said “United Amalgamated Industries, Inc.”

I later learned that this “company” changed its name almost monthly, always using bland names like that which gave no strong impression of what the company actually does. Not too hopeful, I went inside. The interior was equally shabby. There were a few long tables with folding chairs, at which about a dozen people were tapping away on old, beat-up computers. There were no decorations or ornaments of any type: not even the standard-issue office fica trees or plastic ferns. What a dump. Well, beggars can’t be choosers.

The manager, a balding man in his late forties, rose from the only stand-alone desk in the room and came forward with an easy smile. “You must be Chris. Yvette [my ex-co-worker] told me you’d be coming.” [Not our real names]. “Welcome. Let me tell you a little about what we do.” No interview, nothing. I later learned they took people based solely on referral, and that the people making the referrals, like my ex-colleague Yvette, were trained to pick out candidates based on several factors including ability to keep one’s mouth shut, basic writing skills, and desperation for work.

We sat down at his desk and he began by asking me a few questions about myself and my background, including my political views (which were basically non-existent). Then he began to explain the job. “We work on influencing people’s opinions here,” is how he described it. The company’s clients paid them to post on Internet message boards and popular chartrooms, as well as in gaming forums and social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Who were these clients? “Oh, various people,” he said vaguely. “Sometimes private companies, sometimes political groups.”

Satisfied that my political views were not strong, he said I would be assigned to political work. “The best people for this type of job are people like you, without strong views,” he said with a laugh. “It might seem counterintuitive, but actually we’ve found that to be the case.” Well, OK. Fine. As long as it comes with a steady paycheck, I’d believe whatever they wanted me to believe, as the guy in Ghostbusters said.

After discussing pay (which was much better than I’d hoped) and a few other details, he then went over the need for absolute privacy and secrecy. “You can’t tell anyone what we do here. Not your wife, not your dog.” (I have neither, as it happens.) “We’ll give you a cover story and even a phone number and a fake website you can use. You will have to tell people you are a consultant. Since your background is in tech support, that will be your cover job. Is this going to be a problem for you?” I assured him it would not. “Well, OK. Shall we get started?”
“The

“Right now?” I asked, a bit taken aback.

“No time like the present!” he said with a hearty laugh.

The rest of the day was taken up with training. Another staff member, a no-nonsense woman in her thirties, was to be my trainer, and training would only last two days. “You seem like a bright guy, you’ll get the hang of it pretty fast, I think,” she said. And indeed, the job was easier than I’d imagined. My task was simple: I would be assigned to four different websites, with the goal of entering certain discussions and promoting a certain view. I learned later that some of the personnel were assigned to internet message boards (like me), while others worked on Facebook or chatrooms. It seems these three types of media each have different strategy for shilling, and each shill concentrates on one of the three in particular.

My task? “To support Israel and counter anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic posters.” Fine with me. I had no opinions one way or another about Israel, and who likes anti-Semites and Nazis? Not me, anyway. But I didn’t know too much about the topic. “That’s OK,” she said. “You’ll pick it up as you go along. For the most part, at first, you will be doing what we call “meme-patrol.” This is pretty easy. Later if you show promise, we’ll train you for more complex arguments, where more in-depth knowledge is necessary.”

She handed me two binders with sheets enclosed in limp plastic. The first was labeled simply “Israel” in magic-marker on the cover, and it had two sections .The first section contained basic background info on the topic. I would have to read and memorize some of this, as time went on. It had internet links for further reading, essays and talking points, and excerpts from some history books. The second, and larger, section was called “Strat” (short for “strategy”) with long lists of “dialogue pairs.” These were specific responses to specific postings.

If a poster wrote something close to “X,” we were supposed to respond with something close to “Y.” “You have to mix it up a bit, though,” said my trainer. “Otherwise it gets too obvious. Learn to use a thesaurus.” This section also contained a number of hints for de-railing conversations that went too far away from what we were attempting. These strategies included various forms of personal attacks, complaining to the forum moderators, smearing the characters of our opponents, using images and icons effectively, and even dragging the tone of the conversation down with sexual innuendo, links to pornography, or other such things. “Sometimes we have to fight dirty,” or trainer told us. “Our opponents don’t hesitate to, so we can’t either.”

The second binder was smaller, and it contained information specific to the web sites I would be assigned to. The sites I would work were: Godlike Productions, Lunatic Outpost, CNN news, Yahoo News, and a handful of smaller sites that rotated depending on need. As stated, I was NOT assigned to work ATS (although others in my group were), which is part of the reason I am posting this here, rather than elsewhere. I wanted to post this on Godlike Productions at first, but they have banned me from even viewing that site for some reason (perhaps they are onto me?). But if somebody connected with this site can get the message to them, I think they should know about it, because that was the site I spent a good 70% of my time working on.

The site-specific info in the second binder included a brief history each site, including recent flame-wars, as well as info on what to avoid on each site so as not to get banned. It also had quite detailed info on the moderators and the most popular regged posters on each site: location (if known), personality type, topics of interest, background sketch, and even some notes on how to “push the psychological buttons” of different posters. Although I didn’t work for ATS, I did see they had a lot of info on your so-called “WATS” posters here (the ones with gold borders around their edges). “Focus on the popular posters,” my trainer told me. “These are the influential ones. Each of these is worth 50 to 100 of the lesser known names.”

Each popular poster was classified as “hostile,” “friendly,” or “indifferent” to my goal. We were supposed to cultivate friendship with the friendly posters as well as the mods (basically, by brownnosing and sucking up), and there were even notes on strategies for dealing with specific hostile posters. The info was pretty detailed, but not perfect in every case. “If you can convert one of the hostile posters from the enemy side to our side, you get a nice bonus. But this doesn’t happen too often, sadly. So mostly you’ll be attacking them and trying to smear them.”

At first, like I said, my job was “meme-patrol.” This was pretty simple and repetitive; it involved countering memes and introducing new memes, and didn’t demand much in-depth knowledge of the subject. Mostly just repetitive posting based on the dialogue pairs in the “Strat” section of the first binder. A lot of my job was de-railing and spamming threads that didn’t go our way, or making accusations of racism and anti-Semitism. Sometimes I had to simply lie and claim a poster said something or did something “in another thread” they really hadn’t said or done I felt bad about this…but in the end I felt worse about the possibility of losing the first job I’d been able to get since losing my “real” job.

The funny thing was, although I started the job with no strong opinions or political views, after a few weeks of this I became very emotionally wedded to the pro-Israel ideas I was pushing. There must be some psychological factor at work…a good salesman learns to honestly love the products he’s selling, I guess. It wasn’t long before my responses became fiery and passionate, and I began to learn more about the topic on my own. “This is a good sign,” my trainer told me. “It means you are ready for the next step: complex debate.”

The “complex debate” part of the job involved a fair amount of additional training, including memorizing more specific information about the specific posters (friendly and hostile) I’d be sparring with. Here, too, there were scripts and suggested lines of argument, but we were given more freedom. There were a lot of details to this more advanced stage of the job – everything from how to select the right avatar to how to use “demotivationals” (humorous images with black borders that one finds floating around the web). Even the proper use of images of cats was discussed. Sometimes we used faked or photo-shopped images or doctored news reports (something else that bothered me).

I was also given the job of tying to find new recruits, people “like me” who had the personality type, ability to keep a secret, basic writing/thinking skills, and desperation necessary to sign on a shill. I was less successful at this part of the job, though, and I couldn’t find another in the time I was there.

After a while of doing this, I started to feel bad. Not because of the views I was pushing (as I said, I was first apolitical, then pro-Israel), but because of the dishonesty involved. If my arguments were so correct, I wondered, why did we have to do this in the first place? Shouldn’t truth propagate itself naturally, rather than through, well…propaganda? And who was behind this whole operation, anyway? Who was signing my paychecks? The stress of lying to my parents and friends about being a “consultant” was also getting to me. Finally, I said enough was enough. I quit in September 2011. Since then I’ve been working a series of unglamorous temp office jobs for lower pay. But at least I’m not making my living lying and heckling people who come online to express their views and exercise freedom of speech.

A few days ago I happened to be in the same neighborhood and on a whim thought I’d check out the old office. It turns out the operation is gone, having moved on. This, too, I understood, is part of their strategy: Don’t stay in the same place for too long, don’t keep the same name too long, move on after half a year or so. Keeping a low profile, finding new employees through word of mouth: All this is part of the shill way of life. But it is a deceptive way of life, and no matter how noble the goals (I remain pro-Israel, by the way), these sleazy means cannot be justified by the end.

This is my confession. I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether I want to talk more about this, so if I don’t respond to this thread, don’t be angry. But I think you should know: Shills exist. They are real. They walk among you, and they pay special attention to your popular gold-bordered WATS posters. You should be aware of this. What you choose to do with this awareness is up to you.

Yours,

ExShill



Conscious Life News does not implicitly agree with or endorse the views of the individuals expressed in this article, but we do believe that they have something valuable to add to the conversation.

Since then I'm sure the Snowden types have been weeded out.
Leaving only the evil and largely incompetent behind.

[neonblue]

Heh.. Ms Naga-Fireball..

Am leaping in here to say: I'm so pumped to see your prodigous energies and equally 'depthing' posts working so beautifully alongside the rest of us... woohooooo!!!

I was a long time admirer of yours on the other forum, and Blessed the day you turned up here - embraced you are:

[Naga_Fireball]

Heh.. Ms Naga-Fireball..

Am leaping in here to say: I'm so pumped to see your prodigous energies and equally 'depthing' posts working so beautifully alongside the rest of us... woohooooo!!!

I was a long time admirer of yours on the other forum, and Blessed the day you turned up here - embraced you are:

...I made some real embarrassing mistakes over there,
but thank you very much for your unconditional kindness.

A lot of folks are feeling agitated this week - in my region the heat waves have been significant.
Hopefully things will get better soon. I am so looking forward to cooler weather here.

Perhaps what they say about the full moon is true too, har

I feel very blessed to be here in your group, please forgive my nervous energies this month;
some life changes are not easy (especially in this weather!).


wow -- i've been seeing some very amazing artwork here on EE;
That is phenomenally cool .. (could definitely use some time looking at prettier pictures.)

[neonblue]

Ms Fireball...

you should know that you are in commeradere here, with those that take episodes of embarrassment as expedient wounds on the path to TRIUMPH - wink!

[Naga_Fireball]

CNN reports:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/02/americas/ ... =obnetwork

Mexican photojournalist among 5 found shot to death

By Mariano Castillo, CNN

Updated 5:25 PM ET, Sun August 2, 2015


Photojournalist Ruben Espinosa was killed in Mexico on Saturday.

(CNN)A Mexican photojournalist who left the state he worked in because of threats was among five people found shot to death in a Mexico City apartment this weekend, officials and press freedom advocacy groups said.

Ruben Espinosa was a photographer for a number of outlets, including the leading newsweekly Proceso and Agencia Cuartoscuro.

His killing brings to the forefront the duress and danger under which many Mexican journalists work.

Espinosa had left the coastal state of Veracruz last month because he felt threatened. He went to the capital, where he sought refuge, but didn't shy away from doing interviews with other media about what his experiences.

God bless you Ruben Espinosa

[Naga_Fireball]

Once people get into your inner circle (i.e. pretend to be your friend) they start asking for all kinds of information.

~Don't give the email address connected to your social media to other people,
even if they seem friendly or harmless.

~Some programs are able to access your friendslists and make posts on your account,
or worse, make posts on your friends' accounts.

Another reason not to share your email account with people you don't know.

Also

~Don't download applications onto your phone that are sent through unsolicited texts or emails.
~Do request the IP address of any party who is signing up for services using your email and not their own.
~Do file a police report if you suspect someone is using your personal information to impersonate or otherwise inconvenience you.

http://preemploymentdirectory.com/erepo ... y_2013.pdf

The Use of Technology To Stalk and the Workplace
By Maya Raghu


“Mary” met Kenneth Kuban, an employee of the Library of Congress, on a dating website in
2010. Mary ended in the relationship in April 2011, but received numerous daily phone calls
and emails from Kuban for four months, asking her to reconsider. Mary obtained a restraining
order in July 2011. According to an indictment, Kuban then impersonated Mary and posted ads
on Craigslist soliciting sexual encounters. As a result, for over three months strangers from all
over the country came to Mary’s home seeking sex.


Mary reported Kuban’s actions to his employer, the Library of Congress. Pursuant to an
investigation, federal agencies and law enforcement determined that Kuban was posting the
online sex ads during work time from an IP address at the Library of Congress, and that his
email was used to post the ads on Craigslist. Kuban was arrested and charged with stalking,
identification fraud and other crimes.


This incident illustrates behavior that is disturbing and criminal – but sadly, not unusual. It
occurs much more frequently than reports and statistics indicate, and it happens quite often in the
workplace. Today many people spend a substantial amount of time at work, and use work-
provided computers, smartphones and internet access to conduct personal matters. When
employees engage in harassing or threatening behavior or stalking on work time with work
resources, it becomes an employer’s business.

What is Stalking and How Does Technology Play a Role?
Stalking is generally a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a
reasonable person to feel fear. Stalking behavior includes, but is not limited to: following or
spying on a person, waiting at places in order to make unwanted contact with the victim or to
monitor the victim, leaving unwanted items and gifts for the victim, and posting information or
spreading rumors about the victim on the internet, in a public place, or by word of mouth.
Stalking is strongly correlated to sexual assault and domestic violence. Approximately 1 in 6
women (16.2%) and 1 in 19 men (5.2%) in the United States have been victims of stalking.


Nearly three out of four stalking victims knew his or her offender in some capacity and 21.5% of
stalking victims identified their stalker as a former intimate.


Over the last 15 years, the incidence of stalking through the use of technology (or
“cyberstalking” as it is commonly known) has sharply increased. The term refers to the use of
the internet, email, or other telecommunication/electronic technologies to harass or stalk another person.


Perpetrators can use technology by itself to stalk a victim, or in conjunction with an
ongoing pattern of conventional stalking. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Justice
found that the top two forms of stalking behaviors experienced by victims were unwanted phone
calls and messages (66.7% of victims surveyed) and unwanted letters and email (30.7% of
victims surveyed).


Other examples of technology used to stalk include:
•
Email spoofing, whereby the perpetrator sends emails pretending to be the victim
•
Text messaging and sexting (sending sexually explicit text messages and/or photos)
•
Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.); creating social media accounts to
harass, threaten and/or denigrate the victim
7
; impersonating the victim on social media
•
Online impersonation of the victim through a false identity or account to place online sex
ads or solicit sex
•
Use of GPS to track the victim, including placing a GPS device on the victim’s car

https://askleo.com/someone-is-signing-m ... -can-i-do/

http://security.stackexchange.com/quest ... what-to-do

http://petergmcdermott.com/blog/2012/01 ... -concerns/