Exclusive: Military’s ‘persona’ software cost millions, used for ‘classified social media activities’

Most people use social media like Facebook and Twitter to share photos of friends and family, chat with friends and strangers about random and amusing diversions, or follow their favorite websites, bands and television shows.

But what does the US military use those same networks for? Well, we can't tell you: That's "classified," a CENTCOM spokesman recently informed Raw Story.

One use that's confirmed, however, is the manipulation of social media through the use of fake online "personas" managed by the military. Raw Story recently reported that the US Air Force had solicited private sector vendors for something called "persona management software." Such a technology would allow single individuals to command virtual armies of fake, digital "people" across numerous social media portals.

These "personas" were to have detailed, fictionalized backgrounds, to make them believable to outside observers, and a sophisticated identity protection service was to back them up, preventing suspicious readers from uncovering the real person behind the account. They even worked out ways to game geolocating services, so these "personas" could be virtually inserted anywhere in the world, providing ostensibly live commentary on real events, even while the operator was not really present.

When Raw Story first reported on the contract for this software, it was unclear what the Air Force wanted with it or even if it had been acquired. The potential for misuse, however, was abundantly clear.

A fake virtual army of people could be used to help create the impression of consensus opinion in online comment threads, or manipulate social media to the point where valuable stories are suppressed.

Ultimately, this can have the effect of causing a net change to the public's opinions and understanding of key world events.

'Classified social media activities'

According to Commander Bill Speaks, the chief media officer of CENTCOM's digital engagement team, the public cannot know what the military wants with such technology because its applications are secret.

"This contract," he wrote in reference to the Air Force's June 22, 2010 filing, "supports classified social media activities outside the U.S., intended to counter violent extremist ideology and enemy propaganda."

Speaks insisted that he was speaking only on behalf of CENTCOM, not the Air Force "or other branches of the military."

While he did reveal who was awarded the contract in question (PDF), he added that the Air Force, which helps CENTCOM's contracting process out of MacDill, has even other uses for social media that he could not address.

A series of targeted searches for other "persona management software" contracts yielded no results.

Mystery bidder

While data security firm HBGary Federal was among the contract's bidders listed on a government website, the job was ultimately awarded to a firm that did not appear on the FedBizOpps.gov page of interested vendors.

A controversy over the HBGary firm, which recently had its inner-workings dumped onto the Internet by hackers with protest group "Anonymous," was what initially brought the "persona" contract to light.

HBGary, which conspired with Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce to attack WikiLeaks, spy on progressive writers and use malware against progressive organizations, was also revealed to have constructed software eerily similar to what the Air Force sought.

"This contract was awarded to a firm called Ntrepid," Speaks wrote to Raw Story. "In addition to the classified activities this software supports, USCENTCOM, like most military commands, does use social media to inform the public of our activities. I should emphasize that such uses do not employ the kind of technology that was the subject of this contract solicitation."

Ntrepid Corporation, registered out of Los Angeles, bills itself as a privacy and identity protection firm in some job postings, and a national security contractor in others, but its official website was amazingly just one page deep and free of even a single word of description.

In spite of their thin online presence, Speaks said the firm was awarded $2,760,000 to carry out the "persona management" contract.

He added that it was unclear why the contract went to an unlisted bidder, and that he would try to find out and report back.

Update: On Wednesday morning, Speaks issued the following statement: "Federal Business Opportunities is a tool used to advertise Government requirements. When a requirement is posted on the FedBizOpps.gov website, potential offerors can enter their information into the interested vendors section but, they are not required to in order to be eligible to compete. Additionally, an offeror need not have access to the FedBizOpps.gov website in order to compete for Government contracts."

Privacy? Or something else?

Ntrepid's chief technology officer, Lance Cottrell, founded the privacy firm Anonymizer, Inc. in 1995, making him a global leader in identity protection and cryptography. He also runs theprivacyblog.com.

Far from just being involved in privacy efforts, Ntrepid is a player in the national security realm and was invited to give a presentation for the US EUCOM i3T conference, which took place in Berlin last week.

Event organizers described the affair as a series of talks "on the challenges to developing technology, demonstrations of advanced technology pertinent to facilitating and/or enabling security and stability, ways and means of analyzing socio-cultural risks and opportunities, and the operationalization and execution of solutions to mitigate or avail issues with U.S. and multinational partners."

Featured speakers included the US EUCOM director of intelligence, the director of the Air Force Research Labratory and the chief information officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency, among other high-profile names.

While the company is remarkably scarce with information on their website, descriptions of the firm's goals seem to vary depending on their job openings.

One post seeking a "senior QA test engineer," filed with corporate candidate tracking firm Catsone.com, describes Ntrepid as "the global leader in online privacy, anonymity, and identity protection solutions".

But another help wanted ad, seeking an "intelligence analyst" on Appone.com, described Ntrepid as "a leading provider of technology and managed services to national security customers in the areas of cyber operations, analytics, language engineering, and TTL".

Its customers are both public and private sector, the ad said.

A Linked In profile of the company cited them as providers of "software, hardware, and managed services for cyber operations, analytics, linguistics, and surveillance." It had at least 30 employees, according to the business networking site, all located in either San Diego or Washington, DC.

Cottrell himself has advocated on behalf of civil liberties, claiming that widespread Internet surveillance tends to provide no real security benefits.

Efforts to contract both Ntrepid Corporation and Mr. Cottrell did not trigger a response by late Tuesday. A phone number could not be located.

Updated from a prior version after the contract disappeared from a government website.

Source: rawstory.com

The false contrails in the Second world war

About the controversy, concerning the contrails already during the Second world war, we have often seen these photos. They are monochromatic and appear the result of manipulation rather than authentic photographs. If you look carefully each of these images presented by misinformation (see contrailscience.com, Paolo Attivissimo e C.I.C.A.P., just to quote someone), it's obvious that something is wrong.

Look at the picture at the top of the article. It shows some bombers which create persistent contrails. This picture should prove the existence of contrails already during the Second world war, but there is a problem. In the picture you can see some aircrafts in turn. This manoeuver is shown by the curve of big wakes, but if we make the magnification of the section that frames the shape of the bombers, the aicrafts appear in horizontal position, without being tilted to the left, as it would be logical, if aircrafts really did this manoeuver.

This is so even in this case a fake created to mislead the less wise public. This brief series of images shows, however, as the phenomenon of condensation during the Second world war is the consequence of deception. Note the quality of the shots, quite contrary to the ridicolous images that would demonstrate, in accordance with the misinformation, the presence of persistent contrails in the 40s of the XXth century.

As proof of what we assert, just think that the word "contrail" was created only in 1947.

The hoaxer Paul Bertotti (Skuro), in a vain attempt to disprove the results of this analysis, writes: "No one realized that the original photo was cropped and straightened in order not to show the inclination of the wing?"..

Disinfo-agents exposed (by trettomahawk)

[As an ending for this video let me give you a good explanation of whats happening here, in Italy (concerning the debunkers-phenomenon)]

These individuals - very active on the Internet with many defametory, fake-blogs proudly call themselves skeptical debunkers and say that they do what they do just for having fun with the chemtrails-hoax and for mocking the conspiracy theorists.

In reality these are people that can, as a matter of fact (and as the video shows well), get very personal and unpublished data concerning the indepentent researchers and the activists (such as homes addresses, telephone-numbers, phone and e-mail-conversations [tappings], bank accounts checks etc) - let's remember...information about people that they are supposed to know only from the internet. All these things are systematically used to control, frighten and threat the unlucky victim and for making him/her desist from worrying about the problem. I think you will agree that no normal person could do that. Well, yes... its really happening, almost daily.



They are disinformation-agents, members of a well-organized net managed by others entities (with mainly military and Intelligence contacts). So, this is a job which they are generously paid for: indeed they even stay awake at night for following chemtrails-blogs (especially tankerenemy.com [VisitorAnalisys confirms]) and for trying cracker-sabotages (from all over the world, also from many universities).

They even connect from national agencies and police forces for checking every single word of the articles and of the related comments. All of this because chemtrails are an internet hoax invented by madmen? No. They are simply carrying out orders regardless of the human beings that receive these violences.

In the video you have witnessed one of the many examples of privacys violation and personal, subtle threat (notice the final threatening, mafious kiss, typical of a maniacal personality with that sort of We know where you live attitude).

These bullies often act so openly, because they know that the corrupt justice system and all the institutions don't...or, better...CAN'T touch them, because the issue is under National (and N.A.TO.s) Secrecy. So, they are covered by very powerful people. Again... no normal person could obtain and use the personal data of another one (let's remember...it is a crime in the real world!) and, then, get away with it. No normal person would go by someones house (after a very long, expensive trip and knowing the exact address) for controlling furtively, taking pictures and then laughing at him/her.

Either you are a seriously and mentally ill maniac or you are very well paid for doing so. This is simple logic. Well... it's really happening, almost daily. Could you get anything like that from your home and PC? I couldn't. Who would tail and put under close surveillance a person that is apparently considered a mad visionary? Yes - Maybe a crazier guy would - we should say (and Im sure they are).

But the reality is that only people who consider that individual very dangerous for the status quo and the corrupt system would do that, people with unlimited means that can very easily overtake the law for their shady purposes, violating human rights. Who could do that? You can easily guess.

One thing is very clear: you can very well estimate the truthfulness of an issue by the reactions it raises. So, if they react so ferociously and do all of this, it means that this is definitely NOT a hoax and that, indeed, something huge has been touched.

The interests behind the terrible chemtrails-matter are manifold (pharmaceutical and O.G.M. multinationals, military complex, airline companies, universities, geoengeneering research centers etc): these violences wont end till there will be an open disclosure or till the responsibles will be processed (and we hope it will be like in Nuremberg). Another thing is sure: we wont forget their faces and their names till that day, when the real Justice will come...

Thank you for your attention and patience.



- Last Minute Update -
The spying disinfo-agent seen on National Television!

In August 20th 2009 Francesco Sblendorio, the mafious bully of the video, has appeared in the TV-programm Superquark ("science" journalism) on R.A.I. Network (Italian National Television) at prime time. In that part they were spreading C.I.C.A.P.s (the Italian equivalent of the American C.S.I.C.O.P.) and Governments propaganda, total lies and atrocities (in a National Socialist style) on various important issues (chemtrails in the first line), mixed with evident nonsense (such as TV fortune-tellers) and, so, passed off as hoaxes and superstitions.

The all thing was based on their usual points: no conspiracy exists; the conspiracy theorists are gullible, ignorant people; the independent researchers are just like magicians/swindlers that want to deceit them and make money out of fantasies.

Our guy has been framed for a few seconds while he was following a sort of lesson (with his colleagues - Web disinfo-agents and defamers) on the paranormal claims (that they want arrogantly to control) given by the association C.I.C.AP. Just the fact that the chemtrails-phenomenon (geoengeneering never mentioned!) is passed off as something paranormal (like ghosts) tells you their great level of imposture and bad faith.

So, as you can see, these web-criminals can go on National Television for spreading disinformation and then go by activists houses to take pictures and threaten. Are they normal people? No, they aren't. These luciferian propagandists are generously paid by the Government for their actions.
Now we have the ultimate connection and proof!


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