GCHQ’s dark arts: Leaked documents reveal online manipulation, Facebook, YouTube snooping

By Charlie Osborne

GCHQ has developed a toolkit of software programs used to manipulate online traffic, infiltrate users’ computers and spread select messages across social media sites including Facebook and YouTube.

The UK spy agency’s dark arts were revealed in documents first published by The Intercept, and each piece of software is described in a wiki document written up by GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). The document, which reads like a software inventory, calls the tools part of the agency’s “weaponised capability.”

Some of the most interesting capabilities of the tools on the listinclude the ability to seed the web with false information — such as tweaking the results of online polls — inflating pageview counts, censoring video content deemed “extremist” and the use of psychological manipulation on targets — something similar to a research project conducted with Facebook’s approval, which resulted in heavy criticism and outrage levied at the social media site.

A number of interesting tools and their short descriptions are below:

  • ASTRAL PROJECTION: Remote GSM secure covert Internet proxy using TOR hidden service
  • POISON ARROW: Safe malware download capability
  • AIRWOLF: YouTube profile, comment and video collection
  • BIRDSTRIKE: Twitter monitoring and profile collection
  • GLASSBACK: Technique of getting a target’s IP address 
    • by pretending to be a spammer and ringing them. Target does not need to answer.
    • MINIATURE HERO: Active skype capability. Provision of realtime call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists.
    • PHOTON TORPEDO: A technique to actively grab the IP address of MSN messenger user
    • SPRING-BISHOP: Finding private photos of targets on Facebook
    • BOMB BAY: The capacity to increase website hits, rankings
    • BURLESQUE: The capacity to send spoofed SMS messages
    • GESTATOR: Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (YouTube) 
    • SCRAPHEAP CHALLENGE: Perfect spoofing of emails from Blackberry targets
    • SUNBLOCK: Ability to deny functionality to send/receive email or view material online
    • SWAMP DONKEY: A tool that will silently locate all predefined types of file and encrypt them on a targets machine
    • UNDERPASS: Change outcome of online polls (previously known as NUBILO).
    • WARPATH: Mass delivery of SMS messages to support an Information Operations campaign.
    • HUSK: Secure one-on-one web based dead-drop messaging platform.
    • The list, dated from 2012, says that most of the tools are “fully operational, tested and reliable,” and adds: “Don’t treat this like a catalogue. If you don’t see it here, it doesn’t mean we can’t build it.”

      “We only advertise tools here that are either ready to fire or very close to being ready,” the document notes.

      The release of these documents comes in the same week that the UK intelligence agency’s spying activities are being investigated by surveillance watchdog the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). Civil liberty groups set a legal challenge against the GCHQ in order to question the legal standing of schemes such as Tempora — a project revealed in the NSA scandal that showed the agency placed data interceptors on fiber-optic cables that carry Internet traffic to and from the UK

      http://themillenniumreport.com/2014/07/englands-dark-secret-gchq-internet-platform-practices-dark-arts/

You need to be a member of Ashtar Command - Spiritual Community to add comments!

Join Ashtar Command - Spiritual Community

Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • George Orwell's wet dream.

  • Nice finding.

This reply was deleted.

Topics by Tags

Monthly Archives

Latest Activity

Drekx Omega left a comment on Comment Wall
"Cue musical interlude....Get those vibes high, so we can all be, absolutely flawless....🎵🎶✨✨🎵🎶✨✨🎵🎶✨✨

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhRoFxUs5mQ"
32 minutes ago
Justin89636 left a comment on Comment Wall
"Forgot about that Movella. Thats good that he can avoid harm. I can definitely see some crazy folks who would try to harm him though thinking they could."
35 minutes ago
Movella left a comment on Comment Wall
"Luckily for Lord Maitreya, you can’t physically harm an ascended master who can shape-shift or teleport in the blink of an eye. As for the GFL landings, forget linear time scales; it will happen when the frequencies are ‘absolutely flawless’..✨"
38 minutes ago
Justin89636 left a comment on Comment Wall
"Well hopefully the lunatics are gone by the time he gets here which would make sense."
38 minutes ago
Drekx Omega left a comment on Comment Wall
"👁‍🗨Wait and see...."
44 minutes ago
AlternateEarth posted a blog post
- Special Report on Human Cognition and AI Advancements (0:11)- DeepSea's AI Innovations and Their Impact (4:58)- Technical Details of DeepSea 4 and Its Implications (29:59)- Challenges and Future Prospects of AI Development…
50 minutes ago
Justin89636 left a comment on Comment Wall
"Hey Drekx when you see this I was wondering about Maitreya and when he shows up here. I know it was said 2028 he would arrive. I hope by then the various Dark Cabal members in the US and elsewhere are gone because if they are still around knowing…"
56 minutes ago
Drekx Omega left a comment on Comment Wall
"Yes, glad you like the Starmer vid....Also, Russian, Kirill Dmitriev, has sent a mocking response to the chief EU mischief maker and unelected "President of Europe," as follows:-

"Dear Ursula "Pfizer" von der Leyen, Do not provoke the Daddy! Take…"
1 hour ago
More…

REVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY-CHAPTERS I TO VIII


            

                                                                         CHAPTER I.

                                                                  THE LEVEL OF BEING

Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are…

Read more…
Views: 4
Comments: 0