Operation Metal Gear: Anonymous

p2pnet view P2P | Freedom:- Something with tremendous significance and importance to everyone off- as well as online centres on the creation of fake people which/who can be manipulated by their creators.

“The ‘fake insiders’ are quite literally potentially limitless numbers of artificial people existing only in lines of code created by programmers specifically to be used by their ‘owners’ to give a false reading of consensus”, p2pnet said two weeks ago in a follow-up to our much earlier story quoting a US Air Force contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, south of Tampa, Florida.

Not only but also, front and center was disgraced US ’security’ firm HBGary Federal in the shape of its gone-but-not-forgotten CEO, Aaron Barr.

Implicated are Global Business Solutions and Associates LLC, Uk Plus Logistics, Ltd., NevinTelecom, Bunker Communications and Planmatrix LLC, said Raw Story.

But although the lamescream press corpse are finally catching up, it’s once again left to Anonymous to uncover more of the dirt behind the bland facade.

‘Crowding out’ unwelcome opinions

“The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda”, says the Guardian, continuing >>>

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as “sock puppets” – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

Says the Mail Online >>>

The American military has spent $2.8million on software to create fake personas on social networking websites in a bid to curb online jihadists.

The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) has awarded a $2.76million contract to California company Ntrepid in order to create false identities – known as ‘sock puppets’ – to manipulate conversations on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The move is reportedly intended to hamper online extremism but critics will argue the scheme actually strikes a blow against free speech.

Operation Metal Gear

Now, meet “Operation Metal Gear” stemming from a “string of leaked HBGary emails wherein a company by the name of Booz Allen Hamilton, in direct contact with Aaron Barr, is believed to have bid on and successfully won the contract to develop an unnamed software from the US Air Force”, says Anonymous in a p2pnet Reader’s Write